The Green Party has had its hands slapped by Canada Elections for distributing a flyer during last fall’s federal election which used polling data which wasn’t supposed to be made public.
The incident occurred on the eve of election day, when campaign workers distributed a flyer in Victoria ahead of what was expected to be a tight local race between the Green Party’s Jo-Ann Roberts and NDP candidate Murray Rankin.
“The flyer did not meet the informational requirements set out in the Canada Elections Act and invited certain electors to vote for the Green Party candidate in order to defeat the New Democratic Party candidate in that riding,” according to a party release.
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The flyer, which stated “It’s a Two-Way Race – the Choice is Yours Victoria – Latest Polling Results.” showed the gap between the two candidates was just 1 per cent despite the fact the polling data was out of date.
Further, the margin of error, which was 9.8 per cent, also wasn’t disclosed in the campaign materials.
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The Green Party has signed a compliance agreement with the commission of Canada Elections which essentially admits guilt and that they won’t do it again.
Emily McMillan, executive director of the Green Party of Canada, signed the agreement on behalf of her group.
“We regret this one-time lack of compliance with the Elections Canada Act, and we have put measures in place to ensure full compliance with the Act in future,” she said in a statement.