OTTAWA – Broadcasters should be careful when using the words “illegal campaign contributions”, said the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) in a decision on Wednesday.
The CBSC examined a complaint concerning the broadcast of a PC Party provincial election advertisement that accused the NDP of accepting “illegal” campaign contributions from unions. A listener who heard the ad on CJLS-FM (Yarmouth) on June 6, 2009 complained that the ad inappropriately characterized the NDP’s activities as “illegal”. During the election campaign, it was alleged that the NDP was in possession of “illegal campaign contributions” because the Nova Scotia Members and Public Employees Disclosure Act (MPEDA) prohibits a political party from accepting, directly or indirectly, more than $5,000 in campaign contributions from a single organization in one year. A formal complaint alleging that $45,000 in donations ostensibly made by nine individual union locals but beneficially by a single body, (in contravention of section 13 of the Act), was sent to the Chief Electoral Officer of Nova Scotia by the campaign director of the PC Party.
The CBSC’s Atlantic Regional Panel examined the complaint under clauses 13 and 14 of the CAB Code of Ethics, both of which deal with advertising. The panel agreed with the complainant that use of the term “illegal” was inaccurate in this instance.
In its decision, the panel said:
“Where […] the word “illegal” is used to describe the breach of a public law or statute, or a code such as the Criminal Code, the effect of the term is notched up significantly. In such circumstances, the use of the word may become particularly harsh, pejorative, and more consequential. […] It follows that any use of the word “illegal” must be measured by a CBSC Panel in order to determine the level of care that the term deserves in the case of any challenged broadcast. Where the use is of the higher, riskier level […], the Panel must then determine whether the broadcaster has been sufficiently prudent in its application to avoid a breach of the applicable code provision.
[…]
“The Panel considers that the assertion of the advertiser was that the NDP had violated a provincial statute and that that violation was serious. The implication of the paid political announcement criminalized (in provincial terms) the actions of the NDP. […] At that time [of the broadcast on] June 6, 2009, there had been no finding of any authority that the NDP had acted illegally in any way. Indeed, until February 25, 2010, no provincial authority had reached any conclusion regarding the aforesaid contributions. In the circumstances, the Panel considers that it was not truthful to use the word “illegal” in the paid political announcement, based on the information available at the time of the broadcast. The Panel considers it an inescapable conclusion of that finding that such an inaccuracy in the advertising would “offend prevailing community standards of tolerability”, to use the words of Clause 13.”
On February 25, 2010, the Chief Electoral Officer released her report on the complaint, where she found that the NDP had not done anything in contravention of section 13 of the MPEDA.
“There is no evidence on which to conclude that the Official Agent of the NDP knew or should have known, at the time the contributions were accepted, that the contributions made by the Trade Unions were made with funds that did not beneficially belong to them”, the report reads. […] “Accordingly, this alleged violation has not been established.”
