The surprise is not that a corporation would offer to sponsor a swanky fundraiser for the leaders of the province.The real surprise is how little people seem to care about what appears to some as influence peddling.
People have been surprisingly quiet since Friday, when the story broke about Woodfibre LNG’s sponsorship of a BC Liberal fundraiser for our West Vancouver-Sea to Sky Liberal MLA, Jordan Sturdy.
The timing of the event was strange. The next provincial elections are not until 2017, but Sturdy’s fundraiser was held last Thursday, Feb. 5, 2015 – a couple of years early. By all reports, it was a swanky affair held by the BC Liberal Party at the Capilano Golf and Country Club in West Vancouver.
Among the government big wigs on hand were Finance Minister Mike De Jong, Attorney General Suzanne Anton and Minister of International Trade Teresa Wat, plus several MLAs – including, of course, Sturdy, whose election coffers have now swelled.
Unless you have been hibernating, you know that Woodfibre LNG is proposing a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility for the former pulp mill site on Howe Sound near downtown Squamish. The proposal is now in the hands of the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office and will soon be approved – or, less likely, not approved – by two of the province’s ministers.
Why would the BC Liberals and Sturdy in particular accept Woodfibre’s sponsorship of a party fundraiser right now?
We don’t fault Woodfibre LNG for sponsoring the event. What a perfect opportunity it presented for putting their logo in front of the government deciding whether their controversial project will move forward. Their advertising money couldn’t be better spent, from their own perspective.
But the Liberals, as B.C.’s party in power, should never have allowed sponsorship of the ritzy affair by a company with a proposal before the government. Years after Canadians almost unanimously pitched out the pork barrel government of the day, represented by Brian Mulroney, we see the same style of government leading the province of B.C.
If we don’t agree, we should speak out, before our democracy degrades into oligopoly.
– Editor Christine Endicott
