Police investigate allegations in SK and ON party races

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are investigating some aspect of the recent leadership race for the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party:

NDP CEO Deb McDonald said the Mounties requested 1,102 membership forms that were submitted in April by an overzealous volunteer from the Dwain Lingenfelter campaign that were later cancelled by the party.

"We immediately said we would absolutely co-operate in any way that we can," McDonald said.

"On Monday we turned over the memberships and today they informed me that they are starting a criminal investigation."

Lingenfelter won the party leadership on Saturday, capturing 55 per cent of the votes cast, compared to 45 per cent of the votes garnered by Saskatoon doctor Ryan Meili.

Meanwhile,  the Ontario Provincial Police are investigating allegations of voter intimidation in the race to replace John Tory as leader of the provincial Conservative party:

Progressive Conservative Party president Ken Zeise has asked the Ontario Provincial Police to investigate a letter that was mailed to some members of the party, warning them that the RCMP was conducting its own probe into allegations involving voter fraud in provincial party leadership contests.

The letter is clearly “bogus,” Mr. Zeise said in an interview on Thursday. And while the letter was sent by someone with access to the names and addresses of party members, Mr. Zeise said he has no evidence to suggest that a party member was behind it.

He said he called in the OPP after officials representing two of the leadership hopefuls – Christine Elliott and Frank Klees – formally complained to him and asked him to investigate the matter.

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Tory-gate: the PC party election spending scandal

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.

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Chief electoral officer refuses to investigate alleged campaign finance irregularity of his old political party

According to CBC’s David Cochrane, a Progressive Conservative organizer  received $3,000 for working on the by-election in St. Barbe in 2000-2001.

Nothing irregular in that.

What is irregular is that the money came from then-Tory leader Ed Byrne’s constituency allowance, according to Cochrane, billed as work in Byrne’s Kilbride district. Presumably that much detail is in the agreed statement of facts in Byrne’s recent conviction on fraud charges in the House of Assembly spending scandal.

What’s even more irregular is that neither the Progressive Conservative Party nor the Tory district campaign listed the salary expense in their expense records filed for the by-election, according  to the CBC report.

And if all that wasn’t odd enough, the province’s chief electoral officer is refusing to investigate the matter. 

Cochrane said Paul Reynolds  will not pursue the matter further and considers that the St. Barbe by-election was – to use the words from the CBC Here and Now report - “conducted properly.”

Reynolds is the former Tory party president (during the 1980s) and long-time PC Party worker who was appointed to the supposedly non-partisan electoral office job two years ago. 

Reynolds appointment shortly before the 2007 general election was not without controversy.  A Telegram editorial at the time noted the issues:

In other provinces, the office of chief electoral officer is filled by experienced impartial professionals with a track record of either elections law or past experience organizing elections.

Here, Premier Danny Williams has selected a person not only without those qualifications, but with clear and obvious ties to a political party. In fact, with clear and obvious ties to Williams’ own party.

Williams’ choice for what is supposed to be a politically impartial position is Paul Reynolds, who, among other things, was a director of the PC district association on the day he was picked, a role he has filled for several years.

Questioned about the $128,506-per-year appointment, Williams suggested that politics didn’t matter, and that it wouldn’t be right to disqualify Conservatives simply because of their political stripe.

Cochrane’s report won’t be the end of the affair since it left too many unanswered questions about the St. Barbe by-election, possible violations of the province’s election finance laws and the chief electoral officer’s quickie decision on the matter .

Buried update:  There’s a short version of the Cochrane story tacked on the end of a story about Byrne’s date in court on Friday for sentencing.

 

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