Penashue’s official agent charged with violating Elections Act

Former Conservative cabinet minister Peter Penashue’s official agent in the 2011 federal election campaign has been charged with violating Canada’s Elections Act in connection with ineligible contributions made to Penashue’s campaign.

Reginald Bowers faces three charges – failing to return ineligible contributions, providing the Chief Electoral Officer with false or misleading information by failing to accurately identify ineligible campaign contributions and providing Elections Canada with false or misleading information by inaccurately reporting Penashue’s travel expenses.

Penashue repaid $30,000 in contributions and resigned his seat as MP for Labrador in 2013 to run in a byelection. However, he lost the byelection to Liberal Yvonne Jones.

At the time, Penashue blamed Bowers and said mistakes were made by “an inexperienced volunteer.”

Seven months after the election, in December 2011, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet appointed Bowers to the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board for six years. However, he is no longer listed as a member of the board.

Bowers is to appear in Provincial Court in Happy Valley, Labrador on June 9, said Sujata Raisinghan, spokeswoman for the Public Prosecution Service of Canada. If found guilty he faces the possibility of thousands of dollars in fines or possible jail time.

NDP Ethics Critic Charlie Angus said the problems with Penashue’s campaign are not an isolated incident.

“There’s a real serious pattern of the abuse of the electoral process with this government,” Angus told reporters.

“We see it with the in-and-out scandal. We see it with the robo fraud that happened. We see it with Mr. Del Mastro’s defiance right up to the end in terms of his court case. So now Mr. Penashue’s official agent, once again, we’re dealing with a tired government that’s involved in numerous allegations of corruption, and they just don’t seem to be willing to take responsibility.”

Scott Simms, Liberal ethics critic and MP for the Newfoundland riding of Bonavista-Gander-Grand Falls-Windsor, said voters have passed judgment on Penashue by voting him out of office and now the courts will decide the fate of his official agent.

“The judgment did come down on whether Peter Penashue should remain in his job. As for this one, I guess we’ll have to wait and see how it unfolds in the courts.”

Original Article
Source: ipolitics.ca/
Author:  Elizabeth Thompson