SLOW ROAD TO TRUTH
Election probe took too long
Three years after the B.C. Liberals went into an election while under RCMP investigation over fundraising, a special prosecutor has concluded there was not enough evidence to justify laying charges.
“The RCMP found no or insufficient evidence to support any charges,” wrote special prosecutor David Butcher in a report released Monday.
“Accordingly, I have concluded there is no prospect of a conviction in this case.”
The launch point for the investigation was a March 2017 story in the Globe and Mail alleging that fundraising provisions in the Election Act “were being circumvented by lobbyists and others to hide the true source of the donations.”
The RCMP was called in at the behest of Chief Electoral Officer Keith Archer. He lacked the resources to investigate and wished to appear neutral in advance of the pending May 9 provincial election.
Butcher was appointed as special prosecutor to assist the police. Last August, the RCMP delivered a report to him on the results of its two-year investigation.
The key finding: “The RCMP believes that there is no substantial likelihood of conviction for any of the violations of the Election Act that were examined during the course of this investigation.
“Furthermore, where violations have occurred the RCMP has determined that it is not in the public interest to pursue a prosecution, as the cost of doing so would be disproportionate to the value of the donations under investigation.”
Butcher then spent the next nine months digesting the work and conclusions of the RCMP: “I have determined that the conclusion of the police is correct: that there is insufficient evidence available to meet the charge approval standard in this case.”
Lifting the lid slightly on the investigation, Butcher explained how the trail ran cold:
“The initial review of information provided by Elections B.C. as well as whistleblowers and independent media suggested that the scope of the problem was both significant and systemic.
“However, upon more detailed analysis there was no information found to support the broad allegations made in the media; both statistical and individual analysis of the donation data failed to identify a significant volume or pattern of donations.”
Police “noted that many of the lobbyists identified in the reports quickly filed corrections with Elections B.C., confirming that donations made by corporations or union employees were in fact made by their employees.”
The amounts that were improperly reported were found to be relatively small. For the most part there was no confusion about who were the real donors.
Employers who were interviewed by the police professed a lack of knowledge about the relevant section of the Election Act and “explained, reasonably, that the breaches of the Act were inadvertent.”
Lastly, police had difficulty gathering “evidence of criminality because there were structural flaws in regulatory accounting systems.”
Before closing the file on the case, Butcher offered passing comments on B.C. as “the wild west” of political fundraising.
Up to the 2017 election, B.C. did indeed have “some of the least restrictive rules in the western world.” But one of the first acts of the NDP government that took office following the election was a top-to-bottom reform of fundraising legislation.
“Those amendments should squarely address the concerns expressed by the media and the complainants in this case,” noted Butcher.
Those changes happened only because the B.C. Liberals lost their legislative majority in an election where they were dogged by questions about fundraising abuses.
“We know there’s a special prosecutor in place, we know the RCMP is investigating fundraising tactics,” as NDP leader John Horgan declared on opening day of the campaign.
But the allegations that led to the police investigation were only part of the story that helped drag down the Liberals. Before election day, the party itself paid back more than $200,000 in donations after admitting the money should never have been accepted.
The Liberal party, under four years of Christy Clark’s leadership, raised almost $45 million, much of it from large corporations. That they did so legally did not diminish perceptions that corporations were putting out cash to gain access to the premier and her ministers.
But given how long it took this case to conclude, it may provide an opening for a review of the province’s special prosecutor legislation.
Premier Horgan himself suggested the possibility earlier this spring when special prosecutor Richard Peck concluded there was no evidence to support unspecified allegations against NDP MLA Jinny Sims.
“This is not the only time that baseless allegations have put an MLA’s career under a long shadow,” said Horgan. “In effect, unwarranted allegations imposed a sentence on an MLA who is found to have done nothing wrong, and never knew the name of the accuser or the substance of the claims.”
Sims stepped down as minister of citizens’ services and has not been reappointed. But she spent only six months under a cloud compared to three years for the Liberals.
Still, Horgan argued that “both the public and elected officials would be better served by a special prosecutor process that is speedier and more transparent.”
He expressed the hope that “members of all parties can work together to find a way to improve this critical element of our democratic safeguards.”
With New Democrats and Liberals both having undergone a recent, bruising experience, perhaps they can agree to review the special prosecutor legislation when the house resumes.