The committee met at 9:11 a.m.

[J. Brar in the chair.]

J. Brar (Chair): Good morning, everyone. My name is Jagrup Brar. I’m the MLA for Surrey-Fleetwood and the Chair of the Special Committee to Review Provisions of the Election Act.

I would like to acknowledge that I am joining today’s meeting from the traditional territories of the Kwantlen, Katzie, Semiahmoo and Tsawwassen First Nations.

Our committee’s mandate is to review whether the annual allowance paid to political parties should continue after 2022 and, if so, the amount of the annual allowance and how many years it should be paid. We must report to the Legislative Assembly with our recommendations by September 1.

British Columbians can share their views by providing a written, audio or video submission. The consultation will close tomorrow, Friday, at 5 p.m. More information on how to participate is available on the committee’s website at www.leg.bc.ca/cmt/rpea.

Now I would ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves, starting with Peter Milobar.

P. Milobar (Deputy Chair): Good morning. My name is Peter Milobar. I’m the Deputy Chair of this committee, and I’m also the MLA for Kamloops–North Thompson.

A. Olsen: Good morning. I’m Adam Olsen. I’m the member of the Legislative Assembly for Saanich North and the Islands.

I’m happy to be working from my home village of W̱JOȽEȽP in the W̱SÁNEĆ territory.

B. Anderson: Good morning. I’m Brittny Anderson. I’m the MLA for Nelson-Creston.

I’m on the unceded, traditional territory of the Ktunaxa, the Sinixt and the Syilx peoples.

G. Kyllo: Good morning. My name is Greg Kyllo. I’m the MLA for Shuswap.

A. Mercier: Morning. Andrew Mercier, the MLA for Langley.

I’m on the traditional territory of the Kwantlen, Katzie, Matsqui and Semiahmoo-speaking peoples.

R. Leonard: Good morning. I’m Ronna-Rae Leonard. I’m the MLA for Courtenay-Comox.

I come to you from the traditional, unceded territory of the K’ómoks First Nation.

J. Brar (Chair): Assisting the committee today are Susan Sourial, Clerk to the committee, Ron Wall and Jesse Gordon from the Parliamentary Committees Office; and Alexandrea Hursey from Hansard Services.

Members, our first presenter today is Michael Roy.

Welcome, Michael, to the committee. You have up to 15 minutes for your presentation. Hansard Services has provided a timer which will be visible on your screen.

Thank you for joining us, once again. Please begin whenever you are ready.

Presentations on
Provisions of the Election Act

MICHAEL ROY

M. Roy: Thank you very much. Thanks to the committee for allowing me time to speak today. My name is Michael Roy.

I live in Vancouver on the traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples.

By way of background and before I begin, for more than a decade, I worked in politics, including as a political fundraiser. To this day, I work as a fundraising consultant helping charities and non-profits use digital tools to raise money from individual donors. In terms of the work I’ve done, I’ve raised more than $15 million for national political parties in Canada and led the team that set the record for the largest number of individual donors to any Canadian political party in our nation’s history.

[9:15 a.m.]

My case today to this committee is simple and straightforward. First, that large donations to political parties, corporate and otherwise, have absolutely no place in Canadian politics, including here in B.C.; and second, that political parties of all stripes need to be well funded, as they are one of the cornerstones of our democracy.

To go into a bit more detail on the first point, a corner was turned in 2017 when the Horgan NDP government put an end to 16 years of what the New York Times had called the “Wild West” of political fundraising. The B.C. Liberals, in particular, had raised tens of millions of dollars from corporate donors each election cycle — donors who were buying their say, some might say unfairly, in the B.C. political process. By 2017, nearly every other jurisdiction in Canada, including our national political system, had banned and capped donations by non-individuals and implemented various forms of public financing for political parties.

Now, I want to dive into why this ban on corporate contributions is important. First, elections ought to be decided by individuals, not the wealthy and well-connected. The previous regime of unlimited corporate contributions disproportionately benefited the B.C. Liberal Party. It had consistently received millions more dollars in corporate contributions than did the opposition parties.

The advantage of money in a political campaign is quite significant. Having worked in politics for quite a number of years, I can attest to this. Ads cost money. Research costs money. Voter turnout campaigns cost money. While money alone isn’t enough to win a political campaign, it certainly goes a very, very long way.

In short, there was a significant imbalance in B.C. politics that lasted for well over 16 years, thanks to the prevalence of unlimited corporate fundraising in the political sector. By contrast, corporate contributions were regulated and eventually outlawed at the federal level in Canada in the early 2000s.

Secondly, unlimited corporate contributions, specifically to the B.C. Liberal Party, who I am singling out because they received a hugely disproportionate share of corporate donations, create the perception, and potentially the reality, that corporate interests have undue influence on government decision-making.

Certainly, there are lots of examples of corporations receiving special treatment by the Campbell and Clark Liberal governments. As an example, in 2014, Premier Christy Clark’s government failed to hold Imperial Metals Corp. accountable for the largest environmental mining disaster in Canadian history. This was the collapse of a retaining wall in a tailings pond that sent millions of cubic metres of mine waste into lakes and waterways.

Imperial Metals was then allowed to operate an even larger mine, and Imperial Metals and its shareholder, Murray Edwards — and this is the part I want to draw the committee’s attention to — contributed more than $1.5 million to the B.C. Liberal Party. While there is certainly no way to prove a connection, it’s certainly hard not to draw the wrong conclusion, given the bad optics of the situation.

Third, there’s the very real notion that corporations are paying for access to government. That’s a concern for many British Columbians, myself included. It’s public record that donors would pay $20,000 or more for a seat at what a number of media outlets have called cash-for-access fund­raisers that B.C. Liberal Premier Christy Clark used to hold.

These private, exclusive events created the appearance that those with money who were making political contributions to the B.C. Liberal Party were being given special access not afforded to other individuals. In an era of transparency, this behaviour is simply not acceptable, as the public has no way to know what happens behind closed doors, especially when large sums of money are involved.

To wrap up the first portion of my presentation, I’ve laid out why the problem of corporate contributions to political parties is a problem. I want to move on to discuss why public financing, in the form of a per-vote subsidy, is important as a counterbalance to the previous regime of unlimited contributions.

First, it’s my view that alongside institutions like the Legislature, an impartial election regulator, freedom-of-information legislation and a number of other bodies governed by the B.C. Legislature, political parties are a critical cornerstone of our democracy here in British Columbia.

Political parties play a crucial role in engaging British Columbians with different viewpoints in the democratic process. They recruit candidates to run for public office. They provide supports and training for these candidates to be successful in running for public office, and they work to turn out large numbers of British Columbians to vote. In fact, a lot of people would say that political parties run the best voter turnout programs and have the largest role to play in increasing voter turnout in any jurisdiction.

The province is well served by having multiple strong voices in the political debate, including organizations with healthy finances that are advocating different viewpoints — conservative, progressive, pro-environment — really having all the voices present in the political debate.

[9:20 a.m.]

I’ve worked for political parties on the brink of financial collapse, and the reality is, when there isn’t stable funding, the focus becomes internal — cutting costs and raising money — rather than the focus being where it should be, which is talking about the issues, recruiting candidates and engaging British Columbians in the political process. A healthy mix of public financing and small donor contributions from individuals mean that all political parties in B.C. — Green, New Democrat, B.C. Liberal — can operate through good and bad times and aren’t beholden to anyone but the voters who support them.

Let’s also be clear that our democracy is under threat. The decline of local media means fewer reporters are covering government and opposition and fewer people are getting news out of Victoria. Voter turnout has been historically declining for decades. It means fewer and fewer people are engaged in our democracy. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS, has identified that there are very real misinformation threats and campaigns being run to interfere with Canadian national and regional elections. In short, we need to be doing everything we can to safeguard our democracy, and strong political parties are a crucial part of that work.

