Cambridge voters deserve answers about husband-wife team

In the interest of transparency, Belinda Karahalios needs to clear the air

Belinda Karahalios needs to clear the air.

Since Saturday, she has been the Progressive Conservative candidate for the riding of Cambridge in the June provincial election.

But already, there are concerns.

For one thing, she showed a dismal lack of class with her flyer, mailed to party members a few days before the nomination meeting.

It showed a photo of herself with her two opponents, Sunny Attwal and Bert Laranjo.

But instead of talking about her ideas for a better province, Karahalios’ flyer denigrated her opponents as “just visiting” because they don’t live in Cambridge. However, both work there and Attwal owns a business there. It was a low blow.

In the flyer, Karahalios also listed her backers as AxeTheCarbonTax.ca and TakeBackOurPCParty.com.

Her husband, Jim, is the selfdescribed founder of the anti-tax organization, and head of TakeBackOurPCParty.com, a movement to return the party to the grassroots.

Jim has registered as a third party with Elections Ontario. This can be an individual or special-interest group. The law limits their spending before and during election campaigns.

According to the Elections Ontario 2018 handbook, “third parties cannot engage in political advertising if it promotes a political party, nomination contestant, candidate, or leadership contestant and is arranged for in coordination with that political party, contestant, candidate, or relevant constituency association.”

It’s not unreasonable to ask what this all means for Belinda. Her husband’s organizations backed her. Did his supporters work for her campaign? Who paid for the flyers?

The Ontario Liberal Party (predictably) and the national organization Democracy Watch (interestingly) have both said there should be an investigation

by Elections Ontario.

Maybe the Karahalioses are completely in the clear. But their responses were not ideal.

Jim threatened to sue this newspaper for reporting on the Liberal claims. Belinda said these concerns are a question for Elections Ontario, “but this seems like yet another desperate attack from the Liberals.”

It’s all very puzzling, especially since Belinda had earlier demanded a full audit of the membership to make sure everyone who was signed up as a party member was legitimate.

Her commitment to accountability is great, but it should apply to herself as well as others.

Conservatives in Ontario have been through a bumpy road lately with the change in leadership. For Cambridge, a long struggle over the nomination has been extra stressful.

Peter Tudisco, a long-standing member of the Cambridge PCs who has served on the riding association board, put it this way: “If (party leader Doug Ford) can dismiss (Kitchener-Conestoga MPP) Michael Harris for something that happened six years ago, he should be looking at all improprieties within the party.”

He’s right. The air must be cleared, whether it is by the candidate, the party leader or the government. And that should happen before June 7, not after.