Local Elections Expense Limits — Issue No. 6 — Wednesday, November 26, 2014 (HTML)

Present: Jackie Tegart, MLA (Chair); Selina Robinson, MLA (Deputy Chair); Gary Holman, MLA; Marvin Hunt, MLA; Linda Reimer, MLA; Sam Sullivan, MLA

3. The following witnesses appeared before the Committee and answered questions:

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON
LOCAL ELECTIONS EXPENSE LIMITS


CONTENTS
Page
Presentations	97
G. Knox
J. Russow
M. Horn
B. Milne
Update on Submissions to Date	111

J. Tegart (Chair): Good morning, everyone. My name is Jackie Tegart, and I’m the member for Fraser-Nicola and Chair of this committee — the Special Committee on Local Elections Expense Limits.

This committee was appointed by the Legislative Assembly on October 9 to make recommendations on local election expense limits. The committee will be conducting its work in two phases. The first phase is on principles for the relationship between electoral organizations and endorsed candidates with respect to expense limits. The second phase is on expense limit amounts for candidates and third-party advertisers.

The committee will be submitting its report on phase 1 to the Legislative Assembly by December 15, 2014. Its report on phase 2 will be submitted by June 12, 2015.

Today’s public hearing is part of our review in relation to phase 1. In October we heard presentations from the Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development, the Ministry of Education and Elections B.C.

Subsequently, we launched a public consultation process to gather public input on principles in relation to local election expense limits. A provincewide media release was issued, calling for presentations and written submissions. We announced at that time that public hearings would be held to hear from stakeholders and interested citizens.

In addition, key stakeholders were invited to participate by either making a presentation or making a written submission. We have also facilitated the making of written submissions through an online questionnaire.

The committee held public hearings in Vancouver on November 7 and 8. Recently the committee’s consultation period was extended so that the committee can obtain further input. This was announced in a provincewide media release and in a call for submissions placed in provincial daily newspapers.

The committee scheduled two more public hearings. In addition to the public hearing in Victoria today, there will be a public hearing in Surrey on November 26. The deadline for written submissions has been extended to December 5.

Today we have allocated ten minutes for the presentations to be followed by an additional ten minutes for questions. The proceedings are being recorded by Hansard Services, and a transcript of the entire meeting will be made available on our website.

Now I’ll ask committee members to introduce themselves, starting with the Deputy Chair, to my left.

S. Robinson (Deputy Chair): I’m Selina Robinson, MLA for Coquitlam-Maillardville.

J. Tegart (Chair): Okay, so we are allocating five minutes, actually, for questions after the presentation.

G. Knox: My name is George Knox. I ran for council this election and the previous election in Courtenay, British Columbia, and I included something in this from my daughter, who ran for a school trustee in Courtenay here. She’s the mother of four boys and tried to get elected.

Anyway, expenses for elections should be based on population in a voting area — say 25 cents per voter maybe, or whatever — and should be controlled by the candidate’s agent and nobody else.

Where I live in Courtenay, a fellow that owns a hotel and he owns a print shop…. All of a sudden all of these pictures show up for Larry Jangula, the current mayor, to get elected. His agent has no control over that.

Another developer, whom I won’t name, owns a big subdivision here in Courtenay. All of a sudden he puts up four signs for four candidates and four candidates for the mayor that he wants to get elected. Some of the people didn’t even know these signs were going up.

Everything should be going through the candidate’s agent in my book. These other people I talked to about the signs going up for them…. One of them got elected, and one didn’t.

But anyway, it’s not right when your agent or yourself doesn’t know what’s going with the election. They should have control of that so they can control all of their things. I think that’s the way it should be.

Third-party donations, like from big oil corporations like I understand went on in the Vancouver election — or Burnaby or wherever else, from what I read in the newspaper — shouldn’t be allowed. When Vancouver or Courtenay or anywhere else gets donations from unions or whoever it may be, they’re always trying to feather their own pocket, in my books — whether it’s a developer or a union or whatever — and that’s not right.
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All donations should be from individuals, and they should be limited to a certain amount so a very rich person can’t outweigh a person that doesn’t have a lot of money. That’s just how I feel. I think that should be the way it is.

The other thing I have here…. I’ll just go to page 4 now. So 2,500 business cards were distributed in Courtenay here on the 13th of November. It says “Save Maple Pool and homeless. This November vote Mayor Larry Jangula, Bob Wells, Terry Chaney, Erik Eriksson, Manno Theos, Dan Doerksen and Stu MacInnis.” Nobody has put any agent on this or who to get in contact with. The “Save Maple Pool” was a local big issue in our local election here. They were trying to put 57 people out of their home, the previous council.

People shouldn’t be allowed to do that. It’s just not right that people just barge in, in your election, when you’re a candidate and try and do something for them to their benefit, like get a development approval or whatever. So those are some things I thought about the election.

The other thing is my daughter ran for a school trustee around here in Courtenay, in school district 71, along with people in area A, B and C of our regional district and Comox, Cumberland and Courtenay. The local teachers association have an all-candidates meeting, and they don’t treat everybody equal. You go out and you spend money on signs and whatever else you spend on the election. I won’t go through it. I sent you an e-mail that you can all read. That’s basically what happened to my daughter.

Also, besides that, the president of the union puts on Facebook everybody he thinks they should vote for in school district 71. That, to me, is very one-sided if you’re just somebody trying to get elected. It doesn’t seem right to me. All these things cost you money as a person running for election, whatever type of an election it might be. To me, that’s not very fair. My daughter and I have discussed it, so I just tried to bring it to your attention so maybe you could make it fairer.

Again, the local labour council donates money to this, and the teachers association donates money to certain people so they can afford signs and all that. It doesn’t seem fair.

I don’t want to talk anymore about anything. I could run on for hours. I’m just trying to make an election that’s fairer for people.

I ran at my own expense, and I tried to represent everybody. I didn’t have a funnel of an interest group or a developer or somebody else. I tried to be an open person.

I belong to the Dogwood Initiative, and they did do some phoning for me, I know. That’s the only help I had. I’m not trying to say people shouldn’t have help — for people that if you belong to an organization, phoning and all that. They just do that out of the good of their hearts. I don’t believe they get paid to do it. Like, anybody could do that from whatever political party or whatever. To me, that’s not wrong, because they’re trying to get your message out.

I have a disability. I can’t walk very far, so I didn’t pound on doors too much. I tried to get elected, and it helps if you go pound on everybody’s door to get elected. But when you can’t walk that great, it’s not good.

J. Tegart (Chair): Thank you very much, George. We’ve got a few questions, if that’s okay with you.

M. Hunt: George, my question is coming into the third-party side of things. In your submission, if I got it correctly, you’re saying that the signs were put up by a third party that had names of candidates on them, and your suggestion was that those should be part of the expenses of the candidate. Am I correct in interpreting what you said?

G. Knox: Yeah, that should be included in as expenses. An agent of that candidate should have knowledge of that, and they don’t sometimes.

