Five B.C. Liberal candidates running in the current election are also former lobbyists who advocated for corporations including Chevron, Pacific Northwest LNG and ExxonMobil in the offices of Premier Christy Clark and other top ministers, according to records contained in the B.C. Lobbyist Registry.

None of the candidates’ profiles on the B.C. Liberal’s website note their previous work as lobbyists.

“I am alarmed at the number of lobbyists who are running in this election,” Dermod Travis, executive director of IntegrityBC, told DeSmog Canada.

“It may in fact point to a worrisome trend.”

“It’s not a generally considered a stepping stone in politics to go from being a lobbyist to an elected official. Where B.C. risks not electing a government but electing a boardroom of interests — whether corporate or union, it doesn’t matter,” Travis said. "In this instance it's obviously corporate."

B.C. has no broad rules preventing all former public office holders from moving directly from the public sector into employment as a lobbyist to serve private interests.

In Ontario former politicians must wait 12 months before registering as lobbyists. Federally the 'cooling-off period' is a mandatory five years.

B.C. does impose a one-year cooling-off period for senior politicians and bureaucrats from lobbying their former colleagues in instances where they had “substantial involvement in dealings with an outside entity,” but the system is far from perfect, Travis said.

Former Corporate Lobbyists Running for B.C. Liberals Part of ‘Alarming Trend’: Watchdog https://t.co/LbOCFb2YZG #bcelxn17 #bcpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) April 5, 2017

“We have a ‘defrost period,’ “ Travis said, “because it’s not a mandatory cooling off period even where it exists.”

Multiple loopholes mean former public employees are often exempt from the rules.

“We see people going back and forth sometimes in the revolving door where at one moment they’re in the private sector and in the next, the public sector,” Travis said, adding lobbyists aren’t required to disclose if and when they receive kick backs from companies they secure government funding or contracts for.

These ‘contingency clauses’ are banned at the federal level, but in B.C. are kept secret, further obscuring the power lobbying has in the political process, Travis said.

“What’s happening through that process is special interests, self interests are getting put ahead of the public good.”

So who are the candidates?

Gabe Garfinkel, Christy Clark’s former top aide turned lobbyist, is running for the B.C. Liberal party in the riding of Vancouver-Fairview.

Garfinkel made headlines in 2013 after leaving his position of executive assistant to Christy Clark to work with prominent public relations firm FleishmanHillard which lobbies on behalf of high profile corporate clients like Kinder Morgan.

According to provincial lobbying records, Garfinkel registered to lobby on behalf of Chevron Canada, Fortune Minerals and Port Metro Vancouver among others and frequently listed the Premier as a “target contact” for these meetings.

In his work as a lobbyist representing mining and oil and gas interests, Garfinkel lobbied the office of the premier as well as Environment Minister Mary Polak and Minister of Energy and Mines Bill Bennett.

Jas Johal, candidate for Richmond-Queensborough, was the former director of communications for the BC LNG Alliance and registered to lobby on the behalf of BG Canada, ExxonMobil, Kitimat LNG, LNG Canada, Pacific Northwest LNG, Triton LNG and Woodfibre LNG between 2014 and 2015.

Brenda Locke, candidate for Surrey-Green Timbers, was an MLA between 2001 and 2005 and served as Minister for Mental Health and Addiction Services.

Locke left that position to lobby on behalf of the Massage Therapists’ Association of B.C. as recently as December 2016.

Kim Chan Logan, registered to lobby on behalf of TELUS from 2011 to as recently as March 20, 2017, was previously a ministerial assistant and chief of staff to the Minister of Health Services from 2001 to 2004.

Andrew Wilkinson, the B.C. Liberal Vancouver-Quilchena candidate was former Deputy Minister for Intergovernmental Relations, Deputy Minister of Competition, Science and Enterprise, and Deputy Minister for Economic Development between 2001 and 2006.

Wilkinson was a registered lobbyist for McCarthy Tetrault on behalf of Covanta Energy Corp., Energy companies Vattenfall AB and Kronos Project Management and mining company Thompson Creek Metals.

