The commissioner of Canada Elections has accepted the United Conservative Party of Alberta’s undertaking after ruling the party should have registered as a third-party advertiser before campaigning against Justin Trudeau in the 2019 federal election.
During the election, the party offered a “Friends don’t let friends vote Trudeau” bumper sticker by request through a website.
“The stickers constituted ‘election advertising,’ since they contained an advertising message opposing the leader of a federal registered party,” the commissioner’s report said.
According to the report, provincial parties are exempt from the provisions of the Canada Elections Act on partisan activities. But they are not excluded from applying to be a third-party advertiser.
Because the stickers contained an advertising message that opposed the leader of a federal party, the commissioner said it was “election advertising” rather than a partisan activity.
The commissioner accepted an undertaking from the UCP that made several acknowledgments, including that the party believed “in good faith” that the distribution of the bumper stickers was a partisan activity and was exempt from the application of the act’s third-party advertiser regime.
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“As acknowledged by the Commissioner of Canada Elections, our organization believed in good faith that we were exempt from registering as a third party given the definition of ‘partisan activity’ of section 349 of the Canada Elections Act excludes activities carried out by a provincial political party,” a statement from UCP president Ryan Becker read.
The full undertaking is available on the commissioner’s website.
As part of the undertaking, the UCP agreed to register as a third party and to submit its expenses return to Elections Canada within 30 days of registering.
“We were happy to work collaboratively with the commissioner regarding the matter and reached an agreement to submit a third-party registration and expense report for the production of a ‘Friends Don’t Let Friends Vote Trudeau’ bumper sticker campaign during the 43rd federal election,” Becker said.
The statement said the UCP considers the matter resolved.
The undertaking was accepted by the commissioner on May 29.
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