The evangelical son of a prairie preacher who once said, “You can vote your way into socialism. You almost always have to shoot your way out,” and the far-right activist group he leads is facing more than $100,000 in fines for breaking Elections Alberta financing and third-party advertising rules.
UCP Takeover
When 33-year-old David Parker formed Take Back Alberta in 2022 he vowed to “control” the UCP. He claims credit for harnessing anger over COVID-19 public health protocols to oust former UCP leader Jason Kenney, and then rallying support for Danielle Smith.
Take Back Alberta has stacked the UCP board with conservatives who share Parker’s views on issues like abortion, which he calls “a war between the pro-humans and anti-humans.”
Rule Breaking
However, according to Elections Alberta Parker and his group played dirty with political advertising and bookkeeping in its efforts to infiltrate the UCP and sway the outcome of the 2023 election.
The political group is being fined for circumventing election advertising spending limits, failing to retain required records, accepting contributions from outside Alberta and Canada, and knowingly making false statements on election financing reports, among other bookkeeping corner-cutting surrounding political advertising. The fines total $112,500.
In addition, Parker was stung with another $7,500 in fines, and the group’s chief financial officer, Jonathan Heidebrecht, was handed a $500 penalty.
In an interview with Global News, Parker admitted some of the fines are legit but called others a “witch hunt.”
He said he plans to fight them.
Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt believes the fines will stick if Parker goes to court.
“It’s not a surprise. David Parker basically said, ‘I don’t care. The rules don’t apply to me. The laws don’t apply to me. I can do whatever I want.’ And Elections Alberta said, ‘No, there’s actually rules around this.,” Brett told Global News.
Was the 2023 Election Fair and Square?
Elections Alberta does not provide reasons for its decisions, leaving the door open to speculation. However, the fact that they’re the largest set of fines ever doled out by the government body tasked with ensuring nobody cheats in an election is a red flag for democracy, say some observers.
David Climenhaga, writing in Alberta Politics, said recent revelations that Take Back Alberta broke third-party advertising rules raise the possibility that the far right stole the 2023 provincial election from Rachel Notley’s NDP. The UCP won six ridings by less than 1,000 votes in a narrow election victory.
Climenhaga said some of the Election Alberta fines amounts to “lousy bookkeeping.”
“But others could have had a real impact on the vote results, for example, circumventing election spending limits, accepting contributions from outside Alberta and Canada, and individuals knowingly making contributions that exceeded $30,000,” he said. “Albertans deserve a full public inquiry, led by a judge, into what really happened in the 2023 general election. If the UCP won a narrow victory, so be it. We need to know they won it fair and square.”
Take Back Alberta, Parker, and Heidebrecht have until early March to pay the fines.
