Take Back Alberta's Troubles Grow

Being told you have three weeks to comply with the law after being found in civil contempt is not what most of us would call a ringing victory, but you have to give Take Back Alberta founder (or whatever he is) David Parker credit for seeing the bright side of life.

Having been told by a Court of King’s Bench justice Monday he has until Aug. 19 to give Elections Alberta documents showing the activities of the registered third-party political advertiser or face a $5,000 fine and possible arrest, Parker took to social media to portray this as a stunning smackdown of the agency.

“Unelected bureaucrats at Elections Alberta have just been humiliated by a provincial court after baselessly trying to imprison me,” Parker, who was not in the courtroom, posted on social media.

“On Saturday, I learned that Elections Alberta was seeking an arrest warrant because I’ve refused to hand over private donor information which I believe to be irrelevant to EA’s mandate,” he went on. “A provincial judge smacked down EA’s undemocratic request.”

“Despite this witch hunt by unelected bureaucrats, the rule of law was upheld today,” he added. “Some of my faith in our broken society has been restored.”

OK, if you say so.

Realistically, it seems more likely Elections Alberta is quite satisfied with the short time Justice Jonathan Martin gave Parker to comply with the law and produce the documentation it’s seeking, which Parker complains includes the identities of donors to TBA who fear they could be harassed by “woke” activists.

Elections Alberta started its investigation last fall to establish whether Take Back Alberta has complied with the law, including properly recording its income, its sources and advertising purchases, and ensuring donors were legally eligible to make contributions.

Documents sought by Elections Alberta include records of funds raised at TBA’s 2022 annual general meeting, invoices for expenses at town hall meetings organized by the group throughout small-town Alberta, receipts for advertising and records related to a TBA dog-and-pony show that featured Jordan Peterson, inspiration to a generation of Canadian incels.

Readers need to remember that Take Back Alberta is both a third-party election advertiser, which has legal obligations under the Election Finances and Contributions Disclosure Act, and a less clearly defined far-right faction within the governing United Conservative Party. In the latter role, it controls seats on the party’s governing board and has elected supporters in many riding associations.

Parker, long the bad boy of the Alberta conservative movement, has prominently opposed trans rights, COVID vaccine requirements and other MAGA causes célèbres in often offensive and insulting social media posts. He has also been given credit by media for organizing the campaign to oust former premier Jason Kenney over his government’s COVID-19 policies, and last year ran training sessions for “scrutineers” to infiltrate campaigns and “ensure the integrity of Alberta’s elections.”

Last year, he also talked about setting up branches in other provinces — Take Back Wherever, one supposes — and targeting school board elections across Canada to elect social conservative activists opposed to gay rights and other hobgoblins of MAGA minds.

But it has been evident for months that all is not well within TBA — which may have been a factor in Elections Alberta’s current investigation.

PressProgress, which has been the go-to source for reporting on TBA and Parker’s antics, reported last year he had lost control of the group’s Telegram channel as a result of the dispute.

Former Take Back Alberta chief financial officer Marco Van Huigenbos — a former Fort Macleod town councillor who faces sentencing in September for his role in the Coutts blockade — has been co-operating with the Elections Alberta probe, PressProgress also reported.

Hints of the level of discord could be found on social media Monday.

Parker has frequently been described in media, including here, as the founder and former executive director of TBA, information that came from Parker himself.

However, on Monday his lawyer, Leighton Grey, told the Edmonton Journal that Parker is not TBA’s founder and that the position of executive director does not exist within the organization. Some of the documents Elections Alberta wants, therefore, may not be his to hand over, the lawyer suggested.

Parker has also been widely understood to be a personal friend and influential ally of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith — who was a guest at his wedding — and even a puppet master who pulls the strings of the UCP.

But if that were ever true, the current contretemps seems to suggest that Parker’s influence with the government is waning rapidly.

He has become a frequent embarrassment to Smith. If push came to shove between Parker, the self-described black belt in organizing, and UCP MLAs, who mostly like working with the premier, it seems unlikely he could organize a repeat of the ouster of Kenney.

For his part, Parker ended his social media communiqué with a plea for readers to “pray for wisdom in these next steps.”

Whose wisdom was not immediately apparent.