Bob Mackin
The B.C. NDP told Elections BC that it spent $7.76 million to get re-elected in 2020 after John Horgan broke the fixed election date law.
Five years later, the Ministry of Attorney General was forced to disclose to theBreaker.news that it spent almost $71,000 of taxpayers’ money on government lawyers to defend the timing of the election in court.
Government lawyers had fought to keep the sum secret. But, an adjudicator with Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner ruled in October that theBreaker.news had the right to know the cost of government lawyers assigned to oppose the October 2020 lawsuit by Democracy Watch and Integrity BC founder Wayne Crookes.
Background
An adjudicator with the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner ordered the B.C. Ministry of Attorney General to release this document to theBreaker.news. (MAG/FOI)
B.C. had held four consecutive, May-scheduled elections from 2005 to 2017 under the 2001 democratic reform law enacted by the Gordon Campbell BC Liberal government. The next election was scheduled, by law, for October 2021.
Horgan won an NDP-record 57-seat majority on Oct. 24, 2020. Elections BC spent a record $51.6 million to administer voting during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, before a vaccine was available. In 2023, the B.C. Court of Appeal upheld the B.C. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision that said the Lieutenant-Governor has the power to call an election whenever he or she sees fit.
Lawyers for Democracy Watch and Crookes unsuccessfully argued that Horgan should have stuck to the fixed date or recalled the Legislature and held a confidence vote before asking Lt.-Gov. Janet Austin for the early election.
FOI win
theBreaker.news applied under the freedom of information law for the aggregate cost to taxpayers for the government to defend Horgan’s snap election.
Adjudicator David Adams dismissed the Ministry of Attorney General’s decision to keep the dollar figure secret. There was “no reasonable possibility” that disclosure of the government’s legal bill would reveal privileged communications between the government and its lawyers.
“Learning the total amount of the fees would not allow the petitioners, or anyone else, to draw the inferences the Ministry fears,” Adams wrote on Oct. 1.
He set a Nov. 14 deadline for the Ministry to reply. The Ministry provided theBreaker.news a single document that showed the total $70,603.30 legal cost.
Rewind to 2020
Democracy Watch and Crookes filed their petition to the court before election day in 2020. On the campaign trail, Horgan was non-committal when asked by theBreaker.news if the NDP would repay taxpayers if the government defended his early election call.
“I don’t believe that this case is warranted,” said Horgan. “And I don’t believe that the cost will be significant.”
In 2017 campaign finance reforms, the Green-supported NDP minority government banned donations from corporations and unions, capped donations by individuals and instituted a per-vote subsidy for parties. Under the system, the NDP has collected a total $13.6 million from taxpayers.
Behind the scenes
From mid-April to June 2020, the NDP government used $95,000 of taxpayers’ money to hire the party’s favourite pollster, Strategic Communications Inc., for “COVID-19 Daily Tracking Polling.”
Stratcom learned just under three-quarters of respondents felt the NDP government was on the right track. Respondents were generally happy with management of the pandemic and other issues, such as cost-of-living, economy and jobs, and climate change/global warming.
The project ended just in time for the NDP to start digital campaign training. In July 2020, Stratcom collaborated on a series of government telephone town halls to boost the profile of NDP candidates who upset BC Liberal incumbents in 2017.
On the third Monday of September in 2020, Horgan scrapped the confidence and supply agreement with the Greens, disregarded the fixed election date law the NDP had strengthened and hit the campaign trail.
In 2022, Horgan handed the premiership to his original Attorney General, David Eby. Horgan died of cancer two years later.
Eby stuck to the fixed election date in 2024. The NDP remained the majority government by one seat.
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