My second question is this. You said that on one of the sets of those third-party signs was an issue based on closing a facility and then listing names. If that had only said the issue and not the names of candidates, would you have viewed it differently?

G. Knox: I don’t think so. I view it…. A few years ago in the election here we had a group called Common Sense, and they put a whole bunch of names in the paper and went around telling everybody to vote for them, okay? I believe there were four or five of them and the mayor. I can’t remember for sure. It was called Common Sense. They got chastised by some division of the government in Victoria and told they did things wrong. They got fined for their expenses and everything, because they didn’t do their expenses properly — by the local people.

I feel that if you want to get elected and you put a sign up with a whole bunch of people’s names on it or if you put a publication in the paper, you should have your name on it, with the business agent for that candidate, so everything’s aboveboard and that one person that controls who they’re voting for knows everything that’s going on in that election about them.

M. Hunt: Let me rephrase my question, George. If I heard you correctly, on one of the signs there was an issue of closing down a particular facility, correct?

G. Knox: Yeah, it was called Maple Pool. It’s a campsite where 57 people live, and it’s on a floodplain.
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M. Hunt: Now, was it only one group that held that issue, or were there…? Of all the candidates, there were various positions?

G. Knox: There were candidates listed on that card…. They all felt the same way about the issue from what I understand. But there were other candidates that ran that felt the same way about that issue, and there were current, elected members running for council again who were against that issue.

The local city of Courtenay spent $200,000 trying to force 57 people out of it, and that was a big deal in the election because we don’t have a homeless shelter in Courtenay nor do we have any place for homeless people at night. The people that live in this Maple Pool Campsite — the 57 of them — at least they have a trailer and a place to call home at night. It’s on the Tsolum River, and it’s on a floodplain.

Local contractors went in there and fixed it up and didn’t charge them anything, so it’s better than it used to be. But when you live in an area where there’s no homeless shelter at night, and they’ve wasted $200,000 on trying to boot people out…. They had a $500,000 place to build a homeless site, and then they ended up selling it for $350,000. They lose $150,000. They’re throwing the government’s money away, so it was a big election issue here.

M. Hunt: No, there’s no problem, George. It’s most likely the way that I’m saying it to you. I want to make sure that you understand my question so that you can give me your thoughts.

It’s this. If Joe Henry was really also concerned about this, but he was focused on the issue, “Save this campsite,” and he put up an ad that said “Save the campsite” — not endorsing specific candidates but focused on the issue itself — would you see that as being different and, therefore, not part of somebody’s personal expenses, but that should be dealt with as a “third-party advertiser” rather than somebody that’s campaigning for a specific person?

G. Knox: To me, something like that would be a third-party thing, because they’re giving that to all the candidates in the issue.

But when you put somebody’s name on a card and then you go around and put it in people’s mailboxes, you’re going around campaigning on that issue just for those six people to get elected. There were other people that weren’t listed on that card that felt the city of Courtenay should drop their lawsuit against Maple Pool. So everybody wasn’t listed on it. They were just trying to elect this group of people, when there were 13 people running for the election.

S. Robinson (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much, George, for your presentation. I have a couple of, I guess, clarifying comments, and I just want to make sure I understood correctly.

You mention fairness a fair bit. I just want to confirm that this notion of fairness and the principle of fairness are pretty important to you and that that’s really one of the key principles that you’d like us to consider as we move forward with this committee’s work.

G. Knox: Yes, I think everybody should be treated fairly. I don’t care whether you’re running for the school board, for mayor or for council. Everybody should have an equal chance. People with a lot of money shouldn’t be able to back one person that’s a council member, or maybe four or five people, just so they can get their project approved or something else approved. Or a union shouldn’t just be promoting what they want so they can get a bigger raise in their wages from the city. Those are just examples.

I want to make sure I understand that one of the actions that you think would help promote fairness is looking at the donation and not just the expense limit end — that who donates and how much they donate is an important consideration.

G. Knox: That’s important to me. When you have a council or a school board, certain people try to stack it in their favour so everything benefits them. I don’t think that’s right. You know what I mean?

G. Knox: People shouldn’t stack things. Everybody that lives in the city of Courtenay or the city of Vancouver should have an equal chance to go vote and feel like they’ve been treated fairly and that somebody hasn’t come along with a lot of money and tried to shove something down their throat. Or maybe old people who don’t read computers and don’t understand computers. They try and stuff their views down unfairly. Because they’ve got lots of money, they can maybe advertise it 25 times, and the other person can advertise their view one time. That’s not right.

S. Robinson (Deputy Chair): Okay. That’s very, very helpful. It helps me understand what’s most important to you.

The last question I have is this notion of transparency. You did mention that you wanted to make sure that everyone understood who was behind what and who had demonstrated support for whom and who was fund-
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ing whom. The way I hear that is that the other principle that’s really important to you is transparency. Is that pretty accurate?

G. Knox: Transparency is very important to everybody. Everybody that’s voting on voting day needs to have the same idea of what you’re talking about so they can vote how they feel who’s going to benefit their community the best. There should be all kinds of transparency out there.

Thank you very much, George. I appreciate the time you took to share your thoughts with us.

I belong to the Dogwood Initiative, Sam, because I don’t want any pipelines in Vancouver, and I don’t want any where my son and my grandkids live, in Terrace. I happen to have studied bitumen a little bit.

S. Sullivan: My question is…. I just looked under Wikipedia, and it is an organization that is funded from…. A lot of money does come from the U.S.

G. Knox: Oh, I didn’t know that. I thought it was just donations from British Columbia.

S. Sullivan: But even if it was just British Columbia donations, that would be a third-party advertiser. If they supported you, do you think that their funding that supported you should be disclosed as well?

G. Knox: Yup. If I’m an agent, any funding that goes to me…. All funding should be made public about everybody. Everybody should know where the funding’s coming from so nobody’s deceived about who’s supporting them. You know what I’m saying?

S. Sullivan: A lot of the money for the Dogwood Initiative does come from the U.S. Do you believe that…?

G. Knox: I’m sorry, Sam. I wasn’t aware of that. I thought it was a British Columbia organization. That’s what I thought.

S. Sullivan: Do you believe that money from the U.S. should be influencing local elections in B.C.?

G. Knox: No, because they don’t live here. I’m in Canada. I’m not a part of the United States.

Seeing no other questions, thank you very much for taking the time this morning, George. I hope you’re feeling better soon.

Okay. Our next presenter is Joan Russow. Ten-minute presentation and five minutes for questions, so just go ahead.

Recently, or not too recently, in February I was an international observer in El Salvador for the presidential election. When I was there, I complained that there were no limits to spending. I’d mentioned that in Canada we have limits for spending. I was thinking, at the federal level, there is a limit and a limit for donations too.

I tried to unravel the complexity here. I’m going to go through my diagram. I was doing some research into the total limits of contributions, so I compared what was going on in different provinces, and there seemed to be two ways of doing it. It’s either based on the number of electors that are eligible to vote or based on the number of registered voters.

