VICTORIA B.C. - “This announcement is merely a smokescreen for Christy Clark and the B.C. Liberals to pretend that they are showing leadership on an unethical and unaccountable electoral finance system that they have exploited for massive partisan gain,” said Andrew Weaver, Leader of the B.C. Green Party.

“This shirking of responsibility is an insult to the people of B.C. who overwhelmingly support immediate electoral finance reform in this province. The path for reform is self-evident; we don’t need an independent review panel to tell us how to move forward with reform. To eliminate undue influence on our political system, we must ban corporate and union donations, ban out-of-province donations and limit individual donations. The B.C. Green Party is the only party to impose its own ban on corporate and union donations. There is no excuse to postpone reform.

“What’s more, this government routinely fails to take the recommendations of review panels, as evidenced just last week with Bill 6, the Information Management Amendment Act. Three separate reports made recommendations on how the government should improve its recordkeeping, and the recommendations were largely ignored. How can we trust that recommendations on electoral finance reform would be taken seriously?

“It is embarrassing that it took international media scrutiny to finally get the government to address this issue at all. Between countless instances of mismanagement, $15 million in taxpayer-funded partisan ads, massive corporate influence through donations and lobbying practices and now the RCMP investigation into illegal donations, this government has lost the trust of British Columbians. They owe it to the people of B.C. to take real action now.

“B.C. Green Party candidates are not career politicians. They are people who have put their successful careers as teachers, scientists, and business and community leaders aside, to step forward and bring integrity and evidence-based decision-making back to our legislature. On May 9th our full slate of candidates will stand united in their desire to serve the people with honesty and integrity. They will be ready to form the first government formed by a party not funded by corporations and unions in British Columbia.”

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Media contact

B.C. Green Party

Jillian Oliver, Press Secretary

+1 778-650-0597 | jillian.oliver@bcgreens.ca