A candidate for Langley City council in the 2022 election has been fined $450 after accepting a campaign contribution from outside of British Columbia.
Shelley Coburn accepted a $450 fine from Elections BC, which was announced publicly on the agency’s website along with six other candidates from local elections who were found to have broken the rules.
“I accepted it in good faith, and I made a mistake,” said Coburn.
According to the posted enforcement notice, Coburn accepted a $1,000 campaign contribution from an Ontario resident while running in the fall civic election.
Contributions from people living outside of B.C. are prohibited.
Elections BC notified Coburn in January 2023 about the contribution. Coburn returned it.
The elections agency could have levied a fine of up to $2,000, but only fined Coburn $450 because she cooperated with the investigation, returned the contribution, and had never previously been fined under the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act.
Coburn said she has already paid the fine and does not plan to challenge the enforcement ruling.
“I dealt with it right away,” she said.
She said accepting the contribution was simply a mistake.
“I didn’t realize, because I’d never come across that,” she said of the outside-of-B.C. contribution.
Coburn had previously served as a school trustee, before running for City council unsuccessfully in the fall of 2022.
Elections BC announced seven fines against various candidates across B.C. on March 5. Out of those, six were for accepting a prohibited contribution, and one was for sponsoring election advertising without an authorization statement.
The agency has been handing out fines for various other violations during the 2022 campaign for the past year, including a $100 fine to successful Langley City candidate Delaney Mack for having election signs without contact info for the campaign’s financial agent. Dozens of candidates have been fined, from lone candidates running in small towns and regional districts, to major campaigns like Team Kennedy Stewart in Vancouver.
READ ALSO: Canadian housing starts up 14% in January