British Columbia is the wild west when it comes to political donation rules, with some of the least-restrictive laws in Canada. A showdown is brewing about changing these rules, but B.C.’s two main political parties have taken opposite stances. The NDP would ban corporate and union donations, and strike an all-party committee to consider other changes to how money is donated to the political process. The Liberals are against such bans, arguing they would require parties to rely on government subsidies funded by taxpayers. The Vancouver Sun analyzed donations collected by the Liberals and NDP between 2005 and 2012, and found the Liberals collected $76 million and the NDP about half that amount, $40 million. However, the data also showed that in 2012, as polls indicated the NDP could win this year’s election, corporations significantly boosted donations to Adrian Dix’s party B.C. is one of just a few provinces — along with Saskatchewan, P.E.I. and Newfoundland — with essentially no limits on how much money unions, corporations or individuals can give to political parties. Most provinces limit the amount a person or organization can donate to a party in a year or election campaign, ranging from $30,000 in Alberta to just $100 in Quebec. Quebec, Manitoba and Nova Scotia go even further, banning union and corporate donations entirely. Donations at the federal level are also restricted: union and corporate gifts are banned and individuals can only give up to $1,200 a year. In some places, such restrictions come with some type of public subsidy for political parties, often based on their vote count in the previous election. The NDP says it would ban union and corporate donations by Jan. 1, 2014, to remove the perception these large entities can influence the outcome of elections and collect favours from government. “I think money can influence politicians and politics,” said former NDP opposition leader Carole James, running for re-election in Victoria-Beacon Hill. “I think there is both a perception and sometimes a reality that the largest donors get the decision made perhaps faster than someone else.” NDP leader Adrian Dix has said political contributions should come from individuals — a position that benefits his party, as it collects more money from individuals than the Liberals. All other aspects of political donations — financing parties with provincial funds, limiting individual donations, or banning third-party advertising — the NDP would put to an all-party committee. Dix said he does not have a preference on public funding, and that he believes that decision should be left to the political parties. “I think it’s absolutely possible in B.C. to run an election campaign on individual donations, if there’s a level playing field,” he said. Rich Coleman, a veteran cabinet minister, said Liberals don’t plan to change donation laws and believe the bans would lead to taxpayers funding the parties. “I think when you decide that governments are paying for campaigns, you take it to a very strange level,” he said. Coleman, a four-term Langley Adergrove MLA, said parties should raise their own money by selling “your story.”

Proponents argue bans level the donation playing field, but Coleman said that is accomplished with B.C.’s campaign spending limits. And he denied deep-pocketed donors influence party decisions. “In all of the time I’ve been doing this, I’ve never once gone to a donors’ list to make a decision relative to who donated to who,” said Coleman, the deputy premier. “I think you are basing good policy on all kinds of consultations with stakeholders and people depending on which ministry,” he said. B.C.’s other two provincial parties would also want rule changes: The Green party would limit union and corporate donations, while the Conservatives would ban them. On its face, a ban on union and corporate donations would benefit the NDP. The Liberals, the more successful fundraisers, collected $46 million from corporations over the last eight years, while the NDP received $9 million from unions. In contrast, the NDP has an edge when it comes to donations from individuals, with $28 million in donations to the Liberals’ $21 million. What’s impossible to predict, of course, is how those figures might change if union and corporate donations were banned. Corporate CEOs and union members may make individual donations, but which party would benefit from that shift would likely depend on any cap placed on individual gifts. A high cap may benefit the Liberals, who could draw big donations from deep-pocketed business leaders, while a lower cap would likely help the NDP, allowing it to get a larger number of small donations from union members. Most big corporate donors to the Liberals, when contacted by The Sun, offered no opinion on whether a ban on union and corporate donations would be a good idea. In contrast, several union leaders said they would support such a ban, noting that — since the Liberals get more from corporations than the NDP gets from unions — it would help level the playing field. “I think British Columbians would be in favour of that,” said Jim Sinclair, B.C. Federation of Labour president, who added there should also be a cap on individual donations. Elections Manitoba introduced stringent new rules in February to promote financial fairness during elections. “Campaign finance legislation is based on the premise that money is a significant factor in electoral success,” says the government agency’s website. But Francesco Trebbi, an associate professor of economics at the University of B.C. who has studied U.S. campaign finance rules, said research suggests money doesn’t have as big of an impact on politicians as many people think. “The general sense in the [research] literature is there’s very little influence of money in politics,” he said. “But there are occasionally [important] bills where campaign donations ... do matter.” One difficulty in determining the impact of campaign contributions, said Trebbi, is it’s hard to tease out cause and effect: Are donations influencing candidates’ views or is the candidate receiving donations from those they already agree with? In one of Trebbi’s own research papers, he looked at the impact of campaign contributions from financial firms on how U.S. politicians voted on a bailout package after the 2008 financial crisis.