About 9,000 homeowners in the provincial riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam will get a postcard in the mail next week as part of a campaign to reform B.C.'s electoral finance laws.
Dermod Travis, executive director of IntegrityBC, a privately funded non-partisan group that calls for accountability in B.C. politics, said the postcard featuring former PoMo MLA and current Premier Christy Clark clad in corporate logos is aimed at "sparking debate" before the byelection.
Clark is due to call a byelection for this spring to replace Iain Black, who quit last October as the riding's MLA to take a job as CEO of the Vancouver Board of Trade.
Travis said his organization is also mailing out postcards this month in the provincial ridings of Prince George-Mackenzie (held by MLA Pat Bell), Fort Langley-Aldergrove (held by MLA Rich Coleman) and Chilliwack-Hope (just vacated by MLA Barry Penner), the latter of which will also see a byelection. Late last year, IntegrityBC sent out thousands of postcards to seven ridings, including in Attorney General Shirley Bond's territory of Prince George-Valemont.
Travis said he hopes IntegrityBC will hit all homes across the province but it is starting with ridings that have high-profile MLAs or where byelections are due.
"This is an important issue that goes to the core of B.C.'s democracy," he told The Tri-City News. "We want to see all the MLAs take a stand on this issue."
The campaign centres on banning corporations and unions from funding political parties in B.C. As well, it calls for a cap on personal donations to parties and the formation of a citizens' assembly to study and make binding recommendations on other electoral reforms.
To date, IntegrityBC's efforts have been backed by the BC Conservatives, the Green Party of BC and independent MLA Bob Simpson (Cariboo North), who last fall introduced a similar private member's bill in the Legislature.
Asked how candidates and incumbents would fund their campaigns without corporate and union donations, Travis replied, "They'll finance their campaigns as most politicians in other provinces do: By going out and asking individual voters to donate to their campaign."
Travis argued that the premier has raised money from corporations outside of the province, including recently at a $500-a-plate dinner at the Calgary Petroleum Club. This week, Travis said, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled no foreign money should be allowed to help elect politicians but B.C. has no such regulations when it comes to electoral financing.
"It's antiquated and not transparent," he said.
The postcard of Clark shows here dressed in a Nascar uniform emblazoned with logos representing corporate donations of more than $7,500 to the premier last year.
Tri-City MLAs Doug Horne (BC Liberal), Mike Farnworth and Diane Thorne (NDP) were not immediately available for comment.
