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The BC Local Elections Campaign Financing Act is a Farce. Like a yo-yo, it allows donors, who made prohibited election contributions, to get their money refunded to them after the election.

By Sasha Izard
Oct 3, 2025

In a recent article, I wrote: Who is Tavish? Victoria City Councillor Matt Dell reported to Elections BC, a Tavish as having provided $500 for his 2022 election campaign, yet Dell did not provide a last name for him to Elections BC. – CRD Watch Homepage

The episode led myself to engage in a dialogue with Elections BC, as to whether or not providing a first name only, is allowed when reporting campaign contributions at the local government level. Elections BC informed me that such an activity constitutes a “prohibited contribution”.

They wrote: “Contributor information must include the full name, first and last, of the contributor, the amount of the contribution, the date the contribution was made, and the full residential address. If any of the required contributor information is missing it will become a prohibited contribution and must be returned.”

You can read the full dialogue between Elections BC and myself in the previously cited article.

I pressed Elections BC for details about who a prohibited contribution must be returned to, and also if the amount can be returned after the election (it can, see quoted paragraph below).

The following is one of their responses in the dialogue that ensued:

“The Local Elections Campaign Financing Act (LECFA) just says that the requirement is to return a prohibited contribution to the contributor within 30 days from the financial agent becoming aware of the prohibited contribution. This may be at any time. There is no reference to the date of the election in LECFA.”

There is also a potential fine in addition. Often these are not significant amounts e.g. penalties of $125 for example the equivalent of a lower level speeding ticket, for accepting prohibited contributions, are not unusual. You can view a history of them on Elections BC’s website: Administrative Monetary Penalties | Elections BC

The following is quoted from the relevant section (Division 3., 28 “Dealing with prohibited campaign contributions” subsection 1.) of the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act:

“If a financial agent becomes aware that a campaign contribution was made or accepted in contravention of this Act or the regulations under this Act, the financial agent must, within 30 days after the financial agent becomes aware of the contravention,

(a)return the campaign contribution to the contributor, or

(b)pay to the contributor an amount equal to the value of the campaign contribution.”

Local Elections Campaign Financing Act


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Let’s break this down:

The opening word “If” is an easy out. Subsequently, the word “aware” is used more than once in the opening paragraph. These too are easy outs. It is stated in law that the financial agent has to become aware of a transgression of the Act. What is to stop a financial agent, then from simply denying that they were aware of such a transgression?

If a financial agent filed the papers with prohibited contributions, then what they did was negligence by standard use of that word in English, although negligence is not recognized by the Act. The word negligence does not appear at any point in the Act. However, a nullifying, potential state of not being aware is setup as a possibility in the Act. Awareness is the precursor for corrective action by the financial agent.

So let’s say as a pure hypothetical, that a financial agent becomes aware of the fact of a transgression of the Act after the election. In that case, the financial agent has 30 days to return the money to the donor.

Here is what I see as wrong in this scenario:

When a person donates to an election campaign, they are seeking to influence an election result. Why else would they donate to an election campaign?

If the election has taken place, then the influence has been paid for, and however that money may have been spent on the campaign, it may very well have influenced the election campaign, result, or outcome, in a way that the donor would like to see, e.g. that their candidate gets elected; that is after all, generally the intent of donating to a candidate’s campaign. Getting a message out, or attempting to influence the discourse are other possibilities.

In most cases, the donor has not only paid for the influence, they likely have influenced the outcome and discourse in one way or another, at varying levels of significance.

If a donor has already paid for influence, then why, like a yo-yo, are they under the Act, expected to get their money back in the event that a financial agent ‘realizes’ after the election – the error of contravening the Act by facilitating a prohibited donation to their candidate, or having misreported it?

Why would the donor in such a scenario, not only have influenced the election including potentially the result or outcome with their money, and then get it back after the election?

If a donor donated to a campaign legitimately to a campaign according to the Act, do you think they would get or expect to get their money returned to them after the election? Of course not.

So here is the double standard:

1. If a person makes a valid contribution to a local government election, they will not get the money refunded to them after the election.

2. If a person makes a prohibited contribution to a local government election, they can very likely get the amount returned to them after the election by being compelled to get the money refunded to them after the election by the Act, and/or by Elections BC enforcing the Act.

So what is to stop this process from being abused? Absolutely nothing in the Act, other than potential penalties to the financial agent, even potential token ones, it seems. Don’t forget that the financial agent, is provided an easy out in the Act, if they can make the case that they hadn’t become aware of the error until the 30 days before they return the money to the donor (which can take place even after the election).

Where is the penalty to the donor of prohibited contributions? It almost seems as if the Act encourages such behaviour by rewarding it, in compelling refunds to those that provide prohibited campaign donations, even after their political influence has been paid for and/or utilized to affect an outcome of an election.

As a purely hypothetical example, what if a campaign donor were to spend 10 times the maximum limit of an allowable donation? Wouldn’t the donor equally be entitled under the Act, to get their money back after the election, if the financial agent only confessed to realizing the error after the election?

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Appendix 1: Section of the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act (LECFA) that is the topic of discussion in this article.

“Dealing with prohibited campaign contributions

28 (1)If a financial agent becomes aware that a campaign contribution was made or accepted in contravention of this Act or the regulations under this Act, the financial agent must, within 30 days after the financial agent becomes aware of the contravention,

(a)return the campaign contribution to the contributor, or

(b)pay to the contributor an amount equal to the value of the campaign contribution.

(2)If a financial agent is not able to comply with subsection (1), the financial agent must, as soon as practicable, deal with the campaign contribution as follows:

(a)in the case of a contribution of money, pay to the BC chief electoral officer an amount equal to the value of the contribution;

(b)in any other case, either

(i)pay to the BC chief electoral officer an amount equal to the value of the contribution, or

(ii)deal with the contribution in accordance with the directions of that officer.

(3)An amount to be paid under this section must be paid from a campaign account of the applicable candidate or elector organization, unless all campaign accounts of the candidate or elector organization have been closed.

(4)A financial agent who contravenes this section commits an offence.”


Local Elections Campaign Financing Act

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See also:

Index of articles regarding Law and Bylaw – CRD Watch Homepage

Does the Provincial Government of British Columbia Legally Recognize the Existence of Any Lobby? – Creatively United Community