Between 2010 and 2012 Wilkinson registered to lobby the Premier and Energy and Mines Minister Rich Coleman among others. He previously registered in 2009 to lobby on behalf of Simon Fraser University.

Wilkinson is now the subject of lobbying in his positions as both Minister of Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services and Minister of Advanced Education for the B.C. Liberals.

Two additional former B.C. Liberals also left politics to take up lobbying work in the private sector.

Don Fast, former Deputy Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development from 2011 to 2013 left to start his own lobby firm, D. Fast Consulting.*

Dimitri Pantazopoulos, former campaign staffer for the B.C. Liberals, principle secretary to Christy Clark between 2011 and 2012 and former Assistant Deputy Minister of Intergovernmental Relations and Trade between 2012 and 2013, left for a career in lobbying.

Between 2013 and 2017 Pantazopoulos lobbied on behalf of Consumer Health Products Canada, Adobe, production company Cavalia, farm fish company Cermaq, Comcast, Johnson&Johnson, Pacific Newspaper Group, Black Press, Uber and Woodside Energy among others.

The back and forth movement between lobby firms and the public sector is a practice Travis considers “an incredible threat to how our system works.”

“It creates too many suspicions as to whose interests are being served.”

* This article has been updated to correctly indicate Fast was the former Deputy Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development and not Minister as previously stated.

Image: Premier Christy Clark at a Woodfibre LNG announcement. Photo: Province of B.C. via Flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Since January 1, 2017 there have been more than 50 accidental releases from pipelines and oil and gas facilities in Alberta. These spills and leaks, ranging from large to small, from hazardous to non-hazardous, happen almost every single day.

Don’t believe it? You can check for yourself via the Alberta Energy Regulator’s incident reporting dashboard where spills are documented and information about volume, location and response is made available to the public.

In B.C., however, the provincial regulator’s pipeline incident reporting page has been offline for eight months (yes, you read that correctly).

DeSmog Canada has been reporting on the missing map since October and the issue was recently taken up by the Globe and Mail.

“In a province where the public debate over increased oil pipeline capacity has consumed so much energy, the lack of transparency about the province’s management of its existing system is surprising,” wrote Justine Hunter as politicians returned for the spring sitting at the legislature.

George Heyman, environment critic for the B.C. NDP, said getting the map back online should be a priority for the province.

“It’s shocking that the portal and the online incident report would be offline for such a significant amount of time,” Heyman told DeSmog Canada.

“This is an important mechanism for British Columbians to know if a spill has happened and to seek further information on how it might impact community health, whether the release be sour gas or crude oil.”

The B.C. Oil and Gas Commission describes its pipeline incident map as providing “timely, factual information on all pipeline incidents” to ensure “companies respond effectively and that the interests of British Columbians are protected through a 24/7, 365 day per year incident response program.”

The commission regulates more than 43,000 kilometres of pipeline in the province, 6,100 kilometres of which carry crude oil or natural gas.

In a summary report for the year 2015, the commission documented 45 pipeline incidents, indicating a slight increase in crude oil pipeline spills in recent years.

While there were three crude oil pipeline spills in 2011, there were six in 2012, four in 2013, seven in 2014 and seven in 2015. Spill volumes are not released in the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission’s annual summary reports.

A spokesperson for the B.C. Ministry of Natural Gas Development said the map is offline while a new system is put in place that includes “substantial improvements to the incident map.”

Companies are legally required to report spills to the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission and pipeline performance reports are released annually, the spokesperson added.

Heyman said that’s not enough to keep the public informed.

“We know there were 45 incidents in 2015, so over this eight-month period there may have been 30 pipeline incidents in B.C. that haven’t been reported to the public,” Heyman said.

Screenshot of B.C.'s pipeline incident map webpage, October 2016.

Screenshot of B.C.'s pipeline incident map webpage, March 2017.

The problems don’t end with pipelines under provincial jurisdiction.

