Former British Columbia Solicitor-General Kash Heed during a news conference in Vancouver on Friday April 9, 2010.Darryl Dyck/ The Canadian Press
B.C. Liberal MLA Kash Heed is heading to court to hang onto his seat, after the province's chief electoral officer threatened to remove him from office over his 2009 election campaign expenses.
Mr. Heed is asking the courts to absolve him of responsibility for his campaign spending, court documents released Tuesday by the B.C. New Democrats show.
Elections BC has found he exceeded the spending limit as a candidate in the last provincial election - a serious offence under the Election Act. Mr. Heed is fighting an order to resubmit his financial reports.
The case is expected to be heard in the next two weeks. If the court doesn't grant him relief, Mr. Heed could be the first MLA in B.C. in more than a century to forfeit his seat under the Elections Act.
In a letter dated Dec. 2, acting chief electoral officer Craig James gave Mr. Heed 30 days to respond to an order regarding his election finances. Mr. James warned that failure to comply would lead him to direct the Speaker of the House to vacate Mr. Heed's seat in the riding of Vancouver-Fraserview.
In response, Mr. Heed filed an application to the B.C. Court of Appeal asking not to be held responsible for his campaign spending, saying he was a neophyte in politics who had left such matters up to his campaign team.
"Since I was relatively new to politics and had never been involved in a political election at any level, I relied on [campaign manager]Barinder Sall … to guide me through the campaign processes and procedures," he stated in his Dec. 24 affidavit.
Mr. Sall is one of two former political associates of Mr. Heed facing criminal charges over the circulation of an anti-NDP pamphlet written in Chinese and English that circulated in the riding during the campaign.
Three months after receiving Mr. Heed's election financing report, Elections BC learned that the RCMP suspected the unsigned pamphlets were from the Heed camp, according to an affidavit filed by Elections BC official Nola Western.
That sparked a full audit of Mr. Heed's campaign spending, which concluded last June that because of the pamphlets Mr. Heed had spent $4,135.70 over the $70,000 limit. An MLA found to have spent over the limit ceases to hold office, according to the Election Act, "unless relief is granted by a court."
The chief electoral officer is opposing Mr. Heed's application for relief. In a Jan. 10 court response, Mr. James contends that Mr. Heed "has failed to present any reasonable explanation as to why he should not be held responsible for the failure on the part of his financial agent to file … as required by the Election Act."
Dawn Black, interim leader of the B.C. NDP, called on Mr. Heed to resign his seat. "It actually astonishes me that he thinks he is above the law," she said at a news conference in Victoria. She noted that the Liberals have been aware of the concerns of Elections BC for months and have been silent on the issue.
Mr. Heed did not return calls. However, he did contact Liberal leadership candidate George Abbott on Tuesday to say he will no longer be working on his campaign so that he won't "distract" from Mr. Abbott's bid to become B.C.'s next premier.
Bill Barisoff, Speaker of the House, said he believes Mr. Heed simply did not grasp his responsibility as a candidate to adhere to the campaign spending and reporting rules.
"I don't know that he understood that if I get that letter from the chief electoral officer that there would be no turning back - it's done, it's over," he said Tuesday. "I think he gets that now."
Mr. Heed is a former West Vancouver police chief who was recruited by the B.C. Liberals for the 2009 election as a star candidate. He has already lost his cabinet post as solicitor-general - twice - as a result of a police investigation related to alleged campaign financing irregularities.
According to information sworn by the RCMP to obtain search warrants, Mr. Heed has been investigated for two counts of criminal breach of trust. A police report now rests with an independent special prosecutor.