Charges laid in connection with ethnic vote scandal
Posted September 8, 2014 4:49 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VICTORIA (NEWS1130) – Special prosecutor David Butcher has approved charges under BC’s Election Act against two people and a corporation relating to the April 2012 Port Moody-Coquitlam byelection.
Brian Bonney and Mark Robertson each face three charges, as does a numbered BC communications company.
The charges allege election expense violations related to hiring Sepideh Sarrafpour to work on defeated Liberal candidate Dennis Marsden’s campaign.
The men are scheduled to make their first court appearance in Vancouver on Oct. 14.
Butcher was appointed as an independent special prosecutor in August 2013 to assist with the investigation into the review of the Liberal government’s Draft Multicultural Strategic Outreach Plan, which became known as the “quick wins” scandal, and involved a strategy of courting ethnic voters.
Bonney is a former Liberal government communications aide who was found to be involved in the quick wins plan, while Sarrafpour’s name surfaced in the legislature as a former Liberal liaison worker who helped organize ethnic events.
University of Victoria Social Policy Professor Michael Prince says people are probably wondering who will pay for the cases.
“The question I think people will want to know following up from the legislative raid in court case on that one is whether the public purse is on the hook for any of the legal fees for the two that are facing criminal charges. Who will be paying for their legal fees if they were, are being charged with conduct they did in their capacity as staffers and employed by either the Liberal party or of the public service?”
He says the BC NDP failed to capitalize on the scandal in their election campaign, but expects the opposition to take full advantage of the controversy this time around.
“This will provide some political fodder for the opposition to try to revive what was a fairly serious scandal and political problem facing the Christy Clark Liberals well before the last election. John Horgan promised a much more assertive style and it behooves him to take this up. It’s almost a gift to the opposition to take up on this and use it against the Liberals this fall,” he explains.
He admits the scandal will be of more interest to political pundits and may go unnoticed to the average taxpayer who may be more likely consumed by the drama of the teachers dispute.
