Bob Mackin
Two rookie politicians in Vancouver suburbs cashed-in on their political allegiances during last fall’s snap provincial election, theBreaker.news has learned.
Delta MLA Ian Paton (left) and Coun. Dylan Kruger (Twitter)
Delta Coun. Dylan Kruger was paid $5,500 to work for Delta incumbent BC Liberal MLA Ian Paton’s re-election. Kruger is Paton’s former constituency office aide and was elected to the $62,788-a-year seat on Delta city council in 2018.
Kruger was the biggest expense on Paton’s post-campaign financial report to Elections BC.
New Westminster Coun. Nadine Nakagawa is also in her first term of office, which pays $50,000-a-year. She was one of two people paid $4,000 each to manage NDP candidate Tesicca Truong’s unsuccessful bid to unseat BC Liberal incumbent Michael Lee in Vancouver-Langara on Oct. 24.
theBreaker.news confirmed with city clerks in their respective municipalities that neither Kruger nor Nakagawa took a leave of absence from their council duties while being paid for partisan provincial campaign work.
Neither Kruger nor Nakagawa responded to interview requests.
theBreaker.news originally attempted to contact Kruger by email at 11:35 a.m. on Feb. 24. Instead of responding, Kruger rushed to add his contract with Paton’s campaign to his annual disclosure form. Delta city clerk Robyn Anderson confirmed that Kruger amended his Jan. 21-filed disclosure form at approximately 1:30 p.m. on Feb. 24.
Nakagawa was paid to manage and endorse Truong’s campaign (Twitter)
Kruger is a Delta-appointed director to the Metro Vancouver board and an alternate on the TransLink Mayors’ Council. He also works as a client manager at the Kirk and Co. consultancy, which has contracts with Port of Vancouver, TransLink, Metro Vancouver, Surrey Fraser Docks and the Coastal GasLink pipeline.
Nakagawa is a former constituency office aide to retired New Westminster NDP MLA Judy Darcy and has joined other left-wing politicians in presenting seminars at the Hollyhock new age resort on Cortes Island.
Nakagawa’s Jan. 3-filed disclosure form listed her only other source of income as “co-worker” at the Ablaze Services consultancy. The form did not list her work on Truong’s campaign.
Truong was rewarded in a Christmas Eve cabinet order with a $76,000-a-year job as an aide to NDP Jobs Minister Ravi Kahlon.
Premier John Horgan called the snap election on Sept. 21, 2020, after the NDP had amended B.C.’s fixed election date law for an October 2021 vote.
Since the NDP banned corporate and union donations in 2017, B.C.’s big three political parties have taken a combined $14.5 million in direct taxpayer subsidies in addition to accepting tax-receipted donations from individuals.
Parties are also eligible for a 50% reimbursement of 2020 election campaign expenses.
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