I think that probably it’s very difficult to do it on the basis of eligible to vote, although if there were enumeration, maybe there would end up being more voters registered.

I think the system in Quebec, which does have 30 cents per registered voter, would be something that we could follow here, but I’m sure you’ve considered other systems as well.

I’m very concerned about the limit for individual donations, and I believe it’s…. In Manitoba, it’s $1,500 for the mayor and $750 for councillors. We can see that that’s a serious problem, because I believe that a single individual gave the NPA in one of the recent elections $96,000, which is just absolutely ridiculous.

Also, I’m concerned about who can contribute. It seems in other areas, in other provinces, corporations and unions cannot contribute. I feel that it should be prohibited that unions and corporations can contribute.

I’m also concerned about geographical area, which is the point that he was raising as well. I was shocked to find out that in B.C. there are no limits. In Manitoba, Nova Scotia, P.Q. — Quebec — and Ontario, out-of-Canada
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donations are prohibited. They are not prohibited in B.C. And only Nova Scotia, Manitoba and Quebec prohibit out of province, but Ontario does allow donations within the province.

I was wondering about the campaign period for raising contributions. It seems in B.C. — I’m not sure if I was right about this — that it’s 46 days before the general voting day, and that surprised me. In Ontario it’s from the time of nomination, which I thought was a better…. Also, it seems as though there are no regulations related to yearly contributions. In some places it’s $5,000 a year; in others it’s a $1,000 limit per year.

I’m also concerned about anonymous donations. I see that in many provinces anonymous donations are prohibited, and when I read…. I think it was really ambiguous. I don’t know how the anonymous donations are registered, because there was a very ambiguous statement saying that anonymous donations must be fully anonymous and the donors cannot insist that the donation be accepted and disclosed — and no more than $50 per candidate. I feel that’s really ambiguous. I mean, it must be disclosed in some way.

Also, the time of disclosure: I believe that in B.C. it’s 120 days. I heard about the possibility that they were talking about disclosure before the election, before the vote, and I thought that might be worth looking into.

Then time for determining irregularities: in B.C. it’s six months. I think it should be at least two years.

I think all of you must remember what happened at the federal level with the in-and-out scheme. Are you all familiar with that? It took two years to find out. It happened in the 2006 election, and it wasn’t until 2008 that they started to investigate it.

With advertising, as far as I can see, there are no spending limits. It’s hard to believe, and I think that there should be. Also, I’m concerned about referenda, because we did have a referendum in the last municipal election. I can see what’s happening in the States when they have referenda. There was a referendum in Oregon and California about labelling genetically engineered food, and corporations were spending an exorbitant amount in defeating that.

Advertising by individuals that are in B.C. — there seems to be no limit. In Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Quebec it’s only individuals residing, so I think we should have the same provision here. I believe that the penalties here are jail for one year and fines up to $5,000 for individuals and $10,000 for organizations. I don’t know whether that’s going to be changing.

I think that’s all that I’ve got. There’s certainly time for questions, I believe — or maybe not.

Just a question. The first phase of our work is based on what kinds of principles we should be considering as we look, actually, at what expense limits should look like. Based on the work that you’ve done, what principles would you suggest to the committee we should be considering?

J. Russow: Well, the principles of equity and fairness, as was suggested earlier. Of course, this is reflected in controlling the limit of spending and of receiving donations and contributions.

L. Reimer: Thank you very much for attending our meeting today to provide your feedback. That was actually my question, Madam Chair — the principles concerning expense limits — because the mandate of this committee is to look at expense limits as opposed to contribution limits.

J. Russow: Well, isn’t that closely related? Maybe not. Because I did run federally, and I remember that I was able to collect $100,000, but I think I spent $20,000. I think there should be limits on both. Well, there are definitely limits on contributions. There should be limits on contributions that can be received but also on spending limits.

L. Reimer: Right. Well, some people in elections, of course, as we know…. I’ve probably been guilty of this, too, when I ran for city council. Quite often we spend more than we’re bringing in.

If we’re going to establish expense limits telling a council candidate that they can only spend, as an example, $30,000 on their election, do you have any thoughts with respect to the principles for determining those types of limits? You’ve mentioned equity and fairness.

J. Russow: Well, you were saying that you spent more than you actually brought in. At that time, of course, there was no contribution limit. If there is a contribution limit, that would have to be tied in very much to the spending limit, I would presume.

J. Russow: Certainly, we would want to avoid any sort of thing similar to what happened with the transfer of funds at the federal level, the extra funding. But I would think that the spending limits would have to be very closely related. Definitely, you can’t spend more than you’re allowed to. If there’s a contribution limit, you definitely can’t spend more by borrowing money in order to spend more when there is a contribution limit.

M. Hunt: Two questions. The first one. You raised the issue of referendum. I don’t believe that’s been raised here
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previously. I thought that’s an interesting one, that you did that, so thank you for that.

My question is going to be: if we have a referendum on the ballot, should there be also spending limits for third-party advertisers on that referendum? What sort of concept would you have on that? I’m trying to understand, because this is the first time we’ve raised referendum as an issue, and I think it’s a valid issue to raise. I’m just trying to see. Would you be setting limits on it, much like candidates’ limits — that type of thing — and then being coordinated? How do you see that?

J. Russow: Well, I think that there definitely should be limits on the spending, and it should be strongly enforced, because I can see what’s been happening in other referenda, as I said, in the U.S. I think there would have to be, but I don’t know the exact amount it would be. I think in the U.S. they were spending millions on the referendum — the corporations.

M. Hunt: Okay. Let me help narrow that, then. Would you think that the limits should be similar to a candidate’s limits for a referendum, for a third party’s advertising on a referendum? Would that be similar to what you would think a candidate would be allowed to spend — a similar type of limit?

J. Russow: Well, that makes sense that there would be a similar type of limit. Yeah.

M. Hunt: Okay. The second question I have is, then, on multiple candidates. You raise it on your diagram here, but I don’t think I heard you speak to it. How would you be dealing with multiple candidates — that they can all pool their resources together? Would there be a smaller limit for having multiples, or would it just be that you can put your limit all together as a team and run as a multiple?

J. Russow: Well, I thought when they were referring to multiple candidates…. I did have one here. I was talking about multiple contributions, where there is a limit in some provinces to the amount of money that you can spend, that someone might want to spend on different candidates, not just one candidate. In some provinces there is a limit to that.

Now, you’re talking about multiple expenses if they joined together as a slate. Is that…?

M. Hunt: That was my interpretation of what you had as multiple candidates, and you hadn’t commented on it. That was all I was trying to….

J. Russow: Well, I was thinking of donations to multiple candidates. I guess I was looking more at controlling the contributions, because I thought they were very tied into the expenses.

I think that with a slate, it could…. Well, a slate essentially would have to be…. I would think the principle would be that each one on the slate should be responsible. With a slate, I think they would add up the amount. It was as though they were…. If the same person advertised over and over again, each person on the slate would have to pay a proportional amount, I think.

