#48: How To Buy A Politician

Summary: <p>The New York Times has called British Columbia “The Wild West of Political Cash.” On the verge of a provincial election, any corporation, union or individual in the world can give however much money they want to British Columbia’s provincial political parties. Sam talks to <a href="http://www.integritybc.ca/?page_id=23">Dermod Travis of Integrity BC</a> about what this has meant for BC’s democracy, then he convenes a panel of leading political scholars to discuss the role of corporate money in North American politics.</p> Plus, check out <a href="https://thetyee.ca/News/2017/05/05/Fundraising-Free-for-All-Clark/">our article</a> we published with The Tyee: Don’t Expect End to Fundraising Free-For-All Under Clark, Says Critic  <p> </p> <p>Panelists:</p> <p><a href="https://twitter.com/ChukaEjeckam?lang=en">Chuka Ejeckam</a> – Political science student at UBC. Researcher with the Centre for The Study of Democratic Institutions. Just starting a project to map and analyze campaign donations to political parties in BC.</p> <p><a href="http://irpp.org/people/our-staff/f-leslie-seidle/">Leslie Seidle</a> – Research Director for the Canada’s Changing Federal Community at the Institute for Research on Public Policy.</p> <p><a href="https://www2.clarku.edu/faculty/facultybio.cfm?id=467">Robert Boatright</a> is a Professor of Political Science at Clark University. He’s the author of Interest Groups and Campaign Finance Reform in the United States and Canada.</p> <p><a href="http://scholar.ulethbridge.ca/haroldjansen/home">Harold Jansen </a> is a political scientist at the University of Lethbridge and the author of <a href="http://www.ubcpress.ca/search/title_book.asp?BookID=299173200">Money, Politics and Democracy: Canada’s Party Finance Reforms.</a></p>