It’s my hope that this committee will recommend, and the B.C. Legislature will adopt, a permanent per-vote funding formula, starting at $2.50 per vote and indexed annually to inflation, for all major B.C. political parties. It’s my view that no one in this province wants to go back to the Wild West days of cash-for-access. Our province is stronger when we have transparency and remove even the perception that special interests are paying to get in the door.

Thank you very much to the committee for the time to present today. I will be happy to take any questions you have.

J. Brar (Chair): Thanks, Michael.

Members, do you have any questions?

R. Leonard: Thanks for your presentation, Mr. Roy.

Question for you: why $2.50? How did you land on that number?

M. Roy: How did I land on that number? I’ve heard it mentioned by a number of individuals. It’s also not out of line with what the former federal per-vote subsidy was. There is sort of a basis in what the national standard for funding political parties had been, so it seemed like a reasonable amount.

Also, in terms of the amounts that have been used up to now in British Columbia, again, it’s not very far off. It would, in my view, strike a healthy balance of providing stable funding while still requiring successful political par­ties to fundraise to balance out the remainder of their budgets.

R. Leonard: If I could ask a follow-up.

Thresholds. Do you support the existing thresholds? You talked about strong parties, and we can have a multiplicity of parties that jump into a campaign. I’m just wondering what you think about that.

M. Roy: Yeah. That’s a great question. Thanks for asking.

I think that a sort of minimum vote threshold of forcing political parties to establish a minimum level of voter support so that fringe organizations aren’t able to receive public financing is critical. I think there’s a good diversity of voices represented in the Legislature. I think that ensuring that fringe organizations, particularly right now, at a time when we’re seeing the rise of extremist organizations across Canada, those are not what we want to be providing public financing to.

We want to support established political parties who represent their constituents and provide a clear voice and a clear alternative to voters and have a track record of public support. I think setting the threshold low enough that a party can gain significant public support as political views shift but high enough that any start-up with a view doesn’t necessarily get public financing on their first outing.

J. Brar (Chair): Any further questions, Members?

Adam.

A. Olsen: I certainly thank you, Mr. Roy, for your presentation. I certainly appreciate you sharing your perspectives with us. I have no questions. You were very succinct and very clear in your message.

M. Roy: Thank you.

J. Brar (Chair): Thanks, Adam, for that.

Any other questions or comments, Members?

I would like to conclude. I would like to convey my sincere thanks, Michael, to you for coming today to make a presentation to committee members, on behalf of all committee members.

[9:25 a.m.]

This will certainly help us reach a better decision moving forward, so thank you very much for coming.

M. Roy: My pleasure.

J. Brar (Chair): Members, our next presenter is Clayton Whitman.

Clayton, thanks for coming today to make your presentation to us. You have 15 minutes for your presentation, and Hansard Services has provided a timer which will be visible on your screen.

Please begin whenever you are ready to proceed.

CLAYTON WHITMAN

C. Whitman: Hello, everyone. My name is Clay Whitman. I’m from Kamloops, B.C. I’d like to thank the committee for the opportunity to present my submissions on why the annual allowance should not continue to be paid after 2022.

My views are based on three main points. The first one is that I don’t believe financial subsidies should be based on election results. The second is issues that are specific to the current first-past-the-post electoral system. Thirdly, I believe there are constitutional issues with per-vote subsidies. I’ll briefly touch on each of these three main points.

Firstly, with respect to basing financial subsidies on election votes, I don’t believe that financial support can be inferred from votes or election support in a previous election. I think these are two distinct concepts. Voter support, voter preferences can change over time. If someone votes for a particular party or candidate in a particular election, that’s a point in time, and it may not necessarily mean that they continue to support that party going forward.

[9:30 a.m.]

I think it’s a stretch to conclude that because someone votes for a party, they want to provide financial support to political parties. Voters may not believe in that. They might not believe in providing financial support. A vote is just a vote at a point in time.

I think there are some logical jumps to conclusions being made to say that financial support should follow from voting support. I think this particular mechanism causes some problems elsewhere, which I’ll briefly touch on in terms of the electoral system and the constitutional issues.

Specifically talking about issues that result from having a first-past-the-post election system, I think everyone is aware of the kind of concept of strategic voting and how that skews voter preferences at elections. With the first-past-the-post system, voters may not necessarily be voting for the party that they really want to support. It may not reflect their true preferences. It may not reflect any of their preferences in terms of what their first choice would be. They may not necessarily vote for their first choice. It doesn’t reflect their level of support for a particular party or candidate.

We can’t tell whether or not they strongly support that party or candidate and are also wishing to provide financial support, or if they’re voting…. Often we vote against a particular party or candidate, and that’s the true reason. There’s no connection, necessarily. Because of first-past-the-post, I think many voters are not voting for who they actually may choose or may want to support.

The second issue is how first-past-the-post is known to create centralization around two or three large political parties. Again, it doesn’t necessarily reflect voters’ preferences. I’ll touch on this a bit more when I talk about the constitutional issues I believe are involved.

Lastly, in our system, some people might be voting for a political party, but others might be voting for a particular candidate. In that case, having the funding go to the political party, when the voter might just be wanting to support that particular candidate, whether that candidate wins or loses…. It’s not necessarily true that that individual voter would want to support that candidate’s political party.

Just my general thoughts on first-past-the-post. It creates a lot of issues in our political system. There have been several attempts to change that electoral system that haven’t worked so far. But to provide financial subsidies based on first-past-the-post is just really exacerbating the issues that are caused by that system and entrenching them. I don’t think we should be using first-past-the-post as a basis for providing funding to parties.

I’ll now touch on my last point, and that’s what I believe are the constitutional concerns with per-vote subsidies. We all know that section 3 of the Charter guarantees a meaningful opportunity to participate in the political process. I think the issues that I see with per-vote subsidies are that they’re given to established political parties based on results in the past. New political parties that might be entering or trying to enter, independent candidates…. The previous speaker…. There was a brief discussion about thresholds, parties that may not have met the threshold in a previous election. None of those candidates would receive these financial subsidies.

Even before the next campaign begins, there have been years of funding that’s provided. This is going to provide an advantage to those who received the funding and, naturally, a disadvantage to those who didn’t or maybe are trying to enter the political space.

[9:35 a.m.]

A further issue is that just by providing an amount of subsidies, like a flat per-vote amount…. Naturally, larger parties, parties that receive more votes, are going to receive more funding than those who receive less votes, or no votes. The effect of this is that the largest parties have a chance to really entrench their position. Basically, this creates advantage for those established parties. They might have a dominant position built up over time through first-past-the-post. Now giving them more funding than other parties basically allows them to make it more difficult for new entrants into the system, and it makes it more difficult for those already established parties to lose their place.

We’ve had a two-party system, largely, for a very long time, and I think that’s largely because of first-past-the-post. I think this is going to continue to entrench that system.

Where’s the constitutional concern? In my view, I think what these per-vote subsidies are doing is tilting the playing field in favour of established parties, the big players who are taking up space in the political system, and it’s doing that at the expense of potential new parties, smaller parties who may not meet the threshold, for whatever reason. They might be smaller parties or parties with narrow views, but I’m not sure, again, whether there’s a justification of having thresholds based on different views that are being held. It’s a disadvantage to independent candidates as well, who may want to try and run and have their say.

In my view, there isn’t really a reasonable justification for having per-vote subsidies being given to established political parties based on their last votes. Due to the fact that they are tilting the playing field in favour of the established parties and how parties did before, I think they’re of questionable constitutional validity. I think we shouldn’t be subsidizing or funding political parties on something that, in my view, is likely to violate section 3 of the Charter.