G. Holman: Joan, thanks for coming down and talking to us in person. I had another question around electoral organization, third-party limits and whether they should be separate from the candidate spending limit or somehow connected. Have you thought about that?

J. Russow: Well, I would think that they would have to be…. I think it’s, first of all, important to control the third-party spending and, as I said, make sure that they can’t be spent…. You were talking earlier or someone was mentioning earlier about the Dogwood Initiative getting money, spending money from outside. That really concerned me. I didn’t know they were. So I don’t feel there should be any out-of-Canada spending or out-of-province. It should be just locally. I would think that it would be far less….

That was a question that, I guess, this would tie in…. The question I had was…. I believe during the referendum here that there was someone who actually set up a party for the amalgamation. I’m not sure, but there was something like that. What if someone set up a party for a particular issue? Would they be allowed to spend more than a third party?

G. Holman: Well, we’ll ask the questions here, Joan. [Laughter.] That’s what you need to tell us.

J. Russow: Well, I just thought of that, actually. That would be very disconcerting if one way of getting an issue out would be to actually have a party that is named after the issue or the referendum that you want to promote. Would they then be able to spend more? Well, I’m not answering your question, but I think that’s something to take into consideration.

It doesn’t seem fair that someone could register a particular issue as a party, run as that and then raise more issues than a third party.

G. Holman: As you’re discovering yourself as you go through the process, the devil can be in the details here. But just to come back….
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Just say that on a third party, somebody’s advertising — they’ve got a candidate’s name and their signs and there’s advertising, whatever. Should that third party have its own limit?

G. Holman: Or should that be part of the candidate’s limit? If the third party is advertising explicitly on behalf of the candidate, should that be part of the candidate limit, or should that be part of a separate third-party limit?

J. Russow: Maybe the candidate doesn’t know that this third party is actually advertising. I mean, it could be that a third party is advertising for the candidate, and the candidate doesn’t know.

If the candidate does know the third party is advertising and has something to do with the advertising, I would think it would have to be part of their expenses.

I spent probably, at the most, $1,600 on my campaign. I had no signs. I don’t believe in signs, just to add that. I think it’s visual pollution, and also, it creates group think. People say, “My neighbour’s voting for that person because it’s on the lawn, so I’ll vote,” without thinking through what the candidate is actually saying. I don’t know if that has something to do with spending as well.

J. Tegart (Chair): Well, seeing no further questions, thank you very much for attending today and for your input.

Just in the conversation you can see that the more we learn, the more complex it becomes.

Mike, we’re trying to keep to ten minutes for presentation and around five to seven minutes for questions.

Good morning, everyone. Sorry I couldn’t be here right at the beginning. My name is Mike Horn. I was an independent candidate for city council in Nanaimo. I’m just going to go through my experiences with a campaign and financing and financing issues in particular. Then I have a couple of thoughts on the principles that you were discussing just now.

I was a fairly low-budget candidate. For personal reasons I didn’t get into the race until September. This was more of a proof-of-concept campaign for me. In fact, I managed to get more votes than I spent dollars, so I’m happy with that. I ended up relying entirely on individual donations and one beer and burger event. I have some debts, which I’m planning to work down with fundraising letters and possibly some Christmas items that I can sell.

When I was forming my campaign plan and my budget, I did apply for support. I did seek support from a third-party sponsor. I did inquire with the Nanaimo district labour council to see if there would be any possibility of donations coming from that quarter.

That did lead to a series of interesting experiences. As I’m sure you know, the legislation concerning third-party sponsors, updated for this election, was being road-tested by many organizations, with varying results in Nanaimo.

In Nanaimo we had two 3PSs. One was the Nanaimo Ratepayers Association, and one was Progressive Nanaimo.

The Nanaimo Ratepayers Association went the conventional route of sending a questionnaire to candidates, determining which candidates they wanted to support and publishing ads endorsing those candidates. I don’t believe that they did anything else to support the candidates.

Note that in their ads and in their process they were quite clear to keep themselves independent from the candidates and their campaigns. Candidates were asked to give their permission to receive this endorsement, but the third-party sponsor did not act like a slate. They endorsed one more candidate than we could vote for, and they’ve just kind of kept themselves separate.

On the other hand, Progressive Nanaimo registered themselves as a third-party sponsor and indicated they were going to be endorsing some candidates. As part of their process for picking the candidates, they sponsored a series of public forums where we could speak to the voters. There was some controversy there because their first public forums were exclusively for new candidates, non-incumbents.

At the final public forum they announced, somewhat to everyone’s surprise, that they’d changed their mission statement. They were not going to be endorsing any candidates. They took the line that they were supporting all candidates equally and then proceeded to sort of shut down and not take much more of an active role in the campaign.

That left me with individual donors and my beer and burger and an opportunity to observe what the other campaigns were doing with their financing — how they were raising money and how they were spending the money.

Before going into the campaign, I took a look at the financial disclosures from the two previous campaigns. If I get the opportunity to write up a summary of my findings, I will send that on to you. But generally, it was fairly straightforward: usually less than $5,000, mostly broken up between signs and advertising.
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Now the controversies that came up concerning the third-party sponsors and on-line advertising, which somewhat overlapped. There was a lot of discussion on line about whether the third-party sponsors were acting appropriately. There was a lot of — some quite irresponsible — speculation that third-party sponsors were violating the legislation in ways that the average voter or the average Internet troll was interpreting for themselves, so that was interesting.

What it largely came down to was: are the third-party sponsors interfering with the campaign by…? Well, I can’t even describe what the accusations were. But there were concerns about how the third-party sponsors were behaving — whether or not they were appropriately involved in the campaign and whether or not they were, in the case of Progressive Nanaimo, favouring new candidates over incumbents without necessarily coming out and giving a straight endorsement.

Also, there was a lot of controversy about the use of social media and a certain amount of understandable confusion about the use of social media. It’s classified in the legislation as a type of advertising that’s similar to radio advertising, which is counter-instinctual to me because it seems like it’s unpaid, though I understand it is a commercial enterprise.

There was some concern about third-party sponsors having a social media site which candidates were promoting themselves on. So in effect, candidates who were not officially sponsored or endorsed were using Progressive Nanaimo’s Facebook page to promote their events — I did that, in fact — or to promote their campaigns, to raise issues, or even to debate issues.

That leads us into a sub-issue. If there’s a third-party sponsor with a Facebook page and you’re not posting to it but you’re commenting on other people’s posts, does the legislation follow you all the way down into those comments? It’s a bit of a jungle there which should be considered in future legislation.

Just to quickly respond to the discussion you just had about the principles, I’d like to say that I disagree on the concept that donations should be local only. When I first started fundraising, I reached out to family overseas and former provincial candidates who I’d worked with before and who now live overseas. I was soliciting and even receiving donations from them.

Again, with a third-party sponsorship, I do not think that the spending totals for the campaign and the third-party sponsorship campaign should be added together or counted as one, because it seems important, in some cases, for the third-party sponsor to be independent or maintain some distance from the campaigns. Also, I believe the legislation prohibits third-party sponsors from coordinating with a campaign. So they shouldn’t then be forced to coordinate their budgets if they’re not allowed to coordinate their actions.

