Since the Conservative government took over in 2006, the party or its MPs have had a dozen run-ins with Elections Canada. While those Conservatives affected say the elections agency has a vendetta specifically against them, Liberals say the Tories are not victims.
“I think it’s actually more than unusual, it’s actually bizarre,” said former Liberal Cabinet minister Don Boudria, who noted that in more than his 30 years as an MP and now watching politics, he’s never seen anything like the number of times the Conservative Party and its MPs have had issues with Elections Canada.
Sheila Gervais, former Liberal national director from 1989 to 1993, agreed, saying that the Conservatives’ run-in with filing improper elections returns or orchestrating the “in-and-out” scandal is “a flagrant disrespect for the law. That’s what it is.”
Ms. Gervais said Elections Canada is simply doing its job and it’s “completely unusual” for a party to be so adamantly against the agency.
When she was national director, she said Elections Canada brought together representatives on the administration side from all parties to discuss and interpret elections laws and practices. She said they helped write the elections manuals and made sure there was agreement from all parties on what each rule meant before sending them out to candidates because then-chief electoral officer Jean-Marc Hamel said they were the ones who were the practitioners who then had to explain to volunteer workers what everything meant.
“This doesn’t happen anymore,” she said, noting that, from her experience, Elections Canada was always striving to help candidates and parties to follow the rules.
In response at the time to similar allegations, Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre (Nepean-Carleton, Ont.) described the issues as a “dispute” between the party and Elections Canada and that the party did nothing wrong. “Mr. Speaker, this is, of course, a five-year-old accounting dispute. Fortunately, the Federal Court has ruled in favour of the Conservative Party and against Elections Canada,” he said in the House in 2011.
Political pundit Gerry Nicholls said that from his experience at the National Citizens Coalition, Elections Canada is capable of targeting specific organizations.
When he was a vice-president at the conservative-leaning think tank, Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) was the president. In 2000, Elections Canada charged the NCC with violating third-party advertising rules.
“We ran a TV commercial during the 2000 federal election. To our mind, that ad did not break the law. It was not an election ad, it was not something that was supporting or opposing a political party,” Mr. Nicholls said, noting that it was an ad attacking what he calls the “election gag law” that prevented results in different time zones to be broadcasted before all polls were closed.
“The jackasses at Elections Canada are out of control,” Mr. Harper famously wrote in an NCC fundraising letter supporting Paul Bryan, the B.C. man who was charged with transmitting results early and fought it to the Supreme Court and won.
In the NCC’s case, Mr. Nicholls said the NCC got a legal opinion before airing the ad the day before the election when all third-party advertising must cease. The opinion they got from constitutional lawyer Allan Hunter was that it would not constitute a third-party ad.
“It is why we went ahead with it. So we were charged, and we thought, ‘Oh this is just them trying to get us because they didn’t like us. And that feeling became amplified in my own mind anyway. I came to view what Elections Canada was doing to us wasn’t a prosecution, it was a persecution,” Mr. Nicholls said.
“They dragged the court case against us through every legal trick they could think of just to bleed us white financially. It was a huge cost for us this court case, they did not give us any breaks. Our lawyer said he’d never seen anything like it,” said Mr. Nicholls. “It just seemed like they were doing everything they could to make it as difficult as possible for us. We certainly came to believe that Elections Canada was capable of going after [those] they didn’t like and then sort of having a grudge. The idea that they would carry that grudge forward to the Conservative Party, which again, Stephen Harper is heading, to me is believable. It’s credible.”
One political insider disagreed, however. “I’m not buying that they’re victims and Elections Canada is targeting them,” said the insider who noted that the Conservatives continually fight Elections Canada on charges because it’s their best strategy. “You’re postponing the judgment day.”
The insider said it could very well be that other parties’ candidates also have issues with Elections Canada, but that it is resolved so it doesn’t become a public battle, unlike the Conservatives who fight them on almost everything.
“You have to file by a certain date and they all come in at once, so it’s feast or famine over there [at Elections Canada] so maybe they’re just getting to it [the Conservative files] now, or a lot of these things might very well be solved through that initial back and forth,” the insider said. “I think the ones that you’re seeing that are a problem are ones that the proposed remedy causes them more problems, which means put them over [their election spending limit].”
Ms. Gervais said Mr. Harper’s main focus is winning elections, however, and “he will do anything that he can conceivably do to win an election. He’s not about governing, he’s about winning elections” which is why the party has gotten into trouble with Elections Canada previously.