That’s the substance of my comments. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

J. Brar (Chair): Thank you, Mr. Whitman, for your presentation. Now I will ask the members if they have any questions.

Any questions, comments, Members?

I will ask you a question. If you can maybe clarify…. Are you suggesting no annual allowance, irrespective of what the electoral system is? Or are you against the per-vote subsidy or allowance under the first-past-the-post system?

C. Whitman: I’m in favour of no per-vote subsidy regardless of the political system, although I feel that the problems or issues created by it are most exacerbated or most evident under first-past-the-post. Even under a true proportional representation model, I think there are still issues where subsidies are provided on previous results and results of existing candidates and parties at the expense of new entrants to the political system.

J. Brar (Chair): I understand that. But you’re not totally against the annual allowance to political parties. You’re saying that under certain systems — that’s what you are objecting to?

C. Whitman: No. Under any system, I object to it, but I think, in particular, under the first-past-the-post system, it’s the worst. But I still think it’s not a good idea under any system.

J. Brar (Chair): Thank you.

Any further questions or comments, Members?

[9:40 a.m.]

A. Olsen: Thank you for your presentation, Mr. Whitman.

I just have a question with respect to…. I certainly hear your concerns with respect to the backward-looking nature of a per-vote subsidy, as an example. There was a presentation that we had yesterday, and it suggested that other jurisdictions use systems such as vouchers in recognition of the fact that a per-vote subsidy does reflect the public’s political will at the moment of an election, which you’ve raised as a concern.

I’m just wondering if you have any thoughts or if you’ve considered the use of a voucher — a system where voters have the ability to also contribute to other political parties, in a kind of forward-looking approach?

C. Whitman: Yes, I would be in favour of that. I’d like to say I am in full support of the bans on contributions by corporations, organizations, unions. I believe strongly that individuals should be free to support political parties, I think. If there is a concern about reductions and the amount of financial support, I think vouchers could be a policy worth exploring, in terms of having more individuals donate to political parties. Perhaps, if there is public support to be involved, that could be a way it addresses my concerns about it being based on previous results.

A. Olsen: Just another question with respect to…. Some of the testimony that we’ve heard from witnesses has been around the impact on democracy overall and the role that political parties play in democracy. I certainly hear your arguments with respect to the varying size and relative establishment of political parties in our current entrenchment of political parties in our current system.

Just a question to you around some of the notions that have been put forward to us in testimony about the impact on our democratic institutions and, perhaps, the use of targeting some of the funds, should this proceed, to strengthening the democratic institution.

For example, there was testimony yesterday that talked about equity. Those that are arguing the other side, taking the other position than you are, have noted that perhaps this could be a per-vote subsidy or that public allowances for political parties could be used and targeted toward strengthening and increasing equity within our political institutions.

Do you have any comments with respect to how we could achieve that? I’m thinking examples ensuring that we’ve got…. Well, creating of ways for more women to run, more people of colour. I come from Indigenous communities — having more Indigenous candidates run in ridings that they could win.

Do you have any comments with respect to that?

C. Whitman: I’m not entirely certain how more funding, in particular public funding, is necessary for those goals to be achieved. I think those are all important goals, important measures. I think political parties are already incentivized to pursue those.

Those are all things that I think are in pursuit of gaining support, which is really what the purpose of political parties are. I haven’t really thought about how or, I guess, why public taxpayer funding is necessary for political parties to do — or, I guess, increased public funding is necessary — for what I kind of see as part of the role and purpose of political parties already.

J. Brar (Chair): Any further questions or comments, Members?

Thank you very much, Mr. Whitman, for coming today, to make a presentation. I really appreciate that, on behalf of committee members, so thanks.

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant, Committees and Interparliamentary Relations): Mr. Chair, our next presenter is at 10:15.

J. Brar (Chair): Members, let’s recess for some time. It’s 9:44 now. We’ll come back at ten past ten for the next presentation. Thank you very much for your patience, and see you soon.

The committee recessed from 9:45 a.m. to 10:13 a.m.

[J. Brar in the chair.]

J. Brar (Chair): Good morning, Members, once again. My name is Jagrup Brar. I’m the MLA for Surrey-Fleetwood and the Chair of the Special Committee to Review Provisions of the Election Act.

Now I would like to ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves once again, starting with Peter Milobar.

P. Milobar (Deputy Chair): Good morning. My name is Peter Milobar. I am the Deputy Chair of the committee and MLA for Kamloops–North Thompson.

A. Olsen: Good morning. I’m Adam Olsen. I’m the Member of the Legislative Assembly for Saanich North and the Islands.

I am happy to be coming today from my home office here in W̱JOȽEȽP, in the W̱SÁNEĆ territory.

A. Mercier: I’m Andrew Mercier. I’m the MLA for Langley.

I’m on the traditional territory of the Kwantlen, Katzie, Matsqui and Semiahmoo-speaking peoples.

G. Kyllo: Good morning. My name is Greg Kyllo. I’m the MLA for Shuswap.

R. Leonard: I’m coming from K’ómoks First Nation territory.

I’m Ronna-Rae Leonard, the MLA for Courtenay-Comox.

B. Anderson: Hi. I’m Brittny Anderson, the MLA for Nelson-Creston.

I’m on the traditional, unceded territory of the Ktunaxa, the Sinixt and the Syilx peoples.

J. Brar (Chair): Thanks, Members.

Assisting committee members today are Susan Sourial, Clerk to the Committee, Ron Wall and Jesse Gordon from the Parliamentary Committees Office; and Alexandrea Hursey from Hansard Services.

Our next presenters are Dr. Avigail Eisenberg from the University of Victoria and Stefan Macleod from the University of Toronto.

[10:15 a.m.]

Welcome to both of you for coming today to make a presentation to us. You will have 15 minutes for your presentation. Hansard Services has provided a timer, which will be visible on your screen.

Thank you once again for joining us today. Please begin whenever you are ready.

AVIGAIL EISENBERG, STEFAN MACLEOD

A. Eisenberg: Well, thank you very much for the opportunity and the invitation to present on the allowance provisions of the Election Act. I’ve got to say, it’s not every day that one gets an invitation as a democratic theorist, which is how my invitation read, to speak to members of the Legislature. It was really an opportunity that we could not pass up.

Now, that said, one preliminary observation that we think is worth making is that despite the centrality of political parties to democratic politics, democratic theorists have written surprisingly little about parties. That is true until quite recently. So at the end of the presentation, we’re going to mention a couple of reasons why we think that, recently, this has been a topic of considerable interest in democratic theory.

What we’re going to do today is just present to you some of the scholarship on the topic, and that is what the three main themes are that we think are coming out of the scholarship today.

The first one is the theme of the value of compromise. The standard textbooks in political science…. Often when we teach students about political parties, it’s conventional for them to learn that parties and party systems serve a brokerage function in politics. As you all well know, this means that parties bring together different interests. They connect different communities and interest groups within one organizational structure, and crucially, they smooth out the inconsistencies and conflicts that might exist amongst different interests so that the party as a whole, with all the different interests that it brings along with it, can successfully win an election and pursue a multiplicity of its objectives, which its constituents and supporters want it to pursue.

That points to this idea of smoothing out the rough edges and trying to reconcile different interests. That points to the first normative democratic value of parties, and that is that parties, especially large, well-organized, what they call big-tent parties have the capacity to promote political compromise and are sites in which citizens witness people engaged in compromise, which is incredibly important. This is true in two senses.

First, to be electorally successful in the SMP system, parties have to put forward platforms that appeal to a broad cross-section of the electorate, rather than merely a narrow constituency. In order to do this, parties have to present the reasons for their platform positions in terms that are shareable across different communities, rather than in terms that are parochial. For a party to appeal, as you know, to only 10 percent of the voters in an SMP system, especially if those voters are spread over a large geographic area, that will lead to its electoral failure. That’s one sense in which parties produce compromise.

