It’s early Thursday afternoon and Stanley Q. Woodvine is on the phone with a reporter about a discovery he made this week on a sidewalk near city hall. His find — a two-page list of donors to Mayor Kennedy Stewart’s party, Forward Together — has attracted local and national media attention. It also generated buzz on social media and raised questions about financial and conflict-of-interest rules from some of the candidates and parties challenging Stewart and his team in the Oct. 15 election. “It was a reporter from the Toronto Star,” Woodvine said after finishing his call. Sitting in a Broadway cafe with his bike and belongings in view outside the window, Woodwin said the attention has been unexpected since he posted the list of donors Sept. 13 on Twitter. “I’m amazed at the coverage,” he said. “All I did was say, ‘Look, I found these strange pieces of paper – what are they?’ This is a rare example of social media simply outdoing itself.” The two pages, which Woodvine shared during the interview, are in spreadsheet format and list the names of various high-profile entrepreneurs and their 2022 contribution amount.
Francesco Aquilini, Terry Hui among the donors
Among the 41 names are Vancouver Canucks owner and real estate developer Francesco Aquilini ($64,350), Wayne Pai of Landa Global Properties ($22,489), Ajay Dilawri of auto retailer Dilawri Group of Companies ($20,153), veteran real estate ($20), Bob Dak Molnar of the Molnar Group ($11,200), Concord Pacific CEO Terry Hui ($8,200) and Kerry Bonnis of Bonnis Properties ($3,750). Each person on the list is listed under the heading ‘captain’ and each has a fundraising goal. For example, Aquilini’s goal is $110,000, Dilawri’s is $50,000, and Hui’s is $31,250. The names Neil, Mark, Alvin, and Raymond appear under the heading “notes” in the spreadsheet. Two entries under “notes” — one linked to Rennie, another to Evan Allegretto of Intracorp Homes — say “NM to propose doubling target on Sept 12.” Another linked to Huey says “Raymond follows.” The total amount of donations received was over $270,000. Forward Together has not confirmed or denied whether the two pages belong to the party. Party members include Neil Monckton (the mayor’s chief of staff), Alvin Singh (the mayor’s communications director) and Mark Hosak (the party’s executive director). The reference to “Raymond” in the documents is unclear, although former Vision Vancouver councilor Raymond Louie – listed as “Captain” – was a long-time friend of Monckton and Stewart. Louie is now the Chief Operating Officer of Coromandel Properties Ltd. A text message sent to Monckton on Thursday was not returned by deadline. The party has issued only one statement in response to questions about the Woodvine discovery and has not held a press conference since news of the spreadsheet’s discovery broke. “Like all campaigns, Forward Together is actively fundraising,” Hosak said in the statement. “We follow all Elections BC rules. In August we were the first campaign to publicly disclose our donor list and we will do so again before Election Day. Our latest disclosure showed that we have received donations from nearly 2,500 people who made more than 6,000 donations over the four-plus year period. Our average donation was $175.” The statement then goes on to criticize ABC Vancouver mayoral candidate Ken Sim, who Stewart sees as his main competitor in his re-election bid. “Ken Sim will likely spend more than $2.3 million on the campaign trail,” the statement continued. “And we can see it in the tens of thousands of dollars spent on misleading radio ads, billboards and social media. Forward Together is actively fundraising so we can get our message out and connect with voters about how we can tackle the real issues of housing affordability. homelessness, mental health and the opioid epidemic; and climate change.”
