David Eby doesn't want to look in BC election irregularities - Conservatives push inquiry
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Summary
British Columbia Premier David Eby has come out to mock the BC Tories for calling for an inquiry into election irregularities in the 2024 BC election. This is ironic since Eby was the first politician in BC to call for a review of election procedures. Now that the inquiry has teeth and could uncover enough problems that might require a new election, and Gary Begg loses his seat, now it's all very nasty and terrible that the Conservatives are looking into this.
Transcript
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Hey guys, Wyatt Claypool here. So British Columbia Premier David Eby has come out to try and mock the
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BC Conservatives and their leader John Rustad for calling for an inquiry into election irregularities
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in the 2024 BC provincial election. This is all very hypocritical and ironic on David Eby's part
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since he was literally the first politician in BC to call for a review of election procedures
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because of all the issues that there were in the provincial election. They were finding ballot
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boxes like a week and a half after the voting. They were having ballots go missing. Random ballots
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didn't actually get counted the first time. It was a mess. David Eby understood it. But now that he
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realizes that there's enough irregularities in the riding of Surrey Guilford that could actually upend
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the election and require a new by-election, suddenly David Eby is literally just calling what Rustad
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and Hanvir Randhawa, the BC Conservative candidate from Surrey Guilford, what they're doing is now
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cringe. It wasn't cringe when Eby was asking for the inquiry, but now that the inquiry has teeth and
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could actually uncover enough problems that might require a new election and Gary Begg loses his seat,
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now it's all very nasty and terrible that the Conservatives are looking into this.
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Anyways, I want to take you to an interview clip right here with David Eby where he says these things.
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In just a second, but before I do that, guys, remember to like this video, subscribe to the
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channel, leave a comment, do all that great stuff, help support the show, make sure the videos get
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distributed to more people. Liking, subscribing, and commenting does all that for me. So thanks in
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advance if you are able to do those things. Anyways, so here is David Eby's spotlight on the CBC where he
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is asked about the inquiry issue. We're going to stay with our coverage of British Columbia because the
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premier David Eby joins us now. Premier Eby, it's really good to see you again. Thanks for being
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here, sir. Yeah, good to see you too. Before we get into the discussion of Canada-U.S. relations,
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I wonder what's your reaction to what John Russ said is raising there today, wants an inquiry based
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on what he considers to be irregularities. What's your response to the allegations he's making there?
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Yeah, I mean, it's all a little bit cringe, I've got to say. Okay, a little bit cringe. So I'm guessing
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that means you're not too concerned about these alleged irregularities. It's a bit like a Leafs
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fan who says, you know, if we only scored enough goals, we would have made it through the playoff
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round. Like, okay, one, let's just start off with any politician, especially the leader of a province
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saying cringe. It is the most hello fellow children kind of a thing to say. Also, again, you can't really
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say it when you were the one who approved of the idea of an inquiry. The one little point on the
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inquiry that he called for, though, was he wanted it done by one of his own MLAs. So the best that
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would be done is that problems would be identified and maybe solved later, but not actually retroactively
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solved for elections they might have affected. Now, in Surrey-Guilford, this is the main battlefield
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when it comes to the inquiry. Hanvir Andawa, the BC Conservative candidate, is filing a lawsuit
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with the courts to try and have the election result thrown out because he has found 45 irregularities
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in a riding where Gary Begg, the BC NDP candidate, only won by 22 votes. And so I think there is some
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standard that if you can find like double the inquiry irregularities and you can prove they are in
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fact irregularities, you must have the election like somehow solved, like somehow fixed, and you
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have 90 days to be able to challenge the results. So they are within the amount of time it is required
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to file a challenge. I think the deadline was on January 17th. So Hanvir is in early and they could
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easily find more irregularities, more people whose ballots either weren't counted or were counted and
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they shouldn't be. So I'll just quickly break down what the actual irregularities are in Surrey-Guilford
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because it's actually serious. This isn't somebody saying, well, I saw some guy do something and I'm
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spec he be lying about who he's voting for and all that. I mean, like we're talking about like a care
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home for people. I don't even think it's a senior home, but it's a care home for people who are recovered
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from addictions or they're used to be homeless or whatever. Some people might need like other like
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living assistance support, mental health type stuff. But there's this lodge that is 80 meters
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across the street from a school where there is a polling station. And somehow there were 21 ballots
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mailed in from this place just across the street. And they've already basically found that the guy
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running the site is not only an NDP partisan, but has been doing this election after election, which is
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sending people's ballots in on their behalf and basically forcing their hands to vote. They have
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affidavits to at least evidence this. So let's look at this. I want to just quickly look, read this
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article from the Vancouver Sun. I don't usually like to read too much, but I think this is important.
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So I'm just going to go over it for you guys here quickly today. He says, this writer, let's give him
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credit, Alec Lazenby. Wasn't that one of the James Bond actors, the guy from Australia? My head's full
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of references to movies I haven't even watched. But it says here, the writing's conservative
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candidate, Hanvir Singh Randhawa, says he has received three affidavits from residents of Argyle Lodge,
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redacted copies of which were provided to reporters in Victoria Thursday, stated that they did not request
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the mail and ballots provided to them, and they were forced to rush through their choice of whom
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to vote for. In the affidavits, the residents also said they did not even know a provincial election
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was occurring, much less what the variation of various parties in their candidates stood for.
