There were audible scoffs from the crowd Tuesday as Cariboo MLAs told residents in Likely, B.C. that the drinking water ban has been lifted for areas near the Mount Polley mine where a tailings pond breached Monday, August 4th sending billions of litres of mining wastewater and solid materials into Hazeltine Creek and Quesnel Lake.

The drinking ban remains in effect for Mount Polley, Hazeltine Creek and an area 100 metres immediately surrounding the visible sediment plume at the mouth of the Hazeltine Creek where debris and sludge from the spill poured into Quesnel Lake, the primary source of drinking water for local residents.

At a small community press conference on the edge of the Quesnel River in Likely, B.C. Donna Barnett, MLA for the Cariboo-Chilcotin and parliamentary secretary for forests, lands and natural resource operations for rural developments, said, “this is a good news story.”

Residents have been dealing with uncertainty since last week, she said. “Well, finally we can give you some certainty.”

The announcement follows the release of a Ministry of Environment water test that found water from Polley Lake to be near “historical levels” taken prior to the tailings breach.

A press release on the Interior Health website states “Interior Health has no reason to believe that this water was ever exposed to unsafe levels of contaminants from the mine breach.”

Coralee Oakes, minister of community, sport and cultural development for the Cariboo region, told a small crowd that had gathered, “The results have come back from…our chief medical office for this region who is independent of government [and] has come forward…to announce that we will be removing the drinking water, recreation and fishing ban.”

A small crowd gathered on the banks of the Quesnel River in Likely, B.C. August 12 to hear the water ban for the area was mostly rescinded. Photo by Carol Linnitt.

Yet locals have expressed significant concern over water quality issues, even after the drinking water ban was partially lifted Sunday.

A journalist in the crowd, Christopher Donville from Bloomberg, remarked that it is generally accepted that tailings are better off in a tailings pond, and yet billions of gallons of tailings have spilled into the local environment seemingly without any negative effects. He looked to Minister Oakes for comment, but his remark was met with a chorus of other voices.

“Isn’t that wonderful?” Skeed Borkowski, the owner of a local fly fishing lodge, sarcastically remarked.

“What about testing the water column?” another woman chimed in.

Local resident and former Mount Polley mine employee Doug Watt asked for more information on the suspended solids causing a murky cloud in Quesnel Lake near his home.

Minister Oakes defended the water study results to the crowd, saying the experts who provided the information are “independent” and “reviewed all the data at a professional standard.”

Oakes said the Cariboo Regional District will continue to provide drinking water to residents and will keep the temporary shower facilities in operation.

When asked if the test results will change their interaction with the water, couple Doug and Marlene Watt, were split.

Doug, a former metallurgist and shift supervisor at Mount Polley mine, said he will drink the water after it’s been filtered. His wife said she “isn’t ready yet” to drink the water.

“Again we apologize to folks who were looking for information and couldn’t find it,” Oakes said.

In the early evening representatives from the Ministry of Environment came by to drop off information packets to locals at their homes and businesses. Avtar Sundher, head of government and compliance with the environmental management section of the Ministry of Environment pointed out the regions still under a drinking water ban on a map.

“All these hash areas are still affected,” he said, pointing to Polley Lake and Hazeltine Creek.

A map provided by the Ministry of Environment shows the areas still under a water use ban, including the 100-metre area in yellow and red surrounding the debris field at the mouth of Hazeltine Creek.

The information package states “the tailings liquid released from the impoundment moved very quickly through the system and was diluted greatly by the water in the lake, the Quesnel River and ultimately the Fraser River.”

“Generally, bio-accumulation of contaminants in fish occurs over a longer exposure than a few days,” the bulletin stated.

“We understand what a spectacular area it is that we live in and we understand how important it is that people come and visit and that tourism operators have every opportunity to showcase the pristine beauty that we have. And that young families know that this is a great, safe place to come and raise your families,” Oakes said to the crowd.

“Now it’s our job to make sure we get the story out that the Cariboo, that Likely, is open for business.”

This article is published as a part of a joint-venture between the Vancouver Observer and DeSmog Canada.

