Not long ago, corporations were able to vote in municipal elections in B.C. Since that right was taken away in the 1990s, they’ve been trying to win it back.

Now a provincial task force is reviewing a number of civic electoral reforms to areas including campaign financing, terms in office, and restoration of the corporate vote.

Robin Blencoe, a former minister of municipal affairs, is asking why the practice of allowing business entities to cast a ballot equal to that of a citizen in local elections is even being considered by the B.C. Liberal government.

He pointed out that owners and managers of corporations already have, as individuals, the same voting rights as their fellow citizens.

“I don’t believe they should be given special privilege or stature in something so fundamental as our democratic vote,” Blencoe told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview.

In 1993, Mike Harcourt’s NDP government initiated a major review of municipal-elections law, with Blencoe shepherding legislation that included stripping away the corporate vote.

“I know the argument. They’ll say, oh, they contribute to the economy and they provide jobs,” he said. “My concern always was that they shouldn’t have undue influence on the voting process. So I went back to ”˜Okay, one person, one vote.’ ”

Earlier this year, the Local Government Elections Task Force released a paper that discussed arguments for and against the reinstatement of the corporate vote. It noted that corporations are not citizens, and that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms grants only citizens the right to vote for members of the House of Commons and legislative assemblies.

“The possibility of constitutional implications from allowing them a vote at the local level but not provincial or federal level should be explored,” the paper stated.

John Winter, the president and CEO of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, argues that businesses deserve the right to vote.

“There’s a principle involved that says if you’re a taxpayer, you have some say in how your tax money is spent,” Winter told the Straight by phone. “The fact that the corporate world in British Columbia is the major taxpayer in terms of property taxes, with no say, is of concern.”

A 2008 study by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business stated that an average business in B.C. pays three times the tax on a commercial property than is paid on an equivalently valued residential property.

In Vancouver, the study found, a business pays taxes at 4.9 times the rate that is charged on a residential property with the same value.

Winter stressed that corporations aren’t aiming to overwhelm the votes of citizens. “The proposal that we’re working on with government calls for business getting votes in those communities where they don’t already vote as homeowners,” he said. “So it’s not a duplicate vote.”

While the task force has opened the door to the return of the corporate vote, Antony Hodgson, president of Fair Voting B.C., noted that it has left out the matter of giving citizens new ways to select their municipal officials.

Hodgson’s group supports proportional-representation voting methods, such as the single transferable vote, as opposed to the at-large system that Vancouver and other B.C. municipalities currently use. The latter, according to him, typically produces sweeps by established civic parties in large cities.

Last month, Fair Voting B.C. and Think City, a Vancouver civic-policy think tank, asked the task force—cochaired by Minister of Community and Rural Development Bill Bennett—to hold public hearings in order to raise public awareness of the electoral changes under review.

Bennett wasn’t available to comment on whether the task force will consider public hearings. Ministry spokesperson Marika Glickman told the Straight that the task force is seeking feedback by a number of means, principally its Web site, mail, and fax.

The deadline for submissions is April 15. The province expects to bring in new legislation ahead of the 2011 municipal elections.

Meanwhile, Fair Voting B.C. and Think City are conducting an on-line survey of people’s thoughts on electoral reform. The results will be submitted for inclusion in the City of Vancouver’s feedback to the task force.