That being said, political parties often have a power base or a constituency to which they are especially attached, and that constituency might only represent a small fraction of the larger electorate. This points to the second sense in which parties have to promote compromise. In order to be electorally successful, a party has to articulate the interests of its particular constituency in ways that resonate with more general interests. This might require considering its constituency’s interests from different perspectives, but it might also require compromising on how its constituency’s interests are met in ways that can appeal to a broader set of voters.

In both instances, successful parties attract voters by cultivating compromise amongst different groups in society in order to assemble winning platforms. They do this, ideally, through the articulation of reasons for voters to support their policies. In articulating these reasons, parties provide voters with public justification for their policies in relation to compromise. They are kind of like teaching sites for why and how we can compromise.

[10:20 a.m.]

Daniel Weinstock, who is a professor of philosophy and law at McGill University works on this value of the democratic virtue of compromise. He points out that the promotion of compromise by political parties is especially true of parties in an SMP electoral system — rather than a PR system, interestingly.

Now, as we know, in PR systems, depending on the threshold set, parties can be narrowly focused, and they may still attract enough votes to gain a presence in the Legislature and advance an agenda. For Weinstock, this constitutes one of the good reasons to support SMP over PR systems.

Well, I’m not interested and we’re not interested here in debating the virtues of different electoral systems. Our focus is on the present system in B.C., which is SMP and which involves large-tent parties. It is a leading virtue of these kinds of parties in our kind of system at this moment in time that they have an incentive to promote compromise amongst different and often conflicting interests in society and, in doing so, to knit together what might otherwise be pockets of separate, isolated electors who view their interests as either being in conflict with each other or alienated from each other or alienated from the broader society.

To broker these different interests, parties must foster compromise, ideally by developing reasons that are shareable across different constituencies, for why we should be committed to a particular set of values or policies promoted by the party.

Let me turn it over to Stefan now.

S. Macleod: Thank you so much for having me here. I’m just going to jump right into it. I’m going to talk about the way that political parties can mitigate extremism in democratic politics.

I want to start with a common objection to strong political parties or systems that feature strong political parties. The objection says that parties are, in fact, strongholds of elite interests that prevent societies from being fully democratic. Power is consolidated with political elites who set political agendas and act as private curators of public interests.

In one sense, political parties certainly present a departure from highly idealized theories of democracy in which each citizen participates perfectly equally in decision-making or in which each citizen possesses [audio interrupted.]

These ideal visions of democracy are clearly infeasible to some degree. Some degree of consolidation of decision-making power is necessary if democratic participation is going to be balanced with the need for political institutions to actually make decisions. If we accept this, the question then becomes: well, how do we best consolidate political power [audio interrupted] present a distinctly stable and democratic site for power to be consolidated?

First, strong political parties with established constitutions, internal democratic procedures and long-running histories of electoral competition are likely to continue to engage in democratic competition rather than defect to unilateral or otherwise undemocratic forms of political contestation. Now, the alternative to this, observed by political scientist Daniel Ziblatt, is for power to be concentrated in civil society organizations or in narrow interest groups, groups which have no necessary commitment to the rules of democratic institutions.

Secondly, in the absence of strong party apparatuses, there may be a stronger incentive for extremist political factions to proliferate, with some willing to subvert standard democratic procedure.

Two factors explain this possibility. First, if existing parties are weak enough — that is, not well organized; they have poor outreach, no robust membership — extremists will be able to realize their interests and compete against political parties on their own. They won’t view parties as an effective way of achieving their interests, so why engage with them? Second, extremists may realize that given their potentially parochial interests, they actually have no chance in engaging in standard democratic competition or no chance of success.

Such an environment fosters political factions who pursue their narrow interests at the expense of the creation of broad-based democratic coalitions and compromise. An alternative scenario that is similar is that if party apparatuses are sufficiently weak, extremist groups may also just be able to exercise disproportionate influence on existing parties’ platforms.

Now recall, this is precisely the worry that is expressed by critics of strong political parties. They worry that parties will act to distort public interests in favour of a particular set of private interests. However, this distortion is a potential feature of a democratic system with weak parties, not just any democratic system with parties, or parties as we typically conceive them.

[10:25 a.m.]

Note also that this point about the strength of parties applies to both fringe extremist groups, as I have mentioned, and to political elites. Yes, parties can provide a way of incorporating fringe political interests into mainstream democratic competition, but parties can also provide an incentive for elites to engage the democratic competition instead of using their power to unilaterally influence political outcomes outside of the electoral system.

The final point is that even if we concede that political parties are this site in which power is consolidated in order for decisions to be made, strong parties nonetheless face an incentive to remain internally democratic and sensitive to shifting public interests. There is a sense in which the strength of a party in part depends on its willingness to track the shifting interests of citizens and emerging public concerns.

Now, unlike traditional interest groups such as unions or agrarian organizations, whose influence is drawn from a relatively determinate set of constituents and interests, party membership and influence is determined by the ability of parties to reach a wider and wider range of constituents. Thus coalitions are built; compromise is built.

I’m going to turn it back over to Professor Eisenberg.

A. Eisenberg: Let me just conclude here by going back to the question as to why there is an interest amongst democratic theorists today about the role of political parties. We have come up with two reasons. We think there are two reasons why, especially today, democratic theorists are keen about political parties.

The first reason is political extremism. Today political extremism is not an abstract problem or purely a historical problem. Rather, it’s a central challenge to many western democracies, including ones close by. Especially in Eur­ope, they struggle with this.

Broad-based, well-organized and well-financed parties have played, historically, an important role in preventing political extremism from becoming a dominant force in mainstream politics. This is because, as Stefan has ex­plained, parties can incorporate voters who might otherwise be attracted to extremists, or they can crush extremist factions. Historically we’ve seen both occur.

Secondly, our societies today are increasingly fragmented. The fragmentation is due to many factors: growing disparities between rich and poor, urban and rural. The life prospects of people from different groups differ dramatically sometimes. The climate and energy crises have also broadened cleavages within and between many of our communities.

At the same time, the significant challenges confronting our society require that citizens are willing to cooperate with each other, and that is specifically true of climate and energy crises; that they feel bound to each other through a sense of reciprocal responsibility for each other’s welfare; and that they have a sense of solidarity. We do not have many sites in which we learn how to share.

Understanding how to compromise and learning how to share are key to building large-scale cooperation within any functioning democratic society. Developing reciprocity and solidarity in large-scale communities requires the virtue of compromise. Political parties are not the only context in which we learn what compromise looks like and how it occurs, but they are one of the most long-standing and publicly available, publicly present structures in which compromise takes place, which makes political parties especially important today.

Thank you very much for your attention.

J. Brar (Chair): Thank you so much, Professor Eisenberg and Mr. Macleod, for coming today to make your presentation.

Members, do you have any questions or comments?

B. Anderson: Thank you very much for your presentation. I really appreciate that.

[10:30 a.m.]

My question is: as we’re looking at the Elections Act and we’re trying to make a decision regarding contributions, do you think that parties should be receiving contributions from the government or not, and what should that price be set at? Should it be tied to anything like CPI, or should there be an end date on it?

A. Eisenberg: I think that the force of our presentation can be interpreted as a strong yes for the public support of parties — very, very strong yes — that these are a public good, an incredibly important public good. The particulars are not things that I think that either of us — and Stefan, you can tell me if I’m wrong — have any comment on.

Parties are kind of precious things. It’s about what we make of them, but they definitely are a public good and deserve public support.

