Elections BC is just going to stop looking into the Surrey Guilford case while Hanvir Randhawa files a Supreme Court application to overturn the election results in that riding. I talk to Hanvir about why this is happening and why Elections BC won't even look into it.
00:00:00.000I saw this pop up last night and it is absolutely insane.
00:00:04.780So Elections BC is just going to stop looking into Surrey Guilford while there is the court application from the BC Conservative candidate from that riding to overturn the election results because of all the irregularities they found in a race where Gary Begg, the BC NDP candidate, only won by 22 votes.
00:00:26.760So Hanvir Randhawa, the Conservative candidate, is bringing forward a petition to the court, a lawsuit in order to overturn the results because with a 22 vote margin, they have found more than 45 voter irregularities, 21 of which are all from one lodge, Argyle Lodge, in which there's a lot of evidence, affidavits and whatnot to prove that there was voter intimidation, votes being sent in for people who are incapable of voting and all that sort of thing.
00:00:55.580And BC Elections is just like, well, we're going to stop looking into this while this very serious lawsuit is going on.
00:01:03.880I'm going to break this down for you guys today.
00:01:05.780I actually just got off the phone with Hanvir Randhawa who gave me some more details on what's going on with this.
00:01:11.840We're going to be reading the article and doing all that.
00:01:14.740But before we get into it, guys, if you want continuous updates on this story, we're probably going to be doing an interview tomorrow with Hanvir.
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00:01:32.580Let's get into this news article because as I read this, it's going to make less and less sense why they are just suddenly not looking into this issue.
00:01:41.840You would assume that when there is evidence, affidavits, all that sort of thing for a potential election integrity issue, BC Elections would be all over it.
00:01:52.040But instead, while it is most serious to collect evidence, BC Elections doesn't want to do that anymore.
00:01:59.060So here is the article from Fraser Valley Today.
00:02:02.120I'll be linking this in the description below if you want to read it for yourself.
00:02:05.460But they say, Fraser Valley, Elections BC says it has suspended a review from a BC Conservative candidate who submitted a complaint after losing his Fraser Valley riding by 22 votes.
00:02:22.100It felt weird that they were referring to it as Fraser Valley.
00:02:25.100They say, according to Statement Tuesday, Elections BC said it received a complaint from Surrey Guilford candidate Hanvir Singh Randhawa on January 3rd, 2025.
00:02:34.360The complaint argued there were potential violations of the Election Act in his election district during the 2024 provincial election.
00:02:42.760Roughly a week later, on January 9th, Elections BC confirmed that Randhawa's complaint was being reviewed.
00:02:49.320Four days later, on January 13th, Randhawa submitted a petition to the Supreme Court of British Columbia seeking judicial declaration that the election of BC Surrey Guilford candidate Gary Begg was invalid.
00:03:01.720The election, the Chief Electoral Officer and Gary Begg were named as respondents to the judicial petition.
00:03:09.040Elections BC says the allegations of Randhawa's complaint to BC elections are essentially the same as the allegations contained in the court petition.
00:03:17.260Elections BC says it is suspending a review of Randhawa's complaint while the outcome of the petition is decided.
00:03:23.120Why? I can stop reading it right there. Why? Why are you suspending investigations into this same matter because it's in front of the court?
00:03:33.880The problem is, and Hanvir has confirmed this to me in other media, he doesn't have the tools and capacity to investigate this the same way Elections BC does.
00:03:43.640In fact, he keeps writing them requests for information, and they keep ghosting him or just saying they're not going to give him anything.
00:03:51.700So he, as some random guy and his team, are supposed to just run around investigating information without any voter data,
00:03:59.360without being able to match up if somebody said they didn't vote but a mail-in ballot was sent in for them, that they can't even confirm that.
00:04:05.580They're, effectively, in my mind, they're waiting for Hanvir's petition to potentially get rejected so that then they'll look into it,
00:04:13.800and even if they find hundreds of ballots that are invalid, well, the court's not going to look at the same issue twice.
00:04:21.140They've already ruled on this. This is insane. This is not how anyone would expect this to go.
00:04:28.560It's also a bit sketchy, because BC Elections is, of course, a corporation within the BC government.
00:04:37.540At this point, it feels like they're just protecting a government's MLA.
00:04:42.020Gary Bagg only won by 22 votes. That is the thinnest of thin margins that I've seen in an election.
00:04:47.560I guess in Alberta, we've had some UCP MLAs lose by, like, six votes, but at least in BC.