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Former MLA loses appeal of 2015 election sign fine

Chief Electoral Officer fined
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A former Central Alberta MLA has lost his appeal of a $250 administrative penalty handed him during the 2015 provincial election.

However, Joe Anglin vows to take his fight all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

“We’re really disappointed with the court’s decision,” said Anglin, who ran as an independent incumbent in Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre riding. He ended up losing to Wildrose Party’s Jason Nixon.

In the unusual case, Anglin was fined $250 during the campaign by the Chief Electoral Officer because information relating to the sponsor of Anglin’s election sign was too small and not sufficiently legible.

Anglin took the case to Court of Queen’s Bench, which dismissed his request for a judicial review of the decision. He then went to the Alberta Court of Appeal, which issued its decision to dismiss the appeal last week.

Anglin said the Alberta Court of Appeal missed the point that anchored his arguments — that by levying the fine against him the Chief Electoral Officer was effectively turning guidelines into law.

That is outside the electoral officer’s authority, said Anglin, who was represented by experienced Toronto lawyer and author Donald Bur.

“We’re not done by a long shot. We’re going to go to the Supreme Court on this issue.”

Anglin said he expects to apply for a leave to appeal within a month. Leave must be granted before the nation’s highest court will hear an appeal.

The three-justice Court of Appeal panel’s memorandum of judgment notes that Anglin did not dispute that his election signs breached guidelines in the Election Act but rather the guidelines do “not constitute law and cannot form part of the Act, and as such a breach of the guidelines is not a contravention of the Act.”

“There is, therefore, no basis on which to impose an administrative penalty for breach of the Act.”

In dismissing the appeal, the appeal court says whether judging the issue by “reasonableness” or “correctness” the justices “are satisfied that on either standard this appeal is without merit.”

The decision notes that the guidelines under the Elections Act are “forms of law.”

Anglin, who is studying law at Purdue University, disagrees with that finding.

“(The appellant court) claims the guidelines are part of the Act. I don’t read that at all,” he said. “We’re puzzled by their decision.

“Basically they’re wrong and I’m going to hold their feet to the fire.

“What we are dealing with the expansive authority of a bureaucrat, who basically, if we allow this to stand, can write anything into his guidelines at any time and somehow it becomes binding — and we’re saying it doesn’t.”

The appeal was heard in Edmonton on Sept. 5 before Justices Marina Paperny, Bruce McDonald and Jo’Anne Strekaf.



pcowley@reddeeradvocate.com

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