“In only one week, the B.C. Liberal party managed to mug senior citizens confined to wheelchairs at public extended care facilities while giving payoffs to their pals,” said IntegrityBC executive director Dermod Travis.

The raises, approved by the outgoing cabinet, are far in excess of what most British Columbians will see on their paycheques this year and in some cases have political staff earning more than the base salary of an MLA.

Michele Cadario, the Liberal party’s deputy campaign director, who was named deputy chief of staff to the premier will see her maximum salary jump by almost 36 per cent to $195,148, an increase of $50,000.

A British Columbian earning the minimum wage of $10.25 an hour would have to work an extra 94 hours a week just to gross the increase in salary that Cadario will now take home, without taking into account the rest of her salary.

Cadario will earn more than the chief of staff to President Barack Obama did last year, and will also earn $25,000 more than her counterparts in Ontario.

Trying to justify the unjustifiable, a spokesperson for the premier’s office claimed that the total budget for political staff would fall by $30,000 from $5.741 million to $5.711 million. “Get back to us on that in a year when the final numbers are in,” Travis countered.

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For more information:

Dermod Travis, Executive Director

IntegrityBC

250-590-5126

info@integritybc.ca

Notes:

White House 2012 salaries: www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/disclosures/annual-records/2012

Ontario political staff salaries: www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/publications/salarydisclosure/pssd/pdf/ministries_2012.pdf

To the victor goes the spoils, cheered New York Senator William Marcy on news of the victory of Andrew Jackson to the White House in 1828. Marcy wasn’t kidding. After Jackson assumed power close to 10 per cent of government officials were fired and replaced with candidates loyal to the new president.

Yet, despite Senator Marcy’s zeal, there’s still something to be said for magnanimity in victory. A point particularly true in B.C., where a single political formation (in one incarnation or another) has governed the province for nearly five of the last six decades. A streak to which the B.C. Liberal party will now tack on four more years.

Because of this lopsided advantage, the real test facing Premier Christy Clark shouldn’t be over how she divvies up the goodies, but instead how she rises above that time-honoured practice to exhibit the political leadership required for the greater good of the province.

The same leadership Clark showed when she established the office of the auditor general for local government in the face of considerable reticence from some of those same local governments.

This Friday, Premier Clark will present her new cabinet. As is customary, ministers will receive their marching orders.

There will be the obvious “to do” tasks: LNG plants, 10-year labour deals with the BCTF, and replacing the Massey Tunnel. But in the wake of the election, Premier Clark is also in a position to cherry-pick some of the very best ideas from other parties and cherry-pick she should.

According to an Ipsos Reid exit poll poll of 1,400 British Columbians, the top issue influencing voters was open and honest government. On this issue voters chose the BC NDP by a 10 per cent margin (47 to 37 per cent).

The fourth issue was trust in a particular leader or party. The Liberals lost those voters by five per cent.

It’s easy for political operatives to sweep such inconvenient truths under the rug when they’ve just pulled-off a miracle, but Liberals do need to take note: they’ve lost the trust of a significant block of voters.

One of the contributing factors to that distrust is a lack of transparency and accountability in government, which is why it’s never too late to say “we get it,” particularly on those issues that go to the heart of how government functions and how our democratic system operates.

Fixing B.C.’s democratic deficit starts with restoring the true role of MLAs. British Columbians need to know they have a voice in Victoria on the issues that affect them in their daily lives.

Yet, MLAs can rarely speak up for those who elected them if their words run counter to their party’s position. There are no free votes in the legislature. According to journalist Sean Holman, from May 2001 to April 2012, 99.75 per cent of all the votes cast in the legislature toed the party line.

MLAs also need to lead from the front and not dig in their heels over issues such as pay and the posting of their expenses online.

Taxpayers have a right not just to know the numbers behind the province’s finances, but to have the straight goods on what those numbers will mean in the way of taxes, rate increases and tolls as well.

