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NDP cleared over MPs' mailings about 2013 byelections

Yves Cote finds no rules were broken by flyers sent out around 2013 byelections

 

The commissioner of Canada Elections says the NDP broke no rules when several MPs sent taxpayer-funded mailings to households in 2013 during or close to a series of federal byelections that year.

In a letter to NDP national director Anne McGrath, Yves Cote says he's exonerating the party after investigating several complaints about large-volume mailings from MP offices in four federal ridings: Bourassa in Montreal, Brandon-Souris and Provencher in Manitoba and Toronto Centre.

"I have reached the conclusion that no offence under the Act was committed with respect to these various mailings," he wrote.

Cote's findings are based on documentation provided by the NDP and they vary according to the riding he examined.

He found that in Provencher, all the mailings were sent outside the writ period, and therefore did not fall within the Elections Canada definition of election advertising.

In the case of Bourassa and Toronto Centre, Cote found that some of the mailings went out on Oct. 18, two days before the writs dropped. The party demonstrated that it subsequently and unsuccessfully tried to recall the mailings once they learned the byelections had been officially called. Elections Canada rules state that any mailing that's in transit when the writ is dropped and which cannot be recalled, will not be deemed an election expense.

Cote also found that while NDP mailings in both Bourassa and Brandon Souris did go out during the writ period, the NDP "properly" reported them as a byelections expense to Elections Canada.

'We've always followed the rules'

READ MORE: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ndp-cleared-over-mps-mailings-about-2013-byelections-1.3161776