S. Macleod: I think I could just add to that, to flesh out the reason I see parties as being a kind of public good that are therefore deserving of the kind of funding that you’re referring to. The thrust of the point that I was trying to make is that the alternative is for the main groups engaged in a political contestation to basically be assemblages of private interests that just attempt to capture the state, no matter what.

The alternative to that that we see in parties is just to be regular participants in the procedures set by the state — that is, democratic procedures. So if you tie them to public funding, then you’re more likely to get that outcome, as opposed to the alternative which I have described.

R. Leonard: I just wanted to say thank you very much for your presentation. Over the years, I’ve heard more criticism around the central strong parties. It was really good to hear an alternative view and see what their value is and how their value helps support democracy. So I really appreciate that.

I can see that you don’t want to land on our questions about how much. But one of the questions is around thresholds, and this is an interest for me. What are the consequences of us providing this allowance in certain forms? The threshold does, perhaps, help eliminate the access to public dollars of extremist parties. Do you see the threshold as an opportunity for us to strengthen democracy? Is that the right kind of vehicle to make sure that we’re making sure democracy functions in a strong and useful way?

A. Eisenberg: Yes. I think that’s right. I think what you’ve said is completely right. It is a common practice in public financing of parties. And this is…. I’m wading into an area that I don’t know the great details of, but we set thresholds all the time for how large a party has to be before it gets compensated in different ways.

The reason why those thresholds are set is not because there’s…. One might think that the reason that you set a threshold is because there’s a limit to how much public funds are available. But I don’t think that’s the democratic way of looking at it. I think that you set thresholds so that you eliminate fringe parties.

I realize that sometimes fringe parties have the capacity to reinvigorate the electoral system in ways that we have seen, actually, with the Green Party, for example, in Ca­nada. But there is still…. To set a threshold is not to sink all of those parties, but it is to support. It’s also about supporting the large-scale parties, because within those large parties, as long as they’re functioning in a way that promotes compromise and incorporation and inclusion, they’re actually performing an enormously important public service.

[10:35 a.m.]

So setting a threshold, yes, but also finding other ways to keep parties in check so they do not become the exclusive hold of a small cabal of elites who advance their agenda while freezing everybody out. I think what you’re going to get is…. You’re going to get much more pressure from fringe parties to be included if the larger parties don’t behave like that.

Setting a threshold, I think, is serving a public function. I think it can be justified in democratic terms.

A. Mercier: I just want to start by thanking the two of you for bringing a really refreshing perspective in terms of the role of political parties in our systems and process. I mean, obviously, parliamentary democracy is very party focused and oriented. There’s the whole normative brokerage role that parties play in our society in terms of democratic norms.

We’ve heard from a few of your academic colleagues from various other institutions who, I would say, have taken somewhat more of a suspicious eye to the role of political parties. Similar to yourselves in terms of not laying out specifics, but we’ve gotten some broader ideas about regulating the internal governance of political parties as a trade-off for the allowance.

I’m wondering if you could comment on that. Beyond what we have right now, which are fairly strong financial reporting requirements for political parties, what would your view be on state intervention in the internal governance of political parties?

A. Eisenberg: I will not venture there — but thank you for the question — except for what I’ve already said.

I don’t know if Stefan has something to add.

I know that Dennis Pilon and Max Cameron have been presenting their work to you. I think that both of those scholars maybe know a lot more about the deep inner workings of parties, to comment on that, than I do.

Parties are private organizations, but they serve a public function. That makes them very interesting beasts in political science. I can imagine that there are reasons to interfere in their inner workings but also strong reasons not to.

I think, Andrew, I’ll take that as a great question. I’m afraid I can’t comment.

S. Macleod: I have one general remark about the reluctance to talk about specifics, which is that if you ask political theorists about something, you will get theory. I mean, that’s just an admission of our own limitations.

With respect to skepticism about political parties…. I mean, I should note…. The beginning of our presentation highlighted some features about single-member-plurality systems and how they might, additionally, facilitate the benefits of parties that we’re talking about.

Some of the benefits, including the ones that I mentioned, are compatible with other party systems that may feature strong parties that can compete with other parties — in, for example, a PR system — in a way that integrates their interests into more mainstream political concerns. So you might get representation in parliament of more extreme or fringe interests in a PR system. But if you have sufficiently organized and well-funded mainstream parties, they’re going to play the primary brokerage role in communicating with these fringe parties.

The reason I mention this is that that might allay some concern about the skepticism of strong party systems like SMP systems, where, really, there are only a couple of parties that have any chance of gaining political power. Other than that, I think I’ll stick to a system with some parties. To be completely skeptical of the party system, I think, is something that we object to.

[10:40 a.m.]

J. Brar (Chair): Members, any other questions, comments?

I just want to, maybe, go back quickly, just to say that the mandate of the committee is to review whether the annual allowance paid to the political parties should continue after 2022. I see that your response to that one is a strong yes, but there are two other questions: if so, the amount of the annual allowance, and for how many years it should be paid. Do you want to make any specific comments on that?

A. Eisenberg: Unfortunately, we will not. Thank you for the opportunity. I think that that leads us astray from our expertise — which is, broadly, about the normative value of parties within democratic systems.

J. Brar (Chair): Members, any further comments or questions? One more time: any further comments or questions? One last time, Members, if there are any questions or comments.

On behalf of the committee members, I want to say thanks to both of you for coming today to make this very important presentation to us. Thank you very much.

A. Eisenberg: Thank you very much. It’s been a pleasure.

S. Macleod: Thanks very much. It’s a first for me.

J. Brar (Chair): There’s more after this.

Susan, we have both Heather and Craig here. So I can get started.

Good morning once again. My name is Jagrup Brar, and I’m the MLA for Surrey-Fleetwood and the Chair of the Special Committee to Review Provisions of the Election Act. Now I would like to ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves.

P. Milobar (Deputy Chair): Good morning. I’m Peter Milobar. I’m the Deputy Chair of the committee as well as the MLA for Kamloops–North Thompson.

A. Olsen: Adam Olsen, the MLA for Saanich North and the Islands.

A. Mercier: Andrew Mercier, the MLA for Langley.

I’m on the traditional territory of the Kwantlen, Katzie, Matsqui and Semiahmoo-speaking peoples.

R. Leonard: I’m Ronna-Rae Leonard. I’m from Courtenay-Comox.

I am on the traditional territory of the K’ómoks First Nation.

B. Anderson: I’m Brittny Anderson. I am the MLA for Nelson-Creston.

I am on the traditional unceded territory of the Ktunaxa, the Sinixt and the Syilx peoples.

G. Kyllo: Good morning. My name is Greg Kyllo. I’m the MLA for Shuswap.

J. Brar (Chair): Assisting the committee today are Susan Sourial, Clerk to the committee, Ron Wall and Jesse Gordon from the Parliamentary Committees Office; and Alexandrea Hursey, from Hansard Services.

Our next presenters today are Craig Keating, president of the B.C. NDP, and Heather Stoutenburg, provincial director of the B.C. NDP.

Welcome to both of you. You have 15 minutes for your presentation. You will see the timer there in front of you. Once you’ve finished, members will have some questions to ask.

Please begin whenever you are ready.

B.C. NDP

C. Keating: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all committee members. We very much appreciate the opportunity to be here today. You will have received from us, as well, a written submission in relationship to the revisions you’re contemplating. You’ll have that for your reference as we go through this.

[10:45 a.m.]

My role here today will be to answer any questions you may have. Along with Heather, I’ll be doing that. The main thrust of the presentation today is going to be made by our provincial director, Heather Stoutenburg.

With that, I would just like to turn the floor over to Heather now.

H. Stoutenburg: Thank you so much, Craig. Nice to see everyone this morning. I have prepared some slides. We’ll just save questions for the end if that works. I’m Heather Stoutenberg. It’s really nice to see all of your friendly faces this morning.

