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The Current Transcript for April 12, 2017

Host: Piya Chattopadhyay

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

North Korea and its people need not fear the United States or their neighbours in the region who seek only to live in peace with North Korea.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson may be in Russia today, but relations with another country are also top of mind. Tillerson has tried to calm fears about a potential nuclear standoff with North Korea. But that calm is nowhere to be seen in President Donald Trump’s latest tweets which show his patience is wearing thin. Now Trump’s placing the blame at China’s feet and has issued it an ultimatum—fix it or the US will. We’re wading through the troubled waters outside of North Korea first up. Then, there’s trouble aboard United Airlines.

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[Sound: Screaming]

No. No. Oh my god. My god, what are you doing?

PC: The violent removal of a bloodied man from a United Airlines’ express flight has many people wondering, “What is happening in the aviation industry?” In half an hour, we’re talking passenger rights, overbooked flights and what it’s going to take for airlines to make it right. And later on—

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Christy Clark has lined her party’s coffers without a province out of country donations—limitless, no rules.

PC: It’s election season in British Columbia and the province’s Liberal Party is facing heat for raking in money with cash for access events. We’re heading to what’s being called the Wild West of political fundraising where the rules are loose and lenient. Hi. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

Can China help de-escalate tensions between the U.S. and North Korea?

Guests: Anthony Ruggiero, Wenran Jiang, Greg Scarlatoiu

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VOICE 1: I explain to the president of China that a trade deal with the US will be far better for them if they solve the North Korean problem.

VOICE 2: North Korea is looking for trouble. If China decides to help, that would be great. If not, we will solve the problem without them. USA.

PC: Some of Donald Trump's latest tweets suggesting the US president is putting his military where his mouth is. US warships including the aircraft carrier the USS Carl Vinson are heading to waters off the Korean Peninsula, but it is not clear what the plan is for their presence. North Korean state media yesterday warned of nuclear attacks on American targets at any sign of American aggression. And some analysts believe the linchpin in defusing this escalating standoff is China. Donald Trump has put pressure on the Chinese government to help discourage North Korea's nuclear program. With the birthday of North Korea's founding leader coming up this weekend and a possible nuclear test to mark the occasion, what comes next feels like anyone's guess. To help us sort through this latest escalation we have reached two guests. Anthony Ruggiero is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. It is a Washington-based think tank and he is in Woodbridge Virginia. Wenran Jiang is a political science professor at the University of Alberta and a global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, DC. He's in Edmonton. Hello to both of you.

BOTH VOICES: Hello.

PC: Anthony Ruggiero, let me begin with you. What do you make of President Trump's latest tweets about North Korea?

ANTHONY RUGGIERO: Well, it seems like he is taking a different approach than President Obama took. He recognizes that China is part of the problem here and that China has for a long time unfortunately, allowed North Korea to evade sanctions using Chinese companies and Chinese banks. And Donald Trump has said—and it sounds like he told President Xi directly—that that needs to stop.

PC: Wenran Jiang, what do you think of President Trump's latest talk—at least by Twitter—about North Korea?

WENRAN JIANG: Well, Trump seems to upend the game quite a bit at the moment. We're talking about a new president riding on a new US missile strike against Syria. Confident, aggressive, assertive—the latest tweets just showed that. But what is the solution and what the long term plan when he threatens that if China does not help us, we will do things, solve the problem without them? It's very threatening. So this is very serious because just after these tweets, the Chinese President Xi Jinping barely finished the summit with Trump last week, called him just last night our time and basically tell him that the Chinese will not pursue anything other than a peaceful solution and is willing to work with the United States. And so this is not something China takes lightly, therefore, we need to monitor the situation in a very, very high-alert situation here.

PC: Well, we'll talk a little bit more about China in just a couple of moments but I want to talk about what the United States is doing beyond tweeting. Anthony Ruggiero, what is behind the movement of the aircraft carrier group into the area? I mean what are their capabilities?

ANTHONY RUGGIERO: Well, it's an aircraft carrier group. It includes vessels that can do the kind of strike that we saw in Syria. I think as I noted, it's a new approach from the Trump administration. For 16 years we've said that all options are on the table and the United States has not really taken an action like this. And I think the Chinese are noticing. North Korea is noticing. We have to be clear-eyed in our approach here. The North Koreans just a few weeks ago did a missile salvo that simulated an attack on a Japanese military base where there are US troops. So we're not talking about a country that hasn’t threatened the United States directly. It was only seven years ago that North Korea sank a South Korean freighter and shelled a South Korean island. So North Korea is the one who is the threatening country here.

PC: Well, as you have both said, China is very important to what happens next. Wenran Jiang, China has reportedly mobilized about 150,000 troops along its border with North Korea. What are we to read into that? Why is it doing that?

WENRAN JIANG: Well, the narrative has turned into a very interesting direction. Now we have the US aircraft carrier strike groups moving towards the Korean peninsula. Then you have the—unconfirmed, by the way—report that the Chinese are amassing this amount of 150,000 troops by the North Korean border. Let's just clarify. There's no official confirmation about this movement. In fact, with the Chinese high speed rail system in northeast part of China and it’s northern military district has this amount of personnel. They can easily mobilize 150,000 troops within a few hours within the areas. And so these are not something that is surprising move, simply a matter of arrangement on the Chinese side. So they can deal with the situation. But the narratives seem to show the action is going to take place. What kind of action is a question we need to ask. The US side has presented President Trump reportedly different options including the personal assassination of the South Korean leader, Kim Jong-un. These are serious matters. Yes, North Korea is a threat. It is a terrible regime. But the American options for trying to do regime change or surgical striking against North Korea will have disastrous consequences. This is not Syria at all we're talking about.

