The Burnaby Citizens Association has been fined after violating campaign finance laws during the 2022 municipal election.
On April 11, 2024, Elections BC announced that 12 parties, including the Burnaby Citizens Association, were under investigation.
On Jan. 24, 2025, the organization confirmed to the NOW the investigation into the BCA was still active.
On Tuesday (Feb. 18), Elections BC said its investigation was complete and found the party in violation of accepting a prohibited contribution other than through a financial agent and failing to return a prohibited donation. It was fined $600 as a result.
In the enforcement notice issued to the Burnaby Citizens Association, director of investigation Adam Barnes said BCA financial agent Hillary Bergshoeff filed a disclosure statement which was subject to an audit.
An Aug. 9, 2022, contribution of $1,250 failed to provide a residential address as required by the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act.
When the party was unable to identify an address related to the contribution, Bergshoeff filed a supplementary report on Dec. 12, 2023, stating that the return of the contribution was prohibited.
The file was forwarded to Election BC's investigations team for follow-up.
On May 12, 2024, Bergshoeff told Elections BC the contribution was received by party volunteers and remitted to Elections BC.
Just over a month later on June 19, Bergshoeff told the organization the contribution form was received and put into BCA's campaign bank account by at-the-time-candidate Pietro Calendino.
The Elections BC investigator confirmed with Calendino and Bergshoeff that Calendino was not authorized in writing to accept campaign contributions.
Section 27 (1) of the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act states that an elector organization must not accept campaign contributions except through the financial agent or an individual authorized in writing by that financial agent.
In the enforcement notice, Elections BC noted that once contacted, BCA cooperatively brought themselves into compliance and had been cooperative with the investigation.
The contribution was considered prohibited because the contributor didn't provide a residential address, while still being possible that the contributor themselves could have made the contribution if they had provided a proper address.
The maximum monetary penalty BCA could have faced was $2,500.
