Editor:
Recently, people around the province of B.C. woke up to read the headline in The Globe and Mail that the B.C. NDP continue to take corporate and union donations, despite their election promises to ban such practices. A spokeswoman for Premier Horgan said in an email that “until we are able to change the rules in the first house sitting, we will be operating under the rules as they exist.” Well, on June 26, the NDP and Green Party MLAs had the opportunity to support legislation that would ban corporate and union donations and set limits on personal contributions. When presented with the opportunity, they chose to not even permit first reading of the legislation, let alone allow it to come to the floor of the house for a vote.
On June 22 when the then-Liberal government delivered the throne speech, they committed to the comprehensive reforms that voters told elected officials they wanted. They committed to:
• Ban corporate, union and third party donations, including donations in kind, to political parties.
• Impose a maximum donation limit for individuals comparable to other Canadian jurisdictions.
• Ban donations to political parties from outside British Columbia, including foreign donations.
• Ban funding to a provincial political party from a federal political party.
• Restrict the role of money influencing elections through third parties.
• Ban loans to parties by any organization other than a Canadian chartered bank or credit union.
• Apply these reforms to local government candidates and political parties.
Political leaders and elected officials have a job to instill trust in government. They are failing to build trust when we see the leaders of both the Green Party and NDP vote against the comprehensive reforms that they called for during the election, and then in the case of the NDP, continue to collect big money from domestic and foreign unions. The Green Party’s willingness to condone such actions by continuing to support the NDP further erodes the people’s confidence in elected officials. I strongly believe that government is accountable to the people and must be responsive to its citizens.
The throne speech introduced by the B.C. Liberals was the first time that I witnessed a government humbly set aside political ideology and offer to work across the floor with the others in parliament. This is exactly the type of government British Columbians said they wanted, not a return to old school “say one thing and do another” politics.
Mathew Wilson, Roberts Creek
