1. The Chief Electoral Officer’s statement on why he is refusing to investigate.
Note that CEO Paul Reynolds apparently only spoke with unnamed Progressive Conservative Party officials after he told CBC’s David Cochrane that he would not be investigating the matter as he felt the by-election had been conducted properly:
They [unnamed party officials] indicated that they became aware of this issue when the statement of facts relating to the Ed Byrne Constituency Allowance fraud case was brought forward by a CBC reporter, this being the same time that my office was made aware of the situation.
2. The legal argument against Reynolds:
306. (1) No person other than the chief financial officer of a registered party or candidate shall authorize election expenses for that party or candidate and no election expenses shall be incurred except by a chief financial officer or a person designated in writing by a chief financial officer for that purpose.
So if Mr. Reynolds' assertion is correct, why are there no charges, and why is there no investigation?
3. The logical argument against Reynolds:
Given the severity of the potential breach of justice, the lack of initial evidence does not constitute a prima facie case against a full investigation into whether stolen money was indeed used to fund a provincial election campaign.
Reynolds' statement contains 4 attempts of negative proof, otherwise known as argumentum ad ignorantiam. For a pithy explanation, see Fallacy Files: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/ignorant.html
The case against this type of argumentation is simple: a lack of evidence by itself is no evidence.
4. Three years after the House of Assembly spending scandal story broke, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador still do not know the answers to simple questions:
- Who knew?
- What did they know?
- When did they know it?
- Where did the money go?
It’s not like someone didn’t suggest this at the outset:
Make no mistake: AG Noseworthy's inquiries and the police investigation will not root out the answers to all the questions raised by this scandal which itself is without precedent in the province for over 80 years.
-srbp-