As Craig noted, we have also prepared a pretty fulsome written submission to the committee, and it does expand on some of the pieces we’ll be discussing today. So that is there for your perusal at any point.

We’re going to start today by…. I’ll take you through a bit of background, although it will probably be quite familiar to this committee in terms of the state of play right now for political allowances, both in B.C. as well as across Canada. We’ll chat about our recommendations that we are making to this committee on behalf of the B.C. NDP. Then we will save plenty of time for any questions you may have.

Of course, current rules for political financing. I’m sure this committee is very keenly aware that when the B.C. NDP formed government in 2017, the first bill that was introduced was Bill 3. The provisions of that bill were the long-overdue ban on big money in our political system. As this committee is also well aware, the bill included provisions for a transitional allowance to ensure that parties could adjust to these new rules.

The present system provides for allowances to every political party that achieves one of two minimum thresholds, and, of course, the act set out that the allowances began at $2.50 per vote in 2018. They are set to decrease to $1.75 next year and, of course, after that, are subject to the recommendations of you folks.

In our written submission, we have included a comprehensive comparison of political financing in jurisdictions all across Canada as well as looked to the few democracies internationally as well. For the purposes of today’s presentation, I will note that B.C.’s current allowance system is most similar to what we’d find in Ontario. I will note that Ontario’s $2.50-per-vote subsidy has been recently renewed. It was supposed to end in 2021, and they’ve recently extended it for the reason that democratic institutions should be sustainable during a period of economic recovery.

Of course, the big money ban was the impetus for these allowances. But, as I believe several academics you’ve heard from now have conveyed, the evidence suggests that a reasonable and rational approach to political financing actually furthers our democratic process here in B.C.

As we all know, political parties serve a pretty crucial role in our democracy. We encourage the exchange of opinions and ideas, and we engage people in the electoral process. I would argue that this is especially important now in light of declining voter turnout around the country.

Another thing I will note is that one of the complaints I’m sure we have all heard is that, historically, the public has complained that people only hear from parties come election times. It is very true that when parties are entirely reliant on donors, a significant number of whom only contribute in election years, parties of all sizes are forced to down tools between election cycles.

Annual allowances, in our opinion, are one of the ways that parties can continue to work engaging the public throughout the four-year election cycle, which is incredibly important for, again, our democracy.

On the basis of that, we are going to make three recommendations to you today that, hopefully, answer the questions that the committee is seeking to answer in its mandate. The first recommendation is that a permanent annual per-vote allowance be provided to political parties that satisfies the existing minimum threshold. We’re happy with those.

The second is that the amount of the allowance begins at $2 per vote, or, in the alternative, that it fall within the range of other provinces, which, you’ll note in our submission, is approximately between $1.60 and $2.50 per vote. And three is that the per-vote allowance is indexed to the consumer price index, which is consistent with the existing approach of the Election Act to both expense and contribution limits.

[10:50 a.m.]

I’ll dive into each of these a little bit more deeply. The first is the payment of a permanent, annual, per-vote allowance with the same minimum threshold. Why a permanent allowance? Well, a permanent allowance certainly helps avoid the dramatic uncertainty that can impact any part of a party’s ability to engage with voters during times of economic instability.

I would note that the pandemic is obviously a pretty great example of when the per-vote allowance was incredibly critical to parties in B.C. Thanks to the subsidy, the B.C. NDP was able to continue our work engaging with British Columbians throughout the pandemic, even as we pivoted our activities. We stopped fundraising for several months, and we pivoted our activities to making sure that the public was fully aware of the critical information that was out there surrounding COVID and programs that the government was able to offer. We were able to do that work thanks, in large part, to the allowance.

As for that minimum threshold piece, we are fully in agreement with the threshold as it exists. It serves two purposes. The fact that there is a threshold at all does provide a bit of reassurance that the allowance does go to political parties that do intend to actually elect members to the Legislature, reducing the potential for misuse by bad actors or fringe groups.

By ensuring that the threshold is still low, at a reasonable level, that means that we’re avoiding creating additional obstacles for newer parties or smaller parties that do intend to elect people to the Legislature but perhaps haven’t succeeded in that goal yet. As we saw, a couple of parties benefited in the last election cycle.

Our second recommendation is that the initial allowance amount be of approximately $2 a vote. Our reason for that is that we took quite a good look at jurisdictions around the country. As again noted in our submission, the current range of per-vote allowances across this country varies between about $1.60 per vote in New Brunswick and Quebec and goes up to $2.50 per vote, which is the current subsidy in Ontario.

We believe that the basic operational costs of running a political party are most similar to what you’d see in Ontario. B.C. is pretty comparable in the real estate market and the media market and the costs of voter contact activities that parties engage in regularly. We think it’s pretty similar, so therefore, we went to the slightly higher end of the scale — the $2 per vote.

We imagine that that would be a good starting point, which leads us to our third recommendation, which is that we begin at that $2 but that that amount be indexed to the CPI. A couple of reasons for that. The first is that the CPI is obviously a non-partisan metric, and it allows for ongoing adjustments to inflation, but without the need for ongoing legislative oversight. As I noted at the beginning of this presentation, it’s already used for expense limits and contribution limits, so it would therefore make sense that this metric also be tied into the allowance.

That is it — six minutes and plenty of time for questions, if you folks have some for us.

J. Brar (Chair): Thank you to both of you for your presentation. Members, if you have any questions, please raise your hand.

P. Milobar (Deputy Chair): Thanks for the presentation. I’m just wondering. Obviously, the NDP is much more integrated across the country and across provinces than most of the other political parties. Certainly, in B.C. they are, anyway. I’m not sure what the full interworkings of the Green Party are or not, federally and provincially.

One province’s governing party is another province’s “not really in the ballpark of governing” party. You referenced Ontario. I think that in Ontario, the NDP have about 40 of the 125 or so seats. What has been the experience with the per-vote subsidy for the NDP in that type of scenario? As you say, parties ebb and flow in terms of seat counts. Has that still been effective, going where you’re very far in the distant minority and in a situation like that?

H. Stoutenburg: Yes. In terms of our counterparts in Ontario, whom I talk to somewhat regularly, they’re certainly advocates of the allowance as well. We’re very pleased that the Ford government chose to continue it and feel that it is a fair way of encouraging the work that political parties need to do between election cycles.

J. Brar (Chair): Any further questions or comments, Members?

[10:55 a.m.]

A. Olsen: I’ll just say, to Peter’s comment, that for the Green parties, the organizations are completely and totally separate organizations across the country. We have seen other Green parties take positions on per-vote subsidies, though, as well.

H. Stoutenburg: We are completely separate organizations. So folks know, we share a membership, but we are registered separately and do not share data and those other pieces.

R. Leonard: Just to clarify, also, there isn’t a sharing of donations, contributions, between feds and provincial, since we are talking about allowances and where they go.

H. Stoutenburg: Thank you, Ronna-Rae.

J. Brar (Chair): Important.

Any further questions, comments, Members?

A. Olsen: No. Just again, to thank the presenters for providing the information and helping inform the process. I really appreciate your contribution to our work here. Thank you.

H. Stoutenburg: Thank you so much.

R. Leonard: Just a quick question. When you talked about between the election cycles and the work of the party with this allowance — one of the issues that has been raised is about what the money is used for — you mentioned COVID and the pivoting to supporting community surviving this pandemic. I just was hoping you could give a little bit of reflection on what the party is doing to support our democracy, between election cycles, with the taxpayer-supported allowance.

H. Stoutenburg: Absolutely. Lots, pretty much the bulk, of the work that we do here involves engaging with citizens throughout the province. During COVID, we were of course doing all of that virtually, but that still required staff. That still required resources. That still required tools and systems, such as email, texts and all the other ways in which we were reaching out to voters every single day to provide them with some of that critical information.