PC: And Anthony Ruggiero, do you see that as a likely possibility that we would see some kind of US strike against North Korea similar to what we've seen in Syria?

ANTHONY RUGGIERO: Well, it’s difficult to say. It depends a lot on what North Korea does. But I would just point out that there are many other options that are still available to the Trump administration before getting to that type of an option in terms of a military strike. The United States can increase sanctions against China which I think are long overdue. The US can continue military exercises. I read this morning that it sounds like the Carl Vinson is going to do some military exercises with Japan and I think that's a good development. They can keep forces like the Vinson or other forces in the region to reinforce the statements. And the third thing they can do is increase sanctions implementation. I think it's clear that there is a lot of sanctions evasion going on, not just in China but elsewhere. And the US has a robust sanctions law that they can use to implement it. Sanctions are nowhere near the level that they need to be.

PC: Well, you know Donald Trump is already putting the pressure on China saying do something. Wenran Jiang, does China have the ability to actually rein in North Korea?

WENRAN JIANG: Well, there are two dimensions here. One is the long-held perception or assumption by Washington—the US government and other Western powers—that China somehow is part of the problem and holds the key to the solution of the North Korean crisis. That is not true. China does not have total control of North Korean regime. Yes, China is providing lifelines to North Korea for its survival, for its economic activities, but that does not translate into total control of the behaviour of the regime or Kim Jong-un himself. China has a troubled relationship with North Korea. China doesn't like nuclearization of North Korea at all, but it has limited options, treading a very careful line.

PC: Well, what has it done so far? What has China done so far?

WENRAN JIANG: China is doing a lot of sanctions within the UN network. But let's be clear. China thinks and perceives the problem of North Korean nuclear crisis not a threat to the Chinese but primarily a problem between the United States and North Korea. So China does not want to take the blame nor China wants to see a collapse of North Korea right at its border close to Beijing. This is not something China want to occur. So the strategic preferences here are very different. And here we need to know that China on the one part, it doesn't have all the capabilities of doing things to totally change behaviour in North Korea. At the same time, China does not want to be perceived to be the puppet or the action of the Washington, DC to force regime change. So we have a very difficult situation here and the Americans as we know, with all the options just so far discussed, we forgot there is a diplomatic solution. Rather than using different military, sabre-rattling against North Korea, how about going back to the negotiation tables to reassure North Korea that Washington, DC is not a military threat and they can do some new diplomatic rounds?

PC: Anthony Ruggiero, when it comes to China, what do you think? What do you want to see it doing?

ANTHONY RUGGIERO: Well, it's clear that China has a lot of leverage here. I agree that they may not be able to control North Korea's behaviour, but when North Korea gets I think about 90 per cent of its trade from China, that suggests that it's a large amount of leverage. We just disputed that the trade would equal lifelines. It's clear that China is allowing North Korea to evade sanctions. It's clear that it's state-run. And on a diplomatic solution, sure—that's always an option. But I think we have to be clear-eyed in that as well. North Korea has advocated for previous deals and the last one only lasted two weeks. So there is no suggestion that North Korea is ready to give up its nuclear weapons. The best that we would get is a freeze that would freeze in time North Korea having close to 20 nuclear weapons and that's not acceptable. I don't think that will be acceptable to the United States.

PC: So what is acceptable to you in terms of if it's not a military action and if you say China is not doing enough, what is the solution as you see it right now?

ANTHONY RUGGIERO: The solution right now is more robust sanctions. I know that people you know don't want to hear that because I think people assume that we have robust sanctions now and that's not the case. We had a case in September of Chinese banks doing millions of dollars of transactions through the United States for six years and that's not the only example. So we have things like that would be easy for the United States to close those loopholes if the Chinese are not willing to do that.

PC: Wenran Jiang, what do you see as the best solution in front of us right now?

WENRAN JIANG: I don't think we have any other solutions other than the diplomatic one. And the military solutions as we know from the signals from Iraq to Libya to latest Syria, the signal to North Korea is not just sending the signal.

PC: But what about stronger sanctions? Diplomacy, Anthony Ruggiero says, hasn't worked for a long time.

WENRAN JIANG: Yeah. The sanctions has been in place for a long time and if it leads to regime collapse, that will not be in the interest of anybody other than the United States and Western preference. The Chinese does not want to deal with a collapsed situation. Therefore, the measured sanctions is aimed at leading, pressuring North Korea to a diplomatic solution because we don't really have a military solution here. Therefore, I agree sanction is important. But at the end of the day, the North Koreans—three Kims as the family rulers throughout past several decades since the end of Korean War—what they are asking basically is the recognition of North Korea, is to recognize North Korea as a diplomatic ceasefire solution to move forward. I don't think that is a goal is asking too much.

PC: Okay. We'll just have to leave it there. We're out of time. Thank you both for your analysis this morning. Appreciate it.

WENRAN JIANG: Well, thank you.

PC: Wenran Jiang is a political science professor at the University of Alberta and global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, DC. He was in Edmonton. And Anthony Ruggiero is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. It is a Washington-based think tank and he was in Woodbridge, Virginia. Well, while the US and North Korea face off militarily, alarming human rights violations continue unabated in North Korea. Last month, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution to strengthen its efforts to prosecute human rights violations in North Korea. But for North Korean citizens, life remains precarious. Greg Scarlatoiu is the executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. We have reached him in Washington, DC. Hello.

GREG SCARLATOIU: Good morning.

PC: What are you seeing on the ground in North Korea right now when it comes to human rights violations?

GREG SCARLATOIU: This continues to be the only country on the face of the planet that's running a political prison camp system. One hundred and twenty thousand men, women and children detained at the political prison facilities, many of them pursuant to a system of guilt by association of feudal extraction called yeonjwaje. Family members are punished together with the perceived offender.

