I would like to take the opportunity to address recent comments in the media about election spending and my election campaign. There has been much misinformation printed about the issue and I would like to provide some clarification.

First, let me address the issue of the transfer of money from the National Party to local candidates’ campaigns. All national parties routinely raise and disburse the monies for the purposes of running national and local campaigns. This is not taxpayers’ money it is money raised by the political parties for their own purposes and it in no way violates any rules or law.

Secondly, the issue of local campaigns buying national media advertisements is also completely valid and legal and is routinely done by all national parties. In some cases it is a necessity for fledgling parties and smaller parties like the NDP which must rely on the pooling of resources at the national and local level in order to be able to carry out national advertising.

The only caveat set out by Elections Canada in this regard is that a local campaign which purchases national advertising must ensure there is a reference within the advertising to the local candidate. This was done by my election campaign.

Further to the rules under the Elections Canada Act, Section 407 describes what kind of advertising is allowed in order for the candidate to claim them as election expenses.

According to Section 407 allowable election expenses “directly promote or oppose a registered party, its leader or candidate during an election period".

Based on the Act, the Financial Agent for my campaign filed these expenses as a legitimate claim. However, Elections Canada disallowed our claim for this expense and our campaign incurred the cost without receiving the deduction.

It is important to note that on Tuesday, April 23rd, CBC Radio wrongly reported that candidates had been reimbursed for these claims. We were not.

In fact, the rejection of these claims is at the heart of the dispute between the Conservative Party and Elections Canada.

The Conservative Party believes that Elections Canada has not interpreted the Act the way it is written and has wrongly denied some campaigns the right to a legitimate claim. Given evidence of anomalies in determining which campaigns did receive the deduction and which did not, the Party believes it has a legal case against Elections Canada.

The outcome of the court action by the Conservative Party will only affect my campaign in that, should the court find Elections Canada did not apply the right criteria to the expense claims, our campaign will be reimbursed for a portion of the cost of this expense.

The characterization of wrong doing being perpetrated by the Liberal Party against the Conservative Party is in my opinion nothing more than a way of trying to create a scandal in anticipation of an election.

There has never been any legal action taken against individual candidates and no individual candidate is under investigation for fraud as is being suggested. That is because, as with our campaign, candidates fully disclosed their expenditures to Elections Canada.

Desperate partisan politics aside, the real casualty at the end of the day is our political system and what voters think of it.

This country is suffering from voter malaise because of this kind of attitude toward government and political parties. Rather than constructive discussion on better government, Canadians are made to listen to the negative and petty partisan attacks that have come to characterize politics today.

Few of us make the decision to serve as Members of Parliament based on partisan politics. I made the decision because I wanted to build on nine years of serving our community as a City Councillor to make our community a better place for our citizens. I believe that is what we all want from our politicians and our Government and that is what I will continue to do for the people of Kelowna-Lake Country.