Politico Mark Marissen Is in Hot Water with Elections BC

Mark Marissen, who came fourth in Vancouver’s mayoral race last year, and seven candidates he ran with on the Progress Vancouver slate have all been disqualified from running again until after the 2026 local elections.

Marissen, the ex-husband of former British Columbia Premier Christy Clark, is a seasoned political organizer and strategist with extensive provincial and federal experience.

Elections BC, the independent body that oversees provincial and local elections, announced the disqualifications Tuesday saying it had deregistered Progress Vancouver for failing to meet the legal requirements to disclose its campaign financing.

It has also opened an investigation into Progress Vancouver’s finances, it said, that may lead to further enforcement actions.

Progress Vancouver missed the Jan. 13, 2023, deadline to file, then later submitted a report that Elections BC found failed to meet the requirements of the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act.

“The report did not provide information about the organization’s campaign finances, including campaign contribution details and campaign-period expenses attributed to specific candidates,” Elections BC’s announcement said.

The Progress Vancouver report did, however, disclose “several apparent violations of campaign financing rules.”

These included accepting: a non-permissible loan of $50,000; contributions that failed to include all of the required information such as full names and address of contributors; and contributions that exceeded the annual campaign contribution limit.

Elections BC said it notified Progress Vancouver on March 10 that the party had 30 days to file a corrective supplementary report.

“Since then, Elections BC advised Progress Vancouver multiple times on their legal responsibilities and what was required of them to correct the deficiencies in the financial reports,” it said. “Despite this Progress Vancouver did not provide a supplementary report that addressed the legislated reporting deficiencies by the compliance deadline.”

On Twitter, Marissen posted a statement saying the party had been tripped up by incorrect legal advice and changes to how the law treats loans from non-financial institutions. The statement said Progress Vancouver is working to repay the $50,000 loan and is co-operating with Elections BC, but did not say why it missed the filing deadline. It also said the party's other candidates were uninvolved in causing the issues.

Reached by phone, Progress Vancouver financial agent AnnMarie Aase said she would need more information before commenting publicly.

Marissen received 5,830 votes in the 2022 election, placing a distant fourth behind winner Ken Sim, former mayor Kennedy Stewart and candidate Colleen Hardwick.

According to Marissen’s bio on the website for the McMillan Vantage Policy Group, where he is a senior advisor at the group associated with the law firm McMillan LLP, Marissen “has worked across the country for prime ministers, premiers, opposition leaders and other elected representatives.”

He co-chaired a national campaign for the Liberal Party of Canada and chaired federal campaigns in B.C. for the party.

Marissen, who also founded communications firm Burrard Strategy Inc., has a political resumé that includes working on Stéphane Dion’s winning campaign for federal Liberal leader in 2006 and on Marissen’s ex-wife Christy Clark’s 2011 campaign to become leader of the BC Liberal party and premier of the province.

Ahead of the 2022 Vancouver municipal election, Marissen announced he would be seeking elected office himself and attracted a slate of candidates to run under the Progress Vancouver banner.

But in the crowded race none of the party’s candidates attracted much support from voters. The top council candidate, Asha Hayer, placed 37th in the competition for 10 councillor positions. The other Progress Vancouver council candidates were Mauro Francis, Marie Noelle Rosa, Morgane Oger, May He and David Chin.

Jonah Gonzales ran with Progress Vancouver to represent Electoral Area A on the Metro Vancouver Regional District board and finished second in the two-person race.

Following Elections BC’s announcement Tuesday, everybody who ran with Progress Vancouver is barred from running again until after the general local elections scheduled for 2026.

The party has six months to file a deregistration report that covers up until July 4, 2023, the effective date of its deregestration, and may not re-register until after the 2026 election.

Elections BC did not say how long the continuing investigation into Progress Vancouver’s finances will take, but said it will provide a public update when it is concluded.