Election spending and campaign donation reports were released by Elections BC last week, but voters in Boundary-Similkameen aren’t much wiser today about who funded our local candidates.
Only Green candidate Vonnie Lavers and independent Dr. Peter Entwistle listed their donors, which was easy to do since almost no one gave to their frugal campaigns.
NDP candidate Colleen Ross missed the filing deadline and has been granted an extension to October due to “extenuating circumstances.”
She says it is due to an illness on her financial team. We don’t know enough about the circumstances to say if the delay is justified, but the election was more than three months ago and the forms aren’t that complicated.
Liberal candidate Linda Larson, who was re-elected as MLA, declared no contributions at all, but spent more than $103,000.
That’s because the Liberals use a circuitous route to channel donations through the party, making it difficult or impossible to trace them.
In B.C., which the New York Times called “the Wild West of Canadian political cash,” this is legal. In certain non-political sectors this would be called “money laundering.”
Most other provinces and the federal government have much stricter campaign contribution limits – but also reporting requirements.
Federally, there is a donation limit in 2017 of $1,550 to a registered party and the same limit for candidates. Donations from corporations and unions are strictly prohibited.
Quebec, which has suffered political corruption scandals in the past, now has what’s considered the “gold standard” when it comes to campaign contributions. There’s a strict limit of $100.
But the corruption scandals in Quebec’s past that led to that limit are an illustration of why B.C.’s political donation system is dangerous.
When businesses and unions, and even wealthy individuals connected to special interests, can donate with almost no limits and do so with very little disclosure, campaign contributions become a vehicle to influence government policy – often with corrupt purpose.
As Dermod Travis, executive director of the non-partisan transparency advocacy group IntegrityBC points out, in Quebec the corrupt donations were supposely given by individuals. They just happened to be working for the same company and made the donations at the same time, which tipped off the press.
The term used for this practice of having individuals make donations on behalf of others is “straw donors.”
Larson says she only received three corporate donations and the rest were from individuals or small businesses donating goods or services in kind.
While this may be true, and there is certainly no evidence of corruption on her part, without full disclosure of individuals making large donations, it’s impossible for the public to be certain that the “individuals” donating to her campaign aren’t “straw donors.”
Names of people giving money to the B.C. Liberal Party are listed in the party’s own filings, but common names without any other information are meaningless.
In Elections Canada filings, for example, the town and postal code of donors is listed, even if the street address is not, in order to protect privacy.
The new NDP government, and the B.C. Greens who keep them in power, have committed to campaign contribution reform. But in the past, the NDP has relied heavily on union donations.
The public must hold the new government to its promise to clean up B.C.’s system of political donations, which invites abuse.
Travis calls B.C.’s system “a joke.”
But we’re not laughing.
