Dear Editor:
Watching prominent B.C. Liberals show the world how out of touch they are is actually becoming a sad spectacle to watch.
If we’re to believe losing Vancouver mayoral candidate Kirk LaPointe, the new campaign finance bill is a waste of time, and presumably he means that we should have passed the B.C. Liberal version of the law instead.
So I hope he can explain to me why the Liberals’ $5,000 per year donation limit is somehow going to lead to less money in politics than the NDP’s $1,200 per year donation.
Mr. LaPointe says that individuals will simply have their family members donate to circumvent the new limit; does he truly think that wouldn’t happen under the Liberals’ limit? Perhaps we should start paying attention to his family’s political donations in the future to make sure Mr. LaPointe doesn’t break the spirit of these new campaign finance limits.
Let’s talk about dark money, where I agree with the justifiable concerns. What’s the solution? You can’t simply ban people from political advertising between elections, we have a Charter that would frown on such curtailing of speech. Of course, it’s not regular citizens who fund dark money groups, it’s wealthy donors who are trying to keep their conduct secret. That’s why it’s called “dark money,” because we aren’t allowed to see who it is, and those people are too ashamed to publicly declare themselves.
Mr. LaPointe and former attorney general Geoff Plant have no recommendations, simply an out-of-touch world view that says we shouldn’t have bothered because the cheats are going to find ways of keeping their political donations intact anyway.
Sure sounds like partisan whining to me.
Trevor Ritchie, Burnaby
