On Monday, the British Columbia government introduced new legislation that proposes to ban corporate, union and foreign donations in a move that will dramatically change B.C.’s political landscape and bring the province in line with other Canadian jurisdictions.

“This legislation will make sure 2017 was the last big-money election in our province,” said Attorney General David Eby. “The days of limitless donations, a lack of transparency and foreign and corporate influence over our elections are history.”

Here are your Top 5 questions on the ban answered:

1) What will be different now?

Everything. This is probably the most game-changing moment in B.C. politics in living memory. Up until now, corporations and unions could donate as much money as they wanted to B.C. political parties, even though such donations are banned federally and in most provinces.

Individuals anywhere in the world were also allowed to give unlimited amounts of dough to B.C. politicians, but not any more. Now donations will be limited to B.C. residents, with a limit of $1,200 a year —  the second-lowest limit in Canada behind Quebec.

“Any time you change a system that places no limitations on donations to a system that does, you’re going to see big, big changes,” University of British Columbia political scientists Max Cameron told DeSmog Canada.

“I think this is going to change how parties work, how campaigns work and change our system to make it more attentive to the preference of ordinary voters.”

Political parties will also have to publicly report all fundraisers attended by party leaders, cabinet ministers and parliamentary secretaries. And those fancy-pants dinners can no longer come at a ticket price of $10,000 (a la Christy Clark). Fundraisers at private residences are still allowed, but tickets can be sold for a max of $100.

2) When will the changes apply?

Well, first the bill needs to pass, but that’s very likely because it’s the product of the agreement between the Green Party and the NDP and together they have enough seats to win a vote in the legislature.

The changes will then apply retroactively to the date of the last election, which means parties won't be able to spend any donations they’ve received from corporations and unions since May 9 during the next election. That’s going to come as a big blow to the BC Liberals who deposited $1 million in donations just three days after the last election.

Seven of the 10 largest donations came from developers. Other donors included Chevron Canada, Encana and Enbridge. Once this bill is passed, those donations will not be allowed to be used in future elections.

3) Why is this such a big deal?

Basically, up until now anyone with deep pockets has been able to buy access to B.C. politicians. The latest example is how a bunch of oil and gas companies re-wrote B.C.’s so-called climate plan in a Calgary boardroom.

Before that there was the case of Imperial Metals, the company responsible for the Mount Polley mine disaster. Imperial was a major donor to the BC Liberal party and was never charged or fined for the disaster.

Many British Columbians have also been concerned that the NDP is too beholden to unions because of large donations to the party. Now that’s all about to come to a stop.

4) So how will political parties fund election campaigns?

Well, first of all, campaign spending limits have been decreased by about 25 per cent, so less money will be spent overall in elections. For instance, candidates used to be able to spend about $78,000 per riding, but that limit is now reduced to $58,000.

Still, elections cost money, so where will that come from? The bill introduced a plan for a per-vote subsidy intended to assist in transitioning to the new rules. The move mirrors a similar temporary transition plan at the federal level but was not expected to form a part of the NDP’s electoral reform plan.

The subsidies are expected to cost B.C. taxpayers an estimated $27.5 million over the next four years.

According to the bill, a special legislative committee will evaluate the annual allowances to parties and determine if changes should be made. If no amendments are made to the bill once it is put into place, it means an expiration of allowances will take place in 2022.

Some reimbursements for election expenses will remain in place permanently.

While the BC Liberals have already stated publicly they will vote against the bill, saying the public should not pay parties directly, UBC political scientist Max Cameron says money for elections has to come from somewhere.

“We’re already publicly funding parties, but because it’s not visible, you don’t hear people being upset about it,” Cameron said. “Tax returns for political donations — that’s coming from the taxpayer, it’s a form of publicly subsidizing political parties.”

“Parties have to be funded from somewhere and I actually think political parties are providing a vital public service,” he said.

5 Things You Need to Know About BC's Ban on Big Money https://t.co/X750XZPxOU @bcndp #banbigmoney @bcliberals @bcgreens #bcpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) September 20, 2017

5) What about loopholes?

Goooooood question.

The government tried to get out ahead of the game by applying the restrictions to third-party election advertisers, who've taken advantage of campaign finance rules in other jurisdictions. The restrictions aim to prevent external organizations from becoming fundraising proxies, like Super PACS have in the U.S. However, just what constitutes a third-party advertiser has been the subject of some debate and a lack of clarity on this issue remains a controversy at the federal level.

Election fundraising rules are only ever as good as their watchdogs. In the last few decades, politicians have been caught spending beyond campaign limits, misreporting financials and violating conflict of interest rules.

Some people have raised concerns about the $1,200 limit, saying businesses and unions can funnel donations through executives, employees and their relatives.

In September 2016, it was discovered that between 2004 and 2011, executives of SNC Lavalin Group Inc. funnelled $118,000 in donations to the federal Liberals and Conservatives— $110,000 and $8,000, respectively — disguised as donations from individuals who worked at SNC or their family members.

Cameron said the $1,200 limit provides a good protective measure against circumventing the rules.

“With the cap as it is, I think it gets a lot harder to see the bundling of donations that we’ve seen elsewhere.”

Image: Green party leader Andrew Weaver and Premier John Horgan annouce campaign finance reform. Photo: Province of B.C. via Flickr

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Documents released on Monday reveal that B.C.’s climate plan under the previous Liberal government was drafted by the oil and gas industry in a Calgary boardroom, just as the province’s new NDP government moves to ban corporate and union donations to B.C. political parties.