A government that truly wants to be open doesn’t respond to access to information requests with answers that are too cute by half. What has become known as “oral government” needs to be consigned to the trash bin of bad ideas.

While their reports may sting, public watchdogs are supposed to have some bite which is why their roles need to be respected and their offices given the necessary budgets to do the job.

Whistleblower protection for public sector employees is long overdue in B.C.

And then there’s electoral finance reform. It’s time to cleanse B.C. politics of what one political observer called “the sewer scents,” by finally banning corporate and union donations to political parties.

B.C. has been on the cutting edge of democratic reforms in the past: fixed-date elections, recalls and citizen inspired initiatives. There’s no reason it can’t continue on this path.

Since politics is often about comfort zones, what should make these ideas all the more appealing is that each is a position already staked out by Alberta’s right-wing Wildrose Alliance.

Dermod Travis is the executive director of IntegrityBC. www.integritybc.ca

The great thing about political punditry is the ability to be right and wrong at the same time and get away with it, which is why the pundits who were no better at predicting the outcome of the B.C. election shouldn’t be expected to be any better at interpreting the results.

It’s quite simple: the B.C. Liberal party set out to win at all costs and did. They ran the better campaign, got their vote out and won. They were even willing to throw a candidate or two under the bus to do it, as witnessed by two full page ads in Victoria’s Times Colonist extolling the virtues of Green party leader Jane Sterk paid for by none other than the B.C. Liberal party.

Fault them for their tactics, but not even the huffing and puffing of political observers over those tactics seems to resonate long with the voters who ultimately decide elections.

What should be of concern though is the emergence of an almost constant pool of voters in B.C. and an equivalent block of non-voters.

In 2009, 1.65 million voters cast a ballot. In the 2011 HST referendum, 1.61 million mailed-in their vote. And last week, 1.63 million made the trek to the polls, although that number will rise slightly when absentee ballots are tallied.

Looked at another way: close to half of the province’s eligible voters continue to turn their back on the ballot box. That’s not a good thing.

And what lurks beneath these numbers should worry NDP operatives.

In 1979 at the crest of its support, Dave Barrett and the NDP won 46 per cent of the popular vote or 646,188 votes out of 1.4 million cast. They still lost the election. Last week, Adrian Dix and the NDP won 39.5 per cent of the vote or 643,399 votes out of 1.63 million cast.

Over 35 years, the NDP has seen its share of the popular vote steadily decline and its actual vote stall, despite an electorate that has nearly doubled in size over the same period.

Parties that don’t grow their base lose and risk withering away.

While the Liberals grew their vote marginally over their 1979 Socred brethren, they don’t have too much to boast about either. In 1979, the Social Credit party won 677,607 votes. The B.C. Liberals pulled in 723,618 votes.

B.C. voters are opting for “anything but”

So who was the real winner in the voter sweepstakes last Tuesday? Anything but. In 1979, 81,282 voters opted for anything but the Socreds or the NDP. Last week that number more than tripled to 262,405.

As a share of the popular vote, the percentage choosing “anything but” grew from 5.6 per cent of the popular vote to 16.1 per cent.

But it’s not just the province-wide numbers that are telling. As the Liberals showed on election night: “it’s the ridings that count stupid.”

Twenty-five of B.C.’s 85 ridings had a turnout of less than 50 per cent and 19 of those were in the Lower Mainland. The award for most apathetic riding: Richmond-Centre at 38.9 per cent.

Only seven ridings saw a turnout of over 60 per cent and of those the top three had one thing in common: races that engaged voters.

In Oak Bay-Gordon Head, the Green party won its first ever seat in the legislature; in Delta South, Vicki Huntington was re-elected – the first independent to be so in B.C.’s history; and in Saanich North and the Islands, the NDP may very well have eked out a victory in the province’s tightest three-way race.

Of course, there were the Wednesday morning quarterbacks who tried to bend the votes of other parties so far out of shape as to claim that such-and-such a party cost such-and-such a party the election.

