Harwinder Sandhu

Image Credit: FACEBOOK/Harwinder Sandhu

A petition launched by an anti-masker who said making children wear masks was "child abuse" has failed to recall the vote and unseat Vernon-Monashee MLA Harwinder Sandhu.

Vernon resident Genevieve Ring told iNFOnews.ca she didn't obtain enough signatures in her efforts to recall the provincial 2020 Vernon-Monashee election result.

However, apart from saying she was "thousands short," Ring refused to say how many signatures she managed to get.

"I didn't count them so I'm not going to say," she said.

Ring said she had a vague idea of the numbers but added, "I'm not going to tell you."

Ring launched the campaign to unseat Vernon-Monashee MLA Harwinder Sandhu in early August and had 60 days to collect signatures from 40 per cent of eligible voters that voted in the last election in the Vernon-Monashee riding. To succeed she would have had to have collected 21,268 signatures.

Elections B.C. confirmed in a statement the recall petition was not submitted by the Oct. 11 deadline under the Recall and Initiative Act. It said that despite the failure, the recall proponent must return the petition sheets to Elections B.C., although signature counts won't be released or verified. Both Ring and the Sandhu must file financial disclosure reports to the chief electoral officer by Nov. 8.

Ring, who runs Loreto Strata Management in Vernon, said she did send the signatures to Elections B.C. but knows that it didn't receive them on time.

Under B.C.’s recall law, voters can remove an MLA if they manage to get signatures from more than 40 per cent of people that voted in a riding.

To launch the petition Ring had to pay a $50 processing fee and provide a statement on why she felt the MLA should be recalled.

Ring previously told iNFOnews.ca that COVID-19 isn't harmful to children and blamed the NDP for "historically" attacking Catholics. She said that NDP leader Tommy Douglas had once written a paper about "exterminating Catholics." She went on to say that the NDP's anti-Catholic sentiment was the "basis of their party."

She's also spouted conspiracy theories about COVID-19 saying the virus posed no "significant" risks to school children and that forcing them to wear masks has been "proven harmful for the physiological, psychological, and social development of children."

In May, Vernon resident Jeff Gaudry, who describes himself as a "Canadian Freedom Fighter" and has compared the COVID-19 mandates to Nazi Germany, said he was among a group spearheading a recall campaign.

Gaudry wasn't on the list of official canvassers and it's not clear what part he played in the recall.

Since B.C.'s recall legislation came into place in 1995, 27 recall petitions have been approved but only six were returned to Elections B.C. for verification. Five were found to not have enough valid signatures and one was halted during the verification process because the MLA resigned.

— With files from The Canadian Press

To contact a reporter for this story, email Ben Bulmer or call (250) 309-5230 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above. 

News from © iNFOnews, 2022