Sometimes being an honest politician is a bad thing
The trouble does not stop today for Coquitlam/Burnaby anti-NDP forces today. Mark Hilford of Coquitlam, a TEAM Burnaby council candidate in this past fall's Burnaby election, has been uncovered to have bought his nomination.
An aged BCA supporter has contacted Burnaby Politics with information on Hilford's civic financial statements. Hilford claims several hundred dollars in TEAM Burnaby membership purchases as a campaign expense. Hilford was a key member of the Brian Bonney-Mark Robertson-Harry Bloy slate for the TEAM nominations that featured "friendlies" such as Hilford, who was Bloy's campaign chair in 2005, Bonney ally Ron Churchill, and school board candidate Cathy Cena, who was a regular on Bloy's campaign.
Hilford's nomination was not the first one to be bought in political history and will not be the last, but it may be the only one to document a mass membership buy.
An aged BCA supporter has contacted Burnaby Politics with information on Hilford's civic financial statements. Hilford claims several hundred dollars in TEAM Burnaby membership purchases as a campaign expense. Hilford was a key member of the Brian Bonney-Mark Robertson-Harry Bloy slate for the TEAM nominations that featured "friendlies" such as Hilford, who was Bloy's campaign chair in 2005, Bonney ally Ron Churchill, and school board candidate Cathy Cena, who was a regular on Bloy's campaign.
Hilford's nomination was not the first one to be bought in political history and will not be the last, but it may be the only one to document a mass membership buy.
posted by Robert Burnaby at 11:19 PM
10 Comments:
thats... just... stunning
It's really strange. Memberships are not a campaign expense and never have been. How could they?
The memberships are purchased by those who want to be members, not by the candidates.
Wonder what other dumb things went on?
It's interesting that Hilford claimed the memberships as an expense.
The membership recruiting ended before the Nomination Meeting, so
why would Hilford claim something that technically didn't occur when he was an actual candidate.
Sure hope he paid all of the money directly to Team Burnaby and didn't pocket any of it.
Seems some are missing the point. In every political party, new members are supposed to pay for their own memberships. In every political party, there are candidates who will discretely pay for the membership fees of their supporters to make it easier to sign people up. (famous examples: Ujjal Dosanjh, Paul Martin). So its not like Hilford collected $ from members and may not have turned it over to team burnaby: rather the opposite, he paid team burnaby without collecting from members.
However, what isn't very common, is for candidates to admit to paying for their supporters memberships by disclosing it at disclosure time. This is the political equivilant of listing bribary on a tax return as a business expense.
"he paid team burnaby without collecting from members."
Equally dumb to do. Let the memberships buy their own memberships at the time of sign up
and quite simply:
(a) write out a cash or cheque register receipt for each member
signed up.
(b) balance the amount collected
with the total written into the cash register sheet.
(c) turn in both to the political
party before the deadline.
(d) Work the for the nomination.
I love the "jouralistic angle" on this forum. "An AGED BCA supporter"???? Who the hell cares how old or young someone is when they provide information to someone in confidence about an issue such as this. Or... is this meant to infer that only "aged" people support the BCA? That somehow Team Burnaby is some hip and happening group of people. With the likes of Harry Bloy around, I think that that statement is easily debunked.
However, give the guy credit, the guy who claimed the memberships as a campaign expense. He may be a politician wanna be, and a crooked one at that, but in a paradoxial fashion, you could call him one of the most honest crooked politicians going.
Sorry, tax expense not campaign expense.
Equally dumb to do,but what else is new from Brian and his gang?
BCA is full of old fogeys. Look at their last slate.
BCA knows what to do.
Team Burnaby obviously doesn't.
Lots of people looked at the BCA
and voted for the majority of them.
Others looked at the Team Burnaby
slate and voted for just two of them (one is already an incumbent).
Most people vote for the individual
candidate, not across the entire slate.
BCA doesn't depend on voting slate as much as Team Burnaby does.
BCA campaign was run by a campaign manager who had political smarts.
Team Burnaby campaign was run by
an overpriced and overvalued campaign manager who was an empty helmet.
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