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Imagine having to read through 10,000 written comments on the same topic. It would probably be a touch on the tedious side — yet that’s exactly what a task force did back in 2010 before issuing 31 recommendations to reform our province’s municipal elections.

The task force included three Liberal MLAs and four elected officials from towns and cities across British Columbia.

What was the most egregious problem they found during their investigation? Campaign finance rules.

In a nutshell, local elections in B.C. have been the Wild West of campaign finance — with candidates allowed to take donations from anyone and spend as much as they like.

Third parties, such as business groups, have also been allowed to drop unlimited wads of cash during elections and, worse, they haven’t even had to register or disclose how much they spend.

Since B.C.’s local election laws were way out of date (campaign spending limits have been in place at the federal level since 1974 and at the provincial level since 1995), the plan was for the task force’s recommendations to be implemented in time for the 2011 local government elections.

“The task force strongly believes that if implemented these recommendations would make a positive difference to local elections in British Columbia,” the report read.

Well, surprise, surprise — the recommendations weren’t implemented in time for the 2011 elections after all.

And in those elections, Vancouver businessman Rob Macdonald infamously cut a cheque for $960,000 to the Non-Partisan Association. In many other Canadian cities, donations of this size aren't allowed. (In Montreal, the annual cap is $300, in Toronto it’s $2,500, in Winnipeg it’s $750 and in Calgary it’s $5,000.)

Fast-forward three years to last week, and Bill 20, the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act, was passed in the legislature.

When introducing the bill, Coralee Oakes, the province’s community, sport and cultural development minister, hailed it as “the most significant update to B.C.’s local elections process in 20 years.”

The new act will require third-party advertisers to register with Elections BC, identify donors of $50 and more and report expenditures for the first time. It will also require all election advertising to clearly name a sponsor (read that again: up until now, local election ads didn’t even need to say who paid for them).

These are all steps in the right direction — but guess what’s missing?

Yup, candidates and third parties can still spend as much as they please. What is the province’s rationale for delaying the implementation of spending limits until at least 2018 — seven years after they were supposed to have been implemented?

The government claims its two-phase approach to implementing the reforms is to “allow campaign participants to become familiar with the first set of changes before adding expense limits into local elections.”

And then the province promises yet more “engagement” with “key stakeholders” on the issue. Come again?

What was the point of creating a task force that met several times and reviewed 10,000 comments before issuing its recommendations? Not only that, but the recommendations were reached by consensus of all task force members — which included B.C. Liberal cabinet minister Bill Bennett and two other B.C. Liberal MLAs.

The recommendation on expense limits was clear: “The task force believes that expense limits could increase accessibility and fairness by levelling the playing field among candidates; encouraging candidate participation; and reducing the need for large contributions to fund expensive campaigns.”

Why the province would delay on a piece of legislation that has near-unanimous support in B.C. is anyone's guess. University of Victoria political scientist Norman Ruff told DeSmog Canada one possible explanation “is that the municipal scene has become a farm team for the BC Liberals and they might not be too anxious to disturb any advantages currently enjoyed by potentially future provincial Liberal candidates.”

Robert Hobson, a Kelowna city councillor who was on the task force, called the continued delay in introducing spending limits “unfortunate.”

“It’s going to be 2018, seven years later,” Hobson said. “If the recommendations were worth putting in place, I would have thought they were worth putting in place sooner rather than later.”

Hear, hear. In the absence of spending limits, candidates and third parties — including oil pipeline companies such as Enbridge and Kinder Morgan — can spend unlimited amounts of money in this November's municipal elections.

Perhaps in a sign of what's to come, during the recent Kitimat plebiscite Enbridge reported spending at least $22,000, or about $4.50 per eligible voter — 30 times as much as the company could have spent per capita in the riding during a provincial election. (The spending was no biggie to Enbridge, which earned $1.2 billion in 2013, and also didn't seem to help them all that much with 58 per cent of voters rejecting the company's oil pipeline project.)

