Compliance Agreements

COMMISSIONER OF CANADA ELECTIONS

CANADA ELECTIONS ACT

Compliance agreement

This notice is published by the Commissioner of Canada Elections, pursuant to section 521 of the Canada Elections Act, S.C. 2000, c. 9 (hereafter referred to as the "Act").

On February 20, 2013, and pursuant to section 517 of the Act, the Commissioner of Canada Elections entered into a compliance agreement with M. Baird Judson (hereafter referred to as the "Contracting Party"), of the village of Alexandra, Prince Edward Island, who was the Christian Heritage Party candidate in the 2008 federal general election in the electoral district of Charlottetown.

In the compliance agreement, the Contracting Party acknowledged that:

• Pursuant to section 436 and section 437 of the Act, the official agent of a candidate is responsible for opening a campaign bank account and administering the candidate's financial transactions for the electoral campaign and for reporting on those transactions.
• Although he appointed an official agent for his 2008 federal general election campaign, he personally opened a bank account for the campaign and administered all of the campaign financial transactions.
• Subsection 438(2) of the Act prohibits any person other than the candidate's official agent from accepting contributions to the candidate's campaign.
• He accepted all of the contributions made to his campaign, totalling $8,750.00, and none of these contributions was accepted by his official agent.
• Subsection 438(4) of the Act prohibits a person or entity, other than the candidate's official agent, from paying the candidate's campaign expenses except for petty expenses and the candidate's personal expenses.
• He, instead of his official agent, paid all of the campaign expenses by personally writing cheques against the campaign bank account for a total amount of $8,750.00.
• Section 405.31 of the Act prohibits an individual from making, in respect of each contribution made under Part 18 of the Act, a cash contribution in an amount exceeding $20.
• He gave a cash contribution of $700.00 to his campaign, thereby exceeding the authorized cash contribution limit by $680.00.

The Contracting Party has accepted responsibility for these acts.

Before entering into this compliance agreement, the Commissioner of Canada Elections took into account a number of considerations, including the fact that the Contracting Party had promptly admitted the facts and taken responsibility for the acts that led to the compliance agreement.

Ottawa, March 27, 2013

Yves Côté, QC
Commissioner of Canada Elections