Borys loses Etobicoke-Centre by 6 votes, says Supreme Court of Canada

Former Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj’s long and tumultuous battle for Etobicoke-Centre has been decided by the Supreme Court in favour of Conservative Tim Opitz by a mere 6 votes. The case was not about the Etobicoke-Centre seniors home debacle with Opitz’s campaign manager or the infamous robo calls, but by the administrative errors made by Elections Canada that could have swayed a tight race separated by only 26 votes.

Last May, an Ontario judge reviewed the case and decided 79 votes should be discarded and called for a new by-election for that riding. The case was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, who made their decision yesterday:

But in a split decision, the Supreme Court found reason to reinstate 59 of those ballots — enough for Opitz’s election to stand. The majority decision argued the entitlement to vote cannot be annulled due to procedural errors and that there was a lack of evidence that most of the discarded ballots came from voters who were not qualified to vote.

The dissenting judges, including Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, argued procedural errors are a concern, and that counting ballots from voters who were not properly registered is unfair to other voters who were turned away for not having proper identification.

For Ted Opitz it was a sigh of relief as he headed to Ukraine to assist with the election observers in this weekend’s parliamentary elections. For Borys Wrzesnewskyj, a costly battle (rumoured to be around $350,000) to put for the first time in Canada’s history, the Elections Act under the legal microscope – decided not by unanimous decision but split among the opinions of the highest court of the land. For the law, the precedent set worried some that the bar is now set too high to overturn results:

“.. the burden of proof is exceedingly high, not only must you prove that there were irregularities, you must be able to prove that people who were not entitled to vote actually did vote and that is not an easy burden to prove.”

— Jean-Pierre Kingsley, former chief electoral officer of Canada

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association also shared similar concerns:

CCLA argued that, where there is a failure to follow the legislation, the effect of which, on a balance of probabilities, calls into question whether a candidate was elected by a majority of qualified voters in that riding, the seat must be vacated and a by-election must be held without delay. It is essential that the principles of Canada’s constitutional, parliamentary democracy are upheld.

The minority point of view, which is CCLA’s position, is that the legitimacy of the Parliamentary system rests on demonstrated compliance with electoral rules. These rules should be fairly and consistently applied and should ensure that only those qualified to vote do vote. Electoral systems can be manipulated and proper compliance with electoral rules are vital.

For now, Borys will continue to run his popular Future Bakery in Etobicoke, and says he will run again in the next Federal election, as noted in his interview last night on CBC’s Here and Now (around 16 minutes in). You can read the full court ruling as well.

 

‘Svitohliad’ returns as ‘ForumTV’, what do you think? (Watch the entire episode)

Last summer, Rogers TV axed many of its self-produced diversity programming on Omni1, including Ukrainian program Svitohliad, in order to cut costs after a disappointing financial quarter. The announcement came without warning and was made effective immediately, leaving a large void in the community. The only other show left was Kontakt (which was not effected because it is independently produced), now with the sole responsibility of producing all Ukrainian-Canadian programming for the entire country.

Acting swiftly to try and restore the Ukrainian program, the Buduchnist Foundation (a member-supported, charitable wing of the credit union) met with Rogers and offered to cover the program’s losses in order to keep it on the air.

With little announcement, the new show debuted last Sunday on Omni as ‘ForumTV‘, with a good first step of uploading its episode to YouTube:

Still with the show was long-time (almost 30 years!) producer Stefan Genyk-Berezowsky, but gone was the iconic host Iryna Korpan of 22 years. Korpan recently started her own film company and produced two documentaries, one about her grandmother who was executed by the Nazis for saving Jews during WW2, and the other about Roman Hnatyshyn the 24th Governor General of Canada of Ukrainian descent. Replacing her as host was actor Larysa Bajus, who’s previously worked with Genyk-Berezowsky at the Ukrainian Drama Theater Zahrava. Also the show has a new reporter Lisa Shymko, who is currently the Director for PR at Buduchnist. Congratulations are also littered throughout the entire episode by leaders of the community, politicians and celebrities, praising the new show.

Members of the Ukrainian community were upset that their organizations were left out of the negotiations with Rogers to get Svitohliad back on the air, as Buduchnist would be financing the new program. Buduchnist defended its position that it had to act swiftly before the time slots were filled, in a meeting with the community at UNO Hall last August.  It was reported by Paul Grod, President of the UCC that the old show lost Rogers $100,000 a year.

Forum TV’s credits reveal its new leaders are not people with much expertise in media but rather members of the Buduchnist board that fund the program. The show’s Executive Producer is the Chair of the Board of Directors for the Buduchnist, another producer is also on the board and the associate producer is the President of  Canadian Friends of Ukraine. All have impressive resumes in their own regards according to their LinkedIn profiles, but nothing about any sort of experience running a television show. It would be great to see the show take a page from Kontakt, which regularly features up and coming journalists and students who are trying to get a foot hold in the industry. The show airs Sundays at 8pm on Omni1, with replays on Wednesday at 2pm and Friday at 9am.

After watching the premiere episode? What did you think of it? Please leave a comment!