NDP gets its knuckles rapped by Elections BC
By Elections BC
VICTORIA – Administrative monetary penalties have been issued and posted on the Elections BC website at https://elections.bc.ca/resources/investigations/administrative-monetary-penalties.
In 2017 the Election Act was amended to give the Chief Electoral Officer the authority to levy administrative monetary penalties in specific cases of non-compliance with the Act. In these cases, the Chief Electoral Officer must determine whether non-compliance has occurred and, if so, the amount of the penalty within ranges established by the Act.
To fulfill this new mandate, the Chief Electoral Officer established a process to determine whether or not an administrative monetary penalty is warranted. The process is based on principles of administrative fairness, and is designed to ensure that the subject of a penalty has a reasonable opportunity to be heard before a penalty is imposed.
The penalties posted today are as follows:
Filing entity
Penalty
amount
Reason for penalty
Specified fundraising function
BC NDP
$2,000
Failure to report a specified fundraising function within the time frames established by the Election Act
BC NDP
$1,000
Failure to report a specified fundraising function within the time frames established by the Election Act
BC NDP
$500
Failure to report a specified fundraising function within the time frames established by the Election Act
BC NDP
$500
Failure to report a specified fundraising function within the time frames established by the Election Act
A specified fundraising function is an event:
§ attended by the leader of a major political party, a parliamentary secretary, or member of the Executive Council, and
§ held to raise funds for a major political party or candidate, leadership contestant or constituency association representing a major political party.
The Election Act requires the date, time, location and ticket price of a specified fundraising function to be reported to Elections BC at least seven days before the event. An additional report must be provided within 60 days after the event. In each of these cases, the initial report was not filed according to the time requirements of the Act due to human error.
During the process of determining whether or not these cases warranted administrative monetary penalties, the BC NDP cooperated fully with Elections BC. Elections BC determined that the party did not deliberately try to circumvent the Act, and that non-compliance was the result of human error. The party has also communicated to Elections BC additional steps it has taken to prevent such instances of non-compliance from occurring in the future.
Links
· Specified fundraising functions:
https://elections.bc.ca/provincial-elections/electoral-financing-and-disclosure/specified-fundraising-functions/
· Administrative monetary penalties policy:
Application of Administrative Monetary Penalties
· Administrative monetary penalties page (Elections BC will post administrative monetary penalties on an ongoing basis on this page):
https://elections.bc.ca/resources/investigations/administrative-monetary-penalties
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Contact:
Andrew Watson
Communications Manager
Elections BC
Phone: 250-387-1709
Email: Andrew.Watson@elections.bc.ca
Website: elections.bc.ca
Elections BC is an independent, non-partisan Office of the Legislature responsible for administering electoral processes in B.C. in accordance with the Election Act, Local Elections Campaign Financing Act,Recall and Initiative Act, and Referendum Act.
