Editor, The Times:
Recently the New York Times described B.C. as the "wild west of political cash" and with good reason.
B.C. taxpayers pay their elected officials well. However, Premier Christy Clark doesn't seem to think so. In addition to her annual salary of $195,000, she draws another $50,000 a year directly from the BC Liberal Party. Since 2001, she has received more than $277,000 from her party. Where does the money come from?
Analysis of 2016 fundraising data, available online at Elections BC, indicates that just 1.5 per cent of BC Liberal donors - Christy Clark's 1.5 per cent - account for half of the more than $12 million raised by her party last year. These top 185 donors ponied-up an average of $37,000 each to fill Christy Clark's campaign coffers.
Millionaires gave big to Christy Clark and in return millionaires received a billion dollar tax break. Less well-heeled British Columbians are left to pay the bill through large increases in ICBC and Hydro costs, MSP fees, and other costs. That's not right.
Much of what passes as normal business for donations in B.C. is illegal elsewhere. Corporate and union donations are illegal in at the federal level and in Alberta, Manitoba, and Nova Scotia.
BC NDP Leader John Horgan will introduce a bill in February banning corporate and union donations and capping individual donations - the sixth time BC New Democrats have introduced such a bill. We can get big money of out of B.C. politics - all Christy Clark has to do is say "yes". Having voted to defeat the bill five times already, she is unlikely to act now to clean up B.C.'s fund raising rules.
Can we take heart in the fact that B.C. has a conflict of interest commissioner watching over things? Hardly, when that commissioner, eight years in the position, has not found any government official to be in violation of B.C.'s Conflict of Interest Act.
I'm standing with John Horgan and we are standing up to Christy Clark and telling her that it?s time to end B.C.'s out of control system of unlimited political donations.
Barb Nederpel, candidate
Kamloops-North Thompson NDP