One of the first big moves that B.C.’s NDP government made after taking office last July was to reform and restrict campaign financing.

On October 30, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Selina Robinson introduced a bill in the legislature that was widely understood to ban corporate and union donations from local politics in B.C cities.

The move was hailed as long overdue. Except it didn’t do what a lot of people thought it would, it turns out. Not exactly.

On April 15, the Globe and Mail reported that Vancouver’s opposition Non-Partisan Association (NPA) said it plans to continue taking money from unions and corporations ahead of the city’s next election scheduled for this October.

That prompted a critical response from the mayor’s Vision Vancouver party.

“On October 30th, 2017, the B.C. government introduced legislation that would immediately ban union and corporate donations to municipal political parties,” reads an April 17 Vision Vancouver media release. “The intent of the legislation was clear: there was no scenario where municipal political parties could legally accept corporate or union donations.”

How is the NPA taking political donations from corporations and unions after the provincial government passed legislation reigning in such contributions?

Today (April 17), the authority on such matters, Elections B.C., weighed in.

"There are no limits or source restrictions on money raised by electoral organizations for operational purposes," Elections B.C. spokesperson Andrew Watson told CBC News.

When the provincial government forbid unions and corporations from donating to political parties’ campaigns, it did not ban unions and corporations from donating to political parties.

NPA president George Baker is quoted in CBC’s story defending his party’s intent to continue taking money from unions and corporations to help cover operational expenses.

"All parties need to exist outside an election period and campaign period, and I think the designers of the act realized that it would be completely unreasonable to completely tie us outside of the period," he told CBC News.

In the Globe’s April 15 article, Vision Vancouver cochair Michael Haack states his party will not target unions or corporations with fundraising efforts ahead of this October’s election.

“It goes against the spirit of what the legislation intends,” Haack told the Globe.

In an April 16 media release, Vision Vancouver states it intends to file an official complaint with Elections B.C.

“Elections B.C. needs to put a stop to the NPA raising corporate donations through the backdoor,” Haack said quoted there. “The spirit of the legislation is clear: there is no scenario where municipal parties can accept corporate donations.”

In an email exchange, Elections B.C. emphasized there are strict rules for how civic parties can use money that comes from the organizations in question.

"There are no limits or source restrictions on money raised for operational purposes, but any money raised as 'non-campaign' contributions cannot be used in an election campaign," wrote Andrew Watson, a spokesperson for Elections B.C. "This means that contributions received for operational purposes can never be used for campaigning. Contributions received for operational purposes must be deposited into a separate operational account. Municipal parties cannot pay for campaign expenses out of their operational account.”

This week is not the first time that concerns for loopholes left in the NDP’s campaign-finance legislation have come up.

Last December, the Straight reported that Pete Fry, a former Vancouver council candidate and member of the Green party, warned the NDP’s Local Elections Campaign Financing Amendment Act left room for unions and corporations to continue influencing civic politics.

“That opens the opportunity for kind of an end run around getting a lot of that big money out,” Fry said then.