Prosecutor to dig deeper into Coun. Dudas campaign
Prosecutor will take initial look
Coun. Laura Dudas will come under the investigation of a prosecutor to see if it’s worth subjecting her to a court proceeding related to her 2018 election campaign finances.
The election compliance audit committee on Tuesday unanimously decided there were too many questions about Dudas’s financial filings, leading to alleged contraventions of the Ontario Municipal Elections Act.
“The committee was concerned with the number of alleged contraventions and feels that the public requires ... confidence in the electoral process,” committee chair Douglas Wallace said after the meeting. “Looking at the financial provisions in their entirety, we feel that they weren’t complied with completely in this case.”
The committee members are citizens with experience in governance and election oversight.
A city-funded auditor looked into complaints about Dudas’s campaign finances and confirmed some of the allegations, although Dudas and her lawyer disputed the findings.
Dudas is alleged to have used unaccounted signs from her unsuccessful 2014 campaign for council. Her campaign removed the signs from properties when it found out people had put them on display.
There was no information about how many 2014 signs were displayed or how long it took for them to be removed.
The auditor flagged T-shirts that were used before Dudas opened a campaign bank account and a video that was shot before she registered to run for council.
Dudas’s campaign financial statement didn’t account for other contributions that were missing receipts at the time of the audit or had illegible receipts, the auditors found.
Dudas produced more documentation Tuesday that accounted for some of the missing financial information.
There is a disagreement over when Dudas opened her campaign bank account, which informs when a candidate can start managing finances for the election.
Four candidates ran in the 2018 Innes ward race. Dudas won the seat with about 41 per cent of the votes.