The B.C. Liberal Party is refunding $92,874 after identifying 43 indirect political contributions prohibited under the Election Act, a party spokesman confirmed Friday.
Emile Scheffel, communications director, said that the party uncovered the improper donations during a review dating back to 2011.
“In these instances, individuals made donations with personal credit cards on behalf of their organizations, and were reimbursed by those organizations, which constitutes a prohibited donation,” he said in a statement.
“These individuals and organizations have indicated that they were unaware that reimbursements were not permitted under the act.”
Scheffel, who declined a request for an interview, said the party is also correcting a number of “clerical errors” after 30 people flagged contributions that had been reported inaccurately.
In each case, the individual was listed as the contributor, rather than their employer, which had donated directly to the party, he said.
The party attributed the mistakes to “data collection errors.”
B.C. NDP deputy director Glen Sanford said the Liberal Party statement leaves a lot of questions unanswered, including the names of the donors.
“No matter how you look at it, what we know is that this all fits under the category of Wild West of political cash,” he said. “And it’s time to fix it.”
The NDP has six times introduced legislation to ban union and corporate donations.
Sanford said his party reviewed the past four years and found two cases of indirect donations on behalf of United Food and Commercial Workers and Pacific Northwest LNG.
The party returned nearly $9,000.
Two other errors were brought to the party’s attention this week, and the party returned donations of $450 and $750, he said.
B.C. Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver, whose party has already banned union and corporate donations, said the Liberals should have identified the problems far sooner.
“I just don’t find it acceptable,” he said. “I find the whole pay-for-access system here in B.C., just frankly, vile.”
Weaver also criticized the timing of the Liberal statement late on a Friday afternoon. “It’s pretty clear they wanted this to fall quietly onto deaf ears over a weekend,” he said.
In his statement, Scheffel said the problems occurred as more contributions and ticket purchases moved online.
“We have made significant adjustments to our online payment process to ensure we collect accurate information from contributors, and that contributors understand the requirements of the Election Act,” he said.
Elections B.C. launched an investigation this month following a Globe and Mail report about improper political contributions. The Election Act prohibits indirect political donations in which someone contributes to a party using someone else’s money.
Elections B.C. has since turned the investigation over to the RCMP to make sure the probe will not impede the administration of the provincial election slated for May 9.
