"It's coming, it's coming" says lone NPA Councillor Suzanne Anton. When, however, is something that no one knows...not even her.
I had a fantastic holiday weekend full of social outings and activities, and so I am only getting to this article today.
Suzanne Anton talks a good game, unless of course, it is about her own situation relating to disclosure.
And once again, as detailed last week with NPA President Michael Davis, those associated with that particular electoral organization seem to have very short memories about what they have said in the past.
Anton is no different in this regard.
Here is Anton’s response when asked by the Vancouver Courier’s Mike Howell about disclosing the names her donors or the amount of money collected at a fundraiser held a few months back at the Sutton Place Hotel:
““I don’t know, as a matter of fact. I didn’t do the asking and I didn’t collect the money and I don’t know who paid the money and I don’t know how much they paid.”
She also makes vague reference to her “financial guy” to get some answers.
And you know what? Not having all of the details of how much was spent, how much was collected, how much still needs to be collected, who paid what, etc. is something that a politician might not know off the top of his/her head. Although to be honest, giving a ball park figure of about how much was raised months after the event has already happened doesn’t seem like to gargantuan a task to me.
But the funny thing is, a very similar kind of a response from Gregor Robertson on December 3, 2009 (about 5 minutes in) wasn’t good enough for Anton:
“Anton: You will have been collecting money I’m pretty confident about that, and as long as you are collecting money, you are paying off your debt, and as long as you are paying off your debt, you are in breech of the ongoing disclosure regulations. So may I ask when you intend to comply with those regulations?
Robertson: You’ll have to address those questions to Vision Vancouver and the executive of Vision Vancouver.
Anton: Actually, I don’t think I do need to address those questions to them. You’re the mayor, it’s your political organization and they are there to help you, and they did help you to get elected, and it’s really up to you to exert your influence. The money’s being donated not because people love the Vision Vancouver board, the money’s being donated because people apparently like you and your organization…nothing to do with you and the board and your organization. It’s to do with you. And it’s you and your colleagues that are making these very, very expensive, lucrative decisions on behalf of developers.”
So if that’s the case Suzanne, and that is what you really believe, why is a reporter unable to ask you these kinds of questions in the dead of summer, many months after the finances would have been assessed, without getting a runaround?
The bottom line is that Anton voted against disclosure when advanced by Vision Vancouver during their days in opposition. The fact is that even now, Anton is by no means the poster child for how disclosure for political contributions should be handled.
In fact, she doesn’t even believe she has a duty to do so within any kind of time frame:
“At what point, that’s the question I’m not sure about. At the moment, there is no duty of ongoing disclosure. I have never, ever for an instant been in breach of any disclosure regulations.”
And yet, Anton still has the gall to argue that “Vision should have disclosed the information earlier.”
Unbelivable.
Ian Baillie, regardless of what you think of the party or his position within it, states it pretty simply:
“We have a [contributors’] list out there, the other parties you don’t know where their money comes from. You know where ours comes from. There you go.”
Furthermore, it is Vision Vancouver, with all of their “astonishing” fundraising that took in “close to half a million from developers and trade unions” that is pushing for a ban on those types of contributions.
Anton, on the other hand, doesn’t believe in limiting spending within campaigns. Why? First, she says there hasn’t :
“”been enough discussion out there in the world as to what the right amount to spend is.”
Secondly, because she:
“need[s] to make sure my name is in front of 550,000 citizens of the city.”
Oh, and when they were in power, here was their sense of “urgency” with regards to the disclosure rules:
“Vision’s political foe, the ruling Non-Partisan Association, is not legally required to disclose the identities of its donors until after the November 2008 municipal election. NPA caucus coordinator George Higgins said the party is waiting to see if the rules are changed before deciding whether to disclose any sooner.”
So, as far as I am concerned, it is time for the NPA to buck up, or shut up.
But then again, political hypocrisy seems like a very convenient approach for an entity that truly has little to no credibility within this city anymore.