M. Hunt: Actually, you answered my question at the very end. My question was with your third-party advertiser, whether that should be considered part of your campaign or you now have the ability for those who are endorsed by that group…. Now more money gets to be spent on your campaign than if you weren’t endorsed. So that would seem, to me, to be giving you advantage. “By going and getting multiple endorsements, now I can spend three, four, five times as much on my campaign as somebody else, because I’ve gone and got these different endorsements.”

M. Horn: No, I don’t see it as being realistic or applicable. Really, as a candidate, I am going to raise and spend as much money as I can. Except in maybe the case where the third-party sponsor is adding money, like actually writing me a cheque, I would just see that as the icing on the cake and focus on baking the cake myself. And if someone else wants to put an ad out….

M. Hunt: Okay. Well, let me roll that around. Say if someone that isn’t baking the cake like you are, they want to be the icing and let everybody else be the cake. So they go to…. We’ll use your example of Progressive and the Ratepayers, okay? So now I can get twice as much advertising of my name in the local press or the radio or signs, whatever. I can get twice as much now as candidate B because now I’ve gone and got these extra endorsements.

You see that as being appropriate? You don’t see that as disadvantaging the other candidates?

M. Horn: A comparative disadvantage, possibly. I wasn’t getting the sense that there would be that type of planning. With a third-party sponsor — in the cases in Nanaimo, anyway — the endorsements came quite late in the campaign, after a lot of things were already set, after most of my money had already been spent. In the usual process, where they go through a process of picking the candidates and don’t have them predetermined like you would in a slate, it’s not certain who’s going to get the endorsement.

When we were discussing on line whether or not the third-party sponsor, in the case of Progressive Nanaimo, was accused of becoming a slate or being a party in formation, that’s what I said to people. I said: “No, a slate is when you decide ahead of time who your candidates are and you run with them.”

In this case, it’s more a case of Progressive Nanaimo being an outside non-partisan body that’s choosing candidates to endorse.
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M. Hunt: I’m not familiar with this type of endorsement because I’m in a larger community, so it doesn’t happen. So the ratepayers would, then, advertise. Let’s say the last week of the election is, basically, when they would be advertising, so it would be sort of a one-shot, in-the-newspaper type of endorsement, and then in their social networks.

G. Holman: Thanks for coming down to talk to us today. I wanted to ask you about a social media issue that also was a little bit tricky. I wanted just to bounce something off you. It might relate, in part, to what you were just discussing with Marvin about advantage and unfair advantage.

It seems to me that social media…. I mean, by its very nature, virtually everyone has access to that.

G. Holman: You described Facebook, where people would go on and kind of get the benefit of Facebook because they participated or make it, right? But that’s available to everybody. So I guess what I’m wondering is whether social media should be captured in our expense limit discussion whatsoever.

When we talk about fairness, it’s not whether a candidate can get an advantage over another candidate, right? I mean, that’s campaigning. Maybe they’re just good at campaigning. The question is whether there is something systemic, something that gives an unfair advantage to one set of candidates versus another.

I just wonder about social media. Since it is available to everybody, to what extent should we be worried about limiting that? That’s my question.

M. Horn: Well, that’s the beauty of Facebook. Even if you’re — like me — not that computer savvy, you can do a lot with it. You can create pages. You can circulate photos and campaign on line in a way that even people who aren’t using Facebook are going to pick up on.

The problem with it is that it’s very hard to quantify the spending. There’s an option to boost your posts. You can pay Facebook $5 to increase the visibility of what you’re doing, and that, to me, seems like campaign spending.

There is lots of opportunity to, as I say, just get into the common threads and make your opinions known. I did have people coming up to me and saying: “Well, I see you’re defending my thing” or “You’re being reasonable on Facebook, and that’s why I’m supporting you.” That doesn’t cost me a cent. It’s hard to quantify and bound to be controversial.

G. Holman: My question, though, is should we be worried about that? The last example, the boosting, where there’s actual expenditure of dollars — it makes total sense that that would be included in an expense limit. But why should we care about just participation in social media?

M. Horn: Including social media in the expenses part of the legislation, I think, just leads to anxiety and controversy and doesn’t actually provide guidelines to the candidates about what they should and shouldn’t be doing.

It seems to me that the purpose of the legislation, particularly in terms of advertising expenses and tracking expenses and third-party sponsors, is that everybody gets to see who is spending what money. Eventually, everyone can see — and there were lots of questions about this in the campaign — where you are getting your money from and how much you are spending.

With social media, that’s never going to be quantified. That’s never going to show up on my financial disclosure form, so why am I thinking about that in terms of financing legislation?

L. Reimer: My question pertains to expense limits and the relationship that you see in how we should set expense limits for elector organizations and candidates. Should candidates have all of the expense limits? Should electoral organizations have…? What do you see for that?

M. Horn: I would certainly say that electoral organizations, or at least third-party sponsors….

L. Reimer: Okay, now, third-party advertising — let’s leave that aside, if we can, and just talk about the setting of expense limits for electoral organizations and candidates.

M. Horn: I would suggest that both need an expense limit, if only to set the margins for what they’re operating in. I wouldn’t suggest that the expense limit should be particularly low or seem draconian, but there should be an established number out there so that candidates and campaigns don’t get overly ambitious or don’t feel like they’ve got to raise a quarter of a million dollars to run in Vancouver.

In principle, I’d be in favour of expense limits. But in my experience, I don’t see that overspending is a problem, and I don’t see that large amounts of spending are particularly rewarded in terms of vote totals.

If I could just add one thing on this topic, the main advantage of limiting expense limits, in my view, is that
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it gives back to the public a sense of accessibility. There’s a real discouraging feeling that people seem to get when they’re seeing huge signs and signs everywhere and advertising flooding their doorstep, and I’m just asking them for $50 so I can buy more business cards. They go: “Well, what does my $50 matter when this millionaire developer is sending a six-page pamphlet to every household?”

I want to get people back to the sense that their small contributions, their personal contributions, matter. For that reason, I’d be in favour of limiting the overall expenditure.

S. Sullivan: I think that many people in the Downtown Eastside do not have Internet and do not have Facebook and all that stuff. Whenever we bring that up, that it’s available to everybody — no. Not everybody has a computer. Not everybody is able to use it. Just a comment.

So a ten-minute presentation and then — we’ve been pretty flexible — about ten minutes for questions.

I’ve lived in B.C. all my life. I’m a political scientist. I used to be at the University of Victoria, on faculty at the department of political science with a PhD in political economy. I’ve been paying attention to politics — trying to understand B.C. politics — most of my adult life. Getting a little bit closer as I get to the far side of those things.

I left the university in the ‘90s hoping to have a quiet life of independent research in Sechelt and got involved in local politics. I was first elected as mayor of Sechelt in 1996 and re-elected in 1999 as the first mayor to ever be re-elected under the district of Sechelt boundaries.

