Victoria – Elections BC has issued four administrative monetary penalties and posted them on the Elections BC website. One was from the 2022 Municipal Elections involving an Abbostford Candidate:
Background:
Jaspreet Anand was an unendorsed candidate for Councillor in the city of Abbotsford in the 2022 General Local Elections and acted as his own financial agent. For the 2022 calendar year, unendorsed candidates were permitted to contribute up to $2,500 to their own campaign.
On January 13, 2023, you filed a disclosure statement with Elections BC indicating that you contributed $3,154.84 to his own campaign in 2022.
Elections BC’s Electoral Finance Audit and Assessment team emailed and mailed him a letter on January 25, 2023, to advise him of the overcontribution and to explain the requirement to return the amount over the contribution limit. On May 8, 2023, he submitted a partial response to the request for a supplemental report indicating $1,300 of the prohibited contributions was returned.
The file was then forwarded to Elections BC’s Investigations team for follow up.
On May 15, 2023, Elections BC’s Investigations Director emailed a notice of disqualification from being nominated for, elected or holding office on local authority in B.C. until after the next general local elections for failure to file a supplementary report.
On November 23, 2023, Elections BC’s Investigations team emailed a Notice of Investigation regarding the prohibited contribution and asked if he had any additional information to provide.
Anand did not reply to the Investigator.
