Compliance Audit Application by Kevin Wiener for the Election Campaign Finances of Sandeep Srivastava

3. The Applicant provided information to the Committee to support the Applicant's belief that the Respondent contravened provisions of the Municipal Elections Act, 1996 relating to election campaign finances. 4. The Applicant raised concerns relating to the Respondent's compliance with the Act. In particular these related to: a. That the campaign received no revenues and incurred $4,584.97 in expenses and that as a result, the Applicant alleges that expenses were not paid from a campaign account as required by the Municipal Elections Act. 5. The Committee then provided the Respondent with the opportunity to respond. The Respondent spoke to the issues raised in the Application. 6. The Respondent indicated that he was not aware of the obligation to comply with certain financial requirements. It is the individual's duty to understand their legal requirements when they become a candidate for election and there are many resources available to assist. Ignorance of the rules is not a compelling reason to avoid compliance of the legislative regime. However, the Committee understands that the Respondent has recognized that mistakes were made and the Committee is satisfied that these were not intentional. 7. After considering the entirety of the circumstances, the Committee has discretion to determine whether to grant or reject an application even in circumstances where there are reasonable grounds that a breach has occurred. This has been recognized by the Court in Lancaster v. Compliance Audit Committee et al., 2012 ONSC 5629. In that case, after consideration of the evidence provided, the Committee concluded that there were breaches of the Act. Due to the level of materiality of the breaches a compliance audit is not warranted as an audit would not provide any further clarity about the breaches. 8. For the reasons stated above and in accordance with s. 88.33(7) of the Act the Committee rejected the Compliance Audit Application of Kevin Wiener for a compliance audit of the Election Campaign Finances of the Respondent, Sandeep Srivastava.