April 7, 2003

Political Finance - Follow the Money!

Elections BC makes a wealth of information available at http://www.elections.bc.ca/fin/finance.htm. With the passage of the March 31st filing deadline, the public can access financial statements filed for calendar year 2002 by BC's political parties.

The financial statements show the BC Liberals are in the pocket of corporate donors. For each of the last three years, the BC Liberals received more than twice as much as the NDP but total donations from individuals were greater for the NDP than for the Campbell gang. Almost all of the NDP's financial support came from individuals. Guess who made up the difference for the BC Liberals! The Green party barely registered; only 711 people contributed to it in 2002.

It is interesting to look at a variety of statistics that describe political financing in BC, not only for 2002, but over the past several years. It is important to keep in mind that the three parties do not handle their finances in exactly the same way. The BC Liberals run all their money through their central office except at election time when some candidates receive contributions directly and file in addition to the party's filing. That is where the fish farm donations to Stan Hagen are disclosed. The NDP and Greens both have their constituency associations registered as well as their central provincial party. The NDP, however, puts almost all of its funds through the central party. In 2002, for example, Vancouver Mt. Pleasant reported contributions of $4,848 while Vancouver Hastings reported no contributions (like most of the other NDP constituencies which routed donations through the provincial office).

The Green Party had 27 constituency associations registered in 2002. In addition to $85,468 reported as contributions to the provincial party, the Green Constituency Associations reported a further $44,448 in contributions, but 17 of those 27 constituencies reported contributions totaling less than $1,000. The constituency topping the Green 2002 donation list was Nelson Creston which received $10,747. Could that indicate trouble for Blair Suffredine in a recall campaign?

Public opinion polls suggest the Greens have from 10% to almost 20% support; however, that has not translated into financial support. At the provincial level only 619 people gave donations of less than $250 and a further 92 gave larger donations. That pales in comparison to the 13,655 people who gave small donations to the NDP. The NDP also received larger contributions from a further 2,328 people. Could it be that financial support is a better measure than the opinion polls? Perhaps the polls are showing "parked" votes that will return to the NDP in an election campaign.

Broad based financial support from the general public seems to have dried up for the BC Liberals. They reported that 55,889 people made small donations in 2000, but that fell to 13,879 in the election year and to only 4,705 small donors in 2002. Over 70% of the financial support for the BC Liberal party comes from businesses. No wonder Gordon Campbell says he has no interest in following the examples of Quebec, Manitoba or Canada with election finance reform!

2001 was an election year, hence it can be expected to be a lot different than 2002. The table below compares the BC Liberals, the NDP and the Greens on several key indicators over the last three years.

Total Dollars Donated
Year	BC Liberal	NDP	Green
2000	6,834,362	3,111,928	52,144
2001	8,421,872	3,589,673	198,956
2002	4,287,737	2,001,315	86,773
Number of contributors donating $250 or less (small donations not subject to disclosure)
	BC Liberal	NDP	Green
2000	55,889	11,157	665
2001	13,879	11,493	1,235
2002	4,705	13,655	619
Value of Donations of more than $250 (and hence disclosed by name)
	BC Liberal	NDP	Green
2000	4,541,765	1,880,137	24,172
2001	7,306,175	2,388,485	132,948
2002	3,806,264	876,028	41,210
Donations from Individuals
	BC Liberal	NDP	Green
2000	2,110,205	2,693,538	49,749
2001	2,423,535	2,638,747	187,337
2002	1,080,702	1,954,610	85,468