Alberta Progressive Conservatives...

… the best politicians money can buy. Quite literally. Since Elections Alberta has finally left the dark ages and published the financial reports of Alberta's provincial political parties on-line. So if you want to see who's giving how much to the provincial Tories, here's where you go to look. So for example, the Alberta PC's brought in $2,337,252.50 in donations in 2009 (the last year for which data is available, 2010 data isn't due into EA until the end of March). Where this money comes from is an interesting study of why the Alberta Tories act the way they do.

For example $1,493,528.43 of the money that the Tories brought in came from corporations. This is about 64% of the total take. So if you were wondering why the Tories push forward a corpratist agenda, you now know why. If they didn't, nearly two-thirds of their income would disappear.

Looking further into the numbers, a quick scan shows that oil and gas companies, at least those I recognized, pitched in a total of $194,200.00 or around 8% of the total Alberta PC donation income. Given that I probably missed a few companies and that there was an extensive list of Alberta numbered corporations listed as well as personal donations from oil execs it is probably safe to say that at least 10% of the Alberta PC income comes from the oil and gas sector. Throw in other energy sectors and this starts to push upwards of 12-15%. So if you've always wondered why when the energy sector in Alberta says "jump" to the government, you now know why the answer is nearly always "how high?".

It is interesting to note that it would seem the "standard" rate to be a friend of the Alberta PC's if you're an energy company is $4250. The vast majority of donations are of this exact amount (some are larger, some are smaller). Another interesting pattern is that electrical contractors seem to always give $750 a piece. Must be a bunch of check boxes on the "buy access to a government minster" form.