No penalty for Shelly Glover exceeding legal campaign spending limit

OTTAWA – Canadian Heritage Minister Shelly Glover won’t be penalized for exceeding her legal campaign spending limit in the 2011 election.

But she’s promising to make up for over-spending last time by under-spending next time.

Glover’s official agent has struck what’s known as a “compliance agreement” with the commissioner of elections, Yves Cote.

Under the agreement, the Glover campaign acknowledges it spent $2,267 more than the legal limit for her Manitoba riding of Saint Boniface.

The over-spending is deemed to have been the result of “inadvertence and an honest misunderstanding of what constitutes an election expense.”

The agreement notes that if Glover is confirmed as the Conservative candidate in Saint Boniface for the next election in 2015, she’s promising to voluntarily spend $2,267 less than the legal limit.

Glover and fellow-Manitoba MP James Bezan were at risk last spring of losing their right to sit and vote in the House of Commons because of problems with their campaign financial returns.

Chief electoral officer Marc Mayrand wrote Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer, asking that the two Conservative MPs be stripped of their privileges because they refused to modify what Elections Canada deemed to be inaccurate calculations of some campaign expenses.

Glover briefly threatened to take the elections watchdog to court but eventually backed down and agreed to modify her return to more accurately reflect the cost of roadside billboards.

That led to the admission of overspending and Friday’s compliance agreement.

Bezan continues to insist he’s done nothing wrong and is pursuing his dispute with Elections Canada in court.

His case is to be examined by the Commons procedure and House affairs committee, which could yet recommend that Bezan be stripped of his privileges until the dispute is resolved.