PC: Did you say 120,000?

GREG SCARLATOIU: I said 120,000 held only at five to six political prison camps. Most regrettably, there are multiple types of detention facilities in North Korea. Political prisoners are also held at the so-called re-education forced labour camps. To give you just one example, North Korea had a terrible famine in the 1990s. Informal markets have developed afterwards. The ones who have assumed responsibility for the survival of their families are women. They are the ones who get arrested at markets for perceived wrongdoing. Women are the ones who cross the border into China. They are arrested by the Chinese government, forcibly repatriated, subsequently imprisoned. Many of them are at these political prison camps. Following up on the discussion on China, I agree China doesn't have the capability to shut down North Korea, to transform North Korea. It might have the availability and the possibility to shut down North Korea. That said, China can make a tremendous difference in one regard—China continues to forcibly repatriate North Korean refugees to conditions of danger where they face a credible fear of persecution. That practice is a violation of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. It must stop.

PC: I understand that many of the defectors that China is returning—repatriating as we're calling it—to North Korea. They're women. Why is that?

GREG SCARLATOIU: They're women because women have taken the brunt of oppression and the economic difficulties that have been plaguing North Korea. Women are the ones who have assumed responsibility for the survival of their families. Women are the ones who get arrested in China forcibly repatriated. Remember, China is a party to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. It claims that these refugees—many of them women—are not political refugees but illegal economic migrants. That is a deeply flawed argument. Pursuant to the 1951 convention, because they face a fear of persecution in their home country, they qualify as a refugee on site. They deserve protection as political refugees.

PC: This weekend marks the anniversary of North Korea's founder. His grandson Kim Jong-un has been in power just for some years now. How has the human rights situation in North Korea—which has been bad for a long time—changed under Kim Jong-un?

GREG SCARLATOIU: Crimes against humanity continue to be committed against the people of North Korea pursuant to policies established at the highest level of the state, as found by a UN commission of inquiry in February 2014. Some camps have been relocated away from the border with China. This was bad PR for the North Korean regime. In the process, several thousand prisoners disappeared. Detention facilities that are away from the border with China have been expanded. Our organization, the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea in Washington, DC, as well as Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have documented the expansion of North Korea's political prison camps based on satellite imagery and escapee testimony. North Korea has been cracking down hard on attempted defections. The number of defectors successfully arriving in South Korea declined by 50 per cent from 2011 and 2012 from about 2,800 a year to just about 1,500 a year. And moreover and most regrettably, based on satellite imagery analysis, we also notice that the regime has put in place preparations to eliminate witnesses if faced with a set of circumstances that might threaten its very survival.

PC: Greg Scarlatoiu, we will have to leave it there. Thank you. Greg Scarlatoui is the executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. We reached him in Washington, DC. Alright. The CBC News is next. And then we'll be talking about United Airlines after the violent removal of one of its passengers went viral. You've likely seen the video. We’ll talk about passenger rights in the aviation industry when we're back. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti. You're listening to The Current. We're back in just a bit.

[Music: Sting]

What rights do passengers have when airlines overbook?

Guests: Leslie Josephs, Gabor Lukacs

PC: Hi. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

PC: Still to come, the upcoming election is shining a light on BC’s loose political fundraising rules. We're looking at why the province is being called the Wild West of political fundraising in half an hour. But first, United Airlines wants to fly back under the radar after a series of PR nightmares.

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[Sound: Social media notification]

[Sound: Typing noises]

VOICE 1: United Airlines putting the hospital in hospitality.

VOICE 2: United—fly the friendly skies—friendly like this boot on your throat.

VOICE 3: Things that will get you kicked off a United Airlines flight. One, wearing yoga pants. Two, having a United Airlines ticket.

VOICE 4: The year is 2019 and United has upgraded to just throwing passengers out of the plane mid-flight to save on fuel.

VOICE 5: Did you want a window seat or a concussion?

VOICE 6: United, you guys will never have a problem with overbooking now that nobody will opt to fly with you.

PC: Well, leave it to Twitter to spin comedic gold out of a situation that was no laughing matter. The scene aboard the United Airlines express flight Sunday also inspired a new ad campaign courtesy of Jimmy Kimmel's late night show.

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VOICE 1: We’re United Airlines. You do what we say when we say and there won’t be a problem. Capiche? If we say you fly, you fly. If not, tough [expletive].

[Sound: Laughter]

VOICE 2: Oh my god. Look at what you did to him.

VOICE 1: Give us a problem and we'll drag your a**off the plane. And if you resist, we’ll beat you so badly you’ll be using your own face as a flotation device. United Airlines—[expletive] you.

PC: While the jokes continue to fly, United Airlines is facing intense criticism and threats of boycott after a video of a violent removal of one of its passengers went viral. The passenger who is now being identified as Dr. David Dao was forcibly removed from his seat after refusing to give it up on an overbooked flight at Chicago's O'Hare Airport. His removal left him bloodied and he's received treatment in hospital for his injuries. The event has put a spotlight on the ugly underbelly of a cutthroat American airline industry. Leslie Josephs is a travel and transportation writer for the online news site Quartz. She is in our New York City studio. Hello.

LESLIE JOSEPHS: Hi. Good morning.

PC: What do you think when you first saw the video?

LESLIE JOSEPHS: Oh, it was a wonderful way to wake up on a Monday morning. I was shocked. I've never seen anything like this and I've seen a lot of videos that were shot on an aircraft and I've seen passengers act out and get kicked off. We've seen former US senators get kicked off of airplanes for saying the wrong thing. It's very easy to get kicked off an airplane. I have never seen a passenger dragged off in this manner.

