Disir
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- Sep 30, 2011
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Lobbyists and other power brokers are routinely buying their way into British Columbia’s political inner circles by donating generously to the party in power several times a year, a practice industry insiders consider the cost of doing business in a province with an entrenched pay-to-play culture.
A Globe and Mail review of public records found dozens of people who get paid to promote special interests also give tens of thousands of dollars every year – under their own names, not those of the interests they represent – to help B.C.’s governing politicians pay for their campaigns.
Many are registered lobbyists, whose job is trying to influence those politicians to make decisions that will benefit their clients.
Those unfettered donations would not be allowed almost anywhere else in Canada, because most other provinces and the federal government now have annual caps on how much individual donors can give. B.C. has almost no rules governing political donations, making it a holdout and an outlier and leading many critics to brand it as the “wild west.”
Wild west: How B.C. lobbyists are breaking one of the province’s few political donation rules
Well, there goes British Columbia.
A Globe and Mail review of public records found dozens of people who get paid to promote special interests also give tens of thousands of dollars every year – under their own names, not those of the interests they represent – to help B.C.’s governing politicians pay for their campaigns.
Many are registered lobbyists, whose job is trying to influence those politicians to make decisions that will benefit their clients.
Those unfettered donations would not be allowed almost anywhere else in Canada, because most other provinces and the federal government now have annual caps on how much individual donors can give. B.C. has almost no rules governing political donations, making it a holdout and an outlier and leading many critics to brand it as the “wild west.”
Wild west: How B.C. lobbyists are breaking one of the province’s few political donation rules
Well, there goes British Columbia.
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