A 2013 CBC investigation found B.C. was home to the highest number of pipeline safety incidents for federally regulated pipelines managed by the National Energy Board between 2000 and 2013.

That investigation also found the rate of pipeline incidents nationally had doubled since the early 2000s.

“Not having this information available is disappointing especially in the context of major new pipelines proposed in B.C.,” Sophie Harrison, a campaign co-ordinator at B.C. democracy group Dogwood, told DeSmog Canada.

She said at the time the province approved the federally regulated Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline the B.C. government was insistent robust land-based spill response was in place.

“It’s hard to simply trust there’s world-leading pipeline spill response in B.C. if there isn’t real time data available to people in the province.”

“Not even having this basic level of accountability I think it speaks to the issue of public trust around the safety of pipelines in B.C.,” she said. “What we’re hearing from the B.C. government is, ‘oh just trust us.’ ”

Dermod Travis, executive director of IntegrityBC, said the current government has a problem with transparency.

“It speaks to the duplicity of a government that once promised to be the most open and transparent in Canada and has since proven to be the most secretive. It also speaks to a government that picks and chooses which laws apply to it, at its political convenience,” Travis told DeSmog Canada.

In #Alberta there’s an accidental oil “release” [read: spill] nearly everyday. In BC? We’re left in the dark https://t.co/UDOflPoSxM #bcpoli pic.twitter.com/UclwXqHx7z

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) March 3, 2017

Travis pointed to the 2013 findings of Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham that B.C. failed to proactively disclose information regarding a risk of harm to the environment or public health.  The commissioner found the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations withheld inspection reports from the public that showed the 80-year-old Testalinden Dam was near the end of its life and “a hazard to people and property downstream."

“This isn't a one-off failure that could be blamed on technology,” Travis said. “This is a consistent — and seemingly intentional — failure.”

In some instances government disclosure is the public’s only means of information about pipeline spills. 

In October 2016, the public learned of a large crude oil spill from a remote Alberta pipeline owned by Trilogy Energy Corp. only after the company reported the incident to the provincial regulator, which then posted (scant) information to its incident dashboard.

The company only learned of the spill after a routine helicopter inspection of the line.

B.C.’s existing pipeline infrastructure is aging, a problem some say will lead to increased incidents.

Heyman said all jurisdictions with aging pipeline infrastructure are vulnerable.

“That’s why online, real time reporting to the public is very important for releasing public information. We need to ensure the public knows what is happening so it can hold government and companies accountable,” Heyman said.

Phil Rygg, spokesperson for the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission, told DeSmog Canada “the map is expected to be available online by March 31.” The commission previously stated the map would be back online at the end of 2016. 

Image: Oil spill in Dalian, China. Photo: Peter Ma via Flickr cc 2.0

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Christy Clark recently turned down the opportunity to limit foreign and corporate donations to political parties in campaigns. She justified her position by simply stating, “I represent everyone.”   Yet a new poll conducted by Insights West found the vast majority of British Columbians — 86 per cent — support a ban on both corporate and union political donations.   The poll, conducted on behalf of the Dogwood Initiative, a democracy advocacy organization, suggests Clark’s cozy relationship with major foreign and corporate donors could put her in the hot seat leading into the province’s next election.   That seat is likely to be even hotter after revelations Clark takes a cut of funds donated to the B.C. Liberal party through exclusive cash-for-access events that can cost up to $20,000 dollars to attend.   A high percentage of B.C. Liberal donors, 81 per cent, and an even higher number of B.C. NDP voters, 91 per cent, support putting a ban on corporate and union donations before the next election.

B.C. has long been called the “wild west of campaign donations” because, unlike most other provinces in Canada, it has no rules to prevent unlimited, foreign, union and corporate money from pouring into elections.    It’s a problem the Dogwood Initiative would like to see remedied through its Ban Big Money campaign before British Columbians hit the polls in early 2017. The group’s recent House of Cards-esque trailer for the corrupting influence of money in B.C. elections has been viewed on Facebook over 85,000 times.