PC: When you say kicked off, you're talking about you know sometimes it's things that an airline deems egregious or dangerous. Other times it is because of oversold seats. So how common in the US is it for passengers to be bumped because of an oversold plane, which is really how this whole incident started.

LESLIE JOSEPHS: It's actually not that common. It's about less than one in every 20,000 passengers that this happens to and overbooking is a very, very common practice. And what airlines do so that they don't have any empty seats from no shows, last minute cancellations, somebody is sick, they can't make it to the airport—they don't want those empty seats. They want to make sure that every seat is full so they can make money. So what they'll do is often sell more seats than they have available.

PC: And usually—I mean I've been bumped here in Canada, many people have—it happens before we get on board. And I think that's one of the key questions that people are asking in this incident. Isn't kicking people or bumping people a thing that happens before people actually get on that plane? Is that a regular procedure or does this happen?

LESLIE JOSEPHS: Yes, it is. You're absolutely right. Everything that could have gone wrong in this situation—the way it was handled—happened. And normally the passengers are bumped. You'll hear that announcement that everybody dreads unless you're looking for a voucher or are lucky enough to be flexible enough with your travel plans. You'll hear it at the gate. We’re looking for a few volunteers. Usually an announcement starts. But this was something that was handled on the aircraft. It's a lot more difficult to ask people to get up once they're seated. Everyone knows how difficult it is to board an aircraft and how exhausting. You’re settled into your seat and then they may ask for people to get off.

PC: As you say, bumping doesn't happen that often in the United States. But it is allowed and as you argue, there's reasons that airlines do it, business cases. But how is it regulated in the US? What are the rules?

LESLIE JOSEPHS: Yeah. So it's absolutely legal. Under Department of Transportation rules, these are spelled out—you are entitled to compensation for this. There are two kinds of booking. There's voluntary bumping. When airlines start that announcement—we're looking for a few volunteers—and they'll usually offer some sort of travel voucher which you can negotiate with them. One thing to keep in mind, always ask about those blackout dates. There's tons of fine print with those vouchers. When they don't have volunteers, it's called involuntary bumping and there's set amounts that you are entitled to, that it's based on the fare that you've paid and when they re-accommodate you on another flight, it depends on if you're within an hour of your original arrival time. They'll give you $675. If it's beyond two hours, you're entitled to $1,350, I believe.

PC: Can’t they just up the money? Like if everyone says no, we're not going for that price, can't United or any other airline say okay, we'll bump it up to a $1,000 and then finally say like look folks, this is the highest we're going.

LESLIE JOSEPHS: Yes.

PC: And if someone doesn't get off this plane or decide to be bumped, we're not going anywhere.

LESLIE JOSEPHS: Yeah. I mean they could do that and I mean United made more than two billion dollars in profit last year. And these airlines are rolling in money, thanks to low fuel prices, so they could certainly pay more than they are. And this would have saved United a lot of trouble. But the problem with that is, when you have an aircraft full of people who have the power, they could keep saying no and then you're suddenly in this winged blackjack table where you're just like no, no, up it as much as possible. And then airlines I think do not want to be in that situation where passengers are just folding their arms and waiting for them to offer $10,000. Would it have been cheaper than the $800 million in lost market cap that they lost yesterday when an investor sold their stock? I mean it would have been a lot cheaper than that, certainly.

PC: Well, let us talk about the fallout for United because its stocks are down. I think the closing value yesterday was only down by about one per cent but it’s had a bad time these last couple of days beyond the stock market. It has now apologized, calling what happened horrific. It did only happen after the uproar from the public. How will its handling of this affect its corporate image? Can it bring it back?

LESLIE JOSEPHS: Well, it's had honestly one thing after another. I mean we spoke briefly about leggings gate and these two teenagers who were denied boarding because they were—according to United—inappropriately dressed for what is employee benefit travel. They were traveling on the company's dime. There was an uproar on social media about that and how United's response was so late that the story sort of ran rampant before United could provide any details. They could have nipped that in the bud pretty early. United's response, their first kind of apology after this incident with the doctor onboard who was dragged off, was not only late but the public didn't deem it an apology. The CEO of United Oscar Munoz came out and said we are sorry we had to re-accommodate these passengers. You can't come out the next day and then call it horrific. It was horrific on Sunday.

PC: You mentioned leggings gate, I think what it was called, women wearing leggings. There's a Canadian example. In 2008, David Carroll was on a United flight and he watched from his seat as the crew threw around—he's a musician—threw around and damaged his guitar. His story went viral as well and he's been writing songs about it. He wrote a book called United Breaks Guitar: The Power of One Voice in the Age of Social Media. Last night he spoke on a program, a colleague of ours, Carol Off on CBC's As It Happens. So we're just gonna take a little bit of a listen to him.

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I would have thought they made some advances but I think the same sort of problem has emerged and I think it has to do with the culture in the company. When my video went viral, I received letters from the flight attendants and the pilots’ associations on their letterhead. I'm paraphrasing but they said essentially if you think it's bad flying with us, try working here. So how are you supposed to dazzle your customers with great customer service if the people providing the services feel such disconnection throughout the company? So I think they have some problems that they have to change culturally. And I think if they bring more compassion into the conversation, they'd be better suited.

PC: Leslie Josephs, is this a United Airlines problem? Is there a cultural or institutional lack of compassion at this particular airline or do all airlines equally suck sometimes?

