Local MPs‘ election spending probed

Kelowna Courier Aug 7

The agents for two Okanagan MPs have been summonsed to appear before the House of Commons ethics committee. Kelowna-Lake Country MP Ron Cannan‘s election agent, Mike Gilmore, has been summonsed to appear Wednesday, while Neil Jamieson, agent for Okanagan-Coquihalla MP Stockwell Day, is scheduled to appear before the committee Tuesday. Neither Cannan nor Day has returned calls. Gilmore and Jamieson could not be reached for comment. Okanagan-Shuswap MP Colin Mayes said there was a request that he attend the hearings, but he was excused because he won‘t be free until September. His agent, Barry Gordon, died last November. The committee served an extraordinary 31 summonses to unwilling witnesses it wants to testify at a probe into the Conservative party‘s “in-and-out” advertising scheme. Mississauga South MP Paul Szabo, Liberal chairman of the committee, said the “word was out” that Conservative operatives would not accept invitations to appear at the probe into $1.3 million worth of Tory radio and television campaign expenses, “so I issued the summonses to all of them.”

On Wednesday, Mayes called Szabo “a goof.” He said Elections Canada had cleared his campaign financing. “We have no problem with the committee looking into this in-out scheme, but we want all parties to be accountable,” said Mayes. “The Bloc, NDP and Liberals have all used the same opportunities. “This is just politics, and he (Szabo) is being a goof. He doesn‘t know his facts. I was asked to be a witness, but my calendar is right full until I go back to Ottawa (in September).” MPs cannot be summonsed, but their election agents, who have to sign off on the campaign financing records, can. Szabo said it is possible to force the agents to attend against their will, but that likely won‘t happen. The Tory campaign expenses are under investigation by elections commissioner William Corbett and are also embroiled in a federal court case, where the Conservative party is attempting to prove they were legitimate expenditures by 67 Tory candidates in the last election. Elections Canada has alleged the party transferred thousands of dollars to individual candidates to pay for advertising produced for the Conservative campaign in a scheme that allowed the party to circumvent spending rules.