The One About Developer Donations

On February 20, 2023, the Tri-Cities Dispatch published an excellent article which sought to compile all the developer donations that took place in the Tri-Cities during the last civic election. The data was taken from the campaign disclosure statements of the various candidates as filed with Elections B.C. that were released on February 2, 2023 and that can be found here.

A few points in the article are worth highlighting:

• In regards to Port Moody specifically, Port Moody had the most developer donations per capita of any of the Tri-Cities coming in at nearly $70,000.

• Port Moody was the only city in the Tri-Cities where developer donations actually had increased since corporate and union donations were banned.

• Local residents were definitely in the minority in terms of financing campaign of certain candidates with developers representing the majority of campaign donors for Mayor Lahti, and Councillors Dilworth, Knowles, and Morrison.

If you haven’t already read the article, we at the Watch would strongly encourage you to seek it out. It’s worth it. A great piece of local journalism.

Building on the Tri-Cities Dispatch article, the Watch has compiled the developer donation data for Port Moody specifically into a visual form in the hopes of getting across just how entangled and interwoven the situation in Port Moody has bcome between certain elected officials and the development community. This can be seen below.

The Watch would suggest that you don’t even try to read the graphic within the current post as WordPress has a very annoying habit of shrinking graphics to fit their templates.  As such, the Watch would suggest right clicking on the graphic to download the image and then zoom in as required or alternatively, right click the image, open it in a new window, and then zoom in is as required.  Whatever works for you.  Displaying extensive relationship data in an easily digestible form is difficult at the best of times but we think that you will be able to get the gist of what is going on in Port Moody based upon the image.

The visualization includes a couple of additional data points that were not included in the Tri-Cities Dispatch article including a purported family connection of one of the members of council to a local developer and the direct employment of two of the current councillors by the development and construction industry. 

You will notice that the developer donations intensify from left to right (yes intentional) and that Ms. Agtarap appears to be a bit of an anomaly in that given the levels of developer donations seen by the majority of her elected council mates, she seems to have not been on developers’ radar anywhere near as much as her compatriots.  That email that went out identifying her as a pro-development candidate along with a list of other candidates (not a slate remember) clearly helped her.  Not a surprise that the person receiving the highest number of donations from developers was Mayor Lahti with 11, followed by Councillors Morrison, Knowles, and Dilworth who all received seven (not necessarily the same ones incidentally), and Councillor Agtarap with just two. 

Most of the campaign filings are pretty mundane housekeeping stuff with nothing much of interest. A few things did jump out during the Watch’s review of the filings though including the curious case of the Peller Donations and the curious case of some shared/not shared campaign expenses amongst certain candidates.

The Curious Case of the Peller Donations

As a background, the Peller family is associated with Andrew Peller Limited, the parent company that produces Peller Estates, Sandhill, and Wayne Gretzky Wines (amongst others) and hence owns a number of assets in Canada including the former Andres Wine site in Port Moody, the lands at the western end of the inlet designated to be developed into the Westport Village Development . The redevelopment of the former Andres Wines site was originally delayed by portions of the lands being expropriated and used for the Evergreen Line construction. The Westport Village project was recently given an extension but has been the source of controversy in the past. Incidentally, presales on the not yet approved development (which is still partially zoned as industrial) including a 32 storey tower are already being advertised.

Mayor Lahti’s disclosure statement notes a $1,250 donation (the maximum amount possible per candidate) received from John Peller (the President of Andrew Peller Limited) on October 25, 2022 (a full week plus after the election) via a bank draft. This was reported in the disclosure as a prohibited campaign contribution and was retuned on January 9, 2023.

Councillor Morrison’s disclosure statement notes a $1,200 donation (almost the maximum amount possible per candidate) received from John Peller on September 21, 2022 (during the campaign period) via his Fundrazr (an online crowdfunding site) account (reproduced below). This was reported in Councillor Morrison’s disclosure as a prohibited campaign contribution and was returned on January 11, 2023. The contribution noted the business address of Andrew Peller Limited in Grimsby Ontario.

Councillor Knowles’ disclosure statement notes two donations, a $1,250 donation from John Peller (the maximum amount possible per candidate) also on September 21, 2022 via her Fundrazr account, and a second donation for $1,250 from Diane Peller (John Peller’s wife) which was also made on September 21, 2022 via her Fundrazr account. Both were identified as being prohibited campaign contributions within Councillor Knowles filing and both were also returned on January 9, 2023.

It is curious that someone with a background in corporate and commercial law (Mr. Peller is in fact a lawyer) managed to be associated with four prohibited election contributions. Why exactly were all these donations deemed to be prohibited and returned? One wonders, did the donor ask for the donations to be returned? If so, why? Also curious as to why you would be trying to donate to the Mayor’s campaign a full week plus after her election victory. I’m not sure about your moral compass, but does the mental image of someone hand delivering a bank draft a full week after the election that has already been completed bother anyone? What exactly is going on there?

The Curious Case of the Shared/Not Shared Campaign Expenses

It also came to the Watch’s attention that Councillor Morrison’s disclosure statement and Councillor Knowles’ disclosure statement both identify a curious case of shared/not shared campaign expenses between themselves and unsuccessful candidate Richard Biedka. Mr. Morrison and Ms.Knowles both list $1,344 of shared campaign expenses during the campaign period with their portion/claimed share being $448 each (exactly $1,344 divided by 3) (reproduced below).

It is unclear what these shared expenses were as Elections B.C. does not appear to require the identification of exactly what it is, but what is very curious is that these same amounts are not present/claimed on the disclosure statement of Mr. Biedka (see below). If there were indeed shared expenses, surely matching declarations would have to be indicated on the disclosure statements of Mr. Biedka as well? Also exactly what expenses were being shared by these three candidates?

I’m sure that Elections B.C. will be reviewing this curious situation and it will sort itself out. Of course, nothing says “we’re not a slate” more than like-minded, developer-friendly candidates all sharing campaign expenses during the campaign period right?

Edit: It has come to my attention that a flyer produced during the campaign period was likely the source of the shared expenses (although $1,344 does seem a bit much unless some mailing costs were included in that). The flyer is reproduced below. Sure doesn’t look like a slate to me right? But I guess if you say you are independent enough that negates actually appearing in the same flyer and sharing election campaign expenses right? BTW, the outright lies in this flyer are shameful. Hearing a certain councillor talk publicly about the “dogwhistle politics” of opponents while being part of a flyer declaring that your political opponents are taking actions that are intentionally “meant to destroy the value of thousands of properties in Port Moody” is a bit rich to say the least.

Edit: A door hanger from the election has also recently come to light apparently financed by the three “independent” candidates sharing advertising materials, costs, and messaging. I guess if you say “independent” enough it doesn’t count as a slate right?

Summation

In summation, the developer community clearly got what they wanted/paid for in terms of the composition of council and they were willing to put their money where their mouth was (via themselves and/or their family members) in order to achieve that goal. The Watch asks that you please remember the Tricities Dispatch article, this blog post, and the graphic above when the votes on these various developments and zoning amendments come before council. You can bet your bottom dollar that developers will be wanting their favours returned. After all, there is no such thing as free money right? Or is that “nothing is free except for developer donations to developer-friendly candidates which obviously carry with it no implied or inferred obligations”? I forget how that goes but I’m sure that there will be someone out there that will remind us.

The Watch is in the process of filing a number of other FOIP requests, filing complaints regarding code of conduct violations, and researching a number of issues that have come up since the past election. Stay tuned for further updates. Actual moderate growth everyone!

Got any tips that we should know about? Send us an email at tips@portmoodycouncilwatch.ca