LESLIE JOSEPHS: I mean they suck for different reasons I suppose and lots of airlines have problems. We remember a lot of technical glitches that have grounded lots of flights. We've been dealing with that in the US. That happened to United in the summer of 2015. Delta had a very high-profile outage that forced them to cancel about more than 2,000 flights last summer. But it's all in how you handle it. And I know that Delta was very hands on and gave out gift certificates and the response was so immediate. So I think United is teaching a lesson to all other airlines. The problem for passengers is that there's been so many mergers in the airline industry following bankruptcies. It’s as you said a cutthroat business. The margins are very thin. Passengers don't have the choice that they used to have. United merged with Continental. American merged with USAir, Northwest and Delta. So it's a shrinking space. So it's kind of this almost like a necessary evil sometimes. And airlines have enormous power over air travellers.

PC: And there's contracting out. This particular fight was United Airlines Express which another company is involved in. But you know I'm glad you brought up the mergers and bankruptcies and airlines saying look, it's more competitive. It's leaner and meaner. We've got to do these things to make sure our bottom lines—which are still profitable—but are not as profitable as they once were. So is there any way to connect those sort of financial pressures to the type of incident that happened to Dr. Dao on board that United Airlines flight?

LESLIE JOSEPHS: No. Well, yes and no. Overbooking is not going to go away and people who defend overbooking say that it keeps airfares low. Airfares have tumbled. It is so cheap to fly right now, mostly thanks to cheap oil prices and the crash that we had almost three years ago in oil prices. And it helps them keep travel affordable. So there's that end of overbooking. Is it going to affect you? Likely not, but possibly. But the treatment of the passenger and the way that the company handled it, I don't really see any excuse for.

PC: What is the long term impact—is there one—on United Airlines? I mean do we just move on to the next viral video in a couple of days or do you think this sticks?

LESLIE JOSEPHS: This could stick. Where it's having a lot of impact is in China and you see that it's very high on social media. This is a market that is very important to US carriers and all airlines. It's a very fast growing group of tourists. The United States of course wants to attract more tourists and it's having some trouble with some other image problems that we've been having with other regulations—laptop ban, travel bans and things like that. So this is just one more thing that could destroy the image of the US as a welcoming place.

PC: Leslie Josephs, thank you for your time.

LESLIE JOSEPHS: Thank you.

PC: Leslie Josephs is a travel and transportation writer for the online news site Quartz and we reached her in New York City. Well, our next guest has been fighting for better passenger treatment for a very long time. Gabor Lukacs is an air passenger rights advocate. He is in our Halifax studio. Hello to you.

GABOR LUKACS: Good morning.

PC: Why do these stories about airlines behaving badly make so many people so angry?

GABOR LUKACS: Those experiences are very common and they embody what is wrong in many corporate cultures and what you would just label as the corporate attitude—an attitude where a corporation cannot be wrong—it can only perhaps make a genuine mistake, even when everybody understands what happened was a horrific event. It all comes down to what happens. When here in Halifax, the Air Canada aircraft crashed, Air Canada stated it was a hard landing. When they bloodied up this poor passenger, the CEO comes out and says that the passenger was re-accommodated. This whole corporate speech is something profoundly irritating for an average consumer who very well understands what those words mean in practical terms.

PC: And then pay a lot of money. I mean airline prices may have dropped but it's still a large chunk of change to fly just about anywhere.

GABOR LUKACS: It is not the money that makes people so angry but rather the sense of helplessness. I've seen a number of grown men just break down into tears in a matter of minutes because they knew they were missing a funeral, a wedding, an event, a connection, a job because of the airline’s incompetence. And when you pay in advance and you have an agent who has so much power over you, it is creating a lot of rage.

PC: I talked to Leslie Josephs about the situation of bumping passengers in the United States. What is it in Canada to oversell flights? How does that work?

GABOR LUKACS: In Canada, unfortunately airlines can also over serve flights and the situation is worse in the sense that we don't have an air passenger bill of rights. We don't have legislation or regulation which would provide standardized amounts so that airlines have to pay when they bump you. Never mind when you are delayed or your flight is cancelled like in the European Union. In Canada under the air transportation regulations, every airline is supposed to have a document called the tariff setting out the terms and conditions and the compensation for bumping passengers has to be stated there. But the amount can be anything from $50 or $100, $2,000. It's up to the airline. This is also why I challenged Air Canada four years ago about Air Canada's denied boarding compensation policy. Air Canada used to just give you $100 which is peanuts. And after my challenge, Air Canada was ordered to pay up to $800 when passengers are bumped—and in cash—not in travel vouchers.

PC: Let me just ask you one question. But I wanted to pick up on what you were just saying. In the United States, Leslie Josephs said that about one in 20,000 passengers get bumped. What are the numbers in Canada? How often are we getting bumped?

GABOR LUKACS: In Canada, there is no requirement to report those statistics. This is part and parcel of the problem of how much behind the rest of the Western world Canada is when it comes to air passenger rights. Actually when I was fighting the case with Air Canada, Air Canada submitted some statistical data but the Canadian Transportation Agency ruled that I could see it only if I promised not to reveal it to others. I had to make an undertaking of confidentiality which I'm finding ridiculous because in the US, all that information is public.

PC: What is your advice then, given what you said in your fight, what's your advice to Canadians who are travelling and could face getting bumped? What should they do?

GABOR LUKACS: The first takeaway from this incident is to always document what is happening to you and to your fellow passengers. If you see the slightest conflict, the slightest discord between a fellow passenger and a crew member, take out your cell phone and begin recording the video so that there will be evidence of what really happened there. A number of passengers that I'm talking to have fallen victims to lack of evidence, that you have three, four airline employees who will all say that the passenger was drunk, that he was belligerent and the passenger is helpless. So whatever happens to you, document it. In terms of avoiding being bumped, there is no magic wand. You certainly can try to perhaps be among the first people to check in and get a seat, a sign that slightly increases your chance of not being bumped.

PC: What about paying more for a ticket?

