On April 30, the North Vancouver Chamber of Commerce used paid space in the North Shore Outlook to promote $225 million in recent local infrastructure investments. The advertisement specifically thanked provincial Liberal legislators Katherine Whittred, Joan McIntyre, Ralph Sultan and Daniel Jarvis for working with "senior levels of government" to secure that funding.

The ad also featured a quote from chamber president Naomi Yamamoto, who had earlier taken a leave of absence to run for the Liberals in North Vancouver-Lonsdale.

Chamber chair Stephen Joyce said the content of that advertisement wasn't related to the election. He the chamber runs an update in the North Shore Outlook each month "on either advocacy projects we've worked on on behalf of the community or things that are happening around the chamber as far as events go." In this case, the chamber provided an update on the infrastructure investments it had lobbied for.

But doesn't it look like the chamber is supporting Yamamoto and the Liberals by running this content during the election?

"I didn't even think about it when it came out that that's what would happen. I could see, if you're kind of looking for that the timing may seem odd. But the timing is the timing. It's just when we always do our newsletter and do our monthly announcement," Joyce responded.

"That said, as the chamber chair, I've remained very, very neutral and impartial to anything that's going on in the election," he continued.

"I'm not involved with Naomi, I'm not involved with Janice Harris or any of the local politics that's happening because – and the board made this decision as well – we don't want to be perceived as being biased toward Naomi, being the former president. We're very cognoscente of that. So at no time are we interested at all in making any kind of endorsement of her or any other candidate."

Public Eye previously reported that North Shore Credit Union, whose board of directors includes Yamamoto, gave a $7,500 donation to the Liberals late last year. The credit union's president Chris Catliff said that contribution had nothing to do with her bid to keep North Vancouver-Lonsdale in the party’s hands.

Sean Holman reports for Public Eye Online.