Ban corporate, union donations from Vancouver civic elections, says report

A new citizens' report says it's time to ban unions and corporations from donating to Vancouver municipal election campaigns, but it remains uncertain if the recommendation will find the support it needs to become law.

The recommendation is one of several included in a report from an independent task force on electoral reform appointed to find ways to raise voter engagement and participation rates in Vancouver elections.

The chair of the Independent Election Task Force Shoni Field notes in the 2014 election, corporations and unions donated between 70 and 80 per cent of the cash raised by the two largest parties, Vision Vancouver and the Non-Partisan Association.

It does raise questions for voters when they see large donations of money.- Shoni Field, chair, Independent Election Task Force

"It does raise questions for voters when they see large donations of money coming in," said Field Tuesday after the report was released.

"We are not saying in those instances anything wrong occurred. We are saying it does reduce citizen engagement and trust in the electoral process."

Province controls the rules

But the report notes the rules around campaign financing are controlled by the provincial government, and since 2005 it has turned down repeated requests from the city to reform the Vancouver Charter and ban union and corporate donations.

Coun.Andrea Reimer says while the proposal is one she has supported for years, without real provincial action it remains impossible for the city to bring in effective reforms on its own.

"We need rules and the only body that can make those rules is the province and they need to get on board and just make them," she said.

"The public confidence in elections drops with every election because of lack of action from the province. If democracy was a patient, it would be on life support."

More recently, campaign financing has been a hot topic at the legislature in Victoria, where NDP Leader John Horgan has called for a ban on union and corporate donations to candidates.

But the idea has been repeatedly rejected by Premier Christy Clark, who says as long as candidates are transparent about what donations they receive, there is no need to place limits on the size or the source of political donations.

Vancouver NPA Coun.George Affleck essentially agreed with the premier's stance.

"Right now, we have a political party in power for three years Vision Vancouver and we have no idea where their money has come from since the last election and how much they have raised," he said.

'So much money is being made'

None of thissits well with Green Party Coun.Adriane Carr, the only Vancouver councillor who doesn't accept donations from unions or corporations, who says campaign financing reform is critical for public confidence in government

"Over and over I have seen issues come forward on council where I know that the developer in question has given money to either Vision or the NPA or both, and none of those individual councillors recluse themselves," says Carr.

"It begs the question in many people's minds, 'Is this not ripe for corruption'?"

She notes a second recommendation is to change the city's own code of conduct to require elected councillors to withdraw from any votes or decisions concerning corporations, unions, non-profit societies and associations that donated to their campaigns

• Read the full report (pdf)

Carr believes, in some cases, this would have made her the only councillor eligible to vote on some motions this term.

Both Reimer and Affleck reject the idea as essentially unworkable under current election laws.

"We looked at a similar proposal before, but our legal advice was that it would not be enforceable," saidReimer.

Other key recommendations

The report made several other recommendations too, including striking a citizens assembly to come up with a system of proportional representation for electing city councillors.

Field herself was in fact part of a team created by former premier Gordon Campell that recommended the province adopt a proportional system the single transferrable vote. But that proposal was rejected twice in referendums by provincial voters in 2005 and 2009.

Other recommendations in today's report to city council include:

• Extending voting rights to permanent residents who are not Canadian citizens.
• Registering future voters when they turn 16 years of age.
• Testing online voting with a pilot project.
• Releasing anonymous data from ballots after the election.

Field is presenting the report Tuesdayafternoon to councillors, whowill then decide which, if any, of the recommendations they might support.

With files from Farrah Merali and The Early Edition