Local election campaign limits don’t worry Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan, but he does oppose them.
At the end of June, the province’s all-party special committee on local elections expense limits released its unanimous report on local campaign spending limits.
Corrigan hadn’t had a chance to read the entire report when contacted by the NOW, but he said it wouldn’t be an issue for the Burnaby Citizens’ Association.
“Nothing in the election expenses is going to have a big effect on my party or our elections,” he said. “We’re still going to spend probably well within the limits that are proposed because we work together, and the limits are essentially designed to deal with councillors and mayors individually. We’re able to get more economy of scale by working together, and most other urban municipalities have political parties that are doing the same.”
In jurisdictions with a population of fewer than 10,000, the committee recommends expense limits of $10,000 for mayoral candidates and $5,000 for all other candidates, including councillors and school trustees. In jurisdictions with a population of 10,000 or more, the committee recommends a per capita formula, as the size of the municipality is expected to increase campaign costs.
The BCA spent $640,797 in the last municipal election for the campaigns of the mayor, eight councillors and seven school trustees. The party swept all the seats on council and the school board.
BCA had $484,649 in contributions and used $156,148 from its own accounts. The other party running candidates, the Burnaby First Coalition, had $28,344 in contributions, mostly from the candidates.
As for future elections, Corrigan said Vancouver would be the main municipality affected by the limits.
“I think the biggest impact will be in Vancouver, where the spending really has been high, and there’s been a lot of money going out as a result of the election campaigns,” he said. “I think it’s probably directed far more towards Vancouver than it is the other municipalities across the Lower Mainland.”
Vision Vancouver spent $3.4 million for the mayoral, council, school board and parks board candidates in November’s election, according to the NOW’s sister paper, the Vancouver Courier.
The main opposition party, the NPA, spent more than $2 million.
While the new limits may not affect Burnaby, Corrigan still opposes them, he said.
“It certainly wasn’t a request that we had made, to have the provincial government begin dictating what could be spent in municipal elections,” he said. “In many ways, the provincial government is trying to set an example on our backs while they’re not setting the same kind of example themselves as to how election spending is done in the province.
“I find that a little hard to take,” he added.
The committee recommended the spending limits apply to candidates beginning Jan. 1 in the calendar year of the local election, and proposed advertising limits by third-party advertisers. The committee’s report is available online at https://www.leg.bc.ca/cmt/leel.
