Tommy Kickham wins hotly contested Liberal nomination
The Liberal Party of P.E.I. has nominated its first official candidate for the coming election.
In a hotly contested nomination contest at the Eastern Kings Sportsplex on Tuesday night, past Liberal candidate Tommy Kickham defeated businesswoman Maureen Campbell-Hanley to become the party’s candidate for Souris-Elmira.
The nomination meeting was held amid speculation that Premier Wade MacLauchlan may call an election as early as this fall. Both the Green Party and the Progressive Conservative party have already held several nomination meetings.
Kent MacDonald, president of the Liberal riding association in Souris-Elmira, said the contest between Kickham and CampbellHanley brought a large turn-out to the meeting.
“I initially set up 260 chairs. And then we had the rink staff set up another 40 or 50 and some people were standing,” MacDonald said.
MacDonald would not disclose how many delegates voted for either candidate but said 260 Liberal party members who lived in the riding cast ballots on Tuesday night. The riding’s Liberal membership doubled over the course of the nomination contest.
“We had two very strong contenders, and they both had a lot of supporters,” he said.
The nomination meeting had originally been scheduled for late June but was re-scheduled due to a death in the family of one of the candidates.
Current PC MLA for Souris-Elmira Colin LaVie defeated Kickham during the last provincial election by 228 votes.
Kickham previously worked for the P.E.I. Mutual Insurance Company before retiring last year. He has served as a board member of the Eastern Kings Health Foundation and has volunteered with the Eastern Kings Exhibition and Big Brothers.
Campbell-Hanley worked as the head of operations for chef Michael Smith. She oversaw the publication of several of Smith’s cookbooks and has run several businesses in Souris, including Rite Bite Cafe, the Platter House, Scallywags & the Scoop at Basin Head.
Despite her loss, CampbellHanley pledged to support Kickham in the coming election.
“The minute I put in my nomination papers, I sent an email to Tommy and said ‘here’s the deal: we both want the same thing’” she said in an interview.
Campbell-Hanley said she is considering putting her name forward as a political candidate in the future.
“I’ve kind of got a taste for it,” she said.
Kickham could not be reached for comment by deadline.
Two defendants named in the sprawling $50-million lawsuit launched against the province have denied having access to inside information related to a securities investigation of one of the main players of the e-gaming saga.
Lawyer William Dow and former lobbyist Tracey Cutcliffe filed a statement of defence last week in response to the lawsuit. In the statement, both deny having access to or disclosing information related to a securities investigation into Capital Markets Technology, the plaintiff in the lawsuit.
CMT’s subsidiary began negotiations with Innovation P.E.I. to establish an electronic financial transaction service on the Island in the summer of 2012. The securities investigation ended up scuttling the negotiations. CMT has filed a lawsuit for $50 million in damages from the province and 14 defendants.
In addition to Dow and Cutcliffe, the defendants include former premier Robert Ghiz, former finance minister Wes Sheridan, current deputy minister of finance Neil Stewart and Chris LeClair, Ghiz’ former chief of staff.
The lawsuit alleges “misfeasance in a public office” of various public officials and provincial employees, claiming they had knowingly attempted to harm the reputation of CMT. The suit claims that various individuals obtained confidential information about the securities investigation into CMT’s investors before CMT was informed about it.
As counsel to Innovation P.E.I., Dow helped negotiate a memorandum of understanding with CMT’s subsidiary. The lawsuit alleges that on Sept. 20, 2012, Dow announced at a meeting with potential clients of CMT’s subsidiary, including representatives from HSBC bank, that the province’s superintendent of securities had begun an investigation into CMT.
“Dow stated, in front of potential clients, that the subject of the investigation was that it had been alleged that a woman with cancer had invested her life savings in CMT and that her investment had been lost,” said the statement of claim from CMT.
In the statement of defence, counsel for Dow denies that he met with HSBC representatives. The statement claims Dow told a lawyer acting on behalf of CMT that Innovation P.E.I. was unable to continue negotiations because of the securities investigation. The statement denies Dow said anything about a woman with cancer.
Dow had initially invested $10,000 into Capital Markets Technology, prior to the negotiation of the MOU. In a 2015 story in the Globe and Mail, Dow stated he had not realized his investment, made to a numbered company that was a CMT-subsidiary, was related to CMT. He told a Globe and Mail reporter that, once he became aware of a potential conflict, he withdrew from negotiating the MOU.
Dow’s statement of defence does not mention his prior investment in CMT.
A 2016 report examining the e-gaming saga by the province’s Auditor General Jane MacAdam noted that Dow had initiated the negotiation of the MOU agreement with the CMT subsidiary.
The report also stated CMT signed a settlement agreement with the Superintendent of Securities in relation to illegal distribution of securities.
Cutcliffe, a former deputy minister, helped negotiate a 30-day extension of the MOU on behalf of CMT’s subsidiary. The lawsuit alleges that Cutcliffe was contracted by both the government of P.E.I. and CMT. The filing claims Cutcliffe obtained internal information about the securities investigation and “conveyed this information to other government agents.”
In the statement of defence, counsel for Cutcliffe denies that she obtained or shared prior internal information about the securities investigation.
Her defence claims that CMT’s subsidiary “failed to pay accounts owing” to Cutcliffe.
The provincial government and nine of the other defendants named in the lawsuit filed a motion to dismiss the suit on June 18. Since then, no affidavits or exhibits have been filed by government counsel.