List of donations possibly belonging to Vancouver mayor may mean trouble

List of hefty donations possibly belonging to Vancouver mayor may mean trouble

Stanley Q Woodvine/Twitter | Kennedy Stewart at Daily Hive Vancouver. (File photo)

Two sheets of paper dropped on the sidewalk could lead to some trouble for Vancouver’s mayor and his Forward Together party after someone picked it up and shared it online.

Stanley Woodvine, a known local writer currently experiencing homelessness, found the papers while walking around the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood. On the two-page spreadsheet, a list with multiple names and their large donations is printed out.

And as Woodvine puts it, “The donor’s names are eye-catching.”

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Included in the list of names is the owner of the Vancouver Canucks, Francesco Aquilini, and a number of real-estate developers.

Some donations listed beside names on this list go as high as $64,000.

Here's the second page overflow of the dropped-on-a-sidewalk donors doc. One of the names, @StepanVdovine, used to be with @VisionVancouver. Is $270,842 a lot of money, politically? And why so cheap "Neil"? #Vancouver #Vanpoli pic.twitter.com/aYTc338ka3

— Stanley Q Woodvine (@sqwabb) September 13, 2022

However, it wasn’t until Woodvine’s Twitter followers suggested that the papers may belong to Stewart’s party.

As a result, locals and political challengers have accused the incumbent mayor and his political party of getting their business and social circles to donate the maximum.

According to Elections BC, campaign contributions can only donate up to $1,250 per candidate or to a civic political party this year.

Elections BC investigating

Elections BC said it was made aware of the spreadsheet after it was posted online and received several complaints from the public.

This has prompted an investigation into a possible breach of electoral donation rules.

“Anytime we receive a complaint regarding the legislation we administer, we review it thoroughly to ensure legislative requirements are being met,” Elections BC said in an email statement.

Mark Hosak, the executive director of Forward Together responded to the claims and told Daily Hive Urbanized, “Like all campaigns, Forward Together is actively fundraising.”

“We follow all Elections BC rules,” he insisted.

Elections BC added, “At this point the origins of the spreadsheet are unclear and we have made no conclusions in this matter.”

Hosak mentioned that the Forward Together party was the first campaign to publicly disclose its donor list and the party will again before the election day.

However, the co-founder of Democracy Watch, Duff Conacher, said this spreadsheet means trouble.

“It shows essentially a scheme to try and use people who are seeking favourable decisions from the mayor and city council to raise money for his party. And that creates conflicts of interest and is clearly unethical,” he said.

Competitor TEAM For A Livable Vancouver admitted it asked Vancouver’s Integrity Commissioner for an investigation regarding the list, and its campaign manager and council candidate, Bill Tieleman, has filed a complaint to Elections BC.

“There are questions that must be answered and very soon whether or not any of this constitutes a conflict of interest or perceived conflict of interest – because these major corporate developers come before City Council with projects cumulatively worth in the billions of dollars and the public needs to know the Code of Conduct is being followed in every way,” TEAM mayoralty candidate and Councillor Colleen Hardwick said.

TEAM said it will release its own donor list by October 1.

“A system of legalized bribery”

Elections BC has clarified that individuals can help elector organizations fundraise as long as all of the contributions come from eligible individuals (someone who is a BC resident and Canadian citizen or permanent resident) who donate within contribution limits and recording requirements are being followed.

However, Conacher is altogether criticizing the donation cap, calling it “a system of legalized bribery.”

He explains the high donation limit hides the influence of big money since an average Canadian can’t afford over $1,000 in donations.

“Business executives and employees and their family members start donating that maximum amount of $1,000 or more. That adds up to a lot of money pretty quickly,” he explains. “These people are from property developers and other businesses seeking favourable decisions from the mayor and city council and they are able to use money as a means of influence over those decisions.

“That’s unethical and it’s really hard to track it down because often an executive, their spouse, their family members might all have different last names.”

When businesses, unions, and organizations were able to donate, Conacher says there was a sense of transparency.

“You knew where the money was coming from clearly… but now it’s obscured and it doesn’t stop it. It just hides it.”

He suggests the only way to stop these large donations is to simply decrease the limit to an amount an average voter can afford — between $50 and $100.

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