NDP pounces on rival’s 2011 business foreclosure
The business history of Kootenay East B.C. Liberal candidate Tom Shypitka includes a foreclosure action against a Cranbrook sports pub he was a partner in.
So during this provincial election campaign, that’s being raised as a character issue by the B.C. NDP.
Court documents obtained by NDP researchers indicate that the business, Finnegans Wake Sports Pub & Grill, ran up $147,000 in property tax and GST debts that had to be settled in the foreclosure action 5½ years ago. Documents also show Shypitka and his partner did not dispute that.
B.C. Liberal spokesman Emile Scheffel characterized his rival’s actions as a “smear release” that didn’t offer any new information in the community, but the NDP’s Tim Rennenberg countered it was worth raising questions about a candidate running, in part, on his acumen as a financial planner.
And it is a sign that politics are heating up in a constituency considered a bellwether riding — previously held by retiring longtime incumbent Bill Bennett — that the NDP would like to put in play.
Bennett won the seat in 2013 with 63 per cent of the popular vote — more than 4,200 ballots over NDP candidate Norma Blissett, a teacher and former forester.
In 2017, however, Shypitka — a recently elected Cranbrook city councillor — is in a four-way race to take over the seat with NDP contender Randal Macnair, a 15-year veteran of municipal politics in Fernie; Green party candidate Yvonne Marie Prest, and Libertarian Keith Komar.
Shypitka, who now works as a financial adviser, did not respond to Postmedia’s calls for comment by Monday’s deadline.
In 2011, however, the court documents related to the foreclosure spell out debts left to be paid through the action, which included $93,000 in unpaid property taxes and utility bills to the City of Cranbrook between 2005 and 2011, which were added to one of two mortgages on the property that were also in default.
In addition, one of the court orders in the action spelled out a $49,000 disbursement to the Attorney General of Canada to settle outstanding GST payments between 2007 and 2010.
“Voters in Kootenay East deserve to know about the candidates who are looking to represent them,” Rennenberg said in a brief emailed statement.
“Christy Clark, who seeks to be premier on May 9, will expect citizens to pay their taxes every year, shouldn’t she have the same expectation of her own candidates?”
Scheffle, however, countered in his own brief emailed statement that Shypitka has been upfront about the “challenges earlier in his business career and dealt with them publicly.
“Since then, Tom has been elected to city council, his commitment to the community is well-known,” Scheffle said.