ABC Vancouver reacts to the spreadsheet
Karem Allam, the ABC’s campaign manager, said on Thursday that he could not verify that the spreadsheet Woodvine found belonged to Forward Together, but “there is a lot of smoke to indicate that it is their document”. Alam acknowledged that it was not unusual for parties to solicit donations from business people for campaigns, with ABC having received contributions from some of the same people as Forward Together – Ajay Dilawri ($1,200), Arnold Silber of Value Property Group ( $1,200) and Colin Bosa of Bosa Properties Inc. ($1,200), for example. ABC also recently held a fundraiser at Floata restaurant in Chinatown, where Allam estimated the party raised $60,000 to $70,000. It costs guests $50 each. For groups that wanted to be closer to the stage, they could pay $1,200 for a table. What worries Allam is the finding in the spreadsheet that Monckton solicited donations from developers while working as the mayor’s chief of staff. A member of Forward Together told Vancouver Is Awesome via email that Monckton had been on leave from city hall since September 10 and Singh since August 22. “Either they flat out deny that the chief of staff went out there and shook the people he regulates, or they admit it,” Alam said. “Either way, we don’t have the full story until they admit it. They have an obligation this election to clear the air because it is so serious.” TEAM for a Livable Vancouver has also raised concerns about the spreadsheet and asked Elections BC and the city’s integrity commissioner Lisa Southern to investigate. “Neither the mayor, his Forward Together party nor his staff have denied that the fundraising list revealed this week is fake or inaccurate, nor that the names on the list correspond to the name ‘Neil’ and the initials ‘NM’ or the name ‘Alvin’ – that means it’s important for the integrity commissioner to fully and quickly investigate what happened,” TEAM mayoral candidate Colleen Hardwick said in a press release. “There are questions that need to be answered, and very soon, whether or not any of this constitutes a conflict of interest or a perceived conflict of interest — because these big corporate developers are coming before a city council with projects totaling billions of dollars and the public needs to know the [city’s] The Code of Ethics is respected in every way.”
BC Elections: “There are no conclusions on this issue”
Elections BC said Friday in an email that the spreadsheet Woodvine found came to the agency’s attention through social media and through complaints from members of the public. “Every time we receive a complaint about the legislation we administer, we review it thoroughly to ensure that the statutory requirements are met,” said Melanie Hull, communications advisor for Elections BC. “We will communicate the outcome of our review to complainants once our review is complete. At this point the origin of the spreadsheet is unclear and we have made no conclusions on this matter. Individuals can help election organizations raise money as long as all contributions come from eligible individuals and contribution limits and recordkeeping requirements are met.”
“Storm in a Teapot”
Jon Stovell, president and CEO of Reliance Properties, called the Woodvine discovery “a tempest in a teapot,” noting the long history of developers, entrepreneurs and major unions donating money to civic parties. Stovell is listed on the spreadsheet as contributing $2,500 this year with a goal of $12,500. Reached by phone Thursday, Stovell could not verify the authenticity of the two pages, but said he had only contributed $1,250 to the party this year — the maximum allowed by an individual under Elections BC’s fiscal rules. The rules, which were in place in the 2018 campaign, do not preclude members of a family or corporation from making multiple personal donations. Nine members of the Aquilini family, for example, donated $11,250 to Forward Together in the first six months of 2022. Stovell said he didn’t know he was a “captain” or what that meant. “I think they had sums of money that they were going to ask developers or they were hoping developers would help them raise through their friends or colleagues or whatever, but I never made any commitment and I never [a contribution of] more than $1,250,” Stovell said. In previous elections, when there were no limits on the amount of money a company or union could donate, Reliance Properties regularly contributed to the campaigns of Vision Vancouver and the NPA. In that campaign, Stovell said he donated to ABC Vancouver, the NPA and OneCity. COPE, TEAM for a Livable Vancouver and the Greens do not accept donations from developers, as Stovell learned in the 2018 campaign when the Greens returned his donation. “While I’m not always aligned with every party and what they stand for in this or that, I contribute to all of them just trying to get better people into city government,” he said, refuting critics’ belief that donations buy influence at city hall. . “You don’t buy influence with a personal donation of $1,250, you don’t buy anything.” Added Stovell: “I support all parties because over the last few years I’ve seen all these councilors do things that made sense to me in terms of the business I’m in and the need for housing and so on.”
“Listed by mistake”
Longtime PR business owner Laura Ballance also appeared on the spreadsheet, which said she and Christa Montpetit contributed $5,100 this year, exceeding their stated “goal” of $5,000. Ballance, which recently sold its Laura Ballance…