During non-COVID times, one of the things that the subsidy has helped us do and that I am a huge fan of is a biannual training conference. That is something that has been incredibly critical for us. Having stable, predictable funding to be able to do things like sign contracts every other year and plan these events has been huge.

What those training conferences enable us to do is train a ton of volunteers and activists throughout the province on how to go out and do the work of democratic engagement — knock on doors, talk to voters, speak confidently about issues, encourage a conversation on the doorstep and on the phones, and all those pieces.

We also do a lot of work there training potential candidates as well, which is a really critical piece of our work and a huge piece of our work in terms of ensuring that the diversity of British Columbians is elected in the Legislature. We invite people to those conferences who, maybe, come from untraditional backgrounds and haven’t been political insiders and who are able to come and learn about our political system and, hopefully, run in the next election.

B. Anderson: Yeah, I just wanted to thank you for the really clear presentation and for answering the questions in a very clear way.

H. Stoutenburg: Thanks, happy to help.

A. Mercier: We’ve had a few presenters talk to us about the allowance in New Brunswick providing an incentive or a bonus for recruiting candidates and getting candidates elected who represent the population — women, folks from diverse backgrounds. I’m wondering if you could comment at all on your views on that.

H. Stoutenburg: I think it’s an incredibly interesting idea. That being said, I would say that this is something that the NDP in B.C. specifically has generally excelled at and built into our practices anyway. We haven’t needed financial incentive; we’ve had an equity mandate for many years now. As a result, we now of course have 50 percent women in the Legislature.

In terms of other diversity metrics — I struggle to see how those would be defined by a body like Elections B.C. — I think of, perhaps, some of the traps we might run into in policing, for lack of a better word, folks’ status in equity-seeking groups. I do have a few concerns about how, potentially, we would reward those groups when some of those categories are ill-defined and perhaps sensitive. It’s a very interesting idea, for sure, and I think New Brunswick has seen some success with it, in terms of how they’ve elected women. It’s definitely something I’d be supportive of folks looking into.

[11:00 a.m.]

C. Keating: If I can just add a little bit to that, Mr. Chair. I certainly think it is a shared responsibility between both political parties, like the B.C. NDP which, as Heather says, has long supported these initiatives to help — and especially the training initiative she talked about before.

I mean, many people who come from diverse backgrounds simply lack the confidence, the training, the skills and the assets to begin to get in the system. The kind of work we do there is important for diversifying the Legislature. I think we’re seeing the results of that in the B.C. Legislature today. But I think it’s also fair to say that, as Heather suggests, it’s an emerging responsibility for public institutions, as well.

I think that the government of New Brunswick has taken a look at that through their elections act. I think we need to view this as a kind of shared responsibility both between partisan groups, like the B.C. NDP, as well as public institutions.

I think that you’ll see it across the continent. In America today, there’s just been articles, I think in the New York Times, talking about the real predominance of white men in the American political system despite a very similar diversity of the population in America as compared to British Columbia today.

J. Brar (Chair): Thank you. Any further questions, comments, Members?

On behalf of committee members, I would like to say thanks to both of you, Mr. Keating and Ms. Stoutenburg, for coming today to make presentations. Thank you very much.

H. Stoutenburg: Thank you so much for having us. We really appreciate the time.

J. Brar (Chair): Members, let’s move on. We have our next presenter in the room. My name is Jagrup Brar. I’m the MLA for Surrey-Fleetwood and the Chair of the Special Committee to Review Provisions of the Election Act.

I would like to now ask the Members to introduce themselves. I will start with Peter Milobar.

P. Milobar (Deputy Chair): Good morning, I guess it still is. Peter Milobar. I’m the Deputy Chair of this committee and the MLA for Kamloops–North Thompson.

A. Olsen: Hi. Welcome to the committee today. I’m Adam Olsen. I’m the MLA for Saanich North and the Islands.

A. Mercier: Hi. I’m Andrew Mercier. I’m the MLA for Langley.

I’m on the traditional territory of the Kwantlen, Katzie, Matsqui, and Semiahmoo-speaking peoples.

R. Leonard: Hi. I’m Ronna-Rae Leonard. I’m the MLA for Courtenay-Comox.

I’m speaking to you from the traditional territory of the K’ómoks First Nation.

B. Anderson: Hi. I’m Brittny Anderson, the MLA for Nelson-Creston.

I’m on the traditional unceded territory of the Ktunaxa, Sinixt and Syilx peoples.

G. Kyllo: Morning. Greg Kyllo, the MLA for Shuswap.

J. Brar (Chair): Thank you, Members.

Assisting the committee today are Susan Sourial, Clerk to the committee, Ron Wall and Jesse Gordon from the Parliamentary Committees Office; and Alexandrea Hursey from Hansard Services.

Our next presenter is Kris Sims, B.C. director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

Kris, thanks for coming today to make your presentation to us. You will have 15 minutes for your presentation. You will see the timer on the screen. Thanks, once again, for joining us.

Please begin whenever you are ready.

[11:05 a.m.]

K. Sims: Wonderful. Well, thank you very much for having us. Timer has started. I’ll try to be brief. I think I’m supposed to allow for time for questions, correct?

J. Brar (Chair): Yes.

K. Sims: Wonderful. Great. I will get right to the point.

A. Olsen: If I may, Ms. Sims, just to be clear, you have 14 minutes to present, and then questions after.

K. Sims: Okay. Wonderful. That’s great.

J. Brar (Chair): Thank you for the clarification, Adam.

CANADIAN TAXPAYERS FEDERATION

K. Sims: Once again, thank you very much for having us. We are here, obviously, to speak out against continuing or prolonging the per-vote subsidy for political parties in British Columbia.

A little bit of background about who we are. We are the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. We were founded back in 1990 to fight for lower taxes, less waste and more accountable government. We have more than 235,000 supporters from across Canada, coast to coast. We have offices from British Columbia to Atlantic Canada, where directors like myself work. We are a not-for-profit organization, and that means that we are supported by free-will donations that do not get tax receipts.

We want to be really clear here. In our view, the per-vote subsidy is a form of politician welfare. We use that term in the same way that we use the term corporate welfare. I believe it was Stephen Lewis, the great Canadian, who first coined that term. It basically means folks in power taking money from those who shouldn’t have to give it.

To be clear, and I think this needs to be really made clear to the public who might be watching, this money from the per-vote subsidy is not for the functioning of Elections British Columbia. This money is not going to help pay for signs directing you on where to go vote at your station. It’s not going towards paper ballots or pencils or scrutineer badges. It’s not going to help Elections B.C.

This money is also not used for encouraging people to get out there and vote, so those lovely, non-partisan ads that you will see most of the time during election campaigns, encouraging folks from all walks of life to get out there and exercise their democratic right to vote — that isn’t what this money is for either.

Lastly, this money does not go towards educating our young people in schools about how our democratic system works. That is not what this money is for.

What this money goes to is political parties. It goes to political parties to enact their partisan behaviours. We want to be clear. We don’t care if it’s the B.C. NDP, B.C. Liberal Party, B.C. Greens, the Conservatives or, frankly, the flying monkey party. Taxpayers’ money should not be going to political parties at all.

So far, these are the numbers that we’ve gotten. The B.C. NDP, the B.C. Liberals and the B.C. Greens all combined have already collected about $15 million from taxpayers via the per-vote subsidy. The three major parties are on track to collect around $5 million more by the time this per-vote subsidy is set to end, according to our data and our research.

When you combine that amount with the 50 percent payout that taxpayers pay for campaign expenses after an election, those costs are estimated to be $30 million. And $30 million is a lot of money. It’s so much money that a lot of times, it’s difficult to really reckon how much money that is. So we did some math. What could $30 million otherwise pay for? Well, $30 million could pay for the full-time salary for 50 new paramedics for ten years in British Columbia.

