Don’t miss this golf tourney! (If you like paved roads)

The CBC has done some good work on northern Alberta politics today, unearthing, among other things, a $500 payment from the Town of St. Paul to a golf tournament in support of the constituency association of cabinet minister Ray Danyluk.

…the town provided documents to CBC News that show council publicly voted to attend the tournament and directed a $500 cheque to [Ron] Boisvert, who managed the tournament’s finances.

“It’s been going on forever,” Andersen said of the town’s paid participation in the annual PC golf tournament fundraiser. “We’ve been doing it since before we had this administration.”

Danyluk also said he had no knowledge of St. Paul using public money for his fundraiser.

“It’s not acceptable,” he said. “It’s against the [Elections] Act.”

Only one of these answers is the right one, and it’s the one from the former minister of municipal affairs. I guess the minister also had no idea his Cormorant Classic (cheques payable to the Lac la Biche-St. Paul PC Constituency, please) may have been partly underwritten by the Town of Smoky Lake in 2009 [PDF]:

Or by the County of St. Paul, not to be confused with the town of that name, in 2007 [PDF]:

Or, apparently, by the County of Athabasca the same year [PDF]; it’s hard to see, at any rate, why a county Administrator would have to “register” golfers unless an entry fee or travel costs were being covered at municipal expense. Google up “ray danyluk golf tournament” and you’ll see that he seems to have notified virtually every county in the province of the date and location of the various Cormorant Classics. And if a few of them unwisely sent barbecue equipment in reply, could that be Danyluk’s fault?

Still, one is relieved to note that stormin’, reformin’, clean-up-the-frat-house Premier Alison Redford has moved minister Danyluk to a portfolio where he could not possibly exercise any undue influence on rural life in Alberta: namely, transport.