Kash Heed resigned as solicitor-general after learning he is going to be questioned by the RCMP about alleged violations of the Elections Act in his campaign office.JOHN LEHMANN
The controversial, unsigned campaign pamphlets that cost Kash Heed his post as solicitor-general were destined to be delivered to at least two Vancouver-area ridings in the final week of last year's provincial election.
The anti-NDP leaflets featured themes that were used in Liberal attacks on their chief political rival, including an accusation that the New Democrats would impose a "death tax" on inheritances.
A postal worker spotted the leaflets at a station that distributed to more than one riding and alerted NDP campaign workers.
"They were stacked up, thousands of them, ready to go out," said Mable Elmore, the NDP MLA for Vancouver-Kensington.
Her campaign manager persuaded Elections BC to cancel the mail-out from that post office because the documents failed to identify the sponsor, as required under elections law.
However, other postal outlets did distribute the Chinese-language mailings in the neighbouring riding of Vancouver-Fraserview, where Mr. Heed was seeking election.
Ms. Elmore's riding may have been caught in a campaign that was targeted at Vancouver-Fraserview voters because the postal codes overlap. But she said the leaflets would have been damaging to her campaign had they been delivered.
Nola Western, the electoral finance chief at Elections BC, said it is the first time that her agency has asked Canada Post to refuse to deliver election campaign material.
The New Democrats sought yesterday to use Question Period to ask Premier Gordon Campbell whether he was aware of the "smear campaign" at the time, but their questions were ruled out of order because of the current RCMP investigation into the affair.
The mystery of who produced and paid for the pamphlets was turned over to police after the May 12 election. Mr. Heed resigned last week after learning a special prosecutor has been appointed because the police investigation is now looking at possible offences involving his campaign office.
While Mr. Heed said this week he knew nothing of the pamphlets until after the election, he was clearly aware of how the "death tax" issue would play with the Chinese-Canadian voters who make up 40 per cent of his riding.
His campaign issued a news release on May 1 under the heading "Kash Heed meets with Chinese leaders, denounces NDP death tax."
The release said the NDP's purported support for a tax on inheritance was one of the chief concerns of those leaders. "The tax is simply not fair," Mr. Heed was quoted as saying. "The NDP tax plan would tax our families and small businesses to death, and after that, their Death Tax will tax them again."
Mr. Heed refused comment yesterday.
The central B.C. Liberal campaign also seized on the issue during the campaign, citing a five-year-old quote from NDP leader Carole James. The NDP quickly denied it was part of their platform.
The threat of an NDP death tax played with devastating effectiveness in the Chinese-Canadian community, said Jenny Kwan, the NDP MLA for Vancouver-Mt. Pleasant.
"It's one of the most important issues in the hearts and minds of the Chinese community, wanting to leave something for their children for the future," she said. "To suggest there is a death tax being imposed by the NDP would impact on a lot of Chinese people's thinking about voting for the NDP."
In the first week of May, Dwaine Martin, the NDP campaign manager for Vancouver-Fraserview, was starting to feel good about his candidate's prospects against Mr. Heed, a Liberal star candidate. Polling by telephone and at the doorstep on May 6 showed the critical Chinese-Canadian vote in the riding was strongly in favour of the NDP.
He said the day after the pamphlets started showing up, he knew his candidate, Gabriel Yiu, was in trouble. "I was paralyzed. We could hear the vote slipping away."