Still, given Enbridge’s spending in Kitimat, it’s not difficult to imagine how a lack of spending limits could undermine November’s local votes — particularly as British Columbia comes under unprecedented pressure from resource companies, many of them likely keen to dethrone local politicians opposed to their plans.

With no spending limits in sight, British Columbians' best bet is to watch like hawks this fall and make sure corporate advertising backfires — just like it did in Kitimat. It turns out most folks don't like the idea of big bucks swaying the outcome of local votes … it's just too bad the B.C. government doesn't appear to agree.

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Amid controversy about Enbridge’s spending in Kitimat before a plebiscite on its Northern Gateway oil proposal, the B.C. government introduced legislation on Wednesday that, if passed, will tighten rules for campaign financing and advertising in local government elections and referendums — but the changes come four years late and don't go far enough, says a campaign finance expert.

The new Local Elections Campaign Financing Act and Local Elections Statutes Amendment Act will require third-party advertisers to register with Elections BC, identify donors of $50 and more and report expenditures for the first time. It will also require all election advertising to clearly name a sponsor and will ensure all campaign donations and expenses are published on the Elections BC website. It will also extend the terms of office for local elected officials from three years to four.

“This is the most significant update to B.C.’s local elections process in 20 years,” Coralee Oakes, the province’s community, sport and cultural development minister, said in a statement.

However, the legislation still won’t mandate spending limits for candidates and third parties — a recommendation made by a joint B.C.-Union of B.C. Municipalities local government elections task force in 2010. The government says expense limits will be broached in a second phase of legislation before the next local election in 2018.

The task force, which reviewed more than 10,000 submissions from groups and individuals, said in its report that the intent was for its recommendations to be put in place for the 2011 local elections.

"One task force, one white paper, four years of procrastination, and the elephant is still in the room,” said Dermod Travis of Integrity BC, a non-profit that advocates for electoral finance reform.

In a submission to the province on elections reform, Integrity BC stressed the importance of implementing spending limits sooner rather than later:

The opportunity to fix a broken system, to increase accessibility to public office and to strengthen local democracy should not be lost in this process, even if it is only for one more cycle of local elections. Without meaningful electoral finance reform that includes strict election spending and contribution limits, candidacy for local government will — by and large — remain the purview of the affluent and well-connected and the public's faith in local government will continue to diminish.

The task force had clearly called for expense limits to be implemented. Its report said:

The task force believes that expense limits could increase accessibility and fairness by levelling the playing field among candidates; encouraging candidate participation; and reducing the need for large contributions to fund expensive campaigns … applying limits to third parties is important to ensuring that third party advertising cannot be used to work around restrictions on campaign spending (and accordingly, transparency).

Expressing further concerns about the impact of third-party advertisers, the report said:

Third party advertisers can have a significant impact on democratic debate in a community, but the current rules do not provide sufficient clarity on obligations of third party advertisers.

More than 1,660 elected positions on more than 250 government bodies are filled through local elections in B.C. The next local elections will be held on Nov. 15, 2014.

In the 2011 election, the largest donation was $960,000 from Vancouver businessman Rob Macdonald to the NPA. In many other Canadian cities, donations of this size aren't allowed — in Montreal, the annual cap is $300, in Toronto it’s $2,500, in Winnipeg it’s $750 and in Calgary it’s $5,000.

According to a 2010 public opinion survey conducted by the Mustel Group and commissioned by then SFU professor Kennedy Stewart, 74.5 per cent of respondents felt there should be a limit on how much any one person can donate to a local election campaign and two-thirds supported a ban on corporate and union donations.

Even if the new legislation was in affect now, the Kitimat plebiscite as structured wouldn’t fall under the new rules (a plebiscite is non-binding) — but a vote on a local bylaw or a referendum on a regional district service would. As it stands, Enbridge won't have to disclose its expenditures, which are likely to exceed $20,000 — six times what the company would be allowed to spend during a provincial vote.

Campaign spending limits for candidates and political parties have been in place at the federal level since 1974 and at the provincial level since 1995 — but it looks as though B.C.’s local elections and referendums will roll on without them until at least 2018.

Photo by Pete via Flickr

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