Campaign official rushes to pay for failed Liberal candidate’s free 2015 flight to Churchill

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This article was published 05/08/2016 (3718 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — A Manitoba Liberal candidate in last year’s federal election was forced to seek permission to amend her electoral campaign return Friday after failing to pay for a flight on a private jet paid for by Omnitrax Inc., last September.

Rebecca Chartrand, who finished second behind NDP MP Niki Ashton in Churchill-Keewatinook Aski , was invited, along with her campaign manager, Noel Bernier, to attend a ceremony marking the first shipment of grain out of the Port of Churchill in 2015. Chartrand and Bernier, along with at least 18 other people, were flown from Winnipeg to Churchill on Sept. 10 as guests of Omnitrax Canada President Merv Tweed.

Canadian election law is clear: a candidate cannot accept gifts or donations of any type from corporations, so a flight such as this would have to be paid for by the campaign. It wasn’t until Ashton’s campaign brought it to the attention of Elections Canada this week.

On Tuesday, Ashton’s campaign official agent, Gordon Landriault, wrote to Elections Canada asking for an investigation because there was no documentation for the flight included in Chartrand’s electoral return.

Chartrand referred questions about the matter to her official agent, Maeengan Linklater, who told the Free Press Bernier asked for and received an invoice for the $750 flights last fall. However that invoice was never given to Linklater and therefore it was neither paid, nor included in the election return.

“I submitted all the things I had in front of me,” Linklater said.

After being contacted by the Free Press, the invoice was located and Linklater has taken the steps to pay the bill.

He said a cheque was mailed to Omnitrax Friday and an amendment to the return is being filed with Elections Canada.

Ashton said the whole situation is “troubling.”

“It’s pretty cute by half,” she said, noting the campaign officials fixed the problem only after they got caught.

Ashton said Chartrand did campaign in Churchill on the trip, pointing to Facebook photos posted on Sept. 10 showing her knocking on doors.

Ashton was also critical of Omnitrax interfering in an election, noting none of the other candidates were on the plane. She said she would have attended the ceremony had she been invited, but would not have accepted a flight on an Omnitrax charter.

Candidates are allowed to file amendments to returns but have to file a written request to the CEO of Elections Canada for permission to file an amended return.

The $750 will not push Chartrand over her spending limits. Her current expense claim is $86,446, well below the $233,135 expense limit. The limits were much higher during the 2015 election because the campaign was 11 weeks long; federal campaigns generally run about five weeks.

This is the second complaint filed from Ashton’s campaign. In December, her campaign agent asked Elections Canada to explain a discrepancy in the number of votes cast compared to the number of people on the voter’s list, in Pinaymootang First Nation, near Fairford.

The investigation into that complaint is still underway.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca