Hey, big spender!

Back in August, Tom Rideout defended a $5000 donation that he made to a group in his former district in May, just days before the Greene Report slammed the practice.

In the August 2nd edition of the Telegram, Jamie Baker reports:

"I checked with the House of Assembly staff and asked them if there was any change in the rules for donations at that point in time and there wasn't," Rideout told The Telegram. "I made a contribution out of the constituency allowance to Calypso, which I've done every year for many years, and made it known it was out of my constituency allowance and not out of my pocket."

Although the cheque was cut in March, the donation didn't become public knowledge until after the Calypso Foundation's "fantasy auction" in May. It was reported by the community newspaper in Lewisporte, The Pilot, and Rideout himself referenced it in the House of Assembly May 24.

"I told everybody there, it was their money and I was happy to make the contribution, on their behalf," Rideout said in the House at the time. "I do not think anybody there had any problem with the taxpayers' money being used for that."

Guess not!

Although, in Openness-land, you are not allowed to clip and paste the text in order to quote it, Figure 13 (Figure? Table, you mean) of today's Auditor-General's report shows just how little a problem anybody had with that.

Of the ten biggest anybodies for using their constituency allowance to buy love make charitable donations, as measured by the percentage of the allowance used for that purpose, nine are not just Tories, but they are members, current or outgoing, of Danny Williams' caucus.

You know, Danny Williams, the guy who came in and cleaned up the mess that Roger Grimes, Brian Tobin, Clyde Wells, Brian Peckford, Frank Moores, Joey Smallwood, the Commission of Government, Frederick Alderdice, Walter Monroe, Richard Squires, Robert Bond, William Whiteway, Frederick Carter, Philip Little, John Harvey, and Thomas Cochrane bequeathed to him.

(The only exception to the decidely blue hue of the Top Ten is Liberal Hubert Kitchen, who was last elected in 1993.)

These generous Tories range from Diane Whalen's 49.1% charitability score, down to John Ottenheimer's 25.5%. For some peculiar reason, every one of the generous nine are members of the National Capital Caucus: Diane Whalen, Shawn Skinner, Kathy Blunderdale, Dave Denine, the Osborne-Ridgley Sub-Caucus.

And that paragon of financial propriety herself, Elizabeth Marshall.

And who should come in in the number 11 post? Why, another Townie, albeit one who represents a far-flung district.

Yip. The Hon. Member for Humber West, the guy who was elected to clean this mess up, the Hon. Danny Williams, Q.C., M.H.A. 24.3% on the charitability index.

Tom Rideout didn't "think anybody there had any problem with the taxpayers' money being used for that."

And he was right. Anybody didn't.