Opinion: If TEAM decides not to voluntarily disclose its financial information before the election, we can expect to hear about that fact over the next couple of months from the parties that do.
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Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart’s new party, Forward Together, voluntarily revealed its donor list Monday and called on its opponents to do the same ahead of the Oct. 15 election.
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Forward Together’s donor list includes several big names in the real estate development community, including many top donations from people with last names like Aquilini, Bosa, De Cotiis, Molnar, Bonnis, and Pappajohn. And, unsurprisingly, considering Stewart is a former Simon Fraser University political scientist turned NDP MP, the list includes some prominent New Democrats and academics.
Six other local parties also committed Monday to posting their donor lists, with only TEAM for a Livable Vancouver refusing to make that commitment when asked.
COPE provided its list immediately after the request on Monday, and representatives from NPA, OneCity, Greens, Vision, ABC Vancouver and Progress Vancouver said theirs would be public soon and pledged to make disclosures before the October election.
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In an emailed statement, TEAM board candidate Bill Tieleman did not explicitly rule out the possibility of voluntary pre-election disclosure, but did not commit to it either, simply saying that the party will “review the timing of the publication of its list of donors, but will follow all the electoral rules of Elections BC and Vancouver”.
Civic political parties must file annual reports with BC Elections showing all funds raised and spent. But those would not normally be public until the following year. The decision to voluntarily release donor information before Election Day, and then challenge opponents to do the same, has been a regular feature of recent Vancouver elections for several years.
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In a press release Monday, Forward Together Executive Director Mark Hosak said the mayor and his party “believes it’s essential that voters know who is funding politics in this city, before anyone casts a ballot.” .
“In 2018, all of Vancouver’s major parties followed Kennedy Stewart’s lead in revealing who was funding their campaigns, and Forward Together believes residents deserve the same level of public transparency in this election,” Hosak’s statement said.
Monday’s disclosure shows that between May 2018, when Stewart announced his plan to run for mayor in that year’s election, and June 30, 2022, Stewart, first independently and then more recently with his new Forward party Together, they have raised more than $1.13 million. from 2,473 different people, with a total of 6,480 separate donations over the period of more than four years, averaging $175 per donation.
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But even if the mayor’s party has a successful fundraising streak between now and Election Day, they will be limited in how much they can spend this year.
BC Elections spending limits are limited to $231,767 for a mayoral candidate and $120,491 for a council candidate. Because Stewart only has a slate of three council candidates running alongside him on Forward Together, the party’s spending cap will be less than $600,000 in total this year, unless they add more candidates.
With ABC Vancouver fielding seven candidates for council, six for parks board and five for school board, the party’s spending cap is more than $2.3 million this year, party campaign manager Kareem Allam said. .
“Ken Sim and ABC want a majority on the council to provide a stable and predictable government, something that has been missing with the minority government for the last four years,” Allam said.
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The architects of BC’s spending laws wanted to incentivize parties to “get stable majorities,” Allam said. “We are running for the majority on all lists. The additional spending limit will allow us to do that. That means that for us we have more money for brochures, events and social media presence.”
ABC will release its list of donors in the next week or two, Allam said.
It seems possible that Forward Together could add another council candidate or two to the list, which would increase the party’s overall spending limit. When asked about the list, Hosak, the party’s executive director, said, “Mayor Kennedy Stewart is proud of our candidates, Dulcy Anderson, Russil Wvong and Hilary Brown, who have been announced so far and we look forward to providing more information on our full list at a later date.”
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Political donations have been in the spotlight lately, after Postmedia reported last week on a new organization called Pacific Prosperity Networkwhich is working to try to help “pro-business” candidates win in the municipal elections this fall.
Because PPN is a nonprofit society and not a political party, the group boasts that it can accept unlimited donations, even from corporations, with no public disclosure requirements. All of this is allowed within the rules. But the news raised concerns among some critics, because the source of the funds is not transparent and neither is the destination: PPN leaders said they are not working with candidates in Vancouver or Surrey, but it is not clear which politicians, specifically, they are targeting. Helping. this year.
TEAM is not required to publicly disclose any financial information prior to the election. But if they choose not to, we can expect to hear about that fact in the next couple of months from Stewart and any other politician who does.
