Majority of British Columbians want RCMP to investigate Christy Clark over pay-for-play scandal

By Amy Chen

A majority of British Columbians wants Mounties to investigate Christy Clark for giving corporations billions of dollars of taxpayer money in exchange for donations to her BC Liberal party, according to a poll by ThinkPol conducted using Google Surveys.

A group of corporations donated $56 million to the BC Liberals, and received least $15 billion of taxpayers’ money from the Christy Clark government, an investigation by a British Columbia corruption watchdog Integrity BC uncovered last week^[1]https://www.scribd.com/document/346759081/May-I-take-your-order-please
.

In addition, BC Liberal donors made up the majority of corporations benefiting from the secretive provincial tax refund program that was greatly expanded by Christy Clark’s government in 2014, BC Elections donation database showed^[2]https://thinkpol.ca/2017/05/07/secretive-tax-refund-recipients-mostly-bc-liberal-donors/
.

60% of the respondents answered “Yes” to the question “Should RCMP investigate Christy Clark for giving corporations billions of dollars of taxpayer money in exchange for donations to her BC Liberal party?”

Only 13% answered “No”.

“The RCMP is in the midst of investigation in regards to ‘indirect’ political donations to B.C. political parties,” Dermod Travis, Executive Director of corruption watchdog IntegrityBC said. “The investigation currently underway should go where the evidence takes them and the recently appointed special prosecutor.”

“A forensic audit should be undertaken on certain public infrastructure projects, as well, and depending on the results of that audit a public inquiry should be considered,” Travis added.

British Columbians of all age groups and genders wanted authorities to investigate Christy Clark over what has been dubbed the “pay-to-play scandal”.

The BC NDP have vowed to put an end to corporate donations and investigate BC Liberals’ “shady schemes”.

“Every day, it’s getting harder and more expensive to live in BC, and the only people getting ahead are Christy Clark and her rich friends,” said Eby. “British Columbians deserve to know how much of their hard-earned tax dollars Christy Clark has secretly handed to rich donors.”

Premier Christy Clark is asking British Columbians for a fresh mandate tomorrow at the elections, even as the ruling BC Liberal party faces two other separate RCMP investigations.

The first is the illegal donations, where big business lobbyists have been caught making donations on behalf of their clients in contravention of the BC’s otherwise lax election laws^[3]http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/investigation-of-political-donations-in-bc-referred-to-rcmp/article34266086/.

The RCMP is investigating the matter under special prosecutor David Butcher’s oversight after Elections BC handed the matter over to law enforcement authorities.

BC Liberals have so far returned nearly $250,000 of the illegal donations.

BC Mounties are also looking into the controversial Yaletown land swap, where City of Vancouver property worth $130 million was given to a BC Liberal donor Brenhill Developments for a mere $15 million and social housing worth $40 million, the funds for which was loaned by BC Housing, which comes under the purview of the Deputy Premier Rich Coleman^[4]http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/multimillion-dollar-vancouver-land-swap-scrutinized-1.4059770.

The survey of 300 British Columbian adults has a margin of error approximately plus or minus five percentage points, 19 times out of 20.