If money is the oxygen supply in politics, then the BC Liberals have been living in the lush, low-altitude Amazon. Had their efficient fundraising machinery organized D-Day, there might not have been Allied casualties.
Still, the $12.4 million war chest raised last year was a tipping point – at long last a necessary object of attention for the public and a necessary subject of attention for the party. It’s not so much that rules were bent but that the rules themselves are bent.
One would think no one would want to be thought of as the problematic outlier, of employing techniques that give the Wild West a bad name, certainly not with an election two months away. But it seemed that way until last week.
Then the RCMP, Elections BC, the New York Times, the Globe and Mail, mainstream and social media sufficiently stirred a Liberal response. Problem is, the Liberal response isn’t sufficient.
If it’s their last word on this matter for the campaign, they will find themselves silent in the face of legitimate fury.
Lately I’ve been running into people who start their comments along the lines of: “I really support the Liberals and want them to win, but . . .”
A couple of complaints later they’ll add: “I really don’t want to see the NDP win. However…”
Fact is, the reality of cash-for-access events is much less than meets the skeptical eye. Typically a politician sweeps through a full room of donors, makes small talk with as many as possible, gets in a few photos, then moves on. On the intimacy scale it is vastly closer to speed dating than to marriage.
But let’s be serious: when has reality mattered of late? The public perception is that it is privileged attention for those with skin in the game, with a favour to ask, with a debt now to repay, so the reality has to be reshaped to mitigate that concern of a government beholden.
In the same way Christy Clark has taken John Horgan lightly, her government has taken this issue lightly – or calculated that the benefits of fundraising from supporters outweigh the risks of losing supporters.
Even last week’s announcement leaves you wondering. The decision to introduce, but not pass, legislation to appoint a commission to review the rules was one more promise that could have been law.
The Medical Services Plan premium reduction, the seniors’ care initiative and the ride-sharing commitment are campaign hostages, too.
It was rude, too, to announce meagre fiddling at the margins of transparency about cash-for-access events during so-called Sunshine Week, when governments typically re-examine their methods of withholding and disclosing information.
And, much as it is understandable that this government reviles tax increases the way most of us revile tax increases, it was disingenuous of the premier to suggest her new commission might not ever recommend the common per-vote funding formula from the treasury found in other jurisdictions. She claims she doesn’t want taxpayers to pay.
It also suggests she doesn’t understand what we understand: that provincial political donations already carry tax benefits. As if by coincidence, an email to a Liberal fundraiser outlined them to me last week: 75% on the first $100, 50% on the next $450, then 33% on the balance, to a maximum of $500. Granted, a per-vote subsidy would be larger than the tax credit, but it’s reasonable to say taxpayers are already burdened to a degree.
The notion that foreign money can be funnelled without regulation, that union dues and corporate coffers can supply unlimited help and that individuals are unfettered to donate, seems incongruent with a government that prides itself on prudence in its financial practice.
What separates B.C. from the rest of North America ought to be mountains, not munificent political financing.
The benefit of the doubt has gone a long way to help the BC Liberals.
The doubt of the benefit has gone a long way to hurt the BC NDP.
Does the government really believe it can bank on that now?
Kirk LaPointe is Business in Vancouver’s vice-president of audience and business development.
