Taras Sokolyk
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Taras Sokolyk was a former political organizer. He played a prominent role in the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba's 1995 election campaign, in which the party won a majority government.[1]
Once a political organizer in Manitoba, Canada, he served as chief of staff to Progressive Conservative premier Gary Filmon in the 1990s.[2] Sokolyk resigned his post in July 1998 after he was accused of helping to rig the 1995 Provincial Election.[1] In November 1998 Sokolyk admitted that he had improperly used campaign funds in an attempt to split the vote to improve his party's chance of victory.[3] After this admission Filmon claimed that he hadn't known about Sokolyk's actions and blamed him and aide Julian Benson for the vote-rigging scandal.[4]
The Manitoba government refused to pay Sokolyk's legal fees arising from the case[5] and Sokolyk was ultimately not criminally charged in the case.[6] In December 2002 the Progressive Conservatives again hired Sokolyk as a campaign consultant entrusted with research and advising about campaign strategy[7] but fired him less than a month later.[8]
By 2004 Sokolyk was working for hotel chain Canad Inns.[9] By 2008 he had become CEO of the company.[10]
He died on Saturday, August 20, 2022, at the age of 69, after years of battling cancer.