August 24, 2005

Corporate Power and Campaign Finance

The election financing reports are now available for anyone who wants to download them from the Election BC website. They show that Canwest Media Inc. donated $50,000 to the BC Liberals in the form of one single cheque on May 11, 2005. The 2001 election donation report shows that Canwest Global Communications Corp. donated $30,000. Unfortunately no one can put a value on the biased coverage in the Vancouver Sun, such as the headline claiming the teachers' planned a strike vote within days after the May 17th, 2005, election even though it was known that the process would take months to unfold.

In both his column in 24 hours and on his PublicEyeOnline website, Sean Holman analyzed the election expense reports of "third parties" including unions, corporations and industry groups. Holman tallied $3.5 million in advertising from unions and $953,529 in advertising from corporations and industry groups. What hasn't received much attention is that in 2002 with Bill 59, Election Statutes Amendment Act, limits on third party advertising were removed making it possible for third parties to engage in large scale advertising during election campaigns. When third party advertising restrictions were added to BC's Election Act in 1995 there was some argument whether they were constitutional, but in 2004 the Supreme Court of Canada in Harper v. Canada (Attorney General) made it clear that reasonable restrictions on third party advertising are constitutional. The Campbell government opened the door to unlimited third party advertising after it was clear that it had the power to impose reasonable limitations. If they don't like what happened with almost $5 million in third party spending during the 2005 campaign, they can impose reasonable restrictions before the next election.

Don't hold your breath waiting for the Campbell government to head calls for either the prohibition of corporate and union donations, or at least limitations such as a $3,000 maximum. Documents the parties filed with Elections BC show that between January 1, 2005, and May 17, 2005, the BC Liberals received $2.3 million in donations from individuals compared to $3.9 million the NDP received from individuals. Despite falling more than 40% behind the NDP in personal donations, the BC Liberals were able to outspend the NDP by over $5 million because of almost $9 million in corporate, business and commercial donations. The Liberals will whine about third party advertising and the power of unions while failing to mention that they made it possible, that corporations also engaged in such advertising and that the government overspent its advertising budget by 50% in the pre-election period. You'll recall how similar the Liberal TV ads were to the ads you paid for with your tax dollars. None of that will change for the next election. The Campbell government holds all the power and they would be the big losers if they followed the examples of Manitoba, Quebec or the Federal government in eliminating union and corporate donations. The BC Liberals probably couldn't run much of an election campaign if they were restricted to donations out of the personal pockets of people who are eligible to vote.