Mayes campaign questioned ad money

By Natalie Bank Wednesday, September 26, 2007 Vernon Courier

Colin Mayes said he knew his campaign team was accepting extra advertising money from the national Conservative party in the last election, but he‘s not responsible for the details in how the dollars were divided. “I never did say I wasn‘t aware of it, but that decision and the process that had to be followed, or that was followed, had to do with my official agent and basically that‘s all I knew.” Two weeks ago Elections Canada identified the Okanagan-Shuswap MP and 16 other sitting MPs in a scheme that saw the party channel more than $1 million to pay for broadcast ads during the election. The party used “in and out” transactions to exceed campaign spending limits, which were discovered after candidates submitted election expense rebate claims for advertising costs to Elections Canada.

When the list came out Mayes said he was “surprised my name‘s mentioned in this thing,” adding a previous Elections Canada audit showed his campaign was in the clear. If something was amiss, Mayes had said, his financial agent “takes care of the dollars.” On Tuesday, Mayes again said the final call to use the extra money was not up to him. “I was just told this was a request between my campaign chair and my official agent and they worked out the dollars.” Mayes‘ former campaign manager Wayne McGrath recalled how the team was surprised when the national party, which had already spent its advertising limit, said Mayes could use $10,000 of their left-over money. “It certainly made many of us wonder about whether that was appropriate or not. We certainly questioned it and we were advised that it conformed with the Canada Elections Act and not to be concerned.”

McGrath said everyone, including Mayes, was part of lengthy discussions about whether or not to accept the money. They ultimately decided to use it, he said, because they were told it had been checked out by the national campaign and didn‘t violate election laws. Still, McGrath said, some of Mayes‘ campaigners felt they were violating Elections Canada regulations. “We were concerned because it seemed we were using money that wasn‘t really generated locally for our campaign and yet it showed as coming out of our expenses.” Mayes‘ office manager at the time, who asked not to be named, said she remembers the team discussing the money and being assured it was “perfectly all right.” She recalls being below spending limits before the money was accepted, and that everyone, including Mayes, knew about it. “He would know what was going on, and he might not have been looking in the books, but he would have been brought up to date.” Other sitting B.C. MPs listed as involved in the ad money transactions include Ron Cannan, Dick Harris, Jim Abbott and Stockwell Day.

In total 67 Tory candidates received thousands of dollars through a transfer from the party, then used bank transfers to pay the party for the ads. Elections Canada later rejected the candidates‘ election expense rebate claims for 60 per cent of the advertising costs. Mayes said he believes the problem lies in the technicalities of how the money was dispersed. “I feel there‘s just some issues that need to be worked out with Elections Canada and the Conservative party, and we just have to wait to find out what that is.”