In 2007, Elections Canada
launched an investigation into the Conservative Party’s 2006 election expenses. The Conservative Party orchestrated an “in-and-out” scheme whereby it would transfer money to riding associations which would then use that money to buy advertising products from the national campaign. There was nothing against the rules in the transfer of money, but at issue were the ads themselves. The TV campaigns allowed candidates in the same areas to have a “regional” ad buy. It was the same ad, which Elections Canada deemed to be “national” in scope, which candidates would air on local television, but it would also carry the names of the other people who bought into it. These candidates then claimed these ads as a “local” expense, but Elections Canada argued they were “national” and the party should have incurred the expense. If the Conservative Party of Canada did claim these expenses, however, it would have exceeded its federal election spending limit by more than $1-million.
After a four-year investigation,
which included a raid on Conservative Party headquarters, four party officials and the party itself were charged under the Canada Elections Act for willfully incurring election expenses that exceeded the maximum allowed. The Conservative Party and the Conservative Fund Canada were also charged with knowingly filing a false election return. The charges against the four officials—the late Senator Doug Finley, who was the party’s campaign director at the time; Senator Irving Gerstein, who was head of the Fund; Susan Kehoe, who was the interim executive director; and Michael Donison, who was the national party director—made in February 2011, were dropped in a plea agreement in November 2011 that saw the Conservative Party and the Conservative Party Fund pay $52,000 in fines.
While the ‘in-out’ investigation was going on, two Conservative candidates of 67, backed by the party, took Elections Canada to Federal Court when Elections Canada challenged their campaign expenses and refused to reimburse them for several advertising expenses.
Under the Canada Elections Act, candidates who receive 10 per cent or more of their local vote are entitled to a 60 per cent rebate of their election expenses. Elections Canada said the local candidates in these cases did not incur the expenses because they were national ads and therefore were not entitled to the $230,000 of rebates.
The Federal Court ruled in favour of the Conservative Party, saying that Elections Canada should refund the candidates the appropriate rebate. Elections Canada appealed the decision at the Federal Court of Appeal and won that ruling in February 2011. The Conservatives took the case to the Supreme Court but later dropped it and repaid rebates to Elections Canada.
In 2009, the Conservative Party also took Elections Canada to Ontario Superior Court over a GST rebate it applied for and received for the 2004 and 2006 election campaigns. Parties are allowed to claim half their GST costs under Canada Revenue Agency rules because they are considered non-profit organizations. When the Conservatives tried to send a $591,000 cheque to Elections Canada, Elections Canada refused it and the party took Elections Canada to court to force them to accept it. Originally the party offered to reimburse $700,000 of the GST rebate while at the same time proposing that they should be allowed to deduct future anticipated GST rebates from campaign spending expenses in advance. In a letter to the party, Mr. Mayrand wrote that the GST rebate, “like the reimbursement of election expenses under the Canada Elections Act, is intended as a form of support and does not serve to eliminate tax indebtedness.”
He also noted that the party’s proposal to deduct future GST rebates from campaign expenses would unlevel the playing field for other parties as it would increase spending limits for some and not others.
The court ruled in December 2009 that Elections Canada should accept the reimbursement if parties want to give the rebate back. Elections Canada appealed to the case at the Ontario Court of Appeal and won. The Conservative Party then appealed that decision at the Supreme Court of Canada, which refused to hear the case.
The robocalls story then emerged, in which a pattern of alleged voter suppression took place to prevent people from getting to proper polling stations in the May 2011 election. The epicentre was in the Guelph, Ont., riding where residents were getting automated calls purporting to be from Elections Canada stating that their polling station had moved. When residents got to the “moved” polling station, they found it didn’t exist. Elections Canada conducted a two-year investigation into the issue and referred the matter to the Commissioner of Elections Canada who conducted its own investigation.
The pattern seemed to benefit the Conservative candidate, Marty Burke, whose junior staffer who used to work on Parliament Hill, Michael Sona, was charged under the Canada Elections Act for preventing or trying to prevent an elector from voting in the May 2, 2011, election. Mr. Sona, 24, has yet to enter a plea, and the trial, which was set to begin May 31, was postponed and could be delayed into 2014.
