MEDIA RELEASE GIVEN TO OBSERVER, K-W RECORD & CKCO-TV

MEDIA RELEASE March 23, 2016

Following is my take on the Crown either dropping or staying all Municipal Election Act charges against mayor Sandy Shantz:

1) I must have missed the overnight announcement that the province has repealed the Municipal Elections Act (MEA) 1996.

2) All municipal politicians and future candidates sincerely thank the Crown for allowing them to ignore the Elections Act. Currently these same folks are drafting a wish list of further laws they would prefer to be ignored as well.

3) If the Crown advises that the specific laws broken by mayor Shantz are minor or trivial then again clearly I missed that part of the MEA which specifically stated that the following sections are trivial or minor and therefore merely suggestions to be followed by election candidates, if they feel like it.


The Municipal Elections Act is quite clear. All campaign expenses and all campaign donations must be included in the Financial Statements by a specific deadline. Above the threshold of $10,000 for either one, an Auditor’s Report is mandatory. The mayor submitted a sworn Statement wrongly claiming to be below $10,000 for both. She got caught by me. She admitted to some of her other additional errors as well. Her first of now three Auditor’s Reports was produced three months after the March 27, 2015 legal deadline. The MEA provides a process for citizens who have been brushed off by either Councils or Compliance Audit Committees to go directly to the courts by way of private charges through a Justice of the Peace. The MEA does not advise citizens that they will be blocked at every step of the way in their attempts to enforce the MEA.

Alan Marshall elector and citizen of Woolwich Township