WATCH: Elections Nova Scotia is investigating whether the Liberal government violated regulations prohibiting the distribution of partisan advertising paid for by the public in anticipated byelection campaigns. Rebecca Lau reports.
HALIFAX – Elections Nova Scotia is investigating whether the Liberal government violated regulations prohibiting the distribution of partisan advertising paid for by the public in anticipated byelection campaigns.
The agency says it acting on a complaint from a Progressive Conservative member of the legislature, Tim Houston, alleging the Liberals sent out postcard-style flyers.
The byelections haven’t been called yet but provincial law says the rules prohibiting partisan advertising apply when a seat becomes vacant in the legislature.
Houston says the flyers sent out to residents in the constituencies of Sydney-Whitney Pier, Cape Breton Centre and Dartmouth South are an attempt for the Liberals to gain an advantage in the expected byelections.
“When you’re sending out educational material to the three constituencies where there will be byelections about all the wonderful things you think you did, that’s called campaigning. And that’s not a good use of taxpayer money,” Houston told Global News.
Liberal MLA Andrew Younger says his party doesn’t believe what they did was wrong.
“It is the responsibility of the Liberal caucus to communicate in all unheld ridings and that has been done by almost every government in the past following a budget to say what’s in a budget,” he said. “This is no different.”
In 2013, Younger filed a complaint with Elections Nova Scotia about NDP mail-outs but says this case differs from that complaint.
“The complaint was very specific about it arriving before the elections and handed out at the doors,” he said.
“It was entirely different. We did not do what I complained about in 2013.”
Dana Doiron of Elections Nova Scotia says the agency will make a ruling in a matter of days on whether the mailout violates the law.
– With files from Rebecca Lau, Global News
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