The documents speak to long-standing concerns over the influence of political donations in B.C.’s political process. B.C. has long been considered the ‘wild west’ of political cash for placing no limits on corporate, union or foreign donations.

“I think this is deeply corrosive to our democracy and it encourages cynicism about politics,” Max Cameron, political science professor and director of the Study of Democratic Institutions at the University of British Columbia, told DeSmog Canada.

The documents, released to Shannon Daub of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives as part of her research with the Corporate Mapping Project, reveal that while the B.C. government under former premier Christy Clark hired a celebrated Climate Leadership Team and conducted public consultations, a parallel industry consultation process occurred behind closed doors in a boardroom of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

The BC Liberals have raked in cash from the fossil fuel industry, including more than $3.7 million from just the top 10 industry donors between 2008 and 2015.

Cameron said the documents, which include slides outlining industry working groups tasked with addressing carbon pricing and methane emissions, provide a much-needed glimpse into what exactly industry is paying for when making large donations to political parties.

“Reading these documents gives us some real insight into how it is that these kinds of donations can buy not just access to government but access to actually writing policy,” he said.

Clark’s Secret Consultations with Oil and Gas Donors Revealed As BC Introduces Big Money Ban #bcpoli @CCPA_BC https://t.co/nFjm9W8Vqx

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) September 18, 2017

Climate Leadership Team Unaware of Parallel Industry Consultations

B.C. handpicked a blue-ribbon team of 17 academic, business, environmental and First Nations stakeholders to form the Climate Leadership Team. That team made 32 official recommendations to the B.C. government, none of which were implemented in the province’s eventual Climate Action Plan.

Merran Smith, executive director of Clean Energy Canada, was a member of the team and said the fact that not a single recommendation was adopted “really says it all.”

Christy Clark’s government “allowed the oil and gas sector to write the climate plan for B.C. that is mostly status quo and has very little impact on B.C.’s growing climate pollution,” Smith told DeSmog Canada.

She added once the team made its recommendations to the government, their involvement in the crafting of the Climate Action Plan tapered off quickly.

“We had very few meetings with the B.C. government once the recommendations were created. It was clear that they actually had very little interest in doing anything with recommendations.”

Meanwhile, Christy Clark pointed to the recommendations at the UN Climate Summit in Paris as evidence of B.C.’s climate leadership.

Tzeporah Berman, a prominent environmental advocate in B.C. and member of the Climate Leadership Team said she had no idea B.C. was conducting parallel consultations with industry.

“I was shocked when I saw these documents,” Berman told DeSmog Canada.

“Consultation should be a transparent process and should be done with multiple stakeholders. These were secret meetings in Calgary where the oil and gas industry was rewriting B.C. policy. That's not consultation, it's corruption.”

Berman said the documents reveal an “unacceptable level of access and influence with the Liberal government.”

“They also help those of us from the leadership team understand how the climate plan that the Liberals put together really had no similarity to what the Liberals’ own climate team recommended,” she said.

The team worked hard for months to deliver a plan within a short timeframe and offered to meet with stakeholders to “problem solve any concerns” if that would help B.C. “ensure implementation” of the recommendations, Berman said.

But that offer was never taken up.

“From our end it was a bizarre process,” Berman said.

Fossil Fuel Companies Regularly ‘Craft’ Climate Plans

Laurie Adkin, professor of political science at the University of Alberta, said when it comes to government consultations with corporations, “secrecy is routine” and “transparency is the exception.”

“Even when governments reveal that they have met with representatives of private corporations, reporting on these meetings typically does not reveal which corporate representatives were in the room, or what their positions were,” Adkin told DeSmog Canada.

Adkin, who is a member of the Corporate Mapping Project, specializes in documenting corporate influence in politics and on university campuses.

Government consultation with industry is the status quo, Adkin said, while public consultation is meant to merely survey public opinion and “give the appearance that government has created meaningful opportunities for citizen input into policy decisions.”

“I do not believe that any climate change plan has been written, to date, in which the major fossil fuel corporations have not ‘directly crafted’ the plan,” Adkin said.

Adkin and Cameron agree the documents are reflective of “institutional corruption.”

“Corruption isn’t just quid pro quo of privately benefitting from your public office, it’s also a corruption of the institution, when the public purpose of the institution is undermined by private actors in a way that diminishes our trust in those institutions,” Cameron said.

“The goal of public policy is to serve the public’s interest, not to serve particular private interests.”

Leadership Team Hopeful Under New NDP Government

Berman said the oil and gas industry has too much political influence in Canada, but said she is hopeful the new B.C. government will “design policy to benefit the people and not just polluters.”

“I was very glad to see the carbon tax increase in the last budget,” Berman said.

“I think the next step is removing all the subsidies that the Liberal government handed out to the gas industry. We shouldn't be spending taxpayers dollars to help the fossil fuel industry expand in the climate era”

Berman said she also looks forward to the new government moving forward on the zero emissions vehicles targets and strengthening the clean fuel standard.

Smith said she is pleased the Climate Leadership Team had the opportunity to craft the recommendations when it did.

“The silver lining is that we still have a good, solid set of climate action recommendations sitting there, and we now have a Premier and government who is interested in taking climate action and building a clean growth economy for the twenty-first century.”

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

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