Early in Elizabeth Cull’s report recommending disqualification of Anjali Appadurai, the NDP’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) wrote about “receiving complaints about possible unlawful contributions...”
Cull said the David Eby Campaign filed a complaint regarding violations of applicable law. Cull also wrote that Appadurai had obligations under British Columbia’s Election Act.
The objective was to convince people that Ms. Appadurai was a scofflaw unworthy of holding a senior political position.
Except the Election Act did not apply. It is a safe bet that lawyer and former Attorney General David Eby, and NDP insiders who are expert in that Act, knew what Elections BC, the province’s non-partisan regulator, stated in its October 20 release:
A political party must approve a leadership contestant for the Election Act’s campaign finance rules to apply to their campaign. This means that the activities of Dogwood BC in relation to the Anjali Appadurai campaign were not regulated by the Election Act.
Seventy-year-old Elizabeth Cull is not independent of party leadership. They appointed the former NDP Cabinet Minister Chief Electoral Officer, a position not mentioned in the BC NDP Constitution.
NDP Provincial Executive’s rules decreed that a potential leadership candidate who disagreed with a recommendation of the CEO could appeal to the Executive’s table officers. It is a tight little circle.
The system is designed to exclude anyone not favoured by insiders who control the party.
Categories: NDP BC
IN-SIGHTS 
Would, or even could, Ms. Appadurai win a seat in the legislature? John Horgan hasn’t stepped down. Would any other MLA step down?
LikeLike
The point is.. the fix was in. Ms Cull, a former cabinet minister and a NDP insider did not want someone who was more environmentally friendly. The NDP is really a tired old party with few new ideas and definitely not democratic. Here is hoping this party will enjoy the hinterland after the next election.
LikeLike
NDP, the home of fascists…
LikeLike
One of the homes of…. The United BC party is in the same framework. If the Greens get the support they deserve now, we will see a couple of more name changes as the NDP joins the business first Uniteds, to become the increasingly misnamed United Democratic Party.
LikeLike
I just love Horgan storming off from a presser, more fool him.
In reality, Horgan is desperately looking for a legacy, but he has not got one.
The Expo line extension to Langley was going to be after the provincial museum fiasco, it it is turning into a money pit. As it stands now, the 16 km Expo line extension will cost $4.6 billion to $5 billion, yet carry less passengers than the Broadway B-Line express bus!
Now there is a legacy……….of incompetence and stupidity.
The NDP must collectively hang their heads in shame and make no mistake, this is going to haunt them in the next election, like dog poo on the sole of a shoe, complete with the bad smell.
Horgan’s legacy, hell the NDP’s legacy with this fiasco, has wounded the party deeply. They are no better than Christy Clark’s government.
The NDP not only cannot operate a peanut stand, they can’t even run the free-box at a garage sale.
LikeLike
It’s increasingly clear to me that, after looking through all of the documentation surrounding this ‘event’ – that it was never meant to be anything other than what my British friends would call a “panto” performance – the staged appearances of Eby’s colleagues who traveled round the province or met him in various carefully scripted ‘events’ once he’d declared (and was, of course, accepted as an ‘approved candidate’ (to use the language of the ‘contest’ regulations.)
It may even have been planned to set the whole thing to some jolly sing-along score so the audience might be encouraged to join in the hilarity.
It was never meant to be leadership contest. There’s even a section in the regulations which anticipates that outcome and describes the conditions for a coronation. (Part VI, Section B, 1 and 1 a)
Kind of a strange provision considering the panto program called for a ‘contest’ and not a crowning, don’t you think?
Who’d have ever thought such advance planning would have led to what amounts to little more than a ‘Punch and Judy’ puppet show….?
LikeLike