After those six years and being absolutely exhausted, I thought I’d retire again. But I did end up working as a federal negotiator on the land claims for the last ten years — again, involved in constitutional and work of that nature.

About three years ago I actually really, really, really tried to retire. That got disrupted by this election campaign. I want to go back to 2011 to understand what happened in Sechelt.

In Sechelt — population, about 10,000; voters registered, about 7,500 this year — the campaigns have always been fairly small, easy to control. Mayoralty candidates haven’t had to raise money. Council candidates might spend $1,000 or $500 or less and still get elected. I had always paid for my own campaigns. It seemed reasonable and a good thing to do in a small town when a campaign could be under $5,000. There are no strings attached. Nobody has to worry about who’s donating.

In 2011 a new mayoralty candidate came on to the scene and an electoral organization for the first time. It was called For a Better Sechelt. Between the two of them, they spent more money than all other candidates in that election, all candidates in the previous election and all candidates in the previous election before that.

Going back ten years, these two bodies — the new mayoralty candidate and an electoral organization — spent far more money. It just blew people out of the water. They didn’t know it was coming.

They got elected. Spending money does have good results. If there’s one difference between Mr. Horn and myself — I believe campaigns are about winning elections not about proof of concept. Just so you know, on that one.

The 2011 election was very successful in terms of campaigning, in terms of money spent, but the results for the community over the three years were not satisfactory. There was a lot of dissention, a lot of concern, and about a year and a half ago people started to ask me seriously if I would come back as the candidate with the most obvious ability to have success in defeating this group, because of my previous success, and also the most least-risk. There was a lot of risk in running against these people, which is another side we don’t have to talk about. I agreed to do that, and I put together a campaign and funding for it.

Right from the start I was saying: “I’m more worried about 2018 than about 2014.” I knew I was going to win this election, and I knew we would outspend them. But I was really worried about what would happen in 2018 when another candidate, not me, tries to come in, in a more level playing field. They won’t be able to raise the money I did. They simply won’t be able to. But the group that took over in 2011 will still be there. They’ve got deep, deep pockets.

The big surprise in 2014 was these third-party sponsors. I think Sechelt had more per capita than any other jurisdiction in B.C. We had six or seven. They were coming out of the woodwork. The key thing I’d like to remind you of is the sense that, under legislation, they cannot be controlled and directed by the candidate. That can be both a blessing and a curse.

I made it very clear from day one when I launched my campaign to a great rally, which hadn’t been seen in Sechelt before, that I was the candidate, but it was the community’s campaign. It’s up to you. You want a community candidate, you can have him, but you’ve got to
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run the campaign, and you’ve got to come forward with donations. And they did.

I raised more money than has ever been raised before. I outspent what the mayoralty candidate spent in 2011, and I outspent what he did this year. In addition, the third-party sponsors probably outspent me by 2 to 1 as well. There was far more money in the 2014 campaign than we’d ever seen, than even in 2011.

The third-party sponsors, with one exception, as I recall, were supporting my candidacy in one way or another. Some overtly; some not overtly. The largest one was called Vote for Change. They started in on “Vote for change.” About six weeks into the campaign, they said, “Vote for the right change,” because a third candidate had emerged — not that we were seriously concerned.

But my supporters were very seriously concerned. They didn’t know what a third-party candidate would do. By the end of it, they were putting my name in their ads. I didn’t ask them to. I wasn’t controlling them, and I couldn’t do much about it. But they did that. That’s a real factor to think about when you’re running campaigns. I had other people taking out full-page ads: “Vote for Bruce Milne. Do this. Do this.” Some of them were embarrassing; some of them weren’t. They were not presenting themselves as I would present myself.

That actually became an issue in the campaign, as a number of people were concerned at the negativity or the crass humour of some of the other third-party expenditures. What was happening was that people knew that I…. I’m pretty well known in the community. I’m relatively diplomatic. I call a spade a spade. I was very upfront about the criticisms of the previous council, but everything was fact-based.

People knew that I wouldn’t speak with certain voices. I wouldn’t express the anger the way some of the members of the community wanted it expressed. Those are the people that explicitly, rather than giving me a donation to run and speak with my voice about their concerns, said: “We want our voice there. We want our voice, as loud as it might be or as crass as it might be or as angry as it might be. But we’re supporting Bruce.” Well, a lot of more sensitive people said: “If those people are supporting you, we don’t really want to vote for you.” So it really did come in a double-edged way.

I don’t know what you can do about free speech and third-party sponsors and keeping the candidate from controlling it. People assumed I controlled everything — first of all, because I’m going to be the new mayor, and they knew that in advance.

It’s very, very difficult. We have to find a way to allow the candidates to have some say or for the community to learn that third-party sponsors are just that. They’re independent voices that want to speak their voice because they don’t think it’ll be the right voice if the candidate doesn’t.

In 2011 the winning incumbent spent $12.49 on every vote he got. I think you’ll know from provincial averages that you can usually win an election in B.C. with about $2.75 for every vote you get. I spent $7.70 this time to win this election. The incumbent that lost spent probably about $15 per vote. The numbers aren’t in yet, but I can tell pretty much what he spent from advertising — $15 a vote to lose.

The amount of money per voter is significant, even in a small town. I think we need to try and limit that. Again, accessibility becomes an issue if spending limits are totally out of control. I would like to see limits based on population size or voters, so it’s so much per voter as opposed to so much per candidate — or eligible voter, I should say, rather than per candidate.

There are lots and lots of stories I could tell, but I’m going to watch the time. It’s exactly ten minutes, so let’s stop. That’s our story from Sechelt. We had about six or seven independent sponsors. They came from all over.

We also had a lot of my supporters who were on the phone to Elections B.C. to get rulings. They were told at one time that if they had a house party and put a sign in front of their yard, they had to register as a third-party sponsor. Well, they changed that rule about a week later. But as it went on, there were some of my supporters who were very active on social media and in constant connection with Elections B.C. to make sure they were staying on the right side of the law. We want to open that up a little bit differently too.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I’m sorry I’m going to raise more questions than I’m going to answer.

S. Robinson (Deputy Chair): First of all, congratulations. Thank you for sharing the story, because sometimes it’s helpful to sort of hear how things play out. It gets us thinking about some of the principles that we ought to be considering.

What I guess I want to note and acknowledge is that you’re coming from a small community. We’ve been hearing about large-community issues. They seem to get a lot of airplay. But hearing that it happens in a small community when, in fact, we’ve been told, “Well, those don’t happen in small communities,” really helps to solidify for me how important it is that we recognize these challenges in small communities.

My question is more about relationship in expense limits, as you see it and as you’ve experienced it, between third-party elector organizations and individual candidates. As we move forward with figuring out how to bring in expense limits, how do you see those relationships between those three different groups in campaigning? If you have any words of enlightenment for us.

