P.E.I. GREENS PUSH BACK IN LEGISLATURE
P.E.I. Coalition for Proportional Representation spokesman, Green party president deny comments made in provincial legislature by Opposition MLA
A former campaign manager with a group pushing for proportional representation in P.E.I. says the Green party didn’t get personal information on the organization’s supporters.
On Thursday, P.E.I. Coalition for Proportional Representation representative Mark Greenan told The Guardian he was shocked and disappointed to hear Opposition MLA Darlene Compton make comments he said were false.
“Completely without any basis in fact,” he said.
During Wednesday’s question period, Compton said members of the public contacted the Opposition office with concerns the Green party was using personal information about them that was given to the coalition.
That information was allegedly used in a byelection in Charlottetown-Parkdale in October, which Green candidate Hannah Bell won.
Green Leader Peter Bevan Baker denied the allegation.
Greenan said he was also disappointed no one from the Opposition reached out to him to see if the information was accurate, adding that it was not.
When asked how he knew the Green party didn’t take personal information from the coalition’s database, Greenan said there are records that show any time someone pulled data in 2017.
That happened five times, and there were records showing those were for legitimate purposes, Greenan said.
“They can all be traced back to decisions the PR coalition made as a group.”
Green party president Anna Keenan, who is a volunteer with the coalition, also denied the allegations.
“It came way out of left field, and they’re absolutely unfounded,” she said.
Keenan said the Green party doesn’t even have information on individual voters’ preferences on the proportional representation issue.
She does have access to the coalition’s database but hasn’t taken any of the information from it for the Green party.
“The accusation that we’ve transferred information across — there’s actually no proof. It’s just hearsay,” she said.
Keenan said the majority of the people who voted in the electoral reform plebiscite in 2016 voted in favour of proportional representation.
“That was certainly a talking point for Green party door knockers,” she said.
If someone took that to mean the party had personal information about voters, that was a misinterpretation, Keenan said.
“It’s a general thing that’s well known about Hannah’s district.”
After denying the allegations Wednesday, Bevan-Baker tabled two letters in the legislature Thursday asking Elections P.E.I. and the privacy commissioner to investigate the matter.
“We are requesting that your office conduct an investigation to ascertain the basis of these allegations and provide the party with an opportunity to refute these serious charges,” Bevan-Baker wrote in the letter.