Oh, and by the way … I am still waiting for a reply from Kevin Krueger on this

Based in Victoria, Tom Fletcher is the legislative reporter, and columnist, for newspapers published across the province by Black Press.

Yesterday (May 2, 2012) he wrote a story, “BC Liberals try election gag law again”, which I posted on my Facebook page.  The story, which follows, was posted by me without comment as information for others:

Should donations to BC's political parties, from
unions and corporations, be banned?   YES!

The B.C. government is attempting to restore limits on third-party election spending that were struck down by a judge before the 2009 vote.

Attorney General Shirley Bond has introduced amendments that would put limits on spending by unions, business groups and other non-party advertisers in the 40 days before the official start of an election campaign. A previous 60-day limit was challenged by seven public sector unions, led by the B.C. Teachers' Federation, and rejected by a B.C. Supreme Court judge as an unjustified restriction on freedom of speech.

Premier Christy Clark said some spending limit on the pre-campaign period is justified, since the province went to scheduled elections in 2005. Current rules restrict party and non-party spending during a formal 28-day election campaign, but contain no limits on spending before that period.

The government intends to submit the proposed 40-day restriction to the B.C. Supreme Court before it takes effect. If a judge approves, the new restrictions would apply for the election set for May of 2013.

NDP justice critic Leonard Krog said the latest effort will likely be challenged again and rejected again. If the B.C. Liberals want to reform election spending, they should ban corporate and union donations to political parties as the NDP and B.C. Conservative parties have advocated, Krog said.

In 2008, the B.C. Liberal government passed amendments to the B.C. Elections Act limiting spending by non-party advocacy groups to no more than $150,000 in the 60 days before the official 28-day election campaign. Registered political parties were restricted to spending $2.2 million during that time.

Interestingly a comment was posted on my Facebook page, regarding this story, by the BC Liberal MLA for Kamloops South, Kevin Krueger; he said:

Do you think that the unions who own the NDP should be free to advertise as much as they'd like in elections, Al?

The BCTF, for example, which is the only union I know that deliberately frightens its members time and again, extracts over $42 million per year from them in union dues. I am told they have 60 full-time political organizers on staff.

You think they should have free rein, no matter what the teachers think?

Remember, the genius Vander Zalm pushed them into the clutches of this weird organization.

Now again remember I posted this story, without comment, just as an interest piece; however I thought, ‘What the heck, I’ll make a quick reply to him', and so I said:

Regrettably Kevin, I think they made a poor choice in creating a headline for this story --- I actually have no issue with this attempt to curb, or at least identify, who / where third party spending is coming from.

I wish the government would go further however, and also restrict donations, being made to political parties, to ONLY individuals -- none from unions OR big business.

Would you be in support of this proposal, and if not, why?

I should note, it appears the BC Liberals are the only party who are not supporting this suggestion to ban BOTH union AND corporate donations.  Quite some time back the BC Conservatives made this part of their policies and platform, and recently the NDP have also called for the same thing.

A story from the CBC, from early April, may be the telling factor in why they do not support having a ban on corporate and union donations:

Figures released Wednesday show the governing Liberals raked in nearly $9 million in contributions last year and about $5.5 million of that came from corporations and other businesses.

The story also included the following:
The NDP, meanwhile, raised about $4.4 million, with three-quarters of it coming from individuals. About $865,000 was donated by labour organizations, including both the B.C. Federation of Labour and the B.C. Government Employees Union.

As for the BC Conservative Party:
Leader John Cummins says the Conservatives don't get millions in corporate donations like the Liberals do or hundreds of thousands from big labour, as do the New Democrats.  Cummins favours a ban on union and corporate donations.

"In a sense, it's scandalous, because it says that the individual doesn't really matter," Cummins said Wednesday.

The people of BC should have an assurance that political parties are not in the pocket of any group or organization … and that is why donations from unions and business should be banned.  

A call is also being made by Integrity BC, who are … calling on the BC government to amend the province's electoral finance laws to ban donations by both big business and big unions to BC's political parties, to cap annual individual donations and to appoint a Citizens' Assembly to make binding recommendations on a host of additional reforms.

As they (Integrity BC) have stated:
Each of these steps will help restore accountability, transparency and integrity to BC politics, because by bringing the influence of big money to an end we can change BC politics – for the better.

I agree!   

By the way … I am still waiting for a reply from Kevin Krueger on this.  If he does, I’ll post a follow-up to today’s piece ... that would only be fair.

I’m Alan Forseth in Kamloops, with the thoughts of one conservative.

UPDATE: Well I did say I would update this post if there was a response from Kevin … this just came in a short time ago:

I don't think unions should make donations, because their revenues are from memberships who have no choice but to pay dues, and should only be used to do the members' business. Businesses' revenues are earned by their work, as are people's wages, and that is a different matter; to the courts, an incorporated business is a legal "person." I am not in favour of restricting them. As you know, federally there are already restrictive rules about business donations.

My response was:

I didn't expect to see anything different than what you have said, but I respect your opinion. My only comment is still that neither business, or unions, are a personal entity. 

As well, an argument could be made that business, and corporations that manufacture the goods I buy, may also be making donations to parties I DON”T support.  

You can’t have it both way, therefore donations should be banned from both.

AN UPDATE TO THE UPDATE:

Kevin Krueger

Some stuff, Brother, we just have to agree to disagree. I have begun to notice that we agree on a great range of things. I do not see it as "having" (anything) "both ways." I said it is the courts that define incorporated businesses as "legal persons," and they do.

Also, our mutual enemy, Socialism, doesn't manufacture ANY goods you'd want to buy. The socialists who work, (and many do not), are almost exclusively people who draw their salaries from government, or from the businesses you're talking about. They don't manufacture goods, they work for the people who do, or they work for the taxpayers.

Many job creators feel that their businesses should have a right to vote - at least in local government elections - and we have not bought that argument, but they make a good case for it.

Al Forseth
I think there was lot we agreed on 16 years ago when we ran as candidates Kevin, and there still is. I believe where we differ however is how, and to what degree, the political parties we support would handle them :)