Have local elections in B.C. become a game open only to the rich and well-connected?
Certainly that seems to be the case in Greater Vancouver. More than $5 million was spent by the major civic parties there, including more than $2 million each by the two leading mayoral candidates, in the civic election of 2011.
Here in Victoria, Mayor Dean Fortin spent “only” $76,722 to get re-elected. But that, too, was the highest amount ever spent by a mayoral candidate in this city.
It gets worse. Lack of careful oversight and loose campaign donation and spending rules are making a mockery of open democracy at the local level, according to civic action groups and elector organizations representing independent candidates not supported by major political parties, corporations or unions.
Last month, Open Victoria was invited to participate at a Vancouver meeting of elector organizations by Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development Coralee Oakes, whose ministry is drafting new rules. More than a dozen organizations, representing municipalities throughout the Greater Vancouver Regional District, attended.
The overriding concern raised by GVRD organizations was the need for strict limits on campaign donations and for a cap on overall campaign spending. Such legislation already exists in other provinces, notably Ontario and Quebec.
For comparison’s sake, it’s worth noting that Fortin’s 2011 reported campaign expenses of $76,722 would have fared badly under the current rules in effect in Ontario or Quebec, which limit spending based on the number of registered voters. With a 2011 registered voter list in Victoria of 65,612, he would have been $13, 452 over the Ontario limit, and $43,680 over the limit in Quebec.
Open Victoria also supported a call for legislated limits on both the amount of individual donations and the overall expense allowed for campaigns, and banning donations from corporations, unions and anonymous donors. Again for comparison, in 2011, Fortin received donations from the Victoria Labour Council and individual union locals totalling $16,000. This was 21 per cent of the total amount raised, according to his post-election campaign report.
There is also a need for greater transparency, clarity and enforcement of rules respecting in-kind (non-cash) donations. Proposed changes would ensure in-kind donations would have to be ‘market valued’ and verifiable. This would level the playing field for those campaigns that aren’t supported by corporations or unions.
Open Victoria raised other concerns as well. There is an urgent need, for example, for clarification of the rules on conflict of interest regarding campaign donors and members of civic councils in B.C. The most recent court decision has created a discrepancy between the rules expressed in the Community Charter and B.C. case law.
In King vs. City of Nanaimo, the court heard that the municipality had disciplined a councillor for failing to disclose that he had voted three times on matters involving a developer who was also his biggest campaign donor. The councillor fought the disciplinary action in B.C. Supreme Court.
In 1999, the court decided in favour of the city, and found that the councillor had been in a conflict of interest. But in 2001, the B.C. Court of Appeal overturned the Supreme Court decision, and ruled in favour of the councillor, saying that a campaign contribution “was not enough” to constitute a conflict of interest.
The appeal court provided no explanation for this ruling, and the decision was not appealed. Yet it seems any sensible person could imagine situations when such a conflict of interest might occur. Surely this was not the intent of the rules under sections 100 to 133 of the Community Charter.
The province should reconcile municipal campaign funding rules with the Community Charter and either definitively confirm the appeal court’s King decision or repudiate it.
Finally, Open Victoria fully supported the recommendation to place the administration and enforcement of civic elections under the administration of Elections B.C. Greater transparency, fairness and public access to provincewide information in electronically searchable formats are among the obvious benefits that would accrue from this move.
Significant reforms are coming this year, but changes to campaign-donation and spending rules have been postponed until the 2017 civic elections. In the meantime, concerned groups have been making the case for tighter rules to provincial legislators responsible for drafting the reforms. The deadline for public comment ended Jan. 31.
Derry McDonell is president of the Open Victoria Initiative Society.