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Valjeet Kondola, the manager of Argyle Lodge, said the allegations by Randhawa and the conservatives
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are mind-blowing, baffling, and absurd. On October 19th, there was 103-vote leads, said Randhawa,
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referring to his poll position on the election night that was eventually erased as remaining votes,
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including mail-ins, were counted over the following days.
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And so Kondola has basically tried to, you know, ride the line of like, I'm just helping people
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fill out ballots. I'm not a partisan. I have no party affiliations at all. And the lie is usually
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more telling than the actual truth, the fact that somebody chose to lie, because Kondola is a
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partisan. Like, again, he's not exactly like a big donor. Most Canadians do not max out donations every
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year. But this was uncovered by Brad Zubik here, who has pointed out, like, you can even see
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Kondola Valjeet, and I believe that even his address that was along with it lined up, or, yeah,
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like, lined up with his real address, but it doesn't really matter. He said, Brad Zubik said,
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we never contact, we have no invested interest in any political agenda, any parties. And he was
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literally donating to Jagmeet Singh's leadership campaign in 2017, and gave almost $500. That
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doesn't feel like a donation that like an average person makes a single year donation of $459.
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That's a lot of money for a Canadian donating in politics. Since back in 2017, I believe the limit
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for how much you could donate was 1600. So it's not even like he was only giving like a fraction of what
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an average donor gives. He's probably giving multiple times more what the median donor to the
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NDP was giving. Anyways, so yeah, this is all pretty strange. The other irregularities, so first we have
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those 21 from Argyle Lodge. We have another 22 from people whose addresses do not actually line up with
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where they live, and there's a good chance that they do not actually live in the riding, but maybe,
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and this could have been an honest mistake. Obviously, people are driving to the polling station
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that they always voted at, even though they've moved five blocks away, and now they're in a
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different riding. That's still a problem. It can't just be like, oopsie doodle, doesn't matter,
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so let's just let Gary Begg be the NDP MLA, because it's difficult and stuff to go back and fix this
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stuff. In tight elections, there needs to be more scrutiny than ever. Not like we like take my
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magnifying glasses to see if there's any breaks in the ink of your ex, but like we need to make sure
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that belts are obviously not coming in from the wrong place. So 21 from Argyle Lodge, 22 people
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who may or may not actually live in the riding, and then we have another instance of somebody
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double voting, apparently, basically being under a variation, the same name, but they accidentally
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got registered twice on BC elections, and they were able to cast two ballots. So that's a problem.
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So, you know, I don't think this is cringe, like David Eby is saying. If anything, this actually seems
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kind of serious, but the human question mark David Eby thinks that, oh, well, you know, looking into
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elections, that's like denialism. I literally had somebody already do that to me. It's not even like,
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I'm just asking questions, like I'm Jesse Vendura here. I'm saying, hey, this is a problem. Can we look
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into it to see if it's an actual big problem or if it's just an oddity? And they're like, well, that's
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denialism. No, it's not. It's literally the reverse of election denialism. It is saying, hey,
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let's fact check the election, these ballots that are in question, because guess what? By the end,
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nobody can question the result because we have found every problem, and we have solved every problem.
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That seems about fair to me. And, you know, I wish Hanvi Rondawa good luck in his court case. I think
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that if you know anything about irregularities in your riding of people voting twice, people sending
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in ballots that didn't actually want to send in ballots, make sure you contact somebody from the
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BC Conservatives over that, especially if you live in Surrey, and especially if you live in the riding
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of Surrey-Guilford, you can probably try and reach out to Hanvi Rondawa yourself. But yeah, this is very
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important. The Conservatives, to their credit, because I think a lot of parties would have been
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intimidated by the stupid denialist label, would have been intimidated to basically drop the,
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not even allegations, not alleging anything. They're just saying, look into this, let's have
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an inquiry. So the party's not actually a part of the, the party is not actually a part of the
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call or the court case, but they have been posting stuff and demanding this judicial or this legislative
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inquiry. And they've actually been posting even graphics to go alongside it of like, you know,
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yeah, like, and why wouldn't we want a full inquiry until missing ballot boxes and ineligible voters
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being able to show up and cast ballots? That seems to me like something that, you know, matters? I don't
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know. Maybe I'm weird for thinking that we should talk about things that matter rather than calling them
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cringe because your party has the ability to actually lose a seat if we dig down deep enough
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into this. And again, maybe Gary Begg was one, maybe all the, maybe all the irregularities somehow
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go towards the NDP. You know, maybe all, maybe that Candola guy at Argyle Lounge was actually filling
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up ballots for the Conservatives. You know, I doubt it, but, you know, and I think the affidavits probably
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proved that he was getting people to vote for Gary Begg, but like, you know, there's always the chance.
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But anyways, that should be it for me today, guys. Remember to like this video, subscribe to the
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channel, do all that great stuff. And you can also sign up on my website, wyattclaypool.com. If you
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and the ride in the federal riding of Malahat. I think Charles Borg is a great candidate in
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Abbotsford South Langley. I think a really good ballot to fill out. There's multiple candidates,
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but I would be putting Steve Schaefer number one and Mike Murray number two. So take that for what you
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local areas, make sure to do that and at least vote for somebody. See you guys later.