Article content continued

Under current campaign finance laws, parties must reveal all of their assets.

“I don’t know if there’s $1 in there, $100 dollars or $1-million,” said Drew Westwater, a spokesperson for Elections Alberta. “I can’t comment on it beyond that. It’s something they have that other parties aren’t allowed to have, that’s fair to say.”

The only time the party is required to report on the Tapcal Trust is when it takes money out of the fund to finance party activities. According to documents obtained by the Post, the PCs have siphoned the interest earned on the trust and funnelled it into the party’s operating expenses since 1994.

The documents, annual letters to Elections Alberta, show that the amount of money moved into the party’s revenue stream has declined precipitously since the ’90s, reaching a record of $139,348.00 in 1996 and dropping rapidly after the financial crisis of 2008. Only $8,854.00 was transferred from the trust in 2010.

The party recorded relatively stable fundraising revenues in 2013 despite the political turmoil that eventually ousted former premier Alison Redford last month. Further, party spending has remained relatively stable over the past decade — election years excepted.

However, public disclosures continue to show the party falling ever deeper into debt and deficit. Although the party raised a respectable $2.2-million last year, its debt has almost doubled since last year. According to its public books, the party has a net negative asset position of $946,015 — an unprecedented figure for a party that has ruled the fundraising roost in one of the country’s wealthiest provinces for almost 43 years.