August 25, 2005
Vancouver - British Columbians deserve a transparent understanding of election contributions after election financing disclosures submitted by local riding associations reveal additional big union contributions to the NDP, including paid union workers volunteering on NDP campaigns, said Gordon Hogg, BC Liberal MLA for Surrey-White Rock.
"As more pieces fall into place, we are only coming to realize the degree to which big labour financed the NDP's political agenda in the last election, "said Hogg.
I am pleased the BC Liberal Party has made it standard practice to report all donations over $250 through its main election disclosure document, said Hogg, adding the NDP should take steps to ensure their donations are more transparent to the electorate, rather than burying union donations in local campaigns.
As reported by various media sources, the provincial NDP received direct donations from unions totalling $1,865,873. These same unions also spent $3,563,437 on direct third-party advertising in support of the NDP during the election period.
Further analysis of constituency-level disclosures has now revealed that there was further union contributions made at the local level. Overall, those same unions contributed an additional $317,874 to individual campaigns, bringing the grand total to over $5.7 million.
This amount includes a $10,086.26 donation from the BCGEU to Carole James' campaign, representing the in-kind value of the salaries of paid BCGEU employees who worked full-time on her campaign.
"This amount still does not reflect the millions spent by big labour outside of the election period," says Hogg. "Nor does it include contributions made to the five NDP candidates who are overdue in filing their disclosures."
Hogg adds it is a concern that, despite anecdotal reports of paid union workers contributing to NDP campaigns in other ridings, not a single disclosure other than that filed by Carole James takes account of these in-kind contributions of salaried workers.
"The public wants and deserves better transparency around political contributions. There appears to be only two possible answers to this question - either Ms. James was the only candidate to receive paid union support for her election, or the other candidates have not appropriately filed their disclosures," said Hogg. "In either case, Carole James needs to show transparency and reveal for British Columbians the true value of big union contributions to the NDP."
