The fossil fuel industry has one of the sweetest deals going with BC Premier Christy Clark. They shell out millions to keep her Liberals elected, and they get rewarded with huge carbon-busting pipeline projects and no penalties when things go wrong.

The “Wild West” of campaign financing has become an international embarrassment for British Columbia—and now the BC Liberals are under investigation by the RCMP. But Christy Clark—and Big Oil—seem to be the only ones not ashamed.

The oil and gas industry has donated a staggering $4.8 million to the BC Liberals alone. If you’re wondering what that kind of money buys, after Kinder Morgan and its lobbyists donated $771,000 to her party, Christy Clark gave the disastrous project the green light.

If Canadians knew about the full extent of the corruption and corporate giveaways, they would be furious. Only a massive public outcry can hold them to account.

Tell the BC Liberals to give back the oil and gas money they took, and end the “Wild West” of Canadian politics.

How can a province can approve the Kinder Morgan pipeline, numerous LNG projects and let the corporation responsible for the Mt. Polley tailings pond disaster off the hook? It might have something to do with the 22,000 times the fossil fuel industry lobbied the BC government since 2010.

But that’s not even close to the end of this story. The majority shareholder of Imperial Metals, whose tailings pond from its Mt. Polley mine leaked millions of cubic litres of toxic sludge into a local water source, is linked to $1.5 million in donations to Christy Clark’s party. Imperial Metals was not fined and no charges were ever laid—for one of the worst environmental disasters in Canadian history.

And don’t bother complaining to the BC Ethics Commissioner: he donated to the Liberals too and so did his son, who even worked on Clark’s election campaign and now serves in her cabinet as a deputy minister. If BC politics were a crime show on Netflix, you’d scarcely believe it.

Premier Clark: Give back the dirty money from Big Oil and promise not to take any more.

Last year alone, the BC Liberals received $12 million in donations—more than any other provincial party and two-thirds of what the federal Liberals received that year. Almost all that money came from corporate donors—with oil and gas making sure they did their part.

With virtually no limits on who can give or how much, British Columbia certainly has the best government money can buy. It’s time that changed.

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