Following the first stumble by Abbotsford FIRST’s candidate for Council, Dave Sidhu, that occurred when he put up his campaign signs outside of the prescribed election period, more irregularities have surfaced.
As you can see from the article below, Mr. Sidhu is apparently endorsed by Abbotsford FIRST.
https://www.abbotsfordfirst.com/abbotsfordfirst_nominates_dave_sidhu_as_its_first_candidate
Additionally, he claims to be an Abbotsford FIRST candidate on his marketing material:
However, a recent query of the Abbotsford City Elections Officer resulted in Abbotsford Today learning that Mr. Sidhu is running as an independent. He is not, in fact, running under the Abbotsford FIRST party banner.
This should concern voters greatly and for many reasons, and questions need to be answered including:
- Is Mr. Sidhu in breach of the Elections Act by advertising he is a member of a party, advertising he is running under a Party banner, but then not registering as a party candidate. That would be no different than if I told everyone I was the Conservative candidate in the upcoming Federal election and did not have the party endorsement and did not register as a party member. It would be up to the Party and media to challenge me. Abbotsford FIRST must answer for this. Is it an oversight? Is this on purpose because you don’t have faith in the competency of this candidate?
- The issues that Mr. Sidhu has found himself in with relation to his campaign are some of the most simple parts of running a municipal campaign. Is he competent to be a Councillor?
- Does Abbotsford FIRST confirm that Mr. Sidhu is a party candidate and therefore do they also take responsibility for his campaign incompetence? Most candidates have a very small team of 2 or 3 people running their campaign and they have no issues like Mr. Sidhu. Abbotsford FIRST has 3 sitting members (Brenda Falk resigned recently over yet another scandal), a full Board of Directors and, at one time, claimed access to a 20 person advisory council.
The most troubling aspect of Mr. Sidhu’s “confusion” over whether his a party member or not is that he may be willfully misleading voters at the Polls. Many voters vote by exclusion. So if a voter was determined to NOT vote for an Abbotsford FIRST candidate, and he is not identified as one on the ballot, a voter may vote for him and be unaware that he is an Abbotsford FIRST member.
Either this is incompetent, or it could be construed as an attempt to confuse the voter…and that just might be fraud.
