VANCOUVER—B.C.’s minister of municipal affairs and housing says the provincial government will review local finance rules around third-party election advertising “based on the experience” of the 2018 municipal elections.

The promise comes as questions swirl around who is behind an advertising blitz for mayoral candidate Hector Bremner. The ads have appeared on billboards, at transit stations and on Facebook, but Bremner says he doesn’t know who is behind the ads and says he did not ask for the advertising.

“I am aware of this instance in the Lower Mainland, and it appears to be an attempt to spend as much money as possible on advertising a mere two weeks before the campaign period begins,” Selina Robinson, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, said in an email. “Clearly this suggests that the third-party expense limits set by the old government, which only cover the campaign period, don’t do enough to take big money out of politics.

“As election advertising is a form of political expression, any limits on that expression have to carefully balance complex legal issues (such as freedom of expression rights).”

The NDP government Robinson is a part of quickly moved to enact stricter political donation rules following its election in 2017. The previous BC Liberal government was heavily criticized for refusing to change the province’s less strict campaign finance laws.

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Independent mayoral candidate Kennedy Stewart, who was until recently an NDP MP, is one of the candidates targeted by the pro-Bremner Facebook ads. The ads took aim at Stewart as being beholden to “union bosses” and portrayed Non Partisan Association mayoral candidate Ken Sim as a puppet of shadowy supporters.

On Tuesday, Stewart announced that if he is elected, he’ll work with the provincial NDP government or explore using municipal tools to compel third-party political advertisers to reveal who they are and how much they’ve spent between Jan. 1 and election day during election years.

Under current B.C. election rules, before the official election period starts, it’s legal for third-party advertisers to spend without limit and without having to disclose who they are and how much they have spent. For the upcoming B.C. municipal election, the election period runs from Sept. 22 to election day on Oct. 20.

“This is anonymous money that has the potential of tilting the balance of the campaign,” said Stewart. “People at least need to know who’s spending this money.”

But Bremner said Stewart was only playing a political game by raising the issue, and he pointed out that Stewart had sought and received the endorsement of the Vancouver District Labour Council, which includes unions who represent City of Vancouver employees. “2019 is a bargaining year,” Bremner said.

Bremner was elected to council as an NPA candidate in an October 2017 byelection. He said his campaign raised about $60,000 for that campaign, while Vision Vancouver raised $278,000; 75 per cent of that money came from 10 large property developers. Bremner, who has strong ties to the BC Liberals, has since left the NPA and is running with a new civic party, Yes Vancouver.

“It seems to me that a lot of the people that have been shaken down for money by the big parties for a long time said you know what, we’re going to try our own effort,” Bremner said. “They could have supported Kennedy … but they ended up supporting me.”

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Bremner is running on a platform that calls for denser housing to be built throughout the city, including on land currently zoned for single family housing. He says his plan, which includes pre-zoning the entire city so developers do not have to come to council to get more density approved, would have the effect of “eliminating the relationship between city council and developers.”

Stewart said he is publishing a rolling disclosure of donations and names of donors on his website, and urged other candidates to do the same. He said he’s collected about $100,000 from around a thousand donors so far. The campaign is spending most of those donations on advertising.

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