Mere hours before the New York Times went to press with its look at the BC Liberal party’s ethical scorecard, the party chose to get its 2016 fundraising results out ahead of the storm — one last chance at political counter-spin, and what a marvel of spin it was.
In a statement released on a Friday, the BC Liberals reported that individual donors had outnumbered corporate donors by a four-to-one margin in 2016, with 9,324 individuals and 1,876 corporations handing over cash.
The party may want to check the auto-correct function on its computers because it seems to have arbitrarily replaced donations with donors. It would have been quite the year-to-year jump.
Just the year before, the BC Liberals reported 2,084 individual and 1,124 corporate donors giving in excess of $250.
The 2016 report posted to the party’s website has 15,941 donations but not from 15,941 unique donors. There are 7,582 donations for $100 or less in the ’16 report and 8,359 donations from $100.36 to $200,000.
Party donations over $100 accounted for $11.7 million of the party’s $12.15 million total. Among the donors, the six-figure crowd.
The party reported 15 six-figure cheques from 11 unique donors totalling $1.7 million, including Dennis — better known as Chip — Wilson of Lululemon fame, luxury car dealer MCL Motors, Arizona-based RPMG Holdings (Onni Construction) and Teck Resources. Their generosity wasn’t limited to the 15 cheques either. Ten of the 11 kicked in another $200,000 in smaller donations.
Three others — including the New Car Dealers Association of BC and the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association — gave a total of $341,550.
Effectively, 14 donors gave close to 20% of the party’s total haul.
The donations for $100 or less would normally pass unnoticed, except for the big deal the party made of them just hours before that New York Times article.
In its statement last week, the party boasted, “Since Christy Clark became party leader, we’ve made a focused effort to grow our base of grassroots donors, including individuals and small businesses.”
The 2016 report includes 7,582 donations — from $5 to $100 — totalling $449,384 (for context, Wall Financial gave $403,250 through four companies).
But what a grassroots crowd it is.
Canadian Forest Products Ltd. cut a cheque for $84.73, although its total donations came in at $63,285.
London Drugs made a $98 contribution. The company donated $16,098 to the Liberals.
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers gave $50 as part of its $11,225 total.
Gateway Casinos and Entertainment made three donations for less than $100 towards its $84,118 contribution.
Gibsons/Sechelt Coin Laundry gave $100, possibly in loonies and quarters.
To its credit, the BC Liberal party posted donors under $250 as well, which it’s not required to do under the legislation. Among them were the Britannia Mine Museum, the Boundary Family and the Port Theatre Society, all registered charities.
The grassroots spin to the party’s statement may have seemed the way to go in light of the Times article, but when donations under $100 account for less than 3.7% of the party’s haul and 14 donors nearly 20%, you’re not really left with a warm and fuzzy grassroots feeling.
Dermod Travis is the executive director of IntegrityBC.
www.integritybc.ca
@integritybc
