The tight race in Trinity-Spadina took a bizarre turn last week when a volunteer with Liberal Tony Ianno’s campaign was found posing as a CBC reporter at the Students’ Administrative Council (SAC) office.
David Chu, whom The Varsity tracked down at Ianno’s campaign office on Sunday, refused to comment on the case until after election day.
According to staff at SAC, Chu and another man have been in to the office more than once over the last several weeks.
“They were asking questions about our campaign to encourage students to vote,” said Rick Telfer, SAC general manager. “We noticed that David Chu was wearing a Tony Ianno lanyard.”
According to Telfer, Chu admitted that he was a volunteer with Ianno’s campaign, but also insisted that he was an independent filmmaker. He left shortly thereafter, and returned last Wednesday.
According to SAC President Paul Bretscher, Chu introduced himself on Wednesday as a CBC reporter and showed CBC press credentials. Bretscher, who had not heard about the initial incident, did interviews with Chu and let him film around the SAC office.
After the interviews, Telfer and SAC VP External Jen Hassum recognized Chu. On further questioning, Chu apparently admitted that he did work for the CBC.
“We asked if we could photocopy his media tags,” said Bretscher, but Chu refused, instead writing down his name and telephone number.
That number was found to be out of service.
“If somebody is pretending to be a CBC journalist and they are not in fact a CBC journalist,” said Jason Macdonald, spokesperson for the CBC, “then that’s disappointing, and it’s highly unethical.”
There has been some hostility between SAC and the Ianno campaign over campus voting stations, with campaign manager Tom Allison repeatedly accusing SAC of making a “secret deal” with Elections Canada. The Olivia Chow-Tony Ianno race is widely acknowledged as one of the closest in Canada.
