National Scandal: Returning Officers cause hurdles in the Nomination process

The major parties have got threatened from our Direct Democracy platform, which requires giving power back to people of Canada.

CFF-Canada’s Fourth Front had planned to field at least 30 candidates in the snap election announced by Justin Trudeau. Due to scarcity of time, we could only assemble about 16 candidates across Canada. And even those could not complete nominations because of deliberate obstacles created by Elections Canada.

We are ‘shocked’ when two Returning Officers (ROs) appointed by Elections Canada, Louise Rondeau and Roci Freeman, tried to block our 2 candidates from participating in the federal election. This included James McNair in Pontiac (Quebec), our co-leader leading national campaign and Mark Dickson, a physically handicapped candidate who tried to file in Oakville (Ontario) against a sitting cabinet Minister, Anita Anand. This could not have been just a coincidence because the method used by ROs was exact same.

Our 2 candidates for Pontiac and Oakville had submitted 119 and 109 signatures respectively Both ROs rejected 51 of the 119 and 52 of 109 elector signatures submitted by our candidates for Pontiac and Oakville respectively. This was deliberately done for WRONG reasons of comparing the elector names with existing electoral lists, thereby violating the Elections Act.  It is a well-known fact that not all Canadians are registered with Elections Canada and that many people move in and out of ridings in between elections. This basic process is known to even the lowest staff within elections Canada. The ROs not only violated Election Act, they failed to reply back to written concerns of party leader Partap Dua, when he drew their attention in writing to Canada  Election Act.

These two incidents did not happen by chance and there is something bigger behind these incidents. Our Direct Democracy wave has threatened the big parties. Smaller parties are blocked from participating in a fair democratic process and they are kept engaged in complaint processes that result in waste of time and effort. Our conclusion from 2019 and 2021 elections, and other elections is that the elections in Canada are not fair for small political parties and independents with limited resources. The system and Elections Canada establishment are heavily stacked against smaller parties in Canada and tilted in favor of established parties. There have been absolutely no improvements in workings and perception of our electoral system. The election  complaints lead to nowhere and Commissioner’s office, as per their own investigators, has no power to intervene when Elections Canada staff is engaged in blocking a democratic process. They stated that they can only investigate after the fact. That is same as the Police saying, ‘we cannot stop a murder from happening and will only investigate after the murder has taken place’.
Ms Louise Rondeau, the Returning Officer (RO) for Pontiac, Quebec, gave the earliest available appointment for filing papers appointment to James McNair our candidate in Pontiac and co-leader, 5 days later for Wednesday, 25 August 2021 despite the fact he made the request on Friday 20 August. Likewise, Ms Roni Freeman, The RO for Oakville, at first confused our candidate Mark Dickson, by giving him the earliest appointment to file nomination papers 6 days later between 2 and 6 PM on 31 August, 2021 which was 1 day AFTER the closing of nominations at 2 PM on 30 August, 2021. Had he not known the deadline, the candidate would have been out of the elections anyway. Then after heated arguments, she gave him the appointment for noon, barely 2 hours before the 2 PM deadline of nominations on 30 August, refusing to accommodate him for Sunday, 29 August 2021. This was intentionally done to disable the candidate from obtaining more signatures if required. It should be noted that candidates need 100 signatures from electors/voters residing within the riding they are wanting to run.

Bothe ROs corrected their count more than 1 day later. The Pontiac numbers were revised from 68 to 89 valid signatures, while the Oakville numbers were revised from 57 to 84 valid signatures (in fact the correct valid signatures were 89 for Oakville). So the ROs had deliberately under-counted 21 and 32 valid elector signatures respectively. These are not small shortfalls for 100 required signatures. The harm had been done by then as James McNair had to return from Toronto to Pontiac, Quebec to get 50 more signatures, and Mark Dickson had no luck as his deadline was already over at 2 PM on 30 August. This injustice seems to be planned to block our party’s efforts to participate in a free democratic process in Canada.  The Oakville RO, was rude to our physically handicapped candidate Mark Dickson, who had collected 109 signatures with so much of efforts during Covid on a wheelchair. The RO’s conduct seemed to be motivated from some specific goal which needs to be investigated. Or else how could an RO, in a position of responsibility, be so rude to a handicapped candidate? In fact, Ms Roci was equally rude to Partap Dua, leader of CFF, when he drove 90 km to Oakville office to intervene.
As James McNair lost valuable time, and our whole time got absorbed in phone calls and filing complaints to Commissioner and Chief Electoral Officer right till 01 Sep 2021 the party could not focus on other candidates preparing in 16 other ridings. For us Oakville riding was the MOST important because we were motivated to dislodge Anita Anand. We sent multiple complaints but got no justice. Elections Canada did not even reply back.

When we were filing complaints, we had absolutely no hopes of justice from, either Commissioner of Canada Election Office, nor from Chief Electoral Officer of Canada’s Office.

Like most other establishments in Canada, they are no different, even though they are entrusted with the sacred task of holding fair and impartial election.