Editor:
Regarding the anti-pay parking petition initiated by BRAPP last year, I have noticed there were a number of major problems with the CAO’s Declaration on the Sufficiency of Petition Filed July 31, 2014 (Parking Initiatives) that was prepared by Chief Administrative Officer Robert Earl.
This document was presented to council on Aug. 27, 2014 and was the document in which Mr. Earl explained the reasons why he invalidated approximately 402 of the 1,458 legitimate signatures gathered on the BRAPP Petition.
There were actually 1,473 signatures on the petition but, as 15 people signed twice, that reduced the number of signatures that Mr. Earl had to examine to 1,458.
Mr. Earl wrote within this document: “The following required validation activities were performed to determine whether the petition submitted met the requirements stipulated by the Municipal Government Act” Readers of the CAO’s Declaration would have assumed that “Exceptions, based on petitioner requirements:” followed by the section of the Alberta Municipal Government Act (MGA), as written in Mr. Earl’s Declaration would be identical to the pertinent section as written in the MGA. They were not identical. All of the “quotes” that Mr. Earl implied were from Section 225(3) of the MGA, including 225(3)(a); 225(3)(b); 225(3)(c); 225(3)(d); 225(3)(f)(i) are different from what is contained in the MGA (I have a hardcopy of the MGA in force at the time; the MGA is also available online. I also have a hardcopy of the CAO’s Declaration, which was available online).
For example:
Mr. Earl invalidated 254 signatures (mostly gathered by me – including Alanna Pettigrew’s) because “Not able to match a witness signature to a person taking affidavit that to the best of the person’s knowledge the signatures witnessed are those of a person entitled to sign the petition.” Mr. Earl wrote “Section 225(3)(a)” in front of “Not able …”
If you check the MGA (and I encourage you to) you will find that Section 225(3) states “In counting the number of petitioners on a petition there must be excluded the name of a person: (a) whose signature is not witnessed”- that’s Section 225(3)(a) in its entirety: “whose signature is not witnessed.” I signed, as the witness, all signatures that I gathered. Section 225(3)(a) as contained in my copy of the MGA is very different from Mr. Earl’s supplied version of Section (225)(3)(a) (see above). It is likely that a reasonable person, referring to a hardcopy (or online) version of this section would not invalidate 254 signatures as Mr. Earl did.
You will find the same sort of discrepancies in all of the versions of Section (225)(3) that Mr. Earl wrote within his CAO’s Declaration.
I will not speculate here as to the reason(s) why the hardcopy of the pertinent sections of the Alberta MGA is different from that which Mr. Earl wrote in his CAO’s Declaration.
If Mr. Earl notes any errors or omissions in the above I urge him to please write a letter for inclusion in next week’s Outlook. If I have made mistakes, or relayed incorrect information, in the above I will apologize publicly.
Jon Whelan,
Banff
