By Jeff Nagel - Surrey North Delta Leader Published: May 28, 2009 11:00 AM
Can a mayor or city councillor knowingly tell voters a lie without potentially being turfed out of office? That’s the question now percolating in city halls across the region after the surprise unseating this week of White Rock Coun. James Coleridge. His election victory last fall was quashed this week by a B.C. Supreme Court ruling that he deceived voters. “It’s a huge wake up call for everybody,” Delta Mayor Lois Jackson said Wednesday. “Maybe we should be held to a higher standard.” Coleridge, a 20-year councillor, lied when he claimed no knowledge of an e-mail his wife circulated during the campaign under the phoney names “Alison and Tom Baker” using material he had gathered that may have influenced voters. In fact, he did know the source of the contentious e-mail, but denied it when the Peace Arch News questioned him.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Laura Gerow didn’t rule on the contents of the e-mail, which alleged several candidates running against Coleridge were part of a pro-highrise “real estate slate.” Instead she found that by denying his involvement – and using the deception to bolster his own campaign – Coleridge contravened the Local Government Act section prohibiting candidates from gaining votes through fraud, because he campaigned on a promise of giving voters “straight answers.” Coleridge didn’t simply keep his mouth shut when he knew his wife was responsible, the judge observed. He went on to invent background for the phoney couple, the Bakers, and claimed others in the community agreed with them. Coleridge then lied again when a Peace Arch News reporter confronted him with Internet evidence tracing the e-mail to his house, claiming he must be a victim of identity theft. The councillor admitted his deception only after the election, when failed candidate Matt Todd challenged Coleridge in court.
The judge ruled Coleridge would have likely lost support if voters knew “he did not in fact give straightforward answers to questions, but rather engaged in deceit and lies about what he considered to be immaterial matters, and used the deceit and lies to support his own political ends. “If a candidate puts his character in issue and runs on his integrity and honesty, then his character, including his integrity and honesty, is a material fact.” Coleridge must pay $20,000 of the costs of a byelection – estimated to be as high as $37,000. The city must pay for Todd’s court costs, and is entitled to recover those costs from Coleridge.
Coleridge is unreachable in Alaska and his lawyer, Jonathan Baker, could not yet say if he will appeal. He noted there are “no economic reasons” to appeal. Baker said the case could have major political ramifications in civic campaigns. “Any lie of almost any nature would open you up to being removed from office,” he said. Plenty of truth-stretching goes on in many election campaigns, Baker suggested, adding statements made by Vancouver council candidates surrounding the cost overruns for the Olympic Village might be grounds to challenge the outcome. “You’d find some real whoppers in that,” he said. Baker compared Coleridge’s case to incidents where politicians get their friends and supporters to stack radio call-in shows or write letters to newspapers pretending to be unaffiliated ordinary voters. “Politicians fabricate support,” he said. “That’s simply done all the time.”
He argued there’s a more pressing need to block mayors and councillors from taking gifts, often from developers, that can verge on corruption. “Politicians exaggerating their platforms and telling what varies from white lies to real whoppers is one thing. But it’s another when you’re being paid by people and not disclosing it.” SFU political science professor Kennedy Stewart said he can’t believe the “bizarre” ruling won’t be overturned, predicting politicians around B.C. would line up to help fund an appeal. “Not appealing this is so dangerous – not just to the people involved in the case, but to politicians at large,” he said. Instead of politicians scrupulously telling the truth from now on, Stewart envisions candidates compiling dossiers of evidence against their opponents during all future campaigns and unleashing their lawyers to challenge the results if they lose. “You have your lawyers all revved up and if you lose the election, you file,” he said. “I could see this happening right across the province.” In that scenario, Stewart said, B.C. civic politics would have something like their own Recall Act, the little-used method of removing provincial MLAs. “It’s a recall by judges,” he said. “You’re going to have judges deciding election proceedings. That’s a highly unusual way to run elections.”
An application to overturn an election result under the Local Government Act must be filed within 30 days by any candidate, the chief election officer or by at least four voters. Baker said the high cost of going to court to unseat a candidate might be a deterrent – but he noted it may mean the tool gets used mostly by well-heeled third parties with the most at stake in civic elections, such as developers.
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