BC's House of Cash

With apologies to Netflix, here's the high-stakes drama British Columbians can't get enough of: http://BanBigMoney.ca #BanBigMoney

Posted by Dogwood Initiative on Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Kai Nagata, energy and democracy director at Dogwood, said B.C. has created a situation “that has made bribery legal.”   He said the recent spate of arrests of cabinet ministers in Quebec on corruption and fraud charges were for activities “commonplace and totally protected by law in B.C.”   Recent Elections B.C. data on 2015 political donations shows that since 2005 the B.C. Liberal party raised $70.2 million from corporate and business donors. In that same period three donors exceeded donations of one million: Encana Corporation at $1.1 million, the Aquilini Group ($1.2 million) and Teck Resources ($2.3 million).

“So you ask companies, ‘why would you donate that money to a political party?’ It’s not charity; it’s an investment because you get something back,” Nagata said.   “You get policy decidedly tilted in favour of people who are able to fund political campaigns and ordinary citizens have their voices diluted in this process.”   “You go anywhere in this province and it’s hard not to see that virtually everything is for sale,” Nagata said, listing contracts for the Site C dam, B.C.’s trophy hunting, U.S. coal exports, LNG projects and the contemptible Vancouver real estate scene.   “There are a lot of decisions by government —decisions or calculated inaction — that amount to outcomes that are against public interest.”   “In B.C. because laws are so permissive people can donate unlimited amounts of money from overseas,” Nagata said. “So you don’t even have to be from Canada to have a say in public policy in B.C.”   Dermod Travis from IntegrityBC said there are a number of issues with political donations in B.C. that cause him concern.   “The most concerning thing is that money is being donated by corporations and individuals that can’t vote in the province,” Travis said. “If you can’t check a ballot, you shouldn’t be allowed to donate funds.”   Travis said British Columbians are worried about the level of influence companies like Encana and Teck Resources are able to purchase with consistently large donations.   “With Encana you see exactly what kind of sweetheart deals people have come to expect,” he said.   Travis said the BC Liberals consistently award contracts to companies that are party donors.   “Look at the companies that Partnerships B.C. has awarded construction contracts to and you will see a direct correlation between being contracts and being a donor to the BC Liberals.”   “People don’t have enough assurance the government is protecting the public’s interest, rather than corporate interests,” he said.   Travis also criticized the data publicly released by Elections B.C., saying the documents aren’t easily searchable which creates convenient loopholes for individuals who want to mask their donations.   “There are little tricks that get played in the process,” Travis said. “I’ll use my own name as an example: if you were to use the Elections B.C. database and search Dermod Travis any donations I made as Dermod J. Travis would not show up and that’s a problem.”   Both individuals and companies take advantage of this “initial game,” Travis said, “you might be left with the impression it was done deliberately so you couldn’t find their donations.”   He said an outright ban on corporate donations and a strict cap on individual donations would eliminate that problem.   “I think it creates an incredible level of cynicism that’s going to take a long time to remove even with a ban on these types of donations,” Travis said.   “It creates sense that there are winners and losers and the only way to be a winner is to be a donor.”   By leaving donor rules so open, government is fostering a sense of mistrust in the public, Nagata said.   “By refusing to take action to limit corporate money in elections they are leaving the question to voters: is government making decisions on behalf of citizens and in the public interest or are those decisions informed by the amount of money donated to politicians’ campaigns by these large corporations?”   “Obviously you don’t give someone a million dollars and say do whatever you want. There’s an expectation of a quid pro quo,” Nagata said.   “Citizens can’t collectively donate that amount of money to balance that influence — all you have is your vote,” Nagata said. “People don’t even do that because they feel cynical about the whole process.”   “That’s what we see, that’s our diagnosis. It seems the solution is simple: the government could restore public trust by not taking money from these outside influences and ensure they are making decisions on behalf of those who elected them.”

