(Michael Ruge outside North Cowichan municipal hall in November 2025)
North Cowichan councillor sees no issue with $750 campaign donation from fraudster
Tek Manhas invested money with Michael Ruge and ‘he paid me out’ with interest
North Cowichan councillor Tek Manhas says he sees no issue with accepting a $750 campaign donation from fraudster Michael Ruge.
“It’s legal,” he told Six Mountains.
Manhas also says it's none of his business that Ruge has only paid $5,000 of his $150,000 fine for securities fraud more than two decades later.
“That’s got nothing to do with me,” he said.
During the 2022 municipal election, Ruge donated $750 to Manhas’ election campaign, while his wife, Elly Ruge, donated $1,250, the maximum allowable at that time.
In 2005, the BC Securities Commission announced that Michael Ruge had been fined $150,000 plus a 25-year securities ban after he “admitted to committing fraud and illegally distributing securities to investors.”
Elly Ruge was not involved.
(Read more: https://www.bcsc.bc.ca/about/media-room/news-releases/2005/28-bc-man-admits-to-committing-fraud-and-misrepresentation )
Six Mountains has been asking Manhas about his relationship with Michael Ruge since shortly after the 2022 election.
(Under BC law, candidates have 90 days after an election to file a financial report, which means the public doesn’t get to know who is contributing until the election is over.)
Manhas finally provided some answers before the start of the all-candidates meeting in Crofton earlier this month.
(Tek Manhas at Crofton all-candidates meeting)
He said it was Michael Ruge who came to him with an investment opportunity.
“I never knew who the guy was,” he said.
“He came to me for an investment opportunity and I invested some money with him based on I get a certain percentage of interest after a couple of years. And he paid me out.”
Manhas and Elly Ruge were among the founding directors in 2019 of Cowichan Condos Inc., a company involved in land assembly that eventually resulted in a Kerkhoff high-density residential development.
Three properties on Paddle Road purchased by Cowichan Condos were sold to Cowichan Project 168 Ltd., the developer, for a profit of $783,000 over a four-month period in 2020.
Manhas ceased to be a director of Cowichan Condos in 2021.
He expressed support for Kerkhoff when the project came before council for consideration in 2022, but made no mention of his prior involvement through Cowichan Condos.
(Rotary Club of Duncan Facebook photo of Elly Ruge introducing Tek Manhas as new member in July 2022)
Corporate records reviewed by sixmountains.ca, including those kept at the company’s registered office, do not name Michael Ruge as a director or shareholder of Cowichan Condos, though Elly Ruge is a major shareholder through a numbered company in which she is the only director on record.
In a news release in 2020 on ACCESSWIRE Michael Ruge is described as “development manager.”
And he listed Cowichan Condos under “Current Projects” on one of his websites: https://michael.ruge.ca/
Asked to comment Thursday, David Black, an associate professor of communications and culture at Royal Roads University in Victoria, said: "The question is, and this matters a lot at the local level...there is the appearance of impropriety."
He added that $750 is not an insignificant donation at the municipal level.
Black said "good governance" is a top-of-mind issue with municipal voters these days.
He noted there is no law that would have prevented Ruge from making the campaign donation.
As for Manhas: "It would have been easy to say no."
Manhas, asked at the Crofton meeting if he still keeps in contact with the Ruges, said: “I haven’t seen them for a while…it could be months.”
Manhas added: “He texts me sometimes and I respond to him.”
As recently as last November, Ruge insisted there is no longer a fine to be paid. “It was all wiped out legally by the commission,” he told Six Mountains outside North Cowichan municipal hall.
“They wiped out the fine.” He said it happened around “2009, 2010, I’m not sure exactly when.”
Ruge also said: " “I’ll donate to any councillor that is pro development.”
But the commission had a different story.
The commission’s “administrative penalty against Mr. Ruge remains unpaid,” Brian Kladko, manager of media relations and public affairs, said in a written statement.
“…he has paid only $5,000 of the $150,000 penalty; that $5,000 payment was made upon signing the settlement agreement.”
