Essex Conservative Candidate Jeff Watson says an investigation is underway in connection to possible illegal union campaign donations.
Watson says an ad appeared on a union intranet site describing an opportunity to get paid doing door-to-door canvassing for the NDP. He says this could constitute as a union donation, which is illegal.
Watson adds that information has been forwarded to the Commissioner of Elections Canada.
"I can confirm an investigation is underway. Obviously this is serious," he says, adding he can't disclose here exactly the information came from."It's courageous whistleblowers who were witnesses to this, they captured the images and are cooperating with the organization."
Watson says being caught accepting illegal union donations of any form can result in fines up to $50,000, five years of jail time or a combination of both.
Essex NDP candidate Tracey Ramsey says Watson's allegations are merely a "distraction" from Prime Minister Stephen Harper's "terrible record of protecting jobs here in Essex."
Ramsey says the job posting was indeed for employment with the NDP, but the person who posted the ad did not do so at the behest of the party.
"We did not request them to do that, they were not authorized to do that by our capaign," she says. "This person thought they were doing something to help by supplying the information about the NDP job, but as soon as we heard about it, we asked them to remove (the ad)."
She says the issue was first brought to her attention over two weeks ago, and her campaign was also contacted by Elections Canada around the same time.
"The matter, as far as we knew, was resolved. There actually was no issue," she says. "What (Elections Canada) said is that everything that what we are doing is within the law."
- With files from Kirk Dickinson.