Some children sing that "when you wish upon a star, it makes no difference who you are."
By adulthood, most of us have given up on that idea and a few just to hedge their bets donate to political parties rather than testing their luck on a star.
And that's what makes the annual financial reports from B.C.'s political parties so fascinating.
They may still be pipe dreams in the eyes of most but that didn't stop pipeline proponents from giving generously to the BC Liberal party, with donations from Kinder Morgan ($4,500), TransCanada Pipelines ($5,600), Coastal GasLink Pipeline ($12,500) and Enbridge Northern Gateway ($13,450).
In its debut on B.C.'s political donor chart, Woodfibre LNG started at $28,000 for the BC Liberals and $8,000 to the BC NDP, which almost seems like pocket change for its owner, Indonesian billionaire Sukanto Tanoto.
Knowing that seeing things clearly should be a job requirement for an MLA, the BC Association of Optometrists donated $2,820 to the NDP and $13,300 to BC Liberals.
In the "I gave at the office and that office and that office, too" category, the Automotive Retailers Association gave $1,625 to the BC Liberals and the New Car Dealers Association of BC gave $80,977 (which is about what they've given to the NDP over the last 10 years).
As they say, you can never have enough insurance, which may explain why the Insurance Bureau of Canada donated $29,750 to the BC Liberals.
The waste management industry stepped up, even though garbage sorry, waste is a regional government thing. Waste Management of Canada donated $1,500 to the BC Liberals, which seems paltry when you consider that BFI Canada had money to burn ($91,300), as did Belkorp Environmental Services ($37,200). Bet it had something to do with that proposed $500-million incinerator in Metro Vancouver.
Beancounters came through for the BC Liberals with donations from Ernst and Young ($19,050), Deloitte ($39,900) and KPMG ($40,950).
Private liquor stores upped their stake with the BC Liberals big-time. In 2013, liquor stores made seven donations to the party totalling $24,500 and nine to the NDP ($10,750). Last year, 34 donations to the Liberals totalling $87,419 and two to the NDP ($1,500). You might almost think the B.C. government was reviewing its liquor policies.
Duty free shops were also big on the BC Liberals, donating $18,600, with Douglas Crossing Duty Free topping the list at $8,000.
The NDP weren't required to return any donations that are prohibited under the act but the BC Liberals had to return 11, including $600 from Multi-Material BC and $2,000 from the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council.
And the 2014 Award for Incredibly Bad Taste in Donations goes to Imperial Metals, owners of the Mount Polley mine. The spill may have been toxic but Imperial's cash wasn't as the mining company donated $7,150 to the BC Liberals, including a $1,500 cheque in October and another for $250 in November.
Those last two might have been better put to cleaning up the spill rather than currying political favour. Hey, here's an idea: The BC Liberals could turn the money over to local efforts at coping with the spill's aftermath.
Finally for those trying hard not to keep track the Liberals have raised $96.8 million since 2005, the NDP $40.2 million, the Green party $1.6 million and the BC Conservatives $1.5 million.
