Donald Trump was hammered last week for soliciting political donations from foreigners.
Trump’s presidential campaign sent money-seeking emails to tens of thousands of non-American politicians and others, including, amusingly, some Vancouver Sun and Province staff.
Trump did so even though it’s against U.S. law for any candidate to solicit money from foreign nationals.
Too bad — at least for Trump — that he is not based in British Columbia.
If he were, he would just be doing what is normal.
B.C. is one of the few jurisdictions in the world that welcomes political donations from foreign individuals and corporations.
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The B.C. Liberals have in recent years received hundreds of thousands of dollars from offshore real estate developers, mining companies, railways and others. At least indirectly, the B.C. Liberals have even received donations from foreign governments, specifically China.
The B.C. Liberals allow this practice even though the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development this year declared that foreign donations to political parties threaten sovereignty.
“Political parties and candidates need to be responsive to their constituents and not influenced by foreign interests,” says the OECD report called Financing Democracy: Funding of Political Parties and the Risk of Policy Capture.
“Too much foreign interference in elections is a danger to a country’s sovereignty. … If the financing of political parties and election campaigns is not adequately regulated, money may be a means for powerful special interests to exercise undue influence, and ‘capture’ the policy process.”
Around the world, B.C. stands out for its weak regulations against special interests manipulating public policy.
Allowing foreign donations is just one way the B.C. government’s campaign-financing rules trivialize rights typically given only to citizens.
Most of world bans foreign political contributions
A strong majority of the world’s more than 190 countries ban foreign contributions to politicians.
In Sweden, for instance, it’s a criminal offence to accept “money from a foreign power or someone acting on behalf of a foreign power if the purpose is to influence public opinion.”
In Mexico, the OECD reports says, “not even Mexican citizens living or working in other countries are allowed to make contributions from abroad.”
In addition to the U.S. and Canada, other federal governments in the 35-member OECD that ban foreign donations include Japan, South Korea, Chile, the Czech Republic, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Britain.
That said, a small number of OECD nations permit foreign donations — with tough caveats. Austria, Germany and New Zealand place tight caps on foreign contributions, keeping them well under $5,000 Cdn.
And a few small, healthy countries that allow foreign donations do so because, with safeguards, offshore financial contributions don’t add up to much.
Even though vibrantly democratic Denmark, for instance, allows foreign donations, its short campaigns are inexpensive. Denmark doesn’t allow political ads on TV and campaigns are largely funded through public money.
The Netherlands also allows foreign political donations, but it’s transparent about them and also has public election funding. There is, however, a growing scandal in the Netherlands over how Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party appears largely financed by anti-Muslim Americans.
Among major developed countries, Australia is also a rarity for allowing foreign donations. But, unlike in B.C., Australia’s openness to foreign donations is a subject of heated debate.
Outside the stable nations of the OECD, it is mostly a handful of African countries that lack bans on foreign donations, according to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA).
These often-corrupt African countries are extremely vulnerable to outsiders, particularly Russia and China, “capturing” their political policies.
B.C. is the Wild West in political financing
Compared to most of the world, and other parts of Canada, B.C. cannot claim much integrity in regards to electoral financing. It’s the proverbial Wild West here.
Within Canada, B.C. is particularly reckless in the way it allows big money to override individual citizens in determining election campaigns.
For starters, the B.C. Liberals — disregarding the demands of every other B.C. political party — allow donations from corporations and unions.
Although the federal government and most provinces ban corporate and union contributions, the B.C. Liberals in the past decade took in more than $70 million in corporate donations (while the NDP accepted $11 million from unions). More than $12 million was donated to the B.C. Liberals by the real estate sector.
As for foreign political donations, it is not only Canada’s federal government that forbids them. So do most of the provinces.
Dermod Travis, executive director of Integrity B.C., says Quebec, Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia ban foreign donations. Ontario will soon join them. These governments also forbid contributions from people outside the province.
The few provinces that allow donations from beyond the country or province have small populations, such as Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan.
In these jurisdictions, Travis says a donation of even $7,000 will spark a debate over whether local politicians are being “bought.”
In contrast, the B.C. Liberals, according to the non-partisan watchdog, have accepted hundreds of thousands from offshore companies, particularly those in real estate.
Onni Contracting, whose parent company is based in Arizona, has donated more than $460,000 to the B.C. Liberals, Travis says. This at a time when the influence of foreign money on Metro Vancouver real estate prices is a burning issue.
The Holborn Group and related companies, owned by one of Malaysia’s wealthiest families, has also have given $226,000 to the B.C. Liberals. Speaking of the likely Republican nominee, The Holborn Group is building Vancouver’s Trump Tower.
The B.C. Liberals have hauled in money from scores more foreign-based companies., including the linked companies associated with: Burlington Northern Santa Fe railway (based in the U.S.); Petronas Energy (based in Malaysia); Kinder Morgan International (based in the U.S.); the Bank of China (China), NBC Universal Media (U.S.); Republic Services waste management (U.S.); Posco Construction (Korea); Thompson Creek Metals (U.S.); Woodfibre LNG (Singapore) and HD Mining (China).
In addition, Travis says Teck Resources and its affiliates, which are 17 per cent owned by the government of China, have donated more than $2 million to the B.C. Liberals.
As far as Travis is justifiably concerned, each foreign donation contravenes a basic democratic principle: “If you’re not a citizen, you don’t have a right to vote. And you shouldn’t have the right to donate to a political party.”
Cynics, however, might argue that — even though the B.C. government doesn’t put on even a pretence of staunching the flow of foreign money to politicians — there are cagier ways in this globalized era to buy influence.
And the cynics would be correct, to a point. Multinational companies, governments and wealthy people in the U.S, Europe, Russia and China have found surreptitious ways to finance politicians in smaller countries.
The OECD report says multinational companies often donate to local politicians through subsidiaries or third parties. Rich people also pay huge “speaker fees” to political leaders. Or they fund local “think tanks.” This doesn’t even include foreign influence pedlars that bribe politicians.
However, even though the realm of political financing is often illicit, it should not mean the B.C. Liberals — who often talk about their objection to “red tape” — can’t do more to regulate transnational political financing.
They could at least catch up with most of the rest of the world, which takes seriously that foreign entities can have an unhealthy influence over a people’s self-determination.
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