Alberta NDP have been Taking Donations From Publicly-Funded Abortion Clinics

This article was originally published on December 9, 2019, and has now be re-uploaded onto The National Telegraph website, previously unavailable for a several month period due to a transition over to a new website.

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According to campaign finance documents obtained by The National Telegraph, multiple NDP MLA’s, as well as NDP MLA candidates, received campaign funding from publicly-funded abortion clinics during the provincial election earlier this year.

TNT obtained documents courtesy of Arnold Viersen, the Member of Parliament for Peace River-Westlock. These documents catalog the donations of two organizations, Women’s Health Option, and Ann Marie Long Professional Corporation, to the provincial NDP party and labor unions, which include hundreds to several thousand dollar donations to various NDP candidates and labour union branches.

All together this equaled 1,296 separate individuals or labour unions that received one or more donations. 

Ann Marie Long is one of the doctors who work at the abortion clinic Women’s Health Option and her corporation, the Ann Marie Long Corporation, is a shareholder in the clinic.

Some individuals like former Alberta Health Minister Sarah Hoffman, MLA for Edmonton-Glenora, received as much as $8,807.50, and Lorne Dach, MLA for Edmonton McClung, received $6,432.50.

Mr. Viersen during the phone call interview said that he didn’t know the exact laws around those types of organizations making donations saying, “I think it was legal at the time,” so there is no accusation of illegal donations being made. His issue more specifically is the donations are coming from institutions that receive heavy public-funding.

“They [the clinics] are supposedly not for profit organizations that get a bulk of their funding by providing services to the Alberta health care system . . . it’s essentially a small scale sponsorship scandal, you pay us we pay you.”

Veirsen, a pro-life supporter, also took issue with a potential conflict of interest of the NDP government expanding access to abortion while taking money from organizations in which they give money to perform abortions.

“When we look at the NDP performance on expanding abortion access in Alberta it makes sense, given where their donations are coming from . . . it smacks of a quid pro quo.” Viersen explained.

Despite Mr. Viersen’s opposition to abortion, taking money from publicly funded organizations delivering any kind of service, no matter the business, would seem to call motivations into question.

It would seem silly to assume the NDP and labour unions are only pro-choice due to campaign donations, but their passion on the issue gets tainted by the money, as it would in other equivalent scenarios. 

Most political parties supportive of access to abortion services present their support as supporting the legal ability but not celebrating the act of abortion itself. Taking money from organizations that profit off of abortion services could transition the party, in many people’s minds, from looking like they are in favour of legal accessibility of abortion, to looking financially invested in the abortion services themselves.

On the subject of the large donations made to the unions, which included a $15,000 donation to CUPE and $14,950 donation to UFCM “Local 401”, Viersen said that those donations stuck out because he often finds that “[it’s] always a challenge with the NDP and the unions [discerning] where the union ends and where the NDP party begins.” 

Mr. Veirsen, of course, paid attention to this compiled information as it had to due with the topic of abortion, but he also made it clear that on a practical level, donations of this nature create a haze in politics that make it difficult to see where closely held beliefs end and special interest money begins.

Update:

Since this information was first reported on December 9, 2019, NDP MLA’s, such as former NDP Health Minister Sarah Hoffman, have been directly sent this information for comment at their MLA office emails, as well as have been asked about it on social media platforms like Twitter.

No NDP MLAs or representatives of the party have sent back any comment on their receiving of donations from publicly funded abortion clinics, whether or not they see this money as being tied up in a conflict of interest, or if it seems appropriate to be taking money from those interested in perpetuating the practice of abortion for financial purposes.