Vancouver voters wait for mayoral campaign spending details

How much did Vancouver mayoral candidates Peter Ladner and Gregor Robertson spend to win the nominations of their respective parties last June?

It’s a question that is still very much out there as Ladner’s Non-Partisan Association and Robertson’s Vision Vancouver head into the final days of the campaign before the November 15 municipal election.

It’s also a question that both candidates wouldn’t have had to answer, except that the two promised to disclose their financial details before the election. The Vancouver Charter doesn’t require continuing disclosure of donations. Declared candidates are required to file a disclosure statement only after the election.

Vision even drew up strict disclosure guidelines for those who sought the party’s nomination for mayor, school board, and park board. According to the rules approved by the party’s board of directors on March 11, 2008, contestants have to make a partial report seven days before the nomination and a full disclosure 30 days after the selection of candidates.

Park commissioner Allan De Genova was one of the three competitors for Vision’s mayoral nomination, and he has since left the party to throw his support behind Ladner.

De Genova admitted that he hasn’t made any disclosure as to how much he spent on his failed Vision nomination bid.

More important, according to him, is that neither Robertson nor Coun. Raymond Louie has publicly revealed his expenses. Louie, who has been named by Robertson as chair of the Vision caucus in council, is running for another term.

“I guess he [Robertson] doesn’t want that number to come out because it reflects out there that they have that kind of money that it takes to make it happen, which is great for them, but they want to look like they’re the underdog a bit,” De Genova told the Georgia Straight.

“Like, you know, they’re just the union guys that don’t have a whole lot; ”˜support us because we’re up against the big developers,’ right, which is ironic because, I won’t get into it, but the amount of developer dollars that were paid to those guys, some of them are big cheques. So I’d love to see how they’re going to be disclosed.”

Questions about Vision’s disclosure were directed by staff and former financial agent and now council candidate Geoff Meggs to either party president Mike Magee or campaign spokesperson Ian Baillie. Magee didn’t respond to the Straight’s request for a call. Louie likewise didn’t return calls by the Straight. Baillie said he would call back if he was able to find out any information about the timing of the disclosure; by Straight deadline he hadn’t called.

Ladner spokesperson Mike Meneer stressed that the NPA mayoral candidate will make a disclosure of his nomination expenses before the election.

Meneer said Ladner will allow “enough time” between making public a financial statement and the election, and that “it won’t be a minute before.”

“I don’t have an exact date right now, but we’re going to keep to our commitment to do that before the election,” Meneer said, adding that he’s also aware that Vision previously made a similar pledge.

Delays in the promised disclosure by the two mayoral candidates haven’t surprised Chris Shaw, a council candidate for the Work Less Party, which is running environmental activist Betty Krawczyk for mayor.

“It’s a little bit like asking where’s their platform until recently,” Shaw told the Straight. “Disclosures and platforms become targets, and both parties are so much in the business of trying to claw away bits of the centre that they don’t want anything to be perceived as being really controversial.”

Like the Coalition of Progressive Electors, which has an alliance with Vision, the Work Less Party doesn’t accept contributions from developers.

Shaw noted that Vision takes almost as many corporate contributions as the NPA. “The NPA has never pretended that it’s not a business party,” he said. “Vision pretends to be something else.”

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