Mystery unsolved: Penhold Mayor Mike Yargeau claims interference in Red Deer Conservative Party nomination race

Yargeau explains that the day before voting took place, an email went out to a confidential list of electors, and that email was intended to shine a pretty bad light on one of his opponents, Burton Bailey.

The problem for Yargeau was that the email was signed off by someone named James Yargeau.

But Mike Yargeau says he doesn’t know a James Yargeau, and that James Yargeau likely doesn’t exist.

Herein lies the real mystery for Mike — only the three candidates and the Conservative Party of Canada, according to him, had access to the list of electors’ emails.

And the million dollar question: Who is the person behind James Yargeau?

Though they say the investigation was intensive, RCMP couldn’t figure that out, and working with international partners to get a warrant for MailChimp — the email provider used to send the untoward email — was not believed to be a route which would turn up any names or identifying information, according to Cpl. Troy Savinkoff with Alberta RCMP.

The email included the subject line: Do you really know Burton Bailey?

“Burton Bailey wants you to believe he has clean hands,” the email read, going on to claim he is a lifelong political insider, loyal servant to Adriana LaGrange (whom he worked for over several years), and that he has ties to the Turkish Tylenol scandal, among other things.

“It was designed to make me look like a bad person. It had a Penhold, Alberta address at the bottom of the email, and [to] someone who was only kind of engaged in the nomination process and did not know me personally, it very much seemed like it was associated with my campaign,” Yargeau explains in his blog.

“Long story short, it was designed to make me look bad and another candidate look like an innocent victim of my cruelty.”

Yargeau goes on to say he doesn’t pin the nomination race loss on this one controversy, adding that while he’s comfortable with the results, he remains bitter.

“Is this a huge political scandal? No, it really isn’t at the end of the day although at the very least it probably skirts the law if it isn’t outright against the law. What it is though is a sign of a bigger problem in politics. That problem is that tactics like this have become accepted as a part of the process with zero investigation or accountability for the people who do things like this,” Yargeau goes on.

“In fact, they are most likely rewarded for doing it. Nominations can sometimes be used as rewards or repayments of past favours, especially in safe ridings where the nomination contest is more important than the general election. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours kind of thing.”

He insists that sending an email of this sort is not something he would ever do.

Interestingly, for a candidate to be approved in the nomination race, they have to pay the Conservative Party a $1,000 good conduct bond.

rdnewsNOW contacted the Conservative Party for comment, twice, but got no response. RCMP confirmed they did interview the party during its investigation.

We did, however, receive statements on behalf of or directly from both Bailey and Buchanan.

For Bailey, it was short, stating, “Since the RCMP is investigating the issue, MP Bailey will not be providing any comments at this time. The email mentioned in the blog post was defamatory against Mr. Bailey, and he looks forward to the conclusion of the RCMP investigation.”

RCMP tell us the investigation is set to close.

Meantime, Buchanan says she was not aware of the RCMP investigation until asked about it by rdnewsNOW.

“I first became aware of the letter while out door-knocking, when someone mentioned it to me in passing. When I arrived at the location to vote, I brought it to the attention of one of the people working there and stated that I hoped it would be investigated,” she says.

“I had no involvement in the email referenced in the blog. My focus throughout the nomination process was to run a campaign rooted in integrity, transparency, and respect—connecting directly with members and sharing my values and vision. I continue to stand by how I conducted myself during the nomination.”

While she doesn’t speculate on the email’s origins, she does add that nomination processes, regardless of party, should be conducted fairly and transparently.

She emphasized too that the good conduct bond implies maintaining confidentiality, meaning no sharing of the email list.

“I believe it’s important to uphold those standards to ensure trust in the process and respect for everyone involved,” she said.

As for Yargeau, he questions why the party doesn’t seem to care about apparent election interference.

“The simple, unfortunate truth is that the people doing things like sending fake emails from made up people have probably been doing it for awhile and they continue to do it because they get rewarded for their efforts,” he writes, adding he has a hunch about who wrote it, but stops at naming them.

Ending with positivity, he says if you want change, you have to be part of it.

“It’s why I ran for town council in Penhold in the first place and why I ran to be the mayor after my first term. It’s also why I would rather see Alberta as a leader in confederation rather than what we are doing now but that’s something I can talk about another day,” he opines.

“The way we do things now doesn’t inspire people to get involved in politics, it very much does the opposite. So how do we change that? This is where I hope to bring people together so we can figure this out. The good people in politics need to be encouraged to stay involved and the good people sitting on the sidelines watching need to be encouraged to get involved.”

The blog post by Yargeau can be read in full here.

by Josh Hall | @Vancan19

Mystery unsolved: Penhold Mayor Mike Yargeau claims interference in Red Deer Conservative Party nomination race

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