Rob Shaw: Time to close the loophole that let OneBC tap public cash for circus-tent politics |
If there is anything to be learned from the collapse of the circus tent, perched atop the clown college, located inside the dumpster fire known as OneBC, it is this: the British Columbia public should not be funding political parties that nobody voted for.
For six months, taxpayers have forked over roughly $300,000 in public funding to a political entity that did not exist on the ballot last October. That works out to $50,000 a month. All of it because MLA Dallas Brodie got fired from the BC Conservatives for mocking residential school survivors, and colleague Tara Armstrong decided to quit and join her.
The public money has been used to hire a motley crew of weirdos, malcontents and figures flirting openly with extremist rhetoric.
They showed up in dress clothes at the legislature to cosplay as political staffers. They skulked the halls, mostly videotaping other people doing their actual jobs, while crop-dusting social media with bluster about how their anti-trans, anti-Indigenous, pro-ostrich viewpoints were rocketing to mainstream public acceptance.
Along the way, OneBC spent public funds to produce a documentary infused with residential school denialism. The film was promoted using legislature caucus resources, but featured interviews almost exclusively with their own staff, party supporters and future candidates. Asked how much money was spent producing the film,........