For more on political donations and how they cost taxpayers money, watch Kai Nagata break it down in this video below:  

How corruption can increase your tax bill

B.C.'s weak political donation laws leave the door open to corruption. Corruption destroys democracy and costs taxpayers, too. Join the movement to #BanBigMoney in B.C. politics: www.BanBigMoney.ca

Posted by Dogwood Initiative on Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Image: Province of British Columbia/Flickr.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Another month, another Site C dam contract. Yet again, it's with one of those almost — but not quite — Canadian companies.

On April 6, Canadian Press quoted Premier Christy Clark as stating “Montreal-based Voith Hydro Inc. will design, supply and install six turbines, six generators and associated equipment.”

Voith would be more accurately described as a family-owned, German-based company with operations in Montreal and dozens of other locations around the world. It may seem trivial, but it's not the first time BC Hydro has taken liberties with postal codes.

In a news release last November, it announced the selection of Peace River Hydro Partners as the preferred proponent for the $1.75 billion Site C main civil works contract.

Peace River Hydro Partners is comprised of Samsung C&T Canada, Acciona Infrastructure Canada and Petrowest.

In the release, BC Hydro stated: “The Petrowest group of companies operates out of Northeast B.C. and Western Canada” and “houses four divisions in Fort St. John.” That's the politic way of trying to avoid saying that its head office is in Calgary, Alberta.

The release stated that Acciona Infrastructure Canada is a “wholly-owned Canadian subsidiary of Acciona S.A.” that's “headquartered in Vancouver,” neglecting to mention that the parent company is headquartered in Madrid, Spain.

At least the release didn't try to skirt Samsung C&T's South Korean connection. Kind of tough with that one.

BC Hydro has also taken a bit of artistic license in the corporate description section of its Site C news releases.

Left out of its December release — announcing the awarding of the $1.75 billion contract — was any mention of collusion and bid-rigging by Korean-based Samsung C&T, the ongoing investigation into “allegations of misappropriation of public funds, falsifying documents and money laundering” at Acciona and liquidity issues at Petrowest.

Samsung C&T's Bid-Rigging

In 2014, Samsung C&T was one of 12 companies fined $45 million by South Korea's Fair Trade Commission for bid rigging on a railway project; fines totaling $110 million were imposed on it and 10 other companies for a cartel during a separate 2008 bidding process, and it was fined $6.2 million for collusion in the 2009 bidding on a Seoul subway construction project.

Last year, it was banned from bidding on any public works projects in South Korea. A Seoul administrative court has suspended the order pending resolution of a lawsuit filed by the company in response.

Then there's that matter Down Under. Australian-based Roy Hill Holdings commenced legal proceedings last November against Samsung C&T for breach of contract due to the late delivery of the $5.4 billion Roy Hill mine in Western Australia.

In February, Roy Hill launched a legal action to seize the $235 million performance bond Samsung C&T posted.

A whistleblower at the site claimed that up to 200 white-collar and 457 visa workers were being exploited “about half of whom are Korean nationals aged under 30," who were reportedly clocking up more than 84 hours a week and being grossly underpaid.

Samsung is implicated in the corruption scandal in Brazil as well.

Acciona's Corruption Allegations

In January, two high-ranking executives at Acciona were arrested as part of the Spanish investigation into allegations of corrupt practices.

Acciona is part of a three-member construction team that took a “major hit” on an approach road in Windsor, Ont., when it “agreed to replace 500 prestressed concrete bridge girders due to the use of tack welding of rebar cages during fabrication."

There is a sliver of good news, though.

Petrowest's Borrowed Time

Petrowest — which had been reported to be living on borrowed time from its lenders only a few days after BC Hydro awarded the contract — staved off what might have been a messy financial meltdown when it reduced its debt through a $10 million stock placement in March.

None of this bodes particularly well for the Site C dam coming in on time and on budget.

Maybe if BC Hydro wasn't in such a rush to reach the point of no return, it could have a performed a little more due diligence.

Something else it should consider is the OECD's Principles for Integrity in Public Procurement, particularly number 10: Empower civil society organizations, media and the wider public to scrutinize public procurement.

