Take this chance to fix B.C.’s election laws

Ontario has about three times as many registered voters as B.C. does.

And this is where Alberta’s approach comes in handy.

The bill banning corporate and union donations — passed unanimously — took a two-part approach to the issue.

The second part included public consultations on a revised personal limit. Unlike B.C., Alberta already had a cap in place before Notley. The consultation lowered it to $4,000 from $15,000.

Alberta also lowered spending limits for elections. B.C. might want to do the same.

In the 2015 federal election, the overall limit in B.C. for a party running a full slate of candidates was $5.73 million. For the 2017 B.C. election, the limit was $11.63 million.

There is no shortage of other issues for a consultation to consider.

For instance, most jurisdictions set candidate and party limits by taking into account the number of registered voters in a riding and any special circumstances that might exist. Not so in B.C. The limit for all 87 ridings was the same, $77,674.

The party limit ($4.88 million) also didn’t vary, whether a party ran 10 candidates or 87. It does vary federally.

Then there’s the tiny matter of the Election Act not adequately addressing the possibility of a minority government.

You might have missed it, but the loud sigh of relief heard across Victoria when Lt.-Gov. Judith Guichon didn’t dissolve the legislature and call an election likely emanated from Elections B.C.

Imagine all the nuts and bolts that go into organizing an election: offices for the returning officers, polling stations, ramping up staff, telephones, ballots, mail-outs, printing, etc. Now imagine doing it in 28 days — without a head start — and on the heels of just having done it.

The length of an election campaign in B.C. is 28 days, not a minimum of 28 days.

Organizing an election is far easier when you know the date four years in advance. Minority governments don’t fall to suit anyone’s schedule, other than the party moving the motion of non-confidence or a government wanting to fall on one.

Simple solution? Provide some breathing room, by amending the legislation to allow for a campaign of 36 or 38 days outside of a fixed-date general election.

It wouldn’t be a bad idea to send the province’s 87 riding boundaries to B.C.’s Court of Appeal for a constitutional reference, either, just to ensure they’re constitutionally compliant. When Ontario and Quebec have three times the land mass of B.C. and “protect” 18 ridings, compared with B.C.’s 17, something might be amiss.

One day it’s going to get to the courts, anyway, so we might as well do it now.

The bar to register a new political party could also be reviewed. In Ontario, it takes 1,000 signatures from electors, collected within a one-year period. In B.C. it takes two, and the party can then start issuing tax receipts for contributions.

Some issues might seem inconsequential when it comes to election legislation, but, after the count, it’s important for the public to feel confident that whichever party won, it did so fair and square. Dermod Travis is the executive director of IntegrityBC.