Mandel will fight five-year ban

Alberta Party Leader Stephen Mandel, disqualified from running in the upcoming provincial election, says his chief financial officer missed a crucial filing deadline and then never told him about it.

Mandel says he didn’t learn until two weeks ago that he was facing a five-year ban for failing to file his nomination financial report on time.

“I had a CFO and he was in charge of making sure that was taken care of,” Mandel told reporters Saturday, stressing that he was not blaming anyone, but taking full responsibility for everything that happened with his nomination. “My CFO was sick,” he added. “He had to resign because he was not well.” Mandel said he will go to court as soon as possible to try to overturn the ban on the grounds the stated deadline rules from Elections Alberta are fuzzy and open to misinterpretation.

He spoke one day after Elections Alberta posted on its website the list of candidates and chief financial officers banned due to failure to file nomination financial reports or for filing them late.