GABOR LUKACS: If you buy a business class ticket, then what may happen to you—I just heard last night—is that you're downgraded to economy class but at least you're not booted from the flight altogether. So if you have lots of money and you can afford a business class ticket or a first class ticket, that may offer you more protection.

PC: The Canadian government has said it will soon introduce a passenger bill of rights but Transport Minister Marc Garneau didn't give any specifics yesterday. What do you want to see in a Canadian bill, a bill of rights to protect passengers from oversold flights, from bumping?

GABOR LUKACS: The most important issue is not what will be in the bill but how is it going to be enforced. We already have the Montreal Convention which is part of the carriage by air act which does provide or supposed to provide protection to passengers travelling internationally. The real problem is that in Canada we have no enforcement. Canada is a land of lack of consequence, of no consequences for airlines that break the law. In the US, the Department of Transportation tends to give out fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Their Canadian counterpart, the Canadian Transportation Agency, has decreased their enforcement actions to a quarter of the level where they were two years ago. And there is a structural institutional problem there. There is a government failure in Canada when it comes to the protection of passenger rights. We have a regulatory body who is vice chairman, is a former lobbyist for the airline industry. The manager of air enforcement has admitted under oath that she is on first name basis with executive from the industry.

PC: I want to talk more about the government perhaps doing the passenger bill of rights because this is not new. Successive Canadian governments have been talking about an air passenger bill of rights for years. Government over government says yeah, we're going to bring it in. It never happens. It has been, I think it's safe to say it's been happening for decades now.

GABOR LUKACS: I would qualify that it was the NDP that put forward on two occasions a concrete passenger bill of rights which was defeated on both occasions by the Harper government. And I wonder to what extent the liberals were also assisting in defeating those bills.

PC: Okay. Well, let me ask you this. Given that we don't have an air passenger bill of rights, is there ever going to be one in your opinion in our country?

GABOR LUKACS: I would certainly hope so. But the real question is who is going to enforce whatever it’s going to be? I'm very much hoping that as part of the review of the Canada Transportation Act, some form of improvement will be included. The question is: is it going to stay anything but ink on a piece of paper? Is it going to be implemented? Is it going to cause actually airlines to comply with it? And in the current regulatory climate, I'm very concerned that the regulatory captures would prevent even the best possible bill from having any substantial effect.

PC: You know there are those who are saying it was terrible what happened on that United Airlines flight. It should have never happened, but it is an extreme example and a very, very rare one. The more common example is people get asked to take the voucher—the 100 bucks, 800 bucks—be bumped off their flights. Airlines need this because it's a business model that they're leaner and meaner and all of those things. They have to do that. Are we overreacting to what was a rare event?

GABOR LUKACS: Not at all. This event somehow condenses the experience of all passengers of feeling helpless, of being treated very poorly by airlines and of airlines using intimidation techniques like calling police officers even when there is a civil, peaceful—

PC: Security officers, yeah.

GABOR LUKACS: Police officers. I had it happen to me on two different occasions. One of them was by United Airlines. The Winnipeg airport, I was having a dispute. They cancelled my flight and refused to put me on another airline’s flight which they were supposed to. I was respectful but assertive. They called the police on me and tried to turn something which is a civil matter, a civil dispute into a criminal dispute. It ended up in court actually. And I was fortunate to have a judge who listened to the recording of my conversation with the airline’s agents and found that the United agents were not truthful and that I did nothing wrong. But the exception was that I was recording my interaction with the airline’s agents. So this experience of getting police officers there just as a way of hinting to passengers: you should think twice what you're going to demand is happening all the time. And that is part of the problem, that police is willing to partake in such conduct and airlines engage in this kind of conduct and it is more common than the average passenger would think.

PC: Gabor Lukacs, thank you for your time.

GABOR LUKACS: Thank you for having me.

PC: Gabor Lukacs is an air passenger rights advocate. He was in our Halifax studio. We do want to hear about your experiences with air travel—the good, the bad, the ugly, the very, very ugly. Tweet us @thecurrentCBC. On Facebook, you can find us there and comment or send an e-mail with your story by going to our website, www.cbc.ca/thecurrent. Once you're there, click on the contact link.

[Music: “United Breaks Guitars” – David Carroll]

PC: That’s David Carroll of Halifax with “United Breaks Guitars”. David wrote that song back in 2009. Alright, coming up in our next half hour, BC is being called the Wild West of political fundraising. We're looking at the cash for access controversy in that province. That is coming up. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti. You're listening to The Current. We're back in mere moments.

B.C. Liberals face heat over 'cash-for-access' fundraising ahead of election

Guests: Nancy Macdonald, Dermod Travis, Andrew Wilkinson

PC: Hi. I’m Piya Chattopadhyay sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: What people want to know is that when someone donates to a political party, it isn't linked to a decision that government made.

VOICE 2: The first thing a John Horgan government does is table legislation to ban big money in politics in British Columbia.

PC: That was BC NDP leader John Horgan calling out the government of BC Premier Christy Clark back in January. She was responding to criticism of her party's use of so-called cash for access political fundraisers to fill BC Liberal Party coffers. Now cash for access means attendees shell out big cash to rub shoulders with those in power. The controversial private events like dinners and golf tournaments have been lucrative for the BC Liberals. According to Elections BC data, the majority of money raised by that party in 2016 came from such events. BC’s lack of restrictions on political donations has earned an international reputation as a pay-to-play Wild West and the practice is under renewed scrutiny now that the province's election campaign kicked off yesterday. The vote will be on May the 9th. Nancy Macdonald has been covering this issue. She is an associate editor for Maclean’s. She's based in Vancouver. That's where she is. Hello.

NANCY MACDONALD: Hi, Piya.

PC: Why is British Columbia being called the Wild West of political donations?