It may provide comfort to the defeated, but it’s an argument based more on wishful thinking than political acumen. Vote tallies can easily be moved from column-to-column after the fact, voters aren’t so easily moved before the fact.

But the message for the NDP in all these numbers is ominous and it’s not just about Adrian Dix.

The NDP has been nothing if not short of leaders. In the last 9 elections, no less than seven have been put to the electoral test.

It may have more to do with the brand. Something isn’t connecting with the voters that the NDP needs in order to win. And that soul-searching is going to be far harder on the party faithful than a leadership race ever will be.

Dermod Travis is the executive director of IntegrityBC. www.integritybc.ca

Media Resources

The Globe and Mail’s: Information and maps for all 85 B.C. electoral districts

The Tyee’s: BC Election 2013 Candidates

Global BC’s: Your guide to B.C.’s 85 ridings

Global BC’s: Breaking down B.C.’s 376 candidates

Threehundredandeight’s: BC popular vote estimates

Threehundredandeight’s: Predicted the winners of all 85 ridings

2009 Results

Click here to download the 2009 election results by riding. We have also included the difference in votes between the winning party and the runner-up in red text color.

Click here to learn what were the closest ridings in 2009.

In February, the organization wrote each of B.C.’s 24 political parties with a series of recommendations for them to consider including in their election platforms. In April, the organization followed-up on the letter with a questionnaire for the parties.

While Premier Christy Clark acknowledged the February letter, the B.C. Liberal party did not put forward a single plank in their 84 page platform on any possible government reforms nor did the party respond to the organization’s questionnaire on issues ranging from reforms to the B.C. Election Act to strengthening the province’s access to information law to introducing whistleblower legislation as recommended by B.C.’s auditor-general.

“It’s not surprising that the B.C. Liberals failed to answer the questionnaire when there’s not a syllable in their party platform about anything to do with democratic reform, but it is disappointing,” said IntegrityBC executive director Dermod Travis.

IntegrityBC invites voters to visit its website to read responses from to its questionnaire and party websites of to read the platforms in full before casting their vote this Tuesday.

The responses are available at: www.integritybc.ca/?page_id=2832

The February letter can be consulted at: http://www.integritybc.ca/?page_id=1236

As of the close of nominations, seven of B.C.’s 24 parties are not running candidates in the election, and nine parties are each running two candidates or less. Only four candidates are running sufficient candidates to theoretically form government.

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For more information:
Dermod Travis, Executive Director
IntegrityBC
250-590-5126
info@integritybc.ca
www.integritybc.ca
www.facebook.com/IntegrityBritishColumbia
www.twitter.com/integritybc
www.youtube.com/integritybc

Trivia time: who was the last leader of the BC NDP to lead his party to more than 45 per cent of the popular vote in a provincial election?

One would have to go back six leaders and eight elections to 1979 when Dave Barrett won 45.99 per cent of the popular vote and still lost the election to Bill Bennett and the Social Credit party.

And even though NDP leader Carole James won a higher percentage of the popular vote in both 2005 and 2009 than either Mike Harcourt or Glen Clark did when they went on to form government in 1991 and 1996, James never got the chance to call herself premier.

In fact, B.C. elections are traditionally so tight between the two main parties that only twice in the last eight elections has the difference in popular vote between the two parties exceeded five per cent: in 1991 and 2001.

There’s also the “pox on both your houses” vote to factor in. The roughly twelve per cent of the electorate that consistently turns its back on the two main parties. Sometimes it’s been sufficiently concentrated to put a candidate or two in the legislature.

It helped elect Vicki Huntington in 2009, Gordon Wilson in 1996, and Gordon Gibson in 1975. And this time round it may very well elect a handful of independents and a candidate from the Greens or Conservatives to boot. B.C. will survive.

