Campaign audits must be conducted in the public interest, three audit subjects say after the City of Ottawa spent more than $450,000 to probe their election expenses. Read MoreThe City of Ottawa paid over $450,000 to audit 2022 candidates Shawn Menard and Doug Thompson and third-party advertiser Horizon Ottawa.
The City of Ottawa paid over $450,000 to audit 2022 candidates Shawn Menard and Doug Thompson and third-party advertiser Horizon Ottawa.
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Campaign audits must be conducted in the public interest, three audit subjects say after the City of Ottawa spent more than $450,000 to probe their election expenses.
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Candidates Shawn Menard and Doug Thompson and third-party advertiser Horizon Ottawa were all audited for their 2022 municipal campaign spending after Edward “Ted” Phillips, a retired Taggart executive, filed an application for a financial review of their election expenses. All three have expressed opposition to Tewin, a controversial proposal to build homes for up to 45,000 people on 445 hectares of land near Carlsbad Springs.
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The external audits unearthed apparent contraventions under the campaign finance rules, but all three were still under the campaign spending limits. None of the three cases has been moved to the prosecution stage.
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The Evening Citizen
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According to a memo from city clerk Caitlin Salter MacDonald to the members of council on Thursday, Menard’s external audit cost the city $59,470, Thompson’s cost $95,053 and Horizon Ottawa’s cost $35,363.
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The city also spent $24,454 in committee costs such as Election Compliance Audit Committee members’ honoraria, per diems, parking and hospitality, with another $136,875 on external legal counsel, $3,401 on prosecutors and $101,554 on the city clerk’s review of contributions.
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“Any taxpayer should be outraged that almost half a million dollars was spent on three audits that were not in the public interest,” said Sam Hersh, a Horizon Ottawa board member.
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The Election Compliance Audit Committee, an independent body, decided to commence a legal proceedings against Horizon Ottawa on Aug. 28, 2024, and referred the matter to an independent prosecutor. On Sept. 25, the prosecutor advised that, in their opinion, it was “not in the public interest to prosecute any of the apparent contraventions identified.”
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“We’re happy that this long, drawn-out stress process is over,” Hersh said Friday. “If there were any errors, they were made in good faith.”
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The audit committee decided not to commence legal proceedings against Menard on Sept 9 after an audit found Menard, who won the election in Capital ward in 2022, had understated his election sign expenses by $310.98, including the costs of screws, zip ties and wooden stakes.
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“All three of these minor error audits were brought by a former Taggart Development executive who cost the city a lot of time and money by going after people critical of their developments and Tewin in particular,” Menard said Friday. “Petty retribution and developer influence is alive and well in the City of Ottawa, unfortunately.”
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