British Columbia

Until very recently, British Columbia Parties were allowed to received unlimited amounts of money. BC was the ‘Wild West’ of political cash:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/13/world/canada/british-columbia-christy-clark.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bE8.4Jpf.54nkVpZalefG

In 2017, the newly elected NDP Government of John Hogan did two great things.

1. They severely limited, money in politics.

2. They introduced a tougher lobbying law

I'm very grateful for what they did, because it created real positive change.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-election-2020-campaign-donation-limits-analysis-1.5765772

Thanks to these two laws, British Columbia is now less corrupt than Alberta or Ontario.

But there are still serious loopholes :

👉 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/north-van-chlorine-plant-campaign-1.7319259

I decided to write to the BC Legislature when I learned they will review the Lobbyist Transparency Act

https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/01042_01

I received an answer. They created this page:

https://www.leg.bc.ca/parliamentary-business/committees/43rdparliament-1stsession-lta

I intend to send a memo with two proposals:

Measure 1. Requiring lobbyists in BC municipalities to publically register. Under They currently only have to register if they are lobbying the province.

Measure 2. Significantly increasing the maximum penalties for lobbyists breaking the law.

If it was entirely up to me, I would push EXTREME ethics measures inspired from France, Denmark and Singapore. But that would scare lawmakers and they would think I'm completely nuts. So I came up with these 2 modest measures. I'd rather have 20% of what I want implemented than 0%.

I'm still working on the memo. If you have ideas, I urge you to write to lawmakers about this topic:

https://www.leg.bc.ca/parliamentary-business/committees/43rdparliament-1stsession-lta