The robocalls story led to two court cases, both involving attempts to overturn election results. The first involved Etobicoke Centre, Ont., where former Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj lost the election by 26 votes to Conservative Ted Opitz. Mr. Wrzesnewskyj argued in Ontario Superior Court that there were voting irregularities at several polling stations in the riding which the court agreed with and discarded 79 of the votes cast. Mr. Opitz then appealed the decision at the Supreme Court where judges there ruled in his favour, so he got to keep his seat in the House of Commons.
Meanwhile, the Council of Canadians argued in the Federal Court that the results in six Conservative-held ridings should also be overturned because of “irregularities” and “voter fraud.”
The results were upheld, but Justice Richard Mosley, in his ruling, stated that although there was “a concerted campaign” to mislead voters and suppress the vote in the last election, there was no evidence that that behaviour prevented anyone from voting and affected the outcome.
“The most likely source of the information used to make the misleading calls was the CIMS [Constituent Information Management System] database maintained and controlled by the CPC, accessed for that purpose by a person or persons currently unknown to this court,” Justice Mosley wrote, adding that the Conservatives used “trench warfare” during the hearings to prevent the case from being hear on its merits.
Mr. Boudria said, in his opinion, this was a Conservative characteristic.
“So not only are they bringing this to court, they actually even don’t want the courts to hear it. One kind of wonders how long they think they can keep this up,” he said. “Hopefully it won’t turn people off. Hopefully it will do the opposite, it will get people to come out to the polls. I’m just expressing my hope and in coming out in greater numbers, they will say okay, we’ve had enough of this. The way to change it is not to criticize society and this government generally, it’s to remove the offenders.”
Conservative Party spokesperson Fred DeLorey said in a statement that “there was no wrongdoing by the Conservative Party or any of the candidates or campaign teams targeted by these applications and the court noted that not a single voter was produced to testify that they were prevented from voting due to alleged voter suppression” when the court made its decision. He also said the court case was a “transparent attempt to overturn certified election results simply because this activist group didn’t like them.”
During the entire robocalls scandal, Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro (Peterborough, Ont.) came under some controversy last July when news broke that Elections Canada was investigating his 2008 election expenses. At issue is whether Mr. Del Mastro exceeded his personal donation limit to his campaign, whether his campaign spent more than the maximum allowed, and whether his election return was accurate because of a $21,000 cheque he wrote to a research firm.
Mr. Del Mastro has said that his riding association and campaign later reimbursed him for it so it was within the rules.
Mr. Del Mastro accused the agency of leaking information about his case to the media and said that he has been subjected to “unfounded hatred, contempt, and ridicule” over the past year because of a sealed court document that he alleges was leaked to the media but which his own lawyer has been unable to obtain.
“I believe this is a question of importance for all members of this place, given that the functions I perform on behalf of my constituents require that my privilege as a member of this place be upheld. As an agency of Parliament, Elections Canada has specific responsibilities that it must maintain, responsibilities I would argue it has failed to keep,” an emotional Mr. Del Mastro told the House on June 13.
“I feel violated and betrayed by an agency in which I and every other member of this place, indeed in which all Canadians, must place their trust. As I indicated earlier, I feel strongly that this process has been conducted with malice and contempt for me as a member and for my family’s well-being. I cannot describe the pain that this unnecessary and contemptuous process has put those closest to me through,” Mr. Del Mastro said.
On top of this, former Intergovernmental Affairs minister Peter Penashue was forced to resign his Labrador, Nfld., seat over campaign spending irregularities. In the 2011 election, his campaign accepted corporate donations and exceeded spending limits. He blamed a staffer on the campaign but did not fight Elections Canada on the discrepancy. Mr. Penashue ran in a byelection to clear his name but lost to Liberal MP Yvonne Jones recently.
And, most recently, Conservative MPs Shelly Glover (Saint Boniface, Man.) and James Bezan (Selkirk-Interlake, Man.) were asked to update their 2011 campaign financial returns to reflect the full cost of campaign signs that they reused from prior elections. The incumbent MPs challenged the requirement on the grounds that reused signs should be depreciated. If they did claim the full value of their signs, however, they would’ve been over their spending limits.
In May, Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand wrote to House Speaker Andrew Scheer (Regina-Qu’Appelle, Sask.) requesting that Ms. Glover and Mr. Bezan be stripped of their Parliamentary duties until the matter was resolved. Mr. Scheer informed the House on June 18 that Ms. Glover had recently updated her campaign expense return, while Mr. Bezan continues to challenge the agency’s request in a Manitoba court.