Withholding the competing bids for the Site C contract — as BC Hydro has done — doesn't speak to an open and transparent process.

Photo:  Construction on the Site C dam via BC Hydro

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By Dermod Travis, executive director of IntegrityBC.

One of the last things anyone would ever imagine the B.C. government doing is adopting an old NDP program, but that's exactly what Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett did this month when he announced a five-year, $300 million hydro bill deferment plan for 13 B.C. mines owned by six companies.

Never mind that BC Hydro is grappling with its own deferral problems to the tune of $5 billion.

Make no mistake, there's a price to pay when BC Hydro becomes a political arm of government. The intertwining of self-interests gets complicated, and the interests of ratepayers can take a backseat to political interests.

Three of the six companies in Bennett's deal were highlighted in a December Financial Post article, “Debt risks mount as Canada’s base metal miners sink deep in the hole.”

One could argue that the headline alone justifies Bennett's move, except there's no guarantee — other than a hope and a prayer — that BC Hydro will be repaid.

The issue of what happens if metal prices don't rebound wasn't addressed in Bennett's news release.

Consider the “dire financial position” of one of the companies: Colorado-based Thompson Creek Metals.

Last year, Deutsche Bank analyst Jorge Beristain said the company is “quickly approaching an end-game” with debts of $832 million U.S.

According to the Financial Post, Teck Resources “has more than US$3.5 billion of debt coming due between 2017 and 2023 and lost its investment-grade credit rating last year.”

Taseko Mines, “has more than $260 million of senior notes coming due in 2019, while a US$30 million secured loan matures this May.”

It seems like only yesterday that the company sent Bennett off to lobby Ottawa on its behalf.

In January 2014, Bennett spent a day on Parliament Hill meeting with Natural Resources minister Joe Oliver and Industry minister James Moore to make Taseko's case for its controversial New Prosperity copper and gold project.

By then copper prices had already fallen 27.5 per cent off their 2011 high.

Taseko is also in the midst of a messy proxy fight with Chicago-based Raging River Capital over $26 million in management fees Taseko has paid Hunter Dickinson Inc. Taseko and Hunter Dickinson share three directors in common.

Imperial Metals owns three of the 13 mines in Bennett's deal, including Mount Polley, Red Chris and Huckleberry. In 2004, the government quietly forgave $3 million in liabilities owed it by Huckleberry Mine.

Imperial Metals's controlling shareholder — Murray Edwards — has a net worth of $2.69 billion.

The BC Liberal party has done well from them.

From 2005 to 2014, the six companies donated $2.8 million to the party. Key executives kicked-in another $380,000.

Three of the six companies donated $97,010 to the NDP, $75,300 of it in 2013.

BC Hydro's contractual obligations with private power producers have ballooned from $22.25 billion in 2009 for “2010 and beyond” to $56.2 billion for “2016 and beyond.”

It's the gift that keeps on giving for everyone involved, except ratepayers.

In a 2008 call for independent power projects, 75 proponents registered with BC Hydro.

Forty-three submitted proposals and, in 2010, BC Hydro signed purchase agreements with 18 of the proponents.

From July 1, 2008 to September 30, 2010 — when B.C. Hydro was making its decisions — 14 proponents donated $268,461 to the Liberals. One donated $1,000 to the NDP.

Ten of the 14 signed purchase agreements with BC Hydro. One of the 14 who didn't, never donated again.

Their before and after donations are interesting too.

For the 10 successful proponents, their donations more than doubled from $112,801 (January 2005 to June 2008) to $229,471.

After the deals were done, they settled back again. Seven donated $112,345 to the Liberals and five gave $16,225 to the NDP (2010 to 2014).

In 2008, the Mining Association of B.C. received a $295,188 grant from the Northern Development Initiative Trust (NDIT) to make the business case for the Northwest Transmission Line.

In turn, the association hired Australia-based Macquarie Bank to “determine the threshold of economic activity that would be required to make the construction of the (line) an economically viable infrastructure project.”

