Apparently, the provincial government isn’t getting its mail or email from the City of Vancouver.
How else to explain the government now requesting feedback on its so-called plan to introduce new campaign finance rules for civic elections.
And, the government implored, give us something by Jan. 31, 2014!
What the…?
As regular readers will know, the call from city council to get the big money out of civic politics goes back almost a decade. In fact, all three mainstream parties — Vision Vancouver, the NPA and COPE — once signed a tri-party agreement in an effort to stop the multi-million dollar campaigns.
I’ve lost track of how many times council then dutifully sent a letter, email — whatever — to the provincial government requesting a new set of campaign finance rules.
I’ve been told that council cannot simply change the rules in Vancouver. As well, no politicians appear to be taking up former municipal affairs minister Ida Chong’s suggestion of a handshake deal between parties to stop the spending race.
Regardless of such a suggestion, minister after minister — Chong, Bill Bennett and now Coralee Oakes — have clearly said they aren’t interested in changing the rules only for Vancouver.
Which is kind of odd, since I would guess electoral reform is not exactly on the agenda of, say, Mayor Ted Lewis in the village of Zeballos on Vancouver Island.
But here we go again.
Yet another motion drafted by Vision Vancouver Coun. Andrea Reimer is scheduled to go before city council tomorrow (Jan. 21); I swear I could hear Reimer heave a heavy sigh in having to do this again.
As Reimer pointed out, council has sent formal requests to the government for campaign finance changes in 2005, 2009, 2010, 2012 and in 2013 via a motion endorsed nearly unanimously by the Union of B.C. Municipalities.
“The funds used to campaign for elected office in Vancouver have grown 175 per cent in eight years [that] Vancouver has waited for provincial action on this issue, with the unprecedented case in the 2011 Vancouver municipal election of $960,000 donated to one electoral organization from a single corporation and more than $5.2 million spent by all parties,” her motion reads.
That $960,000, by the way, came from developer Robert Macdonald and went to the NPA. Reimer, for the record, did not total up the amount of money her party has received from developers, many of whom do regular business with the city.
Anyway, in case council’s earlier dispatches got lost in the mail, Reimer posted a long list of recommendations agreed upon in March 2010 by council that outlines what it wants changed.
The biggies here are a ban on union and corporate donations, impose spending limits and have all donations and expenses for candidates disclosed on a continuous basis at six-month intervals.
The election is in November.
And Oakes has already indicated spending limits won’t be in place for the campaigns, which again are expected to see millions of dollars spent.
And that, of course, means none of the I’m-on-a-low-budget independent candidates will get elected.
Sadly, the party machine always wins.
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