NANCY MACDONALD: BC’s earned the reputation because of the huge amount of money that's now soaking the system out here. In BC, any person or company or government can donate as much money as they want as often as they want from anywhere in the country and indeed from anywhere in the world.

PC: How much money are we talking about?

NANCY MACDONALD: Well, $13 million last year, $33 million since last election.

PC: This is for the Liberals.

NANCY MACDONALD: This is for the Liberals. I mean that's more than any other governing party in any other province was able to raise last year. It's 13 times what the Quebec liberals raised. It's six times what the governing party in Alberta raised and it's twice what your Ontario liberals raised. It's just completely out of scale. I mean Ontario is a province with three times the population, three times the economy, four times the number of head office jobs. You know a much bigger province with a much bigger economy. So these numbers are just completely out of scale.

PC: I want to drill down with you a bit about how exactly cash for access works. We use this term but what does it mean? How much do people generally pay to attend an event so they can rub shoulders with those in power?

NANCY MACDONALD: Well, you know the practice is now banned in Ontario. It's banned federally and the numbers we were talking about federally were in the thousand-dollar range for it to meet with the prime minister. You know there have been fundraisers here in BC to meet with the premier where you're paying $5,000, $10,000, upwards of $10,000 just to sit down for dinner. So there's you know a small slice of the population who can afford to do that and have their voices heard.

PC: So if you're paying 5,000 bucks to go have rubber chicken dinner in a ballroom with the premier, I mean what are you really paying for? What are people really paying for?

NANCY MACDONALD: I mean I guess they're paying for, they want their opinion heard. They want their voice heard when it comes to public policy. But you know we're not only talking about $5,000 rubber chicken dinners. We're talking about development firms here giving the party a million dollars and I mean maybe they're doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, but it certainly leads to a perception out here that the interests of big donors are being given priority over what's best for the province. There's a real fear among British Columbians that that's what's happening. There's a fear that democracy in the provinces is devolving into who can build up the biggest pile of dough.

PC: You know lobbyists have access to politicians so some people might suggest why does it matter if lobbyists get to rub elbows with the premier and other members of the government?

NANCY MACDONALD: Well, I mean I think the government should also worry that you get this echo chamber of big donors, friendly lobbyists and that becomes the only people you're hearing from. You're not hearing from people who are actually struggling to get by in this province and you know it's a real tragedy for Christy Clark. She's an incredible retail politician. She's got an incredible ability to connect with the average voter. She struggled. She's found herself out of work. She's a single mom. She's got a lot of ways to connect with people and yet, who she's hearing from or who she appears to be hearing from is lobbyists, is big donors. And until recently, the government wasn't taking the housing crisis here seriously or there was a perception that they weren't. And you know their housing minister would make comments, almost laughing outright at people who are complaining about how hard it is to get by here. They changed that a year ago, reversed their position but they just don't appear to understand things like that.

PC: Okay. These rules, these cash for access—well, non-rules actually—they're not just for one party. They're for all the parties. So where are the other parties in BC on this? Do the NDP or the Greens take advantage of the province’s lack of restrictions?

NANCY MACDONALD: Look, the NDP has got their hands dirty too. They're taking money this way. They raised about half, less than half what the liberals did last year: six million. They've held these cash for access events as well. Now the difference is they're saying they've tried five times to introduce legislation that would ban corporate and union donations. They tried to do it again very recently. And you know this is something that 86 per cent of British Columbians want, but you know they're continuing to accept money. The Greens, however, have stopped. They're so sickened by this business that they're refusing voluntarily to accept money from big corporations and unions.

PC: As you just said, 86 per cent of BC residents say that they want some tightening up. Election kicked off yesterday. May 9th is the vote. How much of an election issue do you think this might be?

NANCY MACDONALD: Well, when you look at the premier's popularity ratings, they've come down from 36 per cent in February. It's now at 30 per cent. And you know this issue, this has been a big issue in media since February. So you can imagine that that's the personal hit she's taken. The party figures appear to still be strong. And I don't know if you'll remember the last election. There were major problems with polling. Pollsters appeared to have—

PC: Got it wrong.

NANCY MACDONALD: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you know I'm hesitant to bring up these numbers because you’re using the same methods this time around, but it looks like the NDP is slightly ahead of the BC Liberals, like at 41 per cent versus 38 per cent for the Liberals. So you know it does appear to be something that could become explosive in this campaign.

PC: I'm going to be speaking with the liberal candidate in the BC election in just a few moments. How would you say the party has responded to concerns about the fundraising method so far?

NANCY MACDONALD: Okay. So it's not just cash for access. There have also been scandals over the lack of rules surrounding lobbying. And one issue that recently came to the fray. There was great reporting done by the Globe and Mail by Kathy Tomlinson and she showed a major loophole and this resulted in the RCMP being called in. So now you've got police looking into these practices. So the BC Liberals have responded by saying they're going to put together a commission. They haven't said exactly when it's going to be after the election and they want this commission—an independent commission—to look at the rules and you know consider modernizing. So I mean they're responding but slowly. But compare it to what Kathleen Wynne, the premier of Ontario has done. She faced intense scrutiny for a few months last spring over cash for access, over fundraising techniques. You know by August, three months later, she was announcing new legislation. By January of this year, this legislation was in place.

PC: And her poll numbers dropped a lot, that being one of the things contributing to it.

NANCY MACDONALD: Well, that's just it. But you know the BC Liberals in introducing legislation wouldn't be accepting defeat. They wouldn't be accepting blame for this. I mean no previous government has put these rules in place. There's not been a modernization of these rules in BC but it's high time for it. And it’s something by far and away the majority of the province wants.

PC: Nancy Macdonald, thank you.

NANCY MACDONALD: Thank you.

