Last night, Elections BC launched an investigation into Surrey-Fleetwood BC Liberal Candidate Garry Thind’s campaign for allegedly violating the “Corrupt Voting” provision of the Elections Act.

14 hours later, media asked Wilkinson what he knew about Thind’s involvement. Wilkinson declined to answer and said he “first heard this about half an hour ago.”

Wilkinson said “we will hope to have more clarity in the days to come” but did not commit to disclosing what the BC Liberals know about Garry Thind’s role.

What we know:

• Through a Whatsapp group, Thind’s campaign told nearly 100 volunteers to gather the personal information of voters so the campaign could request mail-in ballots on their behalf
• Requesting ballots or voting on another person’s behalf is a violation of the Corrupt Voting section of the Elections Act
• There are two administrators in the Whatsapp group: Candidate Garry Thind, and Baldeep Jhand, the campaign worker who issued the direction
• The BC Liberals have produced no evidence that Thind or any other person in the group subsequently corrected the campaign’s direction to violate the Elections Act

What we still don’t know:

• What has Garry Thind told the BC Liberal party about his involvement in and knowledge of this activity?
• Did Thind immediately correct Mr. Jhand and instruct volunteers not to engage in this activity?
• Did any of the other 95 people in the group instruct volunteers not to engage in this activity?
• Were there any follow up comments from Garry or other campaign workers in the chat?
• Have the BC Liberals spoken directly with everyone in the group? If not, how can they claim that no volunteers have engaged in this activity?
• Will the BC Liberals release the full chain of Whatsapp messages?

Documentation:

BC NDP complaint to Elections BC

Screenshots of the Whatsapp messages (see below)