Regarding donations, let's also step back and take the longer view. Less than one year ago, Ashton, Dewar, Mulcair and Cullen were sitting MPs anticipating that an election might be called any day. Nash was a candidate ready to take back her seat from Kennedy, Saganash was a hopeful and promising (but, all things considered, long-shot) candidate, Topp was an advisor, and who knows what Singh was doing. The MPs and candidates were doing their jobs and had made varying levels of financial contributions, but mainly they were focused on Parliament and the upcoming election, and they certainly made substantial contributions in terms of getting the vote out and bringing a campaign to fruition. None of them could have imagined that they'd be getting scrutinized so deeply as contestants in a leadership race so soon.
Recall, too, that the per-vote subsidy still existed too (and the 2011 election votes will at least partially deliver some amount of subsidy), so getting people to the polls represented a major contribution in itself. And if you consider Mulcair to have been one of the necessary elements to deliver "la vague orange" in May, then his efforts in Quebec brought far more money to the NDP (not just per-vote subsidies, but also subsequent donations from new Quebec members) than the personal annual limit the media is going on about.
I think the media is just trying to throw dirt at every possible viable candidate as a preventative measure. Let's not get drawn in.