NDIT's Highway 37 Power Line Coalition has 22 private sector partners.

Excluding the six companies in Bennett's deferral program, independent power producers and those identified by BC Hydro as “potential future mines” for the transmission line, three trade associations and ten of the companies donated $962,220 to the Liberals and $10,320 to the NDP.

Macquarie has donated $17,050 to the Liberals.

The $404 million transmission line overshot its budget by more than $300 million, with a final price tag of $716 million. But who counts bills among friends?

There are the nine “potential future mines” that BC Hydro hopes will one day connect to the line.

With the downturn in metal prices, BC Hydro shouldn't hold its breath in anticipation.

Excluding donations from Imperial Metals and Teck, who have interests in three of the mines, the most generous companies were Goldcorp at $795,700, the Lundin Group of Companies ($112,145) and Copper Fox Metals ($93,130).

One of the founding directors of Copper Fox Metals is Hector Mackay-Dunn, who co-chaired the BC Liberal's 2009 election preparation efforts.

MacKay-Dunn is affectionately known in some party circles as Hector the Collector for his prowess at political fundraising.

The nine companies behind the potential mines have donated $1 million to the Liberals and $18,050 to the NDP ($10,000 of it from Copper Fox in 2013).

And at the same time the government was imposing hydro rate increases on schools and hospitals in 2014, Bennett announced a $100 million BC Hydro initiative for pulp and paper producers to “support investments in more energy efficient equipment.”

The forest industry has donated more than $4.2 million to the Liberals and $294,905 to the NDP.

Tidy haul.

Add it all up: more than $9.8 million in donations from interested parties to the Liberals and $417,185 to the NDP, not including their 2015 donations.

Guess who gets saddled with the bill?

Including operating and capital development agreements that have tripled to $3.3 billion since 2010, BC Hydro's contractual obligations now stand at $59.7 billion, not including their debt which has grown from $6.8 billion in 2004 to $16.7 billion last year.

They've had to borrow $3.2 billion just to turn around and give it to the B.C. government as so-called dividends.

Meanwhile, Hydro-Quebec cut a dividend cheque of $2.5 billion for the Quebec government in 2014.

They didn't have to borrow money to cover the cheque and still had $700 million in profits left over.

In 2014, it's rates were nearly two cents per kWh lower than B.C. From 2007 to 2015, its cumulative rate increase was 17.1. In B.C., it was 63.2 per cent.

Total donations from all of Hydro-Quebec's suppliers and contractors to the Parti Quebecois and the Quebec Liberal party in the last 30-years? Zero.

Quebec bans corporate and union donations. The maximum any Quebec resident can give to a political party is $100 annually.

Image: Crusher at the Red Chris mine via Imperial Metals

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Partisans may not believe it, but Canada’s “culture of secrecy” existed long before Stephen Harper moved into the prime minister’s office. And it’ll be around long after he moves out, unless Canadians do more than just cast their ballots in the next election.

That’s why four groups concerned about freedom of information, one of which I’m part of, are launching a campaign encouraging Canadians to take a small but vital step on social media that would raise more awareness of just how much is being hidden from us: spotlighting examples of government secrecy with the hashtag #cdnfoi.

Such secrecy has its roots in our political system, which has a tradition of strict party discipline. Because of that discipline, decisions made by the government behind closed doors – in cabinet meetings, for example – are rarely defeated in the House of Commons, making secret forums the principle arbiters of public policy.

To be sure, the Harper administration has done more than its share to cultivate a backroom state, frustrating access to government records and officials, as well as failing to fix our broken freedom of information system. But Canadian society is an especially fertile ground for the growth of policies that violate our right to know.

In part, that’s because our country doesn’t have any groups that exclusively and routinely advocate for greater freedom of information at a national level. Probably the closest we have to that is the small BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association.

But, as its name implies, the association’s two staff members toil on information and privacy issues in British Columbia and the rest of Canada from a tiny office above a beauty salon and spa in Vancouver.

