Class action against Liberals dismissed
Lawsuit accused provincial party of spending millions on partisan ads
A class-action lawsuit alleging that the then-B.C. Liberal government was spending millions of taxpayers’ dollars on partisan political ads has been dismissed by a judge.
Last year, before the provincial election, a White Rock man filed suit claiming the Liberal government had spent up to $15 million on such ads and that the Liberals had consistently engaged in partisan advertising since being elected in 2013.
Both the government, which was ousted in the election, and the B.C. Liberal Party were named as defendants in the suit filed by the representative plaintiff David Trapp, a retired TransLink employee claiming to act on behalf of B.C. taxpayers.
Trapp, who became upset at watching government ads running on TV while he was recovering from cancer, argued that the ads were distorting the electoral process and had breached the government’s fiduciary obligation to taxpayers.
But in a ruling released earlier this week, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ward Branch found that the B.C. Liberal Party is not a proper defendant and cannot be sued.
He cited a number of previous court cases that found that in common law, political parties have no legal existence.
The judge noted that Trapp’s lawyers conceded that if the claim against the party failed, the plaintiff would not proceed further against the other defendant, the government.
He also found that while the case was being dismissed because there were no proper defendants, he could consider the merits of the case. The judge concluded that the plaintiff had no viable claims, including the claim that the government had unjustly enriched itself.
“The only ‘deprivation’ alleged is the failure of the government to expend its funds on other worthy causes, although the plaintiff does not specify what exactly those causes should be,” said the judge.
“Taxpayers cannot generally control how government funds are spent. There is no guarantee that any monies spent on other objects would necessarily be spent on causes favoured by each and every taxpayer. Indeed, it is virtually assured that they will not be.”
Paul Doroshenko, a lawyer for Trapp, said his client was “disappointed” with the ruling, but added that Trapp never expected to personally make any money over the case.
“He was just so disgusted with the government spending taxpayer money for advertising themselves,” Doroshenko said Friday.
“He felt it was appropriate for somebody to step up and do it, win or lose.
“He wanted to put this on the agenda and he was hoping for some change.”
Doroshenko added that they knew their one weakness was the argument that a political party couldn’t be sued because it had no capacity to be sued.
“A corporation can be sued, a person can be sued. A political party can get away with all sorts of mischief except basically what’s in the Elections Act or what’s criminal. It’s strange.”
The lawyer said that while there would be no appeal, he and his client are not dropping the matter.
“We are following through on this and our intention is to make very public in the advance of the next election campaign our opposition to it, by whatever means we can.”
A spokeswoman for the B.C. Liberal Party declined to comment.
He was just so disgusted with the government spending taxpayer money for advertising themselves.