The Northern Liberal (and everyone else) has a post up which could cause quite a few headaches for the Bob Rae campaign. Despite his claims that he has long since broken ranks with the NDP, it appears that Bob Rae made several donations to NDP candidates in the 2004 and 2006 general elections.

Here’s a list of donations to election candidates made by Bob Rae, from the Elections Canada website:

2006 Election
Jan 20, 2006: Irene Mathyssen (NDP) – 300$
Jan 16, 2006: John Godfrey (Lib) – 300$
Dec 22, 2005: Rochelle Carnegie (NDP) – 250$

2004 Election
June 28, 2004: Tony Martin (NDP) – 250$
June 25, 2004: David Christopherson (NDP) – 250$

The postal codes for five of these donations are listed as M6S 2A7, the same postal code as listed under the donation of Robert Keith K. Rae of $10,000 to Bob Rae’s leadership campaign. The Mathyssen donation lists the postal code as M6S 2M7, but I assume this is a typo. Add it all up and it’s pretty undeniable that it’s the Bob Rae who made these donations. I sent an e-mail to the Rae campaign to give them a chance to respond but didn’t hear back from them.

As for what this means, I’m not quite prepared to crucify Bob on this one. If I had a close personal friend or family member running for the NDP or Tories, I’d definitely write them a cheque. And Bob Rae certainly has a lot of friends in the NDP. However, it’s certainly going to leave a lot of Liberals uneasy that Bob was cutting cheques to NDP candidates in close races with Liberals just a few short months ago.

UPDATE: Interesting…

Both Rae and Boyd were thrilled with the NDP’s showing in the election, winning 29 seats across Canada — 11 more than in the last Parliament.

UPDATE 2: The Rae campaign got back to me with the following:

Bob has spoken at length and on many occasions for some years now about his split with the NDP and what is wrong with that party, so his support for any candidate is the result of personal and not political ties. He spoke out in speeches, interviews, his two books in the late 1990s and in op-eds including one in the Nat Post entitled “Parting Ways with the NDP”: “If Svend Robinson’s foray had been a solitary event, it might have been possible to brush it off as yet another escapade from a histrionic crank. But he is the foreign affairs critic of the New
Democratic Party. The NDP criticizes the Third Way, opposes the World Trade Organization, sits on its hands when Tony Blair praises the advantages of markets, and denounces any military action against terrorism whether by the United States, Canada or Israel. This is not a vision of social democracy worthy of support.”

He has given to others including Pettigrew, Graham, and Godfrey and his own comments are in the piece below. He also donated a few hundred to the provincial liberal party in Ontario over the years.

2005 – Robert Rae $280 to OLP

2003 donated $200

2001 donated $185