B. Milne: I think the relationship between electoral organizations and candidates will be easier to figure out because they’re usually more explicitly endorsing par-
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ticular candidates and they’re organized in a different way. I would see some cumulative cap on those. Most candidates could be associated. There will be some independents who don’t have an organization but most, even in small towns, would be able to have an electoral organization with some capacity. So it wouldn’t be limited to just a single candidate’s expenses but something that balanced those rights.

Far more complicated to figure out what to do with the independent sponsors who simply want to speak and have a right to speak. The courts have made that fairly clear. I don’t know how to do that without allowing the candidates to vet: “No, you’re not allowed to come in.” You can’t give candidates that responsibility — to be vetting third-party sponsors — so I don’t actually think you can solve that. But the problem is you get 100 people with $10,000, and the district of Sechelt election next time will look totally different again.

People were coming forward with lots of money. I have to tell you about somebody who rang my doorbell while Irene was reading the e-mail. She said, “Bruce,” and I said: “No, I’ve got to answer the doorbell.” I opened the door, and a woman handed me a cheque for $5,000 and said: “There’s double that if you want it.” Irene was reading the e-mail from the woman, who said: “I’m going to come over and give you a $5,000 cheque.”

We also got $50 cheques. But there are lots of people in Sechelt who will put $5,000 to $10,000 into a campaign when they’re concerned about the direction….

S. Robinson (Deputy Chair): If I can just follow up with one more question. If I’m understanding correctly — and maybe I’m not — do you see donation limits as part of the solution to that? I mean, it’s not what we’re considering, but in terms of your storytelling and trying to address this notion of fairness and access that we’ve heard and in terms of important principles, is that something that ought to be considered?

B. Milne: I think it’s spending limits more than donation limits, for a number of reasons. Just offhand I would say it’s spending. Donations — all that will do is perhaps…. We did see some people donating to five candidates. If you put a cap of $5,000 or $10,000 or $100,000, they will just spread their money on the slate that they want. So I don’t see contribution limits being a real factor.

G. Holman: Well, thanks, Bruce, very much for taking the time to come here. You’re the only person that’s speaking to us. It’s very much appreciated.

I would like to extend my condolences for delaying your retirement rather than congratulate you being elected as mayor, but be that as it may….

B. Milne: Accepted, and I can tell Irene. That was the topic of conversation in our house for quite a while. “What are you doing?”

G. Holman: I want to get at this again. Selina has raised it. But this electoral organization, third party and candidate and how those limits…. What’s the basis on which we come up with them? It’s very tricky.

You said something about third party which kind of twigged my attention, which was that they wanted to have a separate voice. That was a striking way of putting it. Let me try something on. If a third-party advertiser is considered as a separate voice in the election, would it make any sense to have their limit be similar to a candidate limit — just to try something on?

The second question is around electoral organizations. We are talking about separate limits for each of these entities in an election. How do we come up with…? The dollar per voter makes a lot of sense in terms of the candidate. That’s intuitive, and you want to scale it by size of the community. How do we come up with limits for EOs and third party?

B. Milne: I think the sponsors could be considered similar to a council candidate, and I imagine you might have different limits for council or mayoralty candidates in that sense. The sponsors could be seen as an independent candidate of some sort, though they will almost always be endorsing somebody. So it does create a bit of an unfairness.

I think that third-party sponsors are going to be unusual once things settle down in ten, 15 years in British Columbia. I don’t think they’re going to be the norm. They will, in fact, organize around organizational politics in a different way.

The more difficult issue is the organizations. Because they have, usually, set criteria and an organized form, they’ll probably always be easier to manage. The difference for me is whether they endorse one, six or more candidates. That would be a difference. I think there should be multiples there in terms of their expenditures. So one organization that only endorsed one candidate shouldn’t be able to spend as much as somebody who endorsed six. I think we want to take a scale in that manner.

In Sechelt we’d always had a Sechelt electors association, which had spent almost no money but held an all-candidates debate. They will probably revive themselves in some form, and the moneyed elite that put together the last group will probably revive themselves after this shellacking they got. We know they’re going to do something.

I think as an organization we need to look at how many candidates they’re endorsing, and the role they actually play might limit the spending they have. I don’t know at this point if we can limit their role to certain types of campaign activities as opposed to an all-out advertising. You might be able to find ways to say no. If you’re primarily holding all-candidates meetings or doing this,
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that’s one thing, but if you’re primarily spending money on advertising, radio or television, then that’s a different factor. You may have limits for different types of activities that they’re involved in.

L. Reimer: Thank you very much and congratulations. This has actually been a very interesting story for me because, of course, much of the concern that’s been expressed about expense limits has been regarding our larger cities — sort of the outliers, those who have spent way above the average spending.

You think that there should be a per-voter amount for expense limits. Can I just ask what the…? I know Sechelt is small. What is the population of Sechelt?

L. Reimer: Right. One of the thoughts that has come up is making it an expense limit for populations of 10,000, plus a certain amount per voter. So are you saying that we then ought to just look at per voter as opposed to a base population plus? We have many communities, of course, in British Columbia that are under 10,000. Really, I haven’t heard of any expense limit problems in those smaller communities.

B. Milne: Most of them are small. Gibsons, for example — which is very close to Sechelt, half the population and half the voters. There were some concerns during the election about spending there — who was spending and how it was coming. So I think it’s actually quite common in small towns, precisely because the influence can be so great. One player can come in — or one or two developers — and can totally change things, especially if they’re not ready.

L. Reimer: Right. So you’re thinking a per-voter limit would be the way to go.

B. Milne: I can still see it as incremental steps, but they shouldn’t be a population of 10,000 and then 25,000 and 100,000. I think it could be graded in much closer increments, recognizing that there are many communities that are under 5,000 that still have democratic issues and democratic deficits in terms of financing. We want to make sure that’s there. I can understand you wouldn’t want to scale it exactly to $10 per eligible voter. But you could. And $10 would be a reasonable amount. I could still get my election in.

M. Hunt: Congratulations. It’s good to see you again. I don’t expect you’re going to be buying a new car.

B. Milne: I didn’t spend a penny of my own money this time, by the way. The community was just…. Well, it was a community campaign, and they wanted a new candidate. So I didn’t spend a cent.

M. Hunt: Now, my question goes to the third-party piece of it. Certainly, in democracy we don’t want to necessarily stop voices, but how those voices get expressed and how that comes becomes an interesting question. Would you see a…?

What I have been thinking to this point in time is that third-party advertising should not name names. It should be issues-focused. If I want change and I hate the guy that’s there, I should be able to say: “I hate the guy that’s there, and I think it’s time for change.” But in my mind it’s crossing the line where I now say: “Vote for Bruce.” Whereas you have said, in your categorizing: “As long as I don’t have control over what they’re spending, it’s fine.” But you see, what I would argue with that is that all I have to get is three developers. I get three of them running their campaigns. Now I get to spend four times as much money.

B. Milne: I understand the problems with it, but I also am very concerned about our values of free speech and what the courts are saying in terms of our ability to speak our voices. I don’t want to come down too hard on that.