Meanwhile, other organizations that care about our right to know have even more multiplicitous mandates. For example, Ottawa’s DemocracyWatch stands on guard for democratic reform and corporate responsibility, as well as freedom of information. Meanwhile, Halifax’s Centre for Law and Democracy also deals with other human rights issues abroad.

By comparison, the United States has three umbrella organizations that exclusively safeguard Americans’ right to know.

They include: OpenTheGovernment.org, representing 94 groups; the National Freedom of Information Coalition, representing 30 dues-paying groups; and the Sunshine in Government Initiative, representing nine groups.

Such umbrella organizations have always been few and far between in Canada.

In the seventies, a coalition called ACCESS: a Canadian Committee for the Right to Public Information was established to lobby for greater freedom of information.

Reports from the Globe and Mail back then described the committee as having the backing of groups such as the Canadian Manufacturers’ Association, the Canadian Labour Congress and the Canadian Daily Newspapers Association.

But long-time right to know researcher Ken Rubin stated in an email that ACCESS, which played a key role in the creation of Canada’s current freedom of information law, was actually “primarily a group of diverse individuals” that included academics, activists and lawyers and had some “paper” affiliations with other organizations.

Despite that key role, by the eighties the committee had folded. According to Rubin, during the same decade, a “loose coalition” came together under the auspices of the Canadian Federation of Civil Liberties and Human Rights Associations to “monitor and improve” freedom of information. That coalition also “went by the wayside” once the federation “faded away.”

Then, in January 2000, investigative reporter Robert Cribb announced the formation of Open Government Canada – a “national forum for FOI networking, education and advocacy pushing for legislative changes that grant greater access to public information.“

More than 25 groups were represented at its founding conference in March of that year. However, in an email, Cribb stated the coalition “died a regretful death.”

The reason: “It proved to be impossible to lure financial support for such an endeavour – part of the perplexing lack of concern, engagement or righteous indignation in Canada around issues such as freedom of information and the public's right to know.”

Those concerns aside, in 2011, DemocracyWatch launched the Open Government Coalition. So far, the coalition is made up of three groups – not counting DemocracyWatch and an affiliated charity. Although founder Duff Conacher stated in an email he plans to expand it this fall.

In the meantime, the New Democrats and the Liberals have proposed laws and policies that would open up government. They should be applauded for doing so. And, if the past is a predictor of the future, they may even act on some of those proposals if they win power – just as the Conservatives did.

But eventually the expediency of secrecy seems to seduce every government, regardless of its political stripe. Which means a New Democrat or Liberal administration will likely become just as tight with information as the Conservatives – albeit, perhaps, with more of a velvet glove covering that clenched, iron fist.

Don’t believe me? Well, look no further than the United States where Democrat president Barack Obama swept into office promising an “unprecedented level of openness in Government.”

Five years later, an Associated Press analysis found that in 2013 his administration “more often than ever censored government files or outright denied access to them last year under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.”

More recently, the agency also listed “eight ways the Obama administration is blocking information.”

Meanwhile, for his part New York Times reporter James Risen has called Obama “the greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation.”

Just as neither the right nor the left has a monopoly on the truth, neither has a monopoly on secrecy.

As a result, it’s vital for Canadians to start paying better attention to our information rights so we can better safeguard them.

That’s why the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, the Canadian Association of Journalists, DeSmog Canada and IntegrityBC, are now encouraging Canadians to tweet about threats to their right to know using the hashtag #cdnfoi.

Those threats include everything from backroom government meetings and frustrated freedom of information requests to inaccessible officials and nonexistent public records, whether they are at the federal, provincial or local level.

At present, the use of that hashtag isn’t widespread, making it more difficult for Canadians to know about such threats.

So, by just tagging stories about government secrecy with #cdnfoi, you can help your fellow citizens know about what they aren’t being allowed to know.

And you can encourage others to take up the fight by sharing these graphics promoting #cdnfoi – helping change Canada’s culture of secrecy in the process.

Image Credit: Will Brown

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