But the vote that should truly leave everyone aghast is the “stay at home” vote: the 1.5 million voters that have simply tuned out.

Over the past three decades, the percentage of British Columbians who actually vote has steadily fallen, from more than 70 per cent to a little over half last time out, when nearly one out of every two voters seemingly slept the day away and never bothered to cast a ballot.

And despite all the political venom it generated for over two years, nearly half of all voters couldn’t be bothered to render a verdict on the HST in 2011, even though they didn’t have to go further than a mailbox to do so and had weeks to make the trek.

In fact, B.C. has the dubious distinction of having some of the lowest voter turnouts in the country, which says a lot when you consider that some of those other provinces don’t have much to boast about either.

So what ails B.C.’s democracy?

It’s not a lack of passion. British Columbians are nothing if not passionate on the issues, albeit too much passion does turn some folk off. Note to party militants: not everyone sees the world quite as black and white as dyed-in-the-wool true believers sometimes do.

And while politics will never be a match for hockey, it is telling when the Vancouver Canucks have over 800,000 Likes on Facebook, and the best that any provincial party can muster is 8,544 for the NDP. The B.C. Liberals are far behind at 2,163. There are over two million British Columbians on Facebook.

Christy Clark’s personal page has 22,749 Likes, but a quick scan of the comments left behind shows that those aren’t all Likes in the true sense of the word.

Some non-voters lean on that well-worn crutch: “my vote doesn’t count.” Tell that to Dave Barrett who lost his seat in 1975 by 18 votes or Gordon Campbell who won the popular vote in 1996, but because of 1,769 possible Liberal voters who never showed in five ridings was unable to eke out a victory.

Then there’s the trust factor. Let’s face it, politicians have fallen out of favour with the electorate, and often for good reason. But not voting isn’t going to make politicians any more honest. In fact, it just makes it easier for them to feel less accountable. It’s almost a reward for bad behaviour.

And that excuse that political parties are all the same, isn’t valid this time round.

There are notable differences between the parties on major policy issues facing the province: from pipelines to campaign finance reform to public finances.

One example: if you’re open to the Northern Gateway pipeline with a few face saving conditions and see nothing wrong in Enbridge giving $95,800 to the B.C. Liberals, then you should consider voting Liberal. If you support the pipeline outright, but don’t like the idea of those donations, then vote Conservative.

And if you oppose both the pipeline and the donations then consider a vote for the NDP or Greens.

But if you do nothing else on May 14^th vote. You might not feel warm and fuzzy all over, but B.C. will be the better for it.

Dermod Travis is the executive director of IntegrityBC. www.integritybc.ca

The BC NDP, Green party, BC First and the Christian Heritage party replied to the questionnaire, as did Cariboo North independent candidate Bob Simpson.

The responses are posted at: http://www.integritybc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/IBC-Party-Questionnaire1.pdf

As of the close of nominations, seven of B.C.’s 24 parties are not running candidates in the election, and nine parties are each running two candidates or less.

IntegrityBC will post the responses of other parties if they are received by the organization before May 14^th.

The questionnaire followed a letter sent to all parties in February regarding commitments the organization hopes to see in each party’s platform. That letter can be consulted at: http://www.integritybc.ca/?page_id=123

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For more information:

Dermod Travis, Executive Director

IntegrityBC

250-590-5126

info@integritybc.ca

www.integritybc.ca

www.facebook.com/IntegrityBritishColumbia

www.twitter.com/integritybc

www.youtube.com/integritybc

The ad is available for listening here.

Ad copy

This morning, you’ll hear from BC’s four main party leaders right here on CKNW.

IntegrityBC hopes it won’t be more of the same.

Because like you, we’re fed up with verbal sparring, just for the sake of sparring.

Voters deserve to hear the truth, not the spin.

Because what good is a new government, if we just end up with politics as usual?

This message is authorized and approved by IntegrityBC.

