Markham audit committee rejects application against Ho, Shore

YorkRegion.com
July 23, 2015
By Laura Finney

Markham’s compliance audit committee has rejected applications for compliance audits against Councillor Alan Ho, former Thornhill councillor Howard Shore and Raj Subramaniam.

Ho, the only one of the three who was elected in last fall’s municipal election, was also audited after the 2010 vote, after a complaint was filed by Jim Kwan who was runner-up in Ho’s ward.

That audit found Ho had a number of breaches, but he was ultimately cleared by the audit committee.

This time, resident Joyce Ramer requested the audit. One of the reasons given was because Ho had held a press conference announcing his candidacy on May 7, which was before officially filing his nomination papers on May 16.

“The expenses...for the press conference, would have been part of the expenses for his candidacy,” Ramer said during the July 20 committee meeting.

She also complained that he had some misleading election signs and unclaimed expenses related to signs and T-shirts.

Ho was represented by Jack Siegel, who addressed the issues, including the press conference.

He said Ramer did not actually identify which section of the act was contravened by Ho, and the application did not raise any expense issues.

“We’ve raised them in the interest of identifying expenses, in the interest in full disclosure and transparency in this process,” said Siegel. “Because something was identified that perhaps wasn’t exactly as an ideal mapping out of the campaign.”

The application only noted there was a press conference, he said.

“My submission is simply that you can say anything you want, you have charter protected free speech here. What you can’t do is incur an election expense,” he said.

“It does seem maybe there is a dispute about the amount, money was spent by a volunteer arguably on behalf of Mr. Ho for this event.”

That volunteer was Ho’s friend Simon Ip, who according to a written submission given to the committee by Ho, arranged the press conference and volunteered with Ho before and during his campaign.

“There is no beating around the bush, the press conference took place before he registered as a candidate,” said Siegel. “If expenses were incurred, if these are attributable to his campaign, they were incurred contrary to the Act. And that would be a concern.”

And while he said the conference was a mistake, these expenses did not affect the election, give Ho an unfair advantage or bring him over his expense limit.

During the lengthy discussions, Siegel also questioned if taxpayer money should be spent on an audit, noting the last time Ho was audited it cost the city $29,000.

Ho also addressed a few questions himself, but he appeared to struggle to give straight answers, which frustrated some members of the committee, but in the end they rejected the application.

Former councillor Shore also faced the committee. During a June 30 meeting, four applications were filed against him by residents Marilyn Ginsburg, Gerald Diner, Ricardo Mashregi and Paul J. Glionna.

Gilonna filed on behalf of the same group of residents who filed a complaint against Shore to the integrity commissioner earlier this year.

The four applications were treated as one by the audit committee.

In the application, the residents said they believed Shore had unclaimed expenses from his election campaign that would have put him over his spending limit of $31,979.

Shore claimed just under that amount.

“I believe there were numerous expenses as described under section 67 of the Municipal Elections Act that would put him well over his spending limit,” the complaint read.

According to the report, some of the events, such as the Movie in the Park, were not claimed. However, the integrity commissioner had concluded it was a campaigning event.

The residents wanted to see Shore claim the costs, which included the movie rental, the giant screen, free ice cream and entertainment. They also wanted Shore to claim other advertising, sponsorships and campaign contributions.

According to the meeting’s minutes, Siegel, who was also Shore’s agent, said the audit process was not for a code of conduct violation and it was not to discuss the integrity commissioner’s report.

He said the events mentioned by the applicants, such as the Movie in the Park, were reoccurring events and not campaign events.

He said the costs of an audit were high to prosecute the minor alleged contravention, which did not meet the threshold test that is outlined in the Act.

The committee decided that the applications for a compliance audit of Shore’s election campaign finances should be rejected.

The committee also decided to reject the application of a compliance audit against Subramaniam made by Councillor Colin Campbell.

For copies of the reports or minutes, visit markham.ca.