[11:10 a.m.]

Thirty million dollars could pay the full-time salary for about 115 long-term-care workers for five years in B.C. Thirty million dollars could pay for the rent of a two-bedroom basement suite, with bathroom and your own laundry, for a year for around 1,600 people in Metro Vancouver. Thirty million dollars could otherwise pay for the average annual ICBC insurance costs for more than 17,000 B.C. drivers. Thirty million dollars, consequently, could also pay for the gasoline taxes on weekly minivan fill-ups for about 14,000 people for a year in Metro Vancouver, where the higher gas taxes are.

Lastly, $30 million could otherwise cover the average income tax bill for the entire population of Osoyoos for a year. That’s how much $30 million is.

Instead, $30 million went to pay for stuff like this. It went to lawn signs, it went to attack ads, and it went to social media stuff, as nice as that social media stuff can sometimes be.

Again, BC taxpayers paid for lawn signs, attack ads, junk mail, party staff wages, setting up of war rooms and all that stuff, and the social media and email spam that we all see during election campaigns. To be very clear, this is not good value for taxpayers’ money.

Political parties in British Columbia, and anywhere in Canada, frankly, should raise their own money. Nowadays, with online campaigns, the power of email lists, and fund-me capabilities, fundraising has never been more straightforward and clear. You don’t even need to really leave your house. If people like your ideas, if you’re truly inspirational and passionate about what you want to do for British Columbia, they will be passionate about it, too. They will support you with their hard-earned dollars by choice. They will choose to give you their money.

We also need to be reminding folks sometimes that political parties in British Columbia already enjoy a really generous tax credit. Far more, in fact, than registered charities receive. Lots of folks don’t know this. To give you an example, political parties give a 75 percent tax credit in B.C. for the first $100 donated to them. That means if you donate $100 to Acme political party in B.C., you get a tax credit for $75.

To give you an example of what that looks like compared to charities, a $100 donation to Ronald McDonald House gets a tax credit of just over $20, whereas a $100 donation to a political party gets a tax credit of $75. Isn’t a tax credit that’s three or four times more lucrative and generous than a charity that helps sick children’s families enough for political parties in B.C.?

For folks who are saying: “Well, we need this money. We want to get corporate and union donations out of it….” Fine. That’s fine. Just fundraise on your own, and democracy will not collapse as we know it. In fact, we have a great example with the federal government level. The sky has not fallen federally. The federal per-vote subsidy — it was first floated, to be cancelled, back in 2008. It was officially cancelled in 2011. We’ve had three gigantic general elections in Canada since then, and all the major parties are fundraising on their own. Democracy marches on.

To sum up, we are fundamentally opposed to taxpayers’ money going to any political party of any ideology or stripe. This is not how taxpayers’ money should be used. It is wrong for political parties to be taking taxpayers’ money. That money should be either returned to taxpayers, in the form of tax cuts or spending reductions, or it should be earnestly spent on things that do matter, such as the examples that we gave earlier in the presentation.

In speaking personally to all of you here, you’re all smart people. You’re very passionate. There’s a reason why you’re in the Legislature. You obviously believe in your ideas. If you really do, and you think you’re doing good things, and you’re passionate about those ideas, you can communicate that to folks at the door or online. You can get out there and earn money for your parties and your campaigns yourselves. People will follow you.

J. Brar (Chair): Thank you so much, Kris, for your presentation. Now I will ask members if they have any questions for you. Members, any questions?

[11:15 a.m.]

B. Anderson: I don’t have a question. I just wanted to say thank you so much for being super-clear with your position. I appreciated that. Thank you.

K. Sims: Thank you very much.

J. Brar (Chair): Thanks Brittny.

Any further comments or questions, Members?

P. Milobar (Deputy Chair): Thanks for the presentation. It was very clear.

We have the three questions to answer as part of our mandate. I guess the question I would have for you is in terms of, if the committee chooses to go ahead, there’s also a question around: should there be a never-ending date, or should there be a term limit to it? Do you have any thoughts on that, on the off chance that the committee decides to proceed with some sort of a per-vote system?

K. Sims: Well, we certainly hope that’s a very off chance, considering the fact that during the election before the last one, then NDP leader John Horgan had said he had no intention of imposing a per-vote subsidy. He said he didn’t think that public money really belonged within political parties, at least not by force or by compulsion.

So here we are. Then, shortly after the election, bingo. Here comes a per-vote subsidy, plus a 50 percent reimbursement of campaign expenses. That was really upsetting. We felt that people had been misled in that way. It’s not fair that we’re even having this conversation.

Then there was a sunset clause put on it: “Oh, it’s just going to be temporary.” Okay. Now here we are, wondering whether or not it needs to be temporary at all.

So no. We want it gone four years ago, and we would like it gone tomorrow. We don’t want to agree to a sunset clause that will probably result in a committee hearing like this a few years from now. So no. We’d like it stopped as soon as humanly possible, please.

A. Olsen: I’m just wondering if maybe Ms. Sims could provide comment on some of the…. She’s provided the perspective of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. It is in stark contrast to what we’ve heard a lot of from academics with respect to our democracy, our democratic institutions, political parties’ role in the quality of our democracy and, as well, equity — particularly in terms of creating a more equitable political institution of governance in the province.

I’m just wondering if maybe Ms. Sims has any comments with respect to some of the testimony that we’ve heard around those particular areas.

K. Sims: If folks, for example, want to get, as they call, big money out of politics, whether that’s big corporations on one side or big unions, as they call them, on the other side…. That’s your prerogative. Go for it. That’s totally fine. Our issue is that taxpayers’ money shouldn’t be going to political parties. Again, we don’t care if it’s the hardest-core right wing or the hardest-core left wing or the fun folks in the middle. Taxpayers’ money shouldn’t be going to partisan activities.

We believe that you folks can get out there and fundraise on your own. Again, it’s amazing what you can do now with GoFundMe campaigns. You can do online donations. Heck, if you folks want to have a telethon…. How’s your singing voice? Get out there and really share your ideas in a straightforward and passionate manner. People will donate to you. There are lots of creative ways that people can get the message out.

You don’t have to have the biggest fundraising war room chest in the land in order to communicate your message. The B.C. Greens, for example, don’t have as much money as other political parties, but they get their message out well. We believe that you can be able to do that with smaller donations from willing British Columbians who aren’t forced to give you their money.

There’s a way of doing this in a fair and equitable manner that is democratic, and it’s by choice. It’s not by compulsion.

J. Brar (Chair): Any other questions or comments, Members?

On behalf of all committee members, thank you so much for coming today, Ms. Sims, and making the presentation to us. I really appreciate that.

[11:20 a.m.]

K. Sims: Thank you. We really appreciate your time.

J. Brar (Chair): That’s basically it, Susan, for today?

I would like to thank you, Ms. Sims, because you’re here in the room, and all other presenters who made their presentation to the committee. I really appreciate that, because that’s going to help us make our decision.

With that, Members, I would also like to convey, one more time, to the people who are listening to our public consultation process today, and even in the past, that the consultation portal closes tomorrow at 5 p.m. We encourage people to make their submissions. We still have probably a day and a half so people can make their submissions.

With that, I would like to say thank you to all of you and thanks to all the Members for your participation in this process. I would like to close, unless anybody wants to say any comments or there are any other issues.

None? Thank you very much. Thanks to all of you.

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant, Committees and Interparliamentary Relations): A motion to adjourn?

J. Brar (Chair): Oh, we need a motion to adjourn, then. Okay, so moved by Andrew, seconded by Adam.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 11:21 a.m.