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For more information:

Dermod Travis, Executive Director

IntegrityBC

250-590-5126

info@integritybc.ca

The new video documentary exposes the secretive system of party discipline that stops MLAs from voting their conscience or for their constituents.

“If there’s one documentary that every voter and every first-time candidate in B.C. should see before May 14th, Whipped is it,” said IntegrityBC executive director Dermod Travis.

For the first time ever, British Columbians will hear past and present MLAs – including Liberals, New Democrats, cabinet ministers and backbenchers – speak candidly about the personal and political costs of that discipline.

For the first time ever, British Columbians will hear specific examples of how that discipline has forced MLAs to toe the party line in the legislature.

For the first time ever, British Columbians will hear what really happens behind the closed doors of the provincial politics – and why some MLAs think it’s wrong.

Screenings of the 43-minute documentary are scheduled for:

Premiere – Vancouver, Thursday, April 25 (7:00 pm)

University of British Columbia
Buchanan Building, Room A103

Co-sponsored by by the Centre for the Study Democratic Institutions and the Tyee

Victoria, Friday, April 26 (7:00 pm)

The Vic Theatre
808 Douglas Street
Admission by donation, recommended donation $10.00

Vancouver, Sunday, April 28 (7:00 pm)

Vancouver Public Library, Alice MacKay Room, Library Square Conference Centre
350 West Georgia St.
Admission by donation, recommended donation $10.00

Trailer:

Whipped premiere trailer from Sean Holman on Vimeo.

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/partydiscipline

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For further information or to arrange an interview please contact:

Sean Holman (Assistant Professor, Mount Royal University)
sean.michael.holman@gmail.com
(403) 440-6334 or (403) 242-8258

For a media pass, please contact Brad Slade 250-590-5126

The first myth that the quiz tackles is the idea that the BC NDP is pushing for a ban because they have the most to gain from it, when in fact the reform is supported by parties from one end of the political spectrum to the other, by parties with the most to lose from a ban and by parties with something to gain.

Supporters include the B.C. Green party, the B.C. Conservative party, BC First, the Christian Heritage party, all three Independent MLAs, Vision Vancouver, the NPA, the Committee of Progressive Electors (COPE) and – according to a Mustel public opinion survey in March – by nearly 60 per cent of British Columbians as well.

As for the NDP having the most to gain from a ban, in 2012 the NDP raised $5.4 million from individuals, while the B.C. Liberals raised a comparable $5 million.

The quiz refutes the idea that a ban automatically means public subsidies of political parties. For IntegrityBC, the bigger worry should be about over the top spending by parties in B.C.

“The B.C. Liberals spent more than all four of Alberta’s major parties combined in 2011,” said IntegrityBC executive director Dermod Travis. “Perhaps the real problem is with the B.C. Liberal party acting as though it has money to burn.”

The quiz also draws attention to B.C.’s election spending limits. At $18.2 million, B.C.’s limit – for parties that run a full-slate of 85 candidates – is three times the federal limit (on a per voter basis) and is enough to pay virtually all of the 2012 election expenses for Quebec’s three major parties combined, including the expenses for each of the party’s 125 candidates.

The quiz underlines the fact that a ban won’t stop corporations and unions from participating in the electoral process, as Concerned Citizens for B.C. and other groups did prior to the campaign.

During the campaign itself, these groups will still be free to speak out, subject to the constitutional third-party spending limits that are in place.

“The only group that stands to benefit from a reform of B.C.’s electoral finance laws are British Columbians,” said Travis. “It’s unfortunate that the B.C. Liberals choose to be odd party out on an idea whose time has come.”

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1. The true or false quiz is available in PDF format at: http://www.integritybc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/IntegrityBC-trueorfalse-1.pdf

2. A complete a backgrounder on electoral finance reform is available at:http://www.integritybc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/integrity_report_MAR2013UPDATE.pdf

For more information:

Dermod Travis, Executive Director

IntegrityBC

250-590-5126

info@integritybc.ca