The ballots for this month’s municipal election in Cornwall, Ont., have already been printed, but whether electors will actually be able to vote for one of the four candidates for mayor is now mired in uncertainty.
Earlier this week, the City of Cornwall publicly disclosed that someone recently made a complaint that could destroy the election hopes of Sarah Good, a one-term councillor who’s now looking to become mayor of the city of about 47,000 people southeast of Ottawa.
On Aug. 21 — the last day candidates could file their nomination papers, and the day after Good filed hers — somebody complained to the city that back in March 2023, Good did not include an auditor’s report when she submitted the campaign financials for her successful 2022 run for one of Cornwall’s 10 regular council seats.
Under Ontario’s Municipal Elections Act, if a candidate fails to submit a required document they become ineligible to run for municipal office until the next election — in this case, 2030.
The question now is whether Good did indeed need to file an auditor’s report.
After speaking to Good and consulting both internal and external lawyers, the city has asked a local Superior Court judge for advice on whether the penalties spelled out in the act should apply to her.
If the court determines a “default” did occur and “that the statutory consequences apply,” the city “will act,” it told CBC News.
Good says she didn’t include an audit based on advice she received in 2023 from the city clerk at the time, and that she was shocked and disappointed when the city told her about the complaint last month.
“I don’t want to be disqualified from a race based on information that I relied on from the expert on the matter who accepted my filing,” Good said in an interview Thursday.
She is also calling the complaint — which lands more than three years after the events in question — a calculated move to “derail” her 2026 mayoral campaign.
Out of all candidates who ran for council in 2022, she received the most votes.
“I feel that it was done maliciously,” Good said of the complaint and its timing. “I’m not saying that to tarnish anyone’s reputation.
“I genuinely believe that anyone who had been made aware that there may be an issue with a financial statement from a previous election, especially in an active council, ought to reasonably know that that information should be brought forward immediately — not withheld to be used to prevent a candidate from running in an election.”
CBC News asked the city who lodged the complaint. It won’t say.
“Consistent with our normal practice, the city does not comment on the source of complaints,” the city said in response to emailed questions.
Good’s 2022 financial filing was reviewed and accepted by the city clerk in 2023, and no concerns about it were brought forward until Aug. 21 of this year, after Good became an official candidate, according to the city.
Like Good, Robert Williams, a University of Waterloo professor emeritus specializing in municipal politics, thinks the timing of the complaint is suspect.
“How did it sit around for four years and nobody realized or nobody believed that it was somehow a violation of the Municipal Elections Act? Why now?” Williams asked.
“I mean, I know why now. Presumably it’s … someone with an interest in the outcome of the election trying to find something to discredit a candidate with.”
The situation Good now finds herself in is “not anything I’ve ever heard of before,” he added.
Based on the input of lawyers, the city says it filed what’s known as a reference question with the local Superior Court.
“We concluded that any decision on this matter could be seen as showing favouritism, contrary to the obligation of impartiality,” the city said of its move to seek the court’s advice.
“Once the court provides its decision, the city will implement it and take the administrative steps required under the act.”
On Tuesday the city filed the reference question in court, notified both Good and the complainant, and made the issue public.
According to the University of Alberta’s Centre for Constitutional Studies, a reference question is when a government asks the courts for advice on a major legal issue.
“A court does not rule on a reference question. Rather, the question results in an ‘advisory opinion’ that guides the government in determining a law’s meaning,” the centre says on its website, adding that a court’s answer to a reference question is not binding.
Good announced her plan to run for mayor this past spring. She’s competing against incumbent Justin Towndale, who’s seeking a second term as mayor after having previously served two terms as a councillor. Two other candidates, Art Levert and Nicole Spahich, are also in the race.
Good’s announcement was met with what she called “an onslaught of online toxicity to the point of defamation.”
She says she gave serious thought over the summer about whether to press on, ultimately accepting that anyone in a high-level political position is going to take “a lot of heat.”
Then came the complaint in August.
“I would be absolutely heartbroken,” she said of the prospect of having her candidacy wiped away, adding that while she holds no ill will towards the city’s election team, “this whole complaint is intended to derail me.”
But she’s not going to catastrophize, she says. She’s representing herself at the Cornwall Courthouse during a Friday afternoon hearing about the city’s reference question, because she doesn’t have the money to pay for a lawyer right now.
Good intends to argue that, based on what she’s been told by an auditor she recently consulted, her 2022 campaign contributions — once surplus money she was refunded is factored out — amounted to less than the total dollar amount requiring an auditor’s report.
In other words, the subject of the complaint “may not actually be a breach at all,” Good said.
Whether the court will even offer the advice the city is seeking, and how quickly, remains to be seen. Good isn’t expecting to learn the outcome on Friday.
The clock is ticking, though. Online voting begins Oct. 12, followed by advance polls at the Cornwall Square mall starting on Oct. 21 and on Election Day, Oct. 26.
Good remains a certified candidate for mayor while the issue remains unsettled, according to the city, “so I’ve been just proceeding with my campaign full steam ahead,” she said, including taking part in a debate Thursday night.
Friday’s hearing is scheduled for 1 p.m. and is open to the public.
