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“Still, you can’t help but see this is two weeks after the by-election (which the NPA won) where Vision spent very little money.”

He said the NPA has not raised much money since the last civic election in 2014 and the timing of this move “caps us at the knees.”

He suggested Vision has already spent heavily on expensive campaign research and software, so that the ban won’t affect them as much.

“They have everything they need,” he said.

He also questioned whether the legislation would crack down on the “highly political public service staff” in the mayor’s office who help promote Vision Vancouver.

Where the parties get their money from will tell many tales, he said, and he also wondered how time donated to campaigns which have connections to unions would be tracked.

“That’s a significant opportunity the private sector can’t provide. I think if you’re the party who is in power it’s really important to provide that sort of transparency,” he said. “There’s a transparency needed to decision-making.”

Vision spent roughly $3.4 million in the 2014 election, and the NPA $2.4 million.

New per-capita spending caps will also be in place in 2018, although the government on Monday could not immediately say what the cap would be for Vancouver because it requires complex calculations.

The new rules would require the civic organizations to attribute specific expenses to each candidate in disclosure forms. And individual donors could only donate $1,200 in total to any of the candidates endorsed by a civic group (although that same donor could donate the maximum to multiple individual independent candidates).

Local politicians asked the government to consider election finance reform, including banning and corporate and union donations, in September at the most recent Union of B.C. Municipalities meeting. The B.C. government last month introduced legislation to ban corporate and union donations in future provincial elections.

UBCM president Wendy Booth praised the legislation.

“It’s a credit to the government they are acting early in their mandate to respond to the issues we’ve identified,” she said. “Elections shouldn’t be won or lost based on who has the most money.”

Oak Bay mayor Nils Jensen, whose council first pressed the issue several years ago, also endorsed the legislation.

“The bill will put to an end to the public perception that money can influence an election,” he said. “This is a victory for democracy. This is a victory for the rule of the people.”

rshaw@postmedia.com

twitter.com/robshaw_vansun

— with files from Stephanie Ip and Patrick Johnston