No, BCA survey didn’t break any laws ahead of election, say Burnaby RCMP and city official

Burnaby’s chief electoral officer says the municipal party Burnaby Citizens’ Association (BCA) didn’t break any campaign financing rules by running a community engagement survey that gave participants a chance to win a prize.

Burnaby RCMP, meanwhile, says that no laws appear to have been broken by the BCA either.

Rival party One Burnaby had earlier suggested the BCA may have breached the Criminal Code or the Election Act by running the survey.

In a press release, One Burnaby said it filed a report with Burnaby RCMP to investigate any possible breach ahead of the upcoming municipal election.

The BCA denied all allegations of rule-breaking, telling the Beacon that its campaign has been run in full compliance with provincial and federal law.

“We believe in a strong democratic system that includes checks and balances from neutral third party government agencies. We welcome any inquiries into our campaign,” campaign manager Jonny Sopotiuk said in an emailed statement.

A poster included with One Burnaby’s press release links to an online survey attached to the BCA website. The Beacon has reviewed the survey, which included questions asking participants to rate how they feel about certain election issues and whether they planned to vote for the BCA on Oct. 15.

“To thank-you for your feedback we’ll be holding a weekly Made-in-Burnaby prize pack valued at over $250,” the BCA website reads.

One Burnaby campaign manager Kit Sauder said Thursday that upon finding out about the survey, he sent it to his organization’s campaign council, which suggested that the survey may constitute a breach of the Election Act and of the Criminal Code of Canada, Section 206 (1).

“Any political party attempting to earn the trust and support of the citizens of Burnaby, is at the very least, obligated to observe and uphold the laws and regulations of the City of Burnaby, the province of British Columbia, and the government of Canada,” said president of the One Burnaby Electors Organization, Adam Pankratz, in the press release.

While Sauder told the Beacon via phone conversation on Thursday evening that RCMP had “relayed the information to Crown Counsel for consideration [regarding possible charges],” police told the Beacon that the case was not being pursued as a criminal matter.

“Burnaby RCMP received a report on Thursday, Oct. 6 outlining an allegation related to the municipal election. The allegation does not appear to be criminal in nature. The matter has been forwarded to Burnaby’s Elections Office for its consideration,” RCMP said in an emailed statement.

RCMP did forward the complaint to the Burnaby Elections Office to investigate further—but chief electoral officer Lynne Axford says she advised them that the matter would actually fall under the purview of Elections BC.

It’s important to note that municipal elections and governments in BC are not actually governed by the Election Act, but rather the Local Government Act, and Elections BC administers campaign financing, disclosure, and election advertising rules under the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act—the pertinent legislation here.

The Beacon has reached out to Elections BC for more information and will update this story when it receives a response.

Axford said as long as the party reported the prizes offered during the survey on its financial disclosure statements, it wouldn’t have broken any rules—and said that the prize wouldn’t constitute vote-buying.

Local elector organizations file their financial disclosure statements near the end of the year, meaning that the BCA’s 2022 statement has not yet been filed.

Political science expert Stewart Prest told the Beacon that while the One Burnaby press release doesn’t explicitly include the term “vote-buying,” it could imply that that’s what the BCA is doing—and he’s not sure if One Burnaby has a case there.

“I don’t see any evidence that [the survey] is an effort of vote-buying. It’s not trying to reward [people] for voting, or voting in a particular way. I think [the press release] is more generally an effort to try to create the impression that there is some degree of nefariousness or corruption within their political opponents,” Prest told the Beacon.

Both the Election Act and the Local Government Act include similar sections on vote-buying, under the Election Offences categories.

The Local Government Act prohibits a person from paying, lending, giving, or procuring money, gifts, refreshments, or any other kind of benefit to induce a person to vote or to refrain from voting. That includes inducing a person to vote or not to vote for a specific candidate or party.

The BCA survey, while offering a prize pack, doesn’t attach the prize to an expectation that the winner will vote or support the BCA—but says the prize is included as a thank-you for participants’ feedback.

Section 206 of the Criminal Code of Canada, meanwhile, technically criminalizes all for-profit gambling (although it also lays out several exceptions to that law, including provincial lotteries, casinos, and charity events). But that necessarily doesn’t make all other lotteries, giveaways, and raffles illegal.

“In its simplest form, gambling involves a prize, a chance and a consideration (money or other economic value) exchanged. Business promotions that are a combination of these three elements constitute a form of gambling. Most businesses circumvent the gambling characterization by removing or changing one of these three elements,” writes Alberta-based legal publication LawNow Magazine.

“For example, the business charges nothing (no consideration) for its customers to win a prize. Perhaps skill (as in answering a question) replaces random chance. These contests, prizes and games are technically not gambles. They are legal and unregulated.”

The BCA survey doesn’t require participants to make any purchase or consideration to be entered for the prize.

Meanwhile, Prest notes that this close to the election, it’s not surprising that candidates are going on the offensive against their opponents—and has a few words of advice for voters still unsure of who they’ll cast their ballots for on Oct. 15.

“Spend time with the information that came out earlier in the campaign—where parties have put together platforms, where they have made commitments, what are they going to do about the issues that matter most to voters. Really focus on that, because once the dust settles, that’s going to be what matters: how these different candidates are going to govern their respective municipalities. That’s going to be time well spent,” Prest said.

“And there’s a lot of information out there… It is worth the half an hour that it takes to get up to speed on these issues to take part in the democratic process. Because municipal government really matters in our lives in all sorts of ways that we don’t even necessarily think about.”