On Jan. 26, somewhere at an undisclosed location in Kelowna, Christy Clark will sit down to a private dinner with a group of deep-pocketed political supporters.

For the privilege of breaking bread with the premier — and the chance to personally present their issues to her — the dinner guests will pay a hefty tab: $5,000 each to Clark’s Liberal Party.

Distroscale

For this kind of unfettered, private access to the most powerful politician in the land, the dinner guests should count themselves lucky. Clark, after all, has done private fundraising dinners for as much as $20,000 a pop.

Like all of Clark’s private fundraising dinners, the approaching Kelowna soiree is shrouded in secrecy.

The ruling Liberal Party refuses to say exactly where the event will happen. They also won’t reveal how many people will attend or the names of the wealthy diners.

In fact, the only reason the Liberals even acknowledge the dinner is taking place at all is due to a leaked email invitation to a small number of well-connected insiders.

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“An outstanding dinner experience,” is how Agriculture Minister Norm Letnick described the event in an email to supporters who want Clark to win the next election in May.

Why is Letnick organizing a fundraising dinner for Christy Clark? Because he represents the riding of Kelowna-Lake Country, next door to Clark’s adopted riding of Westside-Kelowna.

But there was just one problem for the agriculture minister. He was previously booked to attend the Pacific Agriculture Show that day in Abbotsford. It’s the largest and most important agriculture exhibition in the province, with 9,000 attendees and 300 exhibitors.

Letnick was scheduled to participate in a panel debate sponsored by the B.C. Agriculture Council, the province’s largest agriculture organization, which represents 14,000 farmers and ranchers.

“I just had a call from the minister’s office,” BCAC executive director Reg Ens said in an email to event participants.“They are having to withdraw from participating in the Ag Debate on Jan. 26 as the minister now has to be in Kelowna that evening. We’ll have to think of another way to do this.”

That message to agriculture industry advocates was sent out on Nov. 28. Letnick’s invitation to Clark’s $5,000-a-plate dinner in Kelowna was sent out a few days later.

For critics who want the potentially corrupting influence of big money taken out of big politics in B.C., the story reveals a lot about the Liberals’ priorities.

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“We have Norm Letnick, the minister of agriculture, saying ‘no thanks’ to farmers and ranchers because he has to be at a Liberal fundraiser,” fumed NDP leader John Horgan.

“This government is thinking of one thing and one thing only: raising as much money from corporations as they can so they can win the election and continue to give back to those wealthy donors.

“For the minister of agriculture to not show up — especially in an election year — shows extreme disrespect.”

Letnick turned down an interview request for this column. His office said he will attend the B.C. Agriculture Council gala the night before the Kelowna fundraiser.

“On Jan. 25, Minister Letnick will be spending his evening engaging directly with representatives of the B.C. agriculture sector,” his office said in a written statement, noting the gala will be attended by 450 people.

The Liberal Party, meanwhile, defended Clark’s Kelowna dinner, insisting she is not breaking any financing laws and all the donations will be publicly disclosed.

“Any donation made to our party will now be reported within 10 business days of deposit,” said Liberal spokesman Emile Scheffel.

This is part of the party’s new “real-time disclosure” system, where contributions are publicly posted within days, instead of all at once at the end of the year as required by law.

But there’s a problem. Because the donations are disclosed when they are “processed,” there’s no way to tell if the donation was payment for a particular event like a private dinner with the premier.

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Scheffel refused to release a list of the people attending Clark’s $5,000 Kelowna dinner. He also refused a request to release a schedule of her fundraising events and the price to attend them.

“It has not been our practice to provide guest lists,” Scheffel said. “It’s not our practice to provide the details of the premier’s schedule.”

Translation: The Liberals’ secretive money train will roll on. And they are raking it in like never before in a province with the loosest, most wide-open election financing rules in Canada.

Unlike other jurisdictions, there are no limits in B.C. on how much money any individual person, corporation or union can donate to a political party.

Last year, the B.C. Liberals used these arcane rules to raise an astonishing $12.3 million, with the large majority of that money coming from corporations.

The corporate bankrolling of the Liberal Party leaves the Clark government wide open to accusations that it’s governing in favour of corporate interests.

Consider that the government resisted intervention in Vancouver’s overheated housing market for more than a year, while prices soared beyond the reach of non-millionaires. Was it because the Liberal Party is so heavily bankrolled by property developers and real-estate companies?

But here’s another angle to ponder: the concentration of a small number of rich political donors at the very tip of the party’s money pyramid.

Last year, just 185 donors accounted for half of all the money given to the Liberal Party, with an average donation of $37,000 each. At the very pinnacle of the Liberal loot pile, the big-money club gets even more exclusive: The top 26 donors and their related companies gave more than $3 million.

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It means just one-quarter of one per cent of the Liberals’ total base of 10,717 donors gave about 25 per cent of the party’s total haul of cash last year.

It’s a system wide open to potential abuse and influence peddling. But the Liberals won’t change it, because it gives them a massive money advantage over their opponents.

Until voters demand otherwise, Christy’s Clark cash will keep piling up.