Financial chaos within the BCNDP
I recently attended a local constituency NDP executive meeting. Main topic of discussion: we are not receiving any money back from the thousands of dollars in donations we are sending to our Provincial Office. As a result, we are now in debt, without resources to fund a delegate nomination meeting to our upcoming provincial convention. Democracy is an expensive process, even for the cost of stamps to contact local members.....
By law, constituencies are required to submit all donations to the Provincial Party. The BCNDP has a 50/50 revenue sharing agreement with local constituencies for all money raised. Since the May 12 election, this agreement has been arbitrarily changed by the Provincial Executive (sound familiar ? aka cuts to Arts Funding).
No consultation, no explanation, no proposal of a modified formula, and no assurance that there will be any money available to fund local constituency operations in the future. Ergo, no incentive to raise money locally.
The BCNDP has a debt of approximately $2 million. This is a collective debt that requires a collective solution. Local constituencies like ours, that ran a debt-free campaign on a tight budget, are now being forced into debt, and paralysis by arbitrary executive decisions that give no guidance for the future.
Can we govern a province if we cannot govern our own finances as a political party in an orderly way ?
Our executive met recently as well and has directed our Provincial Council Delegate to support the following resolution (I've skipped the Whereas')—
Therefore Be It Resolved that the cost shared funding formula, even on an interim or temporary basis, not be amended without proper advance notification to all constituency presidents and treasurers and prior approval of the Provincial Council.
Our executive met recently as well and has directed our Provincial Council Delegate to support the following resolution (I've skipped the Whereas')—
Therefore Be It Resolved that the cost shared funding formula, even on an interim or temporary basis, not be amended without proper advance notification to all constituency presidents and treasurers and prior approval of the Provincial Council.
At this point I don't care what the formula is, as long as it provides some incentive for local fundraising. In the current situation I don't think we can maintain the current 50/50 formula. We have a collective debt that requires a collective solution. So far we don't have any leadership on how to come up with that collective solution, other than the Liberal approach of "grab the cash and do what we tell you". That is the current BCNDP approach.