FACE TO FACE: Should union and corporate political donations be banned?
It's time we took big money out of B.C. elections, both civic and provincial - it's a non-partisan no-brainer.
B.C. right-wingers would just love to keep those horrible unions from giving millions to the NDP and expecting favours in return should that party be elected.
B.C.'s left is convinced that huge corporate and business contributions have for years controlled the BC Liberals and their government.
In short, we're all concerned about big money influencing elections, governments or political policy. So how about passing a law that disallows political contributions from union, corporate or business entities?
Perhaps this law could include a $5,000 cap on personal donations, with only the first $1,000 eligible for tax credit. This would encourage personal contributions in elections without allowing rich individuals to make contributions large enough to curry political favour.
Elections BC could scrutinize and oversee campaign accounts and disbursements to ensure that neither the letter nor the spirit of the law was being circumvented by parties or government.
The idea that union or corporate entities can buy favour from governments through political contributions is unacceptable to most of us. Polls show that 60% of British Columbians favour the banning of corporate and union political donations.
In 2011 Metro Vancouver civic elections, 83.7% of political contributions came from unions or business, not individual voters. In Port Coquitlam, the number was a staggering 98.3% - only 1.7% of campaign contributions came from individual voters.
So if civic campaigns are not funded by individual voters, who do you think calls the shots in city halls? Individual citizens or the unions and businesses that fund candidates in elections that can swing on a thousand votes?
In 2012, corporations gave $7 million and unions $1.6 million to the BC Liberals and NDP. Does anyone think these large donors don't expect significant consideration from the government they paid to help elect?
I know, running elections purely on individual voter contributions might make it difficult to fund glitzy, expensive advertising campaigns explaining why the other party is dishonest or in some other way unworthy.
But isn't that a good thing? Shouldn't individual supporters fund political parties? And surely we should keep big money from controlling our civic and provincial governments.
Face to Face columnist Jim Nelson is a retired Tri-City teacher and principal who lives in Port Moody. He has contributed a number of columns on education-related issues to The Tri-City News.
