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By Jessica Leeder
Gazette Staff

A second Western student named in an e-mail congratulating successful Tories on their election to student government positions across the province has denied receiving funding from the Ontario Progressive Conservative party.

Amanda Philp was identified in an e-mail sent by Adam Daifallah, president of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Campus Association, in early March as on OPCCA member who had been successfully elected to a student government position.

While Philp was elected to the position of VP-operations on the King's College Students' Council at Western, she told The Gazette yesterday she is not a member of the OPCCA and does not know why she was named in the e-mail.

"I am a member of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Youth Association, but not a member of the OPCCA," Philp said, adding she has been actively involved with the PC party for a number of years, but she is not a member of any political clubs on campus.

Philp acknowledged the OPCYA is an umbrella organization which includes OPCCA, but said lacking a campus club membership enables her to remain separate from the campus association itself.

"Student politics is non-partisan. I don't represent the [Progressive Conservative] party at King's College at all. I have tried to keep politics in a separate sphere of my life," she said.

Last week, KCSC president Doug Peck told The Gazette that third party funding would be of little use to candidates running for KCSC positions because the spending limit for King's elections are $75 per candidate and each candidate can only distribute 20 posters on the King's campus.

Peck also said candidates are reimbursed for their spending if they receive a minimum of 10 per cent of the popular vote.

Philp said she does not agree with OPCCA's Millennium Leadership Fund if it exists for the purpose Daifallah described – to instill as many conservatives in student government posts as possible.

"It really depends on what the party is getting out of giving money. If they are giving it to gain support, they shouldn't be. The party should not be endorsed by the candidate," she said, adding she does not see why the MLF should be kept secret.