Now we all pay for B.C. politics

The B.C. NDP government introduced legislation Monday that will force provincial taxpayers to fork over $30 million over the next five years to the major political parties.

Of course, that’s not the way Premier John Horgan and Attorney General David Eby want people to think about it. Instead, they want to be seen to be cleaning up the mess of campaign financing the B.C. Liberals made. The Canadian Press report bought that narrative, referring to the plan “to get big money out of politics and shake off (the province’s) reputation as the Wild West of election campaign financing.”

The big money is still there, obviously, but now taxpayers are providing it, instead of the corporations, unions and wealthy donors.

As for the reputation, this was an issue that few people outside of Gary Mason and Justine Hunter of The Globe and Mail, as well as some handwringers at the CBC, gave two farts about. The NDP also cheerfully soaked supporters for big money and exclusive access to Horgan for a cost but only acted like they thought this was an issue because the Liberals were getting more donations than them. Andrew Weaver’s Greens made this an issue because they only get money from individuals and so the big guys should have to do the same.

Instead of political parties having to go out and raise money like every other agenda-driven non-profit group, now they’ll get paid on a per-vote basis, meaning the more votes they get, the more money taxpayers give them. Furthermore, all parties that get 10 per cent or more of the popular vote will be reimbursed for half of their campaign expenses.

Talk about putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. The politicians just gave their political parties a permanent, guaranteed source of revenue.

And this is great news for unions and corporations, who no longer have to pay for their influence over the parties and their candidates. If anyone thinks that unions will stop treating the NDP as their political arm and corporations will stop dictating terms to the B.C. Liberals, they are hopelessly naive.

The private, invitation-only dinners and all of the other special access gatherings will still happen but now they will be completely behind closed doors. At least there was a money trail that had to be made public under the old rules.

Now the politicians can secretly meet with the bigshots and, because there’s no money exchanging hands, everyone is supposed to pretend that nothing is happening and these visits are just to talk about the weather.

Election campaign finance reform, whether by Horgan, Kathleen Wynne in Ontario or Justin Trudeau in Ottawa, does nothing but give the major political parties free money. It also ignores the real issue.

What difference does it really make if a political party raises $10 million or $10 billion?

The problem isn’t how much political parties raise but how much they spend. Nobody wants to see politicians buy election results, so it seems to make more sense to control spending. If that were the case, it wouldn’t matter from whom the parties got their money because their spending – both before and during campaigns – would be capped.

And let’s not kid ourselves. The B.C. NDP likely wouldn’t be changing the rules if it wasn’t such a handy bone to appease Weaver.

Backroom deals, secret meetings, horse trading and back scratching will remain the main currency of political parties and their representatives going forward. Saddling taxpayers with the bill for them to run for office won’t change that equation in the slightest. –Neil Godbout, Editor-in-chief