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Should they spend more than $500 on Bristol board and Sharpies, they must then file a spending disclosure form and retain the records.

And the penalty for failing to comply? Up to a year in jail and/or a $10,000 fine.

Bolstering the case is the fact that on two separate reports, the chief electoral officer has said that this kind of small-advertiser registration isn’t necessary. The Canada Elections Act exempts registration for the little guy who spends $500 or less. In Alberta, the registration provision is triggered only after $1,000.

Yet, in the name of transparency and public accountability, the B.C. government has spent years and an unknown amount of money defending what it describes as “a minor administrative responsibility.”

At the Supreme Court, the Ontario attorney general has intervener status because that province’s municipal elections act — like British Columbia’s — requires small-advertiser registration.

What FIPA is seeking is an order that the registration requirement is an unjustified infringement on freedom of speech and that the law be “read down” to exempt anyone who spends less than $500 from registration.

The B.C. Court of Appeal denied that application in a 2-1 split decision in April, agreeing with the government and the trial judge that the registration provisions are a justifiable limit on free speech. But what all three appellate court judges and the trial judge agreed on is that its effect on “spontaneous political expression” is not “trivial and inconsequential” as the provincial attorney general argued.