Voters deserve the truth before April by-election, parties who complied with the law deserve fairness
VANCOUVER (January 21) – TEAM for a Livable Vancouver has yet to receive a response to its most recent letter to British Columbia Chief Electoral Officer Anton Boegman, sent on December 23, 2024 in anticipation of the civic by-election now scheduled for April 5.
That letter is reproduced here.
Mr. Anton Boegman
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections BC
Re: Investigation of ABC Vancouver in light of Vancouver by-election
Dear Mr. Boegman,
In July 2023, TEAM for a Livable Vancouver wrote to you about excess contributions of at least $115,000 accepted by Vancouver mayor Ken Sim and ABC Vancouver (ABC). It is now more than a year since ABC refunded $116,000 of prohibited contributions to its donors for the 2022 municipal election campaign. Some of these breaches occurred over three years ago and your department clearly should have investigated and addressed the matter.
Your April 11 media advisory that an investigation had been initiated, and June 5 update that it was ongoing, gave us cause to hope that a decision was imminent.
It is now more than four months since we last wrote to you about our concerns that Elections BC has not held ABC accountable for its failure to meet the standard required by the LECFA, and that Vancouver electors might go to a by-election in 2025 without a resolution of this issue. Recognizing that the problem is not limited to eligible donors giving too much, we wrote at that time that a list of potential indirect contributions to Ken Sim and/or ABC from children, one as young as two, was provided to your office last January; a check today of FRPC finds the status of those donations - made more than four years ago - unchanged.
For all of the reasons that LECFA was enacted, we ask you to ensure that Vancouver elector organizations who respected both the spirit and the letter of the law in the 2022 election will be competing in an atmosphere of fairness in the upcoming by-election, and that your determination on the ABC investigation be made public promptly.
Vancouver voters are entitled to know how the ruling party conducted itself. Public faith in the integrity and effectiveness of Elections BC is at stake.
We look forward to your comprehensive response to the concerns we have been raising for nearly a year and a half.
Yours truly,
Colleen Hardwick,
President, TEAM for a Livable Vancouver
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