On Sept. 20, while addressing local elected officials at the Union of BC Municipalities annual conference in Vancouver, BC Conservative Leader John Rustad spoke about “rigged” election rules. Following his address, NDP Attorney General Niki Sharma fielded questions from reporters about the accusation.
Rustad: “The NDP have rigged the election rules. They actually have given themselves a $2 per vote subsidy for every vote they got in the last election every year. And on top of that, they got half of the money they spent in the last election act. They started with an $8.1 million head start on the Conservative Party of British Columbia. In terms of that, every taxpayer in the province has given them that money to fight this campaign.
“And so obviously they’ve got a huge war chest.”
When Sharma was asked if the NDP had “rigged the rules” to give itself an $8 million war chest, she shrugged it off.
Sharma: “Another conspiracy theory, maybe? We are running a fair campaign. We’re a government that is standing behind our record and happy to go to the record and talk about the good work that we’ve been doing for four [Edit: seven] years and our vision for the province.”
Sharma was then asked if that meant the NDP did not have $8 million built up. She did not answer the question.
Sharma: “We are a party that’s been around for a long time, and we’re dedicated to connecting with people throughout the campaign, and we’ve been fundraising. British Columbians all over the province have been donating to us, and we have that support across this province.”
Fact: The BC NDP got $2 for every person who voted for them in the 2020 election. But so did every other party, thanks to government’s Elections Amendment Act, passed in 2021. Since the NDP won a majority and the BC Conservatives earned less than 2 per cent of the popular vote, the latter party earned substantially less than the NDP. The CTV’s Penny Daflos put together a good overview of the situation.
Bottom line, the NDP “war chest” isn’t from “rigged election rules,” but rather the result of NDP legislation that passed without dissent from any other MLAs. That said, it’s definitely given the NDP a huge financial advantage over rivals heading into this election.