Recall bids to face curbs on corporate, union gifts

VICTORIA The B.C. government will introduce legislation next week to ban corporate and union donations from recall campaigns, as the province nears the date when recall campaigns can officially begin against the crop of MLAs that were elected in 2017.

Attorney General David Eby told Postmedia News the goal was to bring recall campaigns under the same rules the NDP has put in place for provincial and municipal campaigns.

“We’re going to be applying the same restrictions to recall that exist for general elections, a $1,200 donation limit, no union or corporate (donations),” said Eby.

The changes, if passed, would also require third-party advertisers to register and disclose their

funding sources. B.C.’s current recall law does not contain any such spending restrictions. It does forbid recall campaigns from beginning until at least 18 months after a general election, meaning the MLAs elected in the May 9, 2017, provincial election could see formal recall actions start against them after Nov. 9.

Three MLAs are currently being targeted by organized pre-recall efforts: Langley East Liberal MLA Rich Coleman, Abbotsford South independent MLA and Speaker Darryl Plecas and Eby himself in his riding of Vancouver-Point Grey.

“I think it’s very likely we will see recall campaigns,” said Eby.

“The concern for me is that very likely supporters would set up a support-David Eby third-party group, there’s no requirement on disclosing donations, there’s no limit on where the donations come from, or the amounts — and the same thing for Coleman, you get a recall Rich Coleman (campaign) funded by big money from organized labour. None of it looks great.

“So there is a challenge for me in terms of introducing the bill facing a recall, but the challenge is that having a bunch of big money donations flow into my own constituency to support me, while I’m in government, after having banned big money, is a really untenable situation for me.”

The law currently requires a person to collect signatures from 40 per cent of eligible voters in a riding in order to force a byelection.

That threshold has been traditionally difficult to achieve.

Of 26 recall petitions in B.C.’s history, only six were returned to Elections B.C. to be verified and of those, five did not have enough signatures. A recall campaign against NDP MLA Paul Reitsma in ParksvilleQualicum in 1999 gathered enough signatures, but Reitsma resigned before they could be verified.

The proposed legislation would not be able to regulate fundraising and spending before a recall campaign is officially filed with Elections B.C., because unlike scheduled general elections, a recall campaign can begin at any time, said Eby.

The bill also proposes forbidding a recall campaign in the six months before a general election.