British Columbia - Political Party $ Contributions

The BC Conservatives and the BC NDP are proposing to eliminate Corporate and Union donations like the Fed’s and most other provinces have. Presently there is no limit on $ amount of donations to political parties in BC. The Liberals like this wild west system and want to keep it.

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Business Donations - These are before tax dollars easier to come by and are conveniently written off. Corporations almost always want something in return for their donations, (quid-pro-quo). They employ lobbyists seeking influence, government contracts, advance inside information and this lax system breeds corruption. To understand this, one only needs to follow the money. The Liberals rec’d $5 million in donations in 2012 from business, a few examples;

• The recent ‘Pacific Carbon Trust’ shell-game-scam revealed the connections, favours/benefits relating $2.9 million donors to the BC Liberals.
• The Independent Power Producers (IPP) nepotism revealed over $2 million donations to the Liberals. Their insiders and corporate crony friends received lucrative ‘Energy Purchase Agreement’ contracts through BC Hydro, putting us in massive long term debt while doubling our electricity rates.
• Remember Big Beer’s $126,000 donation trying to influence government to protect their market status and minister Rich Coleman getting embarrassed accepting a $27,000 gift from the $134,000 Medium Beer donor for which Coleman changed the law to grant them access to a bigger market?
• Why did Quebec follow the Feds and disallow business and unions from donating then reduce contributions to $100 max by individuals? “It makes it harder for anyone to try to buy influence with politicians”.

The Quebec Charbonneau Commission exposed corporate lobbying and collusion for government contracts, as routine practice. ~ When you compare that to BC politics, there is not much of a difference and some of the players are the same Corp’s. like SNC-Lavalin (Evergreen Line contract) plus many other gov’t. contracts, with Board Chair Gwyn Morgan, Christy Clark insider/adviser (donated $110,000 to the Liberals since 2011). Individual Donations – Donate after tax dollars which are harder to come by. Individuals don’t hire lobbyists and it’s more difficult to buy political influence. Unions – Obviously want influence and favourable labour contracts. It puts the politicians in a tight spot negotiating government labour contracts on behalf of the tax-payers when they are beholding to the unions. Most union members don’t like a large portion of their dues going to political parties whether of their choice or not. Advocacy Groups - The largest of these are the ‘environmental lobby’ who have as much financial clout as big business. These groups as non-profits or charities are not allowed to contribute to a political party in Canada, because they are already tax-exempt. They are allowed to publically advertise but are not supposed to advocate for political partisan purposes as a condition of their tax exempt status. Politicians and Corporations will take any advantage they can get away with. Barack Obama was giving away free cell phones in a critical swing state which won over many voters. In the old days it was common for the politicos to give a stump speech and announce there would be free drinks at the saloon. Christy Clark has been spending millions of our tax dollars, advertising themselves, through the ‘BC Jobs Plan’ and other public accounts (even though it’s prohibited), telling us how great their Liberals are. We often hear “Oh well everybody does it, it’s just how they do business”. This is not acceptable, we need our media to do a strong job as negative press is very effective, to hold politicians to account. Roland Seguin Langley, BC

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