Kladko said Ruge filed for bankruptcy. “He was given a conditional discharge from bankruptcy in 2015, conditional upon his paying $150,000 to the bankrupt estate, which he hasn’t done.
“So he remains an undischarged bankrupt. We continue to pursue the uncollected amount.”
Ruge is currently promoting another company, Affordable Apartments: https://affordableapartments.ca/
He has described himself as a “beacon of hope in the Cowichan Valley housing crisis" and a "name synonymous with innovation and community spirit.”
Ruge says on-line that he prefers to fund projects through investors rather than banks.
In a recent email to prospective investors, he says: “To ensure we continue moving forward at full speed, we are currently seeking an additional $2 million in strategic capital.
“These funds will be used to advance approvals, engineering, permitting, infrastructure planning, and development activities across the Affordable Apartments platform.”
He writes that participation is structured as a short-term loan opportunity “designed to reward those who help us accelerate this next phase of growth.”
Key highlights include:
— 10% annual interest, accruing from the day funds are received
— Anticipated repayment within 12 months, with a target of repayment by year-end
— Ability to advance funds in 2 stages if desired
— Option to convert your loan into condominium ownership at a 30% discount to future pricing once final development plans are approved
— Option to convert into ownership of Affordable Apartments Ltd.
Ruge has also stated “I am a deal maker who gets things done.”
He added: “As an ‘entrepreneur’ I have created several, successful enterprises. As an ‘intrapreneur’ I have advised and lent my consulting expertise to all sizes of corporations and entities, resulting in multiplying the third bottom line (people, planet, profits).
“I live my life by my standards and my way, attacking challenges as they come up. Good-natured, happy, peaceful man, always willing to help. High energy. The guiding light for my family and loved ones, friends and clients, an incredible supporter, doing the right thing. I am an adventurer, a world traveler, a seeker of new limits.”
Ruge does travel widely, and is passionate about “global rallies and overland expeditions,” including in Africa. https://michaelruge.name/elly-and-michael-ruge-masters-of-the-ultimate-road-trip-adventure/
(Michael Ruge Facebook)
His list of business endeavours over the years has included backroad tours in search of Sasquatch in the Cowichan Valley.
Michael and Elly Ruge live on Thetis Island.
The securities commission settlement agreement references an "offering memorandum Oct. 1, 2001, for an exempt private offering of 400,000 Partnership Units at $50 per unit to residents of BC, Alberta, and Ontario.”
From Dec. 18, 2001, to Feb. 6, 2003, 50 investors purchased $1,543,919 units under the memorandum. Ruge also raised funds from US investors.
About $243,402 was refunded to investors, the agreement states, “but there is little prospect of any additional recovery. The Investors have lost most of their money.”
The settlement agreement lists several misrepresentations by Ruge, including:
— Chivas was a hedge fund when it was not.
— He monitored the advisors’ performance closely when, instead, he did nothing in that regard.
— He had “cream of the crop people” in place in the New York office when, in fact, Chivas did not have any New York employees.
— Investors could get their money back at any time, when the offering memorandum in fact did not provide for early redemption.
— Chivas had a rate of return of between 26% to 45%, which was not true. Rates of return were not calculated on a reliable basis, as there was no consideration of expenses, of whether shares held by Chivas were free trading or liquid, or if loans held by Chivas were being repaid or were recoverable.
In the agreement, Ruge promised “not to say anything, in writing or orally, which may contradict the terms of this settlement or call those terms into question.”
Read the agreement: https://www.bcsc.bc.ca/enforcement/administrative-enforcement/settlements/2005/michael-ernst-ruge-et-al-sec-161--settlement-agrmnt
This is the 19th instalment of a special column, Election Notebook, leading up to the October 17 municipal election.
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(Larry Pynn is the recipient of more than 30 journalism awards, including a 2026 gold award for investigative reporting by the Canadian Association of Journalists. He is currently nominated for his ninth Jack Webster award.)
— October 15, 2026