Fundraising rules a joke, and Liberals keep cashing in

The greedy, out-of-control fundraising by the B.C. Liberals has generated lots of loot for Premier Christy Clark’s governing party.

The Liberals raised more than $12 million last year and are now set to vastly out-spend the rival NDP in the looming May election.

But the ravenous raking-in of cash is causing more and more problems for the Liberals, too.

Clark was forced to stop pocketing a $50,000-a-year “stipend” from the party’s overflowing coffers after accusations the money was effectively a “commission” on all that corporate cash.

Agriculture Minister Norm Letnick was caught skipping out on a policy debate at the province’s largest annual gathering of farmers and ranchers to appear at a $5,000-a-plate fundraising dinner for Clark instead.

And now the latest: An Elections B.C. investigation into allegations powerful, well-connected lobbyists broke the province’s obsolete fundraising laws.

The new investigation comes after lobbyists told the Globe and Mail they made large donations to the Liberals on their personal credit cards and were later reimbursed by their corporate clients.

That’s against B.C.’s electoral-financing laws, which says the identities of donors must be publicly disclosed and money can’t be funnelled through another person.

“Elections B.C. takes any potential contravention of the Election Act seriously and will be investigating this matter further,” said chief electoral officer Keith Archer, adding the maximum penalties are a $10,000 fine, one year in jail or both.

All of this seems to come at the worst possible time for the Liberals, with the election just two months away.

But the Liberals stubbornly refuse to call an end to their gluttonous cash grabs, insisting voters simply don’t care about it.

“I don’t get that at the doors I’m knocking at,” Housing Minister Rich Coleman, co-chair of the Liberal election campaign, said Monday.

“I don’t get it from anybody else, other than what we might read in the media. We are not about to change anything.”

As for those lobbyists forking over all that second-hand money, Coleman said the Liberals simply take the cash, and it’s up to the lobbyists to make sure they’re following the rules.

“They don’t disclose to us that they’re actually collecting that money back from somebody else,” Coleman said.

“Our party does everything by the rules.” But the rules in B.C. are a joke. Unlike other provinces, there are no restrictions on private fundraisers, no ban on corporate or union donations and no limit on how much any one person or organization can give.

It’s a wide-open, non-stop pork-apalooza.

But the Liberals are raising so much more money than any of their competitors, they simply won’t stop unless the public gets mad enough.