Conservative MP Jeff Watson (Essex, Ont.) is in a similar dispute with Elections Canada over the costing of campaign signs. Garth Little, Mr. Watson’s official agent in the last election, accused Elections Canada of pursuing “a vendetta” against the Essex Conservative riding association in a court affidavit reported by the CBC last week. Mr. Watson is challenging Elections Canada in court.
The insider noted that in these three most recent cases, it’s important that the value of the signs not be depreciated because of the concept of a level and fair playing field. The shouldn’t be allowed to depreciate because it gives the incumbent candidate an advantage over someone who has to spend thousands of dollars on first-time signs.
“That is such a basic concept to how our electoral law is written, that if you don’t understand that, what the hell else don’t you understand?” the insider said. “It’s levelling the playing field. It’s why we have limits. It’s that kind of either not taking the process seriously or not understanding the underlying rationale about why it should be a serious process I think that’s got them into trouble.”
Ms. Gervais agreed, saying that it’s a “pretty unusual move” for the chief electoral officer to go that far, but said he was doing the responsible thing. “There’s no excuse whatsoever for any candidate or any official agent to make such flagrant breaches. Otherwise, everybody would be saying, ‘Hey, me too, me too, I was confused, sorry, sorry, sorry,’” she said.
The insider said, however, that Mr. Del Mastro has a point in saying that Elections Canada should move quicker to resolve any outstanding issues or investigations.
“Justice delayed is justice denied,” the insider said, noting that Elections Canada needs more resources to do its job. “I don’t know what it would take, how much money it would take, but after an election, there should be resources so they can chase this stuff down in a reasonable amount of time.”
Democracy Watch coordinator Tyler Sommers said this is one reason Elections Canada needs to make public the complaints it receives and how they’re handled, in order to know whether the agency is doing a good job or singling anyone out.
“Elections Canada refuses to release that information to the public. So, the difference is these have been made public by the media, so is this unusual is a great question, but because we don’t know what sort of complaints Elections Canada has dealt with in the past and how they’ve handled those complaints, we don’t know if it’s an abnormality or whether it’s just a result of the media really digging into things or some people leaking information or however people outside of Elections Canada become privy to this,” Mr. Sommers said, noting that the only time something is public is when people are found guilty and there’s either a compliance agreement, volunteer hours or a fine.
“It’s a dangerously undemocratic situation because the more this information leaks out, the less confidence Canadians have in their system, and there’s nothing to rebuff that, nothing to show them that Elections Canada is doing a good job, which is exactly what we need from Elections Canada, openness and transparency. That will give Canadians confidence, hopefully.”
Former chief electoral officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley defended Elections Canada in last week’s Hill Times. He said Elections Canada is simply doing its job and MPs of all stripes should respect its work like they do the auditor general.
“This is a Parliamentary institution we’re talking about. To denigrate them does no one any good. These institutions that we’ve created—the auditor general, the chief electoral officer—we’ve created to maintain the integrity of our various processes. That’s what they’re doing,” Mr. Kingsley said.
Although the Conservative Party appears to be the main preoccupation of Elections Canada investigators these days, Mr. Kingsley said that he did not recall any party being particularly bad at elections law compliance during his 17 year tenure as chief electoral officer.
“Elections Canada does not target anyone or any party in particular. It does its job totally impartially,” he said, adding that it was perfectly fine for candidates and parties to challenge Elections Canada in court.
“If people don’t agree with the chief electoral officer, then they have a right to go to court—I never begrudged that,” Mr. Kingsley said. “But wanton criticism is not helpful and not justified.”
Mr. Nicholls said in terms of the Conservatives’ more recent run-ins with Elections Canada, he doesn’t know enough about the cases to judge whether the agency is specifically after them, but said “it’s possible.”
“I think governments gone way overboard in trying to control money in elections and as a result, it just leads to situations like this, where politicians are constantly being charged violating these laws,” Mr. Nicholls said.
“It seems to me that every time one of these things happen, it’s a case of they’re not being diligent when keeping track of their money,” Mr. Nicholls said. “Not only should they be careful because it’s the right thing to do, but if they think Elections Canada is out to get them, then they should be doubly careful to keep track of their finances. So, in a way, you could say in these situations, the Tories are the author of their own problems. They’re the ones who should be careful, they’re the ones who should be crossing every ‘T’ and dotting every ‘I’. They think Elections Canada is out to get them. They think the media is out to get them. They can’t afford to be sloppy.”
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: BEA VONGDOUANGCHANH
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