Dealing with illegal corporate donations is “beyond our mandate” says the chair of the city’s election compliance audit committee. The oversight committee also appears to be confused about the Municipal Elections Act it is supposed to be enforcing and unwilling to pursue any of the multiple allegations of questionable financial reporting of both elected and defeated candidates.
The three audit committee members were effusive in their praise of two councillors and two defeated candidates whose financial records were challenged last week, but offered no thanks at all to the two citizens who brought forward the complaints. They rejected accusations against councillor Doug Conley but decided to deliberate privately about the other three cases even though the two defeated candidates admitted they had violated provincial election law.
Dundas candidate Toby Yull and ward one candidate Ira Rosen both acknowledged their failure to submit audited statements required for campaigns costing over $10,000 and threw themselves on the mercy of the audit committee. But both had their financial records praised by committee members, one of whom – John Klein – arguing that Yull hadn’t broken the rules at all because her donations were under $10,000 even though her expenses exceeded $12,000.
Yull corrected him. Klein subsequently was also corrected by complainant Joanna Chapman over his claim that the rules don’t apply to defeated candidates.
Both legal interpretation errors were ignored by the city lawyer at the meeting, but she quickly intervened to advise Klein that he must permit Maria Pearson to respond to a dozen complaints lodged against her financial statement. Klein had told Pearson that he didn’t need to hear the explanations because he was already satisfied that Pearson had done nothing wrong.
Two of those complaints made by Stoney Creek resident Viv Saunders involve combined donations exceeding the $750 limit by companies that have the same address and/or cheque signatories. A third points to total gifts to numerous candidates exceeding $5000 by the Carpenters Political Action Committee – a violation of the provincial rules.
The chair of the audit committee, Ross Anderson dismissed these allegations as “beyond our scope of interest or mandate” of the committee.
“We are not corporate sheriffs. We cannot stop company A from contributing $10,000 even though the limit under the municipal act says $5000, to a particular total, and a $750 maximum per candidate,” declared Anderson. “I understand that there could be over-contributions but we are not corporate sheriffs.”
He went on to say he had previously worked for a company “that fell under this situation and had their donation returned” because “three or four” subsidiary companies that “were directly related” had all given money. He explained that “they didn’t do this intentionally” but acknowledged this may not always be the case.
“I can’t speak to that, I’m sorry,” he concluded. “We’re not a corporate sheriff in that situation.”
Pearson said she had noticed the possible over-contributions and had obtained written assurances that the companies were not owned by the same people. She said she could provide these, but the committee didn’t take her up on the offer.
With respect to the excessive donations of the Carpenters union that Saunders had calculated by reviewing the financial statements of all the candidates in last fall’s election including Pearson, the veteran Stoney Creek councillor argued she could have no way of knowing this at the time of the donation – a position echoed by committee member Klein.
Saunders pointed to court rulings that the task of the committee is simply to determine if there are reasonable grounds to order an audit – not to decide if the law was actually violated. But Klein replied that “an audit is of the candidate’s financial records, not third parties, so the funds could come from all sorts of what I’m going to call third parties.”
In the end, the committee decided to put off its decisions on Pearson, Yull and Rosen and determine those in private. Decisions are posted on the city website, but the citizen complaints are not provided there, nor are the agendas and minutes of the committee.