BC Liberal Party Is Violating BC Election Act Sec 223 on Election Day by Online Advertising

Update3 The Vancouver Sun today Wed may 13th 09 has and covered the story on page A11.  Also The Victoria Times Colonist is also on their story in todays paper on page B7.

The penalty for breaking the law could include up to a $10,000 fine and a year in jail. “The penalties are up to the chief electoral officer’s discretion,” said Ken Faris ( Elections B.C. spokesman). “Since the B.C. Liberals responded to our request (to take the offending tweets down), we’re not going to pursue the issue any further.”

Liberal spokesman Chad Pederson said the party removed the items after being contacted by Elections B.C.

“We think it’s a debatable point,” Pederson said, noting that the technology is new. But rather than argue the matter, he said, the party chose to take the items down and pursue the issue at a later date.

Update2 Looks like Green Party also breaking election laws advertising on Twitter on election day #bcelection #bcvotes2009 Like the liberals they’ve deleted their tweets from twitter via Georgia Straight here’s the tweet

Go Green – Be Green – Vote Green

BCGreens: Go Green – Be Green – Vote Green #bcelection
about 14 hours ago from Nambu
http://twitter.com/BCGreens/statuses/1773456965

and the same tweet 6 hours later

You can find it by searching twitter for the name of the tweet

Also BC Liberals violated the law 3 times not one, my mistake.

The Vancouver Suns @gillianshaw shows that Elections BC doesn’t really understand the internet that well and that Elections BC said the BC Liberals “were in contravention of the act” and ordered the BC Liberal party to delete their tweets at 10.30am. But the one I took a screenshot of was still there at 1.30pm

UPDATE: The BC Liberal party has deleted the tweet, without apology or explanation. I have i higher rez version if people are interested they can email me for it.

Around 9.30 this morning, Tuesday May 12th, 2009, The BC Liberal Party violated the BC elections act, section 223 by doing online advertising on Twitter.

The BC Liberal Party’s Offical Twitter account

published this tweet

The BC Liberals are the best choice to build B.C.: http://tinyurl.com/dmy3mq #bcelection
http://twitter.com/bcliberalparty/statuses/1775236510

clicking on that tinyURL link goes to this link on the BC Liberal Party’s official website titled “Improving and protecting vital public services” and talks about how much the govt has spent on health spending.

Rather ironic since the BC Liberals are TOTALLY Ignoring the BC Medical Associations 8 recommendations on ADHD in their February policy paper. It said that ADHD is costing BC half a billion annually but they only counted children with ADHD and ignored adults with ADHD, and there’s more adults with ADHD than kids with ADHD. So it’s costing BC multiple billions

I’ve tried asking several Liberals on twitter for their position on the BCMA ADHD policy paper and none have responded. The Liberals like the BC NDP, BC Greens & BC conservative party are basically using social media in an Anti-social manner, just one way advertising vs acutal conversations. I’ve asked many BC MLA candidates on twitter for their position on the BCMA ADHD policy paper and got either no response or some generic non answer avoidance strategy ie “whole system needs to be revamped”

I even asked 2 of their MLA candidates Colin Hansen and  Margaret MacDiarmid in person last Thursday at the Ridge and the responses I basically got was the Kim Campell quote ie an election is no time to discuss policy. They and NDP Mel Lehman all basically said there’s only a few days left in the campaign no time for policy discussions contact me after the election. Marget was the past president of the BC Medical Association and said as a doctor she’d be more open to dealing with that, and Mel seemed to be genuinely interested if my memory serves me correctly but still no policy response. I wish I had brought a tape recorder.

Here’s my screenshot of the BC Liberal Party’s tweet from my Flickr site

Found this on twitter from @lobbycanada on my #bcelction tweetdeck feed

RT @lobbycanada: Watch the @bcliberalparty break #bcelection law in real-time! Just follow them on Twitter as they tweet away in contravention of Section 233
http://twitter.com/lobbycanada/statuses/1775311783

then this

RT @lobbycanada: #BCElection Act, Section 233: On General Voting Day, election advertising must not be published, transmitted or broadcast. @BCliberalparty
http://twitter.com/lobbycanada/statuses/1775327696

Then I googled the elections act. The BC election site was limited to votefinder and election results all rest locked down.

So on BClaws.ca found this

Election Act
[RSBC 1996] CHAPTER 106

Part 11 — Election Communications
This Act is current to November 1, 2008