ACCOUNTABILITY & TRANSPARENCY DENIED BY MECAC IN WOOLWICH

The Municipal Elections Compliance Audit Committee (MECAC) have a perfect record. They are zero for two. In other words they failed to uphold the Municipal Elections Act (1996) in both cases here in Woolwich Township when citizens following the process put in place by the Act requested an investigation into readily apparent multiple contraventions by each candidate. In fact for one of the candidates (mayor) MECAC even refused twice to order a professional forensic audit which is essentially obligatory when a candidate has clearly and obviously on the face of their Financial Statements made serious errors. Hers were so severe that she was issued a Default notice by the Woolwich Clerk, albeit grudgingly, and briefly lost her position as mayor. Despite this MECAC refused to order a professional Forensic Audit to get to the bottom of her contraventions of the Act. By the way today's Waterloo Region Record article titled "Woolwich councillor accused of election violations" while overall very good does not include among the mayor's violations her understating by thousands of dollars her expenses including still yet unstated expenses after four Financial Statements.

Last summer Justice David Broad gave mayor Shantz her job back CONDITIONALLY. It was conditional upon her refiling accurate Financial Statements including a Supplementary Financial Statement. He also wrote in his Judgement that she must include all expenses and all contributions to her Financial Statements as a condition of her reinstatement. As of last December I gave documented evidence including photographs to Crown Prosecuter Alexander Andres indicating that she had not included various expenses from her party at the Elmira Curling Club. The prosecuter indicated that names along with the photograph would be very helpful to his decision whether or not to go ahead. After much effort I also obtained those and provided them. Lo and behold the case went to an outside Prosecuter who dropped all the charges.

Councillor Scott Hahn mangled his Financial Statement beyond belief. Quite frankly a five year old should have been embarassed by the lack of effort put into his. Lack of effort and lack of accuracy. From $328 in total expenses he's now nudging the $3,000 mark. By comparison while mayor Shantz's efforts were pathetic and inaccurate his were quite simply a joke. I have to suspect that someone more experienced at the Woolwich Township Hall must have told him not to worry, nobody ever reads the on-line Financial Statements of candidates. Anybody want to bet that in 2018 Woolwich candidates will be more accurate and complete when they fill out their forms? A half dozen Woolwich citizens including myself who made formal complaints and or spoke at the MECAC hearings can take credit for that.

In my mind the biggest unresolved matter with Mr. Hahn is not his incompetence in making the original mess of his Financial Statement. It is his efforts after the fact to "fix" it. The details including invoices and receipts came out via the Forensic Audit by Froese Forensic Partners dated August 11, 2015. This is precisely why MECAC are supposed to order a Forensic Audit when there are apparent contraventions of the Elections Act. The incredibly detailed Forensic Audit makes a candidate's voluntary audit look like a joke which is essentially what it is.

Following is a quote from the Forensic Audit, paid for by the Township, which just nibbles around the edges of my and other citizens concerns with Mr. Hahn's "fixing" of his Financial Statement: "We are unable to conclude whether Scott Hahn believes, or ought to believe, that the information on the contributers, as reported in the Amended Financial Statement, is true. That is, whether the three family members actually contributed cash to Tri-Mach's petty cash in or around October 2014." (3.22 pg.10 ).

Wow! Think carefully about what that statement from the Auditors may be alleging. Then ask yourselves why in hell did Carl Zehr and the boys and girls (Grace Sudden) on the committee (MECAC) refuse to send this Forensic Audit on to the Prosecuter. It is my opinion that the whole thing smells very bad.