The Editor,
Re. "Developers dug deep in Coquitlam election" (The Tri-City News, March 11).
Much attention has been spent of late analyzing the financial disclosure of the candidates from last November's municipal elections, specifically how much candidates spent and where the money came from.
There is the unfortunate perception that, by accepting money from unions or developers or businesses, politicians are getting in bed with these groups that are simply looking to influence the decisions made by those who sit on the councils or the school boards. This causes many to decry this practice and demand changes to put an end to union and developer contributions.
While I agree that changes are needed in local election spending, we need to consider why so much money is being spent on campaigns and why these figures seem to be constantly climbing. Using Port Moody as an example, an analysis of what each candidate spent and who got elected points to a (perhaps obvious) indicator: Spending more money increases the chances of getting elected.
The six Port Moody councillors elected in November collectively spent 50% more than the other eight candidates combined and the two elected school trustees spent nearly double what the other four candidates combined did.
Having run as a candidate for the board of education myself, I can attest to how expensive running a campaign is. When faced with limited personal resources, a candidate has the choice to either be handicapped against better funded candidates or look to other sources to help bear the costs.
All this money is being spent to do one thing: bring the candidate's message to the voters and engage the public to take part. But despite all that money spent, only 35% of eligible voters cast a ballot in this city.
Putting caps on campaign spending and limiting the contributions of unions and developers will not address the problem of the lack of public engagement in the civic electoral process. We need to find a means to bring candidate information to the voters effectively and equitably - and get the other 65% of voters to be a part of the process.
Charlie Loo, Port Moody
