By Dermod Travis
So how much is too much?
It’s a question well worth asking after British Columbia’s political parties reported their 2012 fundraising hauls recently.
Between them, the B.C. Liberals and NDP brought in more than $17 million. The B.C. Liberals raised $10.15 million, half of what the federal Conservative party spent in the 2011 federal election campaign.
If they serve no other purpose, these filings provide a glimpse on the various fundraising approaches of each party. Who you take money from – and how much you’ll take from them – says a lot about the kind of party you are and the type of government you might run.
They offer up tidbits, such as Tim Hortons Advertising and Promotion Fund’s $1,000 donation to the B.C. Liberals.
There’s the shocking Aquilini Investment Corporation giving $102,500 to the NDP, even though it’s highly doubtful that the Aquilini family had a conversion on the road to Damascus.
They didn’t entirely abandon the B.C. Liberals. Aquilini Investment Corporation gave $60,600 to the party – Aquilini Development and Construction gave $4,000 and Francesco Aquilini threw in $25,790 for good measure.
And then there’s Calgary, as in Calgary, Alberta.
Calgary-based Burnco Rock Products Ltd. donated $50,700 to the B.C. Liberals last year, bringing their running total to a cool $180,700. Burnco has a 77-hectare gravel mining and crushing facility planned for McNab Creek on the Howe Sound, just south of Squamish.
Of course, there are the stalwarts of the Calgary Petroleum Club who at least make pretence of trying to spread Alberta’s oil riches around.
Encana tossed $143,600 into the B.C. Liberal coffers last year, bringing its eight-year largesse to $795,770, with $14,140 leftover for the NDP.
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. saw fit to give $18,500 to the B.C. Liberals for an eight-year total of $117,480, a figure that doesn’t include the $260,000 given by the company’s former chair Allan Markin. The company pillaged the corporate coffee fund to scrape $3,000 together for the NDP.
All told, Calgary’s major oil and gas companies have donated close to $1.5 million to the B.C. Liberals since 2005.
However, British Columbians shouldn’t need to pull out their chequebook to talk to their government.
Today, the BC NDP, Green Party of B.C., BC Conservatives, BC First Party and all three Independent MLAs seeking re-election support a ban on corporate and union donations.
A Mustel public opinion survey commissioned by IntegrityBC in March found that 59 per cent of British Columbians support a ban, nearly a two-to-one margin over those who favour the current Wild West approach.
Only one major party is out-of-step with British Columbians on this issue: the BC Liberal Party.
In 2007, political affairs columnist Tom Fletcher wrote: “an end to corporate and union donations seems to me to be the only realistic way out of the smoke, mirrors and sewer scents of B.C. politics.”
He was right then – and $50 million later in corporate and union donations to B.C.’s political parties – he’s still right.
Dermod Travis is the executive director of IntegrityBC.
