Month: September 2008

Daniel Hurley billed taxpayers for past election-related expenses

Daniel Hurley is the candidate for the Liberal Party of Canada in Winnipeg Centre.

From Hurley’s biography,

Dan Hurley also has extensive parliamentary and government experience, previously serving as chief of staff to the Hon. Stephane Dion, while he was Canada’s Environment Minister and as President of the United Nations Climate Change Conference. During that time, Dan used his organizational and diplomatic skills to support Stephane Dion’s efforts to bring the Kyoto Protocol into force and to move the international community forward on climate change.

During the last election, Hurley as Dion’s chief of staff, expensed a trip to Edmonton that he took with the now current Liberal leader. The problem is that he went on this trip during an election, he billed it to the taxpayer and listed the purpose of the trip as “travel with Minister for electoral campaign”.

The expenses are listed on Environment Canada’s proactive disclosure website:

Hurley billed $1,161 for flights, $219.20 for accommodations and $166.60 for meals and incidentals for a total of $1,547.56 to travel with Dion during the past federal election between December 15-17, 2005.

The Edmonton Journal states,

“Stephane Dion, the federal environment minister, spent a long Friday in Edmonton beating the drum for local Liberal candidates.” (December 17, 2005)

According to section 6.1.3 of Treasury Board Guidelines for Minister’s Offices,

Expenditures incurred by the chief of staff should be authorized by the minister or the minister’s senior delegate for financial matters.

So, this raises a few questions for Stephane Dion:

Since Dion personally signed off on Hurley’s expenses for accompanying him during an election campaign for “travel with Minister for electoral campaign”, does Mr. Dion think that it’s acceptable for the taxpayer to foot the bill for Liberal election-related expenses?

Will Dion, Hurley or the Liberal Party of Canada refund the Canadian taxpayer $1547.56 with interest?

Will Hurley be asked to step down as the Liberal candidate in Winnipeg Centre?

We’ve seen taxpayer dollars going to fund Liberal campaigns before, is this more of the same from the Liberal Party?

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS: Of course, staff are allowed to accompany a minister for ministry-related business and file expenses — even during an election campaign — so long as they are doing government work. However, we must take Daniel Hurley’s disclosure at face value when he states that he traveled with Dion “for electoral campaign“. Hurley either made a terrible mistake by filing expenses to the taxpayer for an election campaign or he improperly worded his expense form.

Is Andrew Telegdi violating the Elections Act?

Take a look at the website of Liberal candidate Andrew Telegdi as it appeared last night:

So, what’s the matter with Telegdi’s website?

Aaron Wudrick, the campaign manager of Telegdi’s Conservative opponent (and Blogging Tory) forwarded an email that he sent to the commissioner.

What are sections 320 and 321 of the Canada Elections Act?

320. A candidate or registered party, or a person acting on their behalf, who causes election advertising to be conducted shall mention in or on the message that its transmission was authorized by the official agent of the candidate or by the registered agent of the party, as the case may be.

321. (1) No person shall knowingly conduct election advertising or cause it to be conducted using a means of transmission of the Government of Canada.

(2) For the purpose of subsection (1), a person includes a group within the meaning of Part 17.

As for s.320, Wudrick is referring to the absence of “Paid for by the official agent for Andrew Telegdi”. Now, this may be the case because Telegdi appears to be using his MP website for the purposes of “re-elect[ing] Andrew Telegdi”. According to Wudrick, we are led to infer that this is his MP site because of the links to constituency office information and constituent services. If this is so, his website is paid for the people of Canada and not by his campaign and that’s where he runs into trouble with the next section of the act. Section 321 states that MP websites cannot be used for election advertising.

As of this afternoon, Telegdi’s site now features “Paid for by the official agent for Andrew Telegdi” but the site still contains constituency service information is a conflict with someone that is now simply a candidate and not an MP according to Wudrick.

UPDATE: Some eagle-eyed viewers have pointed out that Pierre Poilievre’s election site contains constituency service information. I’m not convinced that the display of such information is against the Act, though to have an election site that advertises constituency information and the candidate without it being labelled as paid for by the official agent of a campaign is certainly problematic for a campaign. I called Poilievre and he confirmed that his site is in accordance with the Act as it is in compliance with s.320. Indeed, from what I understand, he could advertise Telegdi’s constituency services if he wanted.