I just realized that the reference to the car might be that you actually know Sechelt well enough to know that the vehicle sucks. Sorry. And thanks. I’m just slow on that.

The issue with…. I at first agreed that when we went into these campaigns, it would be a sponsor of broad issue. We want less development, more development, more growth, less growth. Then candidates would fall in behind what the third-party sponsors were doing. In small towns it’s…. Even without naming names, the sponsors can be very, very explicit by campaigning against specific things incumbents might do.

We don’t want another example of this, for example, ad nauseam, and then making it clear that there’s only one or two others or one other.

The other thing in Sechelt election politics, since I’ve been watching in ‘86 or so…. Even if there’s a number of candidates for the mayor’s chair, they’re almost invariably a two-way race. And I think that’s true in many of the larger jurisdictions as well. As much as we might have many candidates in Vancouver, there are not many viable candidates.

So I think that the sponsorship, even without naming names, very clearly aligns, whether it’s values or specificities that tell people which way they’re going. So I don’t think we can hide behind that issues-based….

J. Tegart (Chair): Thank you. One more question from Sam, and then we’ll wind up.

S. Sullivan: It’s wonderful to have you, who have the academic background in this field as well.

Many questions are raised by your presentation. The thing that I haven’t really resolved is: do donations make winners, or do winners make donations? Is it causal, or is it just relational? There are famous examples of parties that spend the most money and lose badly.

Then the thought that for smaller communities — by definition, I would think — money is less important because the relationships are much closer. You can’t really out-advertise someone when you know them from your local community.

One of the questions that I had was about the woman who came to you with the $5,000 donation. So that would be an illegal act in most jurisdictions and probably will be here. And I suspect that she was totally well-motivated and just passionately felt that she wanted to influence her community.

When I look at who gives donations, in my experience, it’s either a philanthropist or a player. Either you’re trying to get something, or you’re a philanthropist. Most people in their lives, the organic development of their life…. They work hard, they save all their money, and then, at a certain point, they give it away.

The way that I determine who’s who: do they give regularly to all sorts of other things, and suddenly now, when it comes to the political life of their community, they’re not allowed to? The other people: they’ve never given anything to anybody, and suddenly they’re giving money.

I regret that the limits thwart the philanthropists who clearly have good intentions and want to support good things. I think they actually add great things to a community.

When you limit donations…. What I’ve found and my experience — I’m getting these e-mails from political parties — is that, when you’re going for the small donations, you’ve got to scare people and you’ve got to be outrageous. So by limiting, you’re actually introducing an element of negative, whereas a philanthropist would never respond to that.

I don’t actually see large donations as a problem. Like the woman that came to your door — I love it. Congratulations. Thank you for being willing to put your money there. Players, you know — that’s a problem. Anyway, there’re you go.

B. Milne: A couple of comments. First, spending makes a difference. All the research shows that. There are some examples where overspending doesn’t make a difference and there are disastrous results — for whatever reason, because they have the wrong communications or the wrong candidate. But spending does make a difference. You can’t deny that.

I agree totally in terms of the player-philanthropist approach, and I watch that very carefully, especially in community campaigns. Of course, a $5,000 donation for somebody who’s running a business with $200 million in annual revenue doesn’t mean squat, but the $50 donation that I got from the woman in the mobile home park means tremendously more. She was reaching deeper into her savings, and the woman who came to the door hardly noticed. Their only concern was that the community wouldn’t realize how much money they actually had running through their hands.

I had three or four donors at that level or…. Their donations were smaller, but their annual incomes were at that level or higher. There’s a lot of wealthy people in Sechelt, and they like it just the way it is.

The final comments…. I’m sorry. It’s slipped, because I was thinking about that one. Can you remind me?

B. Milne: Smaller communities and whether donations and spending make a difference in smaller communities. Yes and no.

First of all, there’s probably more turnover in smaller communities than people realize. They’re not just the tight-knit groups. There’s probably a 40 percent turnover in any five years in Sechelt, with people coming and going. Ferry fares go up, so more people leave. Until that’s resolved…. Our population has actually been in decline for a while.

As much as people know you, you can and you can’t buy that, in one sense. But spending can make other things visible, so I think spending is important, and I don’t think word of mouth is quite enough to control elections, or we wouldn’t have any spending at all.

J. Tegart (Chair): : Thanks very much, Bruce, for your presentation. Congratulations. It was very interesting to hear from a smaller community perspective also.
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B. Milne: Thanks. That’s actually why I came right away, because I knew the smaller communities…. We’re going to try and write a more systematic thinking-through of this. We’re talking to Elections B.C. about coming to Sechelt and talking to the range of third-party people. We think it’s a really interesting case, and we’d like to do that. Thank you very much for your time.

J. Tegart (Chair): I’m going to ask Kate if she’ll give us an update on how things are going.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Deputy Clerk and Clerk of Committees): The written submissions and on-line submissions or survey responses that you’ve received have now been uploaded to members’ iPads. For those of you who may be using the PDF Expert program to access your committee documents on a regular basis, as of this morning, you will see the full text of all written submissions are now on line under the Local Elections Committee’s folder. We’re now at 31 written submissions.

In addition, you will see a report there summarizing the overall responses of your on-line questionnaire. We’re up to 200 as of this morning.

At the committee’s last meeting I know there was a discussion about the preparation of print binders. We’d be delighted to produce those for you if you prefer to have that information in print form. We can provide it to your offices today, but I did want you to be aware that we can push these, on a regular basis, to your iPads. If that’s more convenient, that would probably be a strategy to keep you better updated as we go forward. If anybody does prefer a print document, please let me know.

I guess the other piece that we just wanted to confirm…. As members know, we have made arrangements for a public meeting in Surrey on Saturday. That meeting will be held at the Surrey city hall, which is on 104th Avenue, as Mr. Hunt knows. That meeting will begin at 9 a.m.

I understand there are at least five registered participants. We hope to have more put onto the agenda by that point in time. At this time, it looks like the meeting will adjourn earlier than fully scheduled — right through until four. So perhaps by noon…. The committee may be adjourned at that point.

We’ll keep you posted on that so you can manage your schedules this weekend, but that seems to be where we’re positioned right now.

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1) George Knox
2) Joan Russow
3) Mike Horn
4) Bruce Milne

Chair:	Jackie Tegart (Fraser-Nicola BC Liberal)
Deputy Chair:	Selina Robinson (Coquitlam-Maillardville NDP)
Members:	Mike Bernier (Peace River South BC Liberal)
	Gary Holman (Saanich North and the Islands NDP)
	Marvin Hunt (Surrey-Panorama BC Liberal)
	Jenny Wai Ching Kwan (Vancouver–Mount Pleasant NDP)
	Linda Reimer (Port Moody–Coquitlam BC Liberal)
	Sam Sullivan (Vancouver–False Creek BC Liberal)
Clerk:	Kate Ryan-Lloyd

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS(Hansard)

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON LOCAL ELECTIONS EXPENSE LIMITS

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON
LOCAL ELECTIONS EXPENSE LIMITS