What we’re sure was an otherwise lovely fundraising dinner for West Vancouver-Sea to Sky MLA Jordan Sturdy last week was likely dampened by some noisy protests outside.
Among the co-sponsors was Woodfibre LNG, which is currently awaiting approvals from cabinet on whether it will get the go-ahead to build a massive LNG export plant outside Squamish and invite tanker ships to start traversing Howe Sound.
Now, the Liberals made no secret of their love for the LNG industry during the 2013 campaign so we would not accuse Woodfibre of trying to buy support — although some protesters did.
But the optics aren’t good — especially as a decision on their proposed plant looms.
We’d hate for this to suddenly become relevant in the wake of an environmental or industrial disaster, as we saw earlier this summer when it was revealed in the days after the Mount Polly tailings pond breach that the controlling shareholder of Imperial Metals Corp. helped organize a $1-million private fundraiser for the premier.
We’d also like to point out that we are still more than two years away from the 2017 provincial election.
We’d rather our MLAs be focused on governing, rather than going hat-in-hand to their well-heeled sponsors, whether it’s unions or any other group putting up big money in hopes of influencing election outcomes. There’s too much money in politics as it is.
Both the Liberals and Woodfibre have gone on the record to downplay the dustup, saying events like this are routine and many businesses attend them.
We say that’s part of the problem.
