PCs cleared of election violation for ‘intimacy coach’ invoice

Manitoba’s elections commissioner has cleared the Progressive Conservatives of wrongdoing after a $3,800 expense for a car rental appeared on an invoice from a company offering “intimacy coach” services.

The findings from the commissioner bring an end to a complaint raised by the NDP in October 2024, when it was alleged the PCs violated the Election Financing Act by forging financial documents related to the previous year’s election campaign.

“I am satisfied that the expense was indeed for a car rental, as the invoice described,” Bill Bowles wrote in a letter addressed to both parties Wednesday.

Concerns over the invoice to Lucid Vitality were first raised by a former PC staffer, whose internal emails with party officials were published in the Winnipeg Sun.

Christopher Kamanga questioned the legitimacy of the rental car invoice, given it was initially issued on letterhead belonging to a company that promoted intimacy and life coaching, rather than car rentals.

An updated invoice was later issued in February 2024, this time addressed to Lucid Vitality’s principal, Chelsy Brause, Bowles’ letter said.

While speaking with a commission investigator, the PC party explained it rented the vehicle privately from Brause’s husband, Gaetan Infantino, in order to avoid a limit on the number of possible drivers.

The investigation confirmed the party rented the vehicle for 50 days, between Aug. 16 and Oct. 4, 2023. During that time, it was used for 21 campaign events, and for transporting people and supplies, Bowles noted.

The PCs preferred to issue vendor payments to corporate entities, and because Infantino did not have a corporation, he provided an invoice to his wife’s company, the letter said.

“When the nature of Lucid Vitality’s business was discovered by campaign staff, it appears that a decision was made to request a new invoice in Ms. Brause’s name,” the commissioner wrote.

“This explanation is, in my view, a plausible one, particularly given the alternative… that someone obtained intimacy coaching services from Lucid Vitality.”

The letter noted that the Tories produced a list of specific events for which the rented SUV was used and identified five people as its primary drivers.

The investigators spoke to three of those people, all of whom had been volunteers and remembered driving for the PC party during the campaign.

Bowles concluded it was unlikely those volunteers conspired with party staffers to retroactively create a document trail legitimizing the transaction.

He found it was more likely the Tory staffer raised concerns about the invoice because it was not explained to him.

“Mr. Kamanga’s concern was based upon the nature of Lucid Vitality’s business and his apparent belief that if a car had been rented, it would have been rented from a car rental company,” Bowles wrote.

“Mr. Kamanga had no first-hand knowledge of the circumstances and, perhaps regrettably, it appears that when he made inquiries, he was never provided with a full explanation.”

When Kamanga’s internal emails came to light, the NDP seized on the opportunity to file a formal complaint. The PC party has, from the beginning, insisted the car rental was a legitimate transaction.

NDP provincial secretary Evan Krosney said the investigation still uncovered concerns, even if they did not constitute a violation of the Elections Financing Act.

“The investigation uncovered questionable invoicing, confusing paperwork and an invoice that was not replaced until months later. This is the same old PCs: corruption, secrecy, and excuses,” Krosney said in a statement.

PC Party of Manitoba president Peter Smith dismissed that criticism.

“I think they are trying to make lemonade out of lemons. If they are going to criticize us on an accounting issue, bring it on, I don’t care. That is not worth any kind of comment,” Smith said.

“We are just satisfied with the rulings. What we expected was they would dismiss the allegations as baseless, and there is really no ambiguity in their findings.”

Smith described Kamanga as a “disgruntled employee who left with copies of materials that they were then just muckraking.”

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca