Town Was Duped into Donating to BC Liberals, Says Official
The BC Liberal Party has been funneling municipal tax dollars from B.C. towns into party coffers, according to financial reports filed with Elections BC.
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In May 2004, the governments of several Northern B.C. towns received an invitation to a forum on economic diversification. The letterhead on the paper was from the Legislative Assembly of B.C. ? government stationary, not the Liberal Party?s.Officials from Smithers, Stewart, Prince Rupert, Kitimat, and Terrace were invited to hear from two aluminum industry executives, and a business professor from UBC. The cost was $30 per head. Only when the bill arrived were they told to make the cheques to the BC Liberal Party.
?We didn?t think it was a Liberal Party function,? said Kitimat?s municipal manager, Trafford Hall. Later, the town found out it was.
Hall said the event was just a way for the aluminum giant Alcan Inc., whose vice president spoke at the forum, to ingratiate itself with the Liberal government.
Kitimat is involved in a bitter legal fight with the B.C. government and Alcan over Alcan?s sales of publicly subsidized electricity to the United States. The town says the aluminum company is violating a 1950 agreement that gives it access to cheap electricity in exchange for operating the smelter. Kitimat argues the Alcan is starving the city of jobs because selling the electricity is more profitable than using it to smelt aluminum.
Hall said the forum allowed Alcan to befriend the Liberals while technically not violating company guidelines against donating directly to political campaigns. ?It was just Alcan helping [local Liberal MLA] Roger Harris,? Hall said.
Kitimat taxpayers ended up helping Harris too, by donating to his party to the tune of $360.
There are other examples in the piece of municipalities who knowingly paid to attend Liberal fund-raisers because they felt it was the only way they could get an audience with ministers of the Liberal government.
Do you think maybe Campbell's government made it difficult for them to get face time with ministers on purpose? Naw, they wouldn't do that, would they?
It'll be interesting to see if the larger media outlets in BC pick up on this story in the middle of an election campaign.
And by the way, that's a sweet deal for Alcan, isn't it? They get publically subsidized electricity for cheap on the premise that they're going to employ local residents and they turn around and sell it to the U.S. Don't you love corporate welfare free markets?
Hat-tip to babble.
The Sun and Province maybe? BCTV, perhaps?
You might want to leave a note for your non-BC readers about just how unlikely that is...
Yeah, CanWest Global media is a scandal-free zone when it comes to the BC Liberals. Pure propaganda... completely in the bag.
Anyway, Campbell is set to win again this May 17. If there had been any reasonable coverage of their misdeeds and incompetence during the last four years, they'd be wiped out instead. The NDP scandals of years past were nothing compared to what this bunch has been getting away with. And yet, barely a peep from CanWest. Of course, the really big scandal is the Basi Virk case and the sale of BC Rail, of which, too, they are studiously avoiding any mention.
Democracy is all but dead in British Columbia, or anywhere that CanWest Global monopolizes with their "news" coverage. Its a beast that really needs killing. But how to do it?? We can only raise awareness of the insidious destructive nature of this sick corporation... over and over again until they starve from lack of consumers of their "product." Wishful thinking, I know, even if more and more people are becoming "aware" in this sense. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that it is having an effect on their bottom line. We (on the other side) are losing.