PC: Nancy Macdonald's an associate editor for Maclean’s. She's in Vancouver. Well, my next guest has been tracking the cash for access controversy. Dermod Travis is the executive director of Integrity BC. It is a non-profit organization that aims to restore trust between citizens and their elected officials. He's been advocating for changes to this kind of political access. Dermod Travis is with us from Victoria. Hello.

DERMOD TRAVIS: Good morning, Piya.

PC: Who are the people making these kinds of donations?

DERMOD TRAVIS: Well, I think most listeners would be kind of shocked to find out that some of these individuals come from across Canada and may very well come from foreign countries around the world. OMERS, the Ontario Municipal and Employee Retirement System in fact is one of the donors to the BC Liberal Party and is more transparent in its disclosure than the party itself is in British Columbia under the legislation. So that we do know that the pension fund of Ontario Municipal Employees has bought $10,000 tickets to fundraising events in British Columbia to have sit-down dinners with the premier. I think it's important to note these $10,000 events don't take place in large open areas, but rather in private homes, private clubs, 10-20 individuals. Security is often hired to keep prying eyes far away from the doors and the windows. And I do have to salute OMERS at one level because they're actually quite transparent as to why they purchased these tickets. They talk about the fact that they don't make donations to political parties in their official policy, but you can buy a fundraising ticket at $10,000 which may have a fundraising component in it which quite clearly I think it does. But the reason that they do this is—and I'm quoting from their official policy now—

PC: I just wanted to tell people what OMERS is—the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement Fund.

DERMOD TRAVIS: That's correct. And they own LifeLabs through Borealis Infrastructure, one of their subsidiaries. So they have a very big vested interest in health care policy in British Columbia. And on their website, their official policy notes: “If the event is relevant to our strategy and will advance our interests, we will purchase tickets, not because they support the ideological position of the party but rather it will advance the interests of a pension fund.”

PC: Okay. But when you're tracking this and maybe it's not the OMERS example, maybe it's something else. When you connected the donors with government policies, what did you find out?

DERMOD TRAVIS: What we find out is that there is an incredible level of coincidences that fall into place when you look at donations and government decisions. We were just talking about OMERS a moment ago. In 2013, they decided to purchase biomedical laboratories in British Columbia. It was a decision that required both federal and provincial approval. Now the decision was announced in January of 2013, an election year and despite the health minister in British Columbia at the time raising concerns about the acquisition, they were somehow able to get the BC government's approval within three months which frankly for any government is almost record time. And we can keep pointing to these types of coincidences. We see it in infrastructure. We see it in government regulatory capture and British Columbians can smell the fact that there's something wrong.

PC: The Liberal Party of BC is now releasing real-time reports of who's making political donations. So how far does that go toward addressing your concerns to make the question of access to government, to those in power, to those who want to be in power more transparent?

DERMOD TRAVIS: Not particularly far. It's cute sloganeering on their part quite frankly. The premier had a $5,000-a-plate cash for access event in Kelowna in January. She was asked the next morning: who was at the dinner? We know that there were about 13, 14 people who were at the dinner, who were invited by the Minister of Agriculture Norm Letnick because they are “leaders in the community.” And she would not tell the media who was at the dinner and fell back on her real-time jargon slogan promise that it will all come out in two weeks. What hasn't come out in two weeks? The media in British Columbia, myself, we have to play guessing games to try to figure out who's there.

PC: Wait a minute. So the Liberal Party of BC is now releasing real-time reports of who's making political donations. You're saying that's not happening?

DERMOD TRAVIS: No. I'm saying that that's happening but that doesn't tell you who is at the cash for access events.

PC: Why not?

DERMOD TRAVIS: Because there is no corresponding link between the donation and the attendance of an individual at an event. So we're no further ahead.

PC: Meaning someone buys a ticket that is listed. So Piya Chattopadhyay buys a ticket. I shouldn’t use myself. But John Smith buys a ticket. Someone else goes to the dinner who is in a position to get access to the powers.

DERMOD TRAVIS: Well, maybe you bought the ticket let's say in November of last year because you knew the event was coming up. It's held every year. How are we to connect your donation in November to the event in January? There's absolutely nothing in the Liberal Party's real=time disclosure that allows that. You've added the extra dimension which we have learned thanks to Kathy Tomlinson's reporting in the Globe and Mail, that lobbyists have often been making these donations in their personal name either to attend themselves or for their client to attend. Again, we have no way of knowing by real-time disclosure.

PC: So far we're focusing on the BC Liberals. The opposition BC NDP is also engaged in some similar political fundraising. Is it less of a concern to you if this type of political fundraising happens in a party that doesn't form the government?

DERMOD TRAVIS: No. I think that something that is wrong for one political party is wrong for all political parties. And Nancy a moment ago was talking about how much money is in BC politics. The BC NDP last year raised more money than the federal NDP did across Canada. That gives you a sense of how much money is floating around our system in British Columbia. It's getting raised from foreign countries. We have China Radio International donating to the BC Liberal Party. I think if we're going to say cash for access is bad, it's bad for everyone.

PC: Here's the thing. We should make it very clear that this practice is legal. There are no laws to limit this type of cash for access in BC. Given that, what kind of legislative reforms do you want to see?

DERMOD TRAVIS: I think we have to have exactly what's in place in Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and the federal level. We ban corporate and union donations. We cap individual donations and make certain that the only people who can donate to a political party in our system are people who can actually vote in the election. We have the extraordinary situation of at least two foreign governments using their state-controlled enterprises to donate to the BC Liberal Party. That should be a concern not only just to British Columbians but to all Canadians quite frankly. This rule system that we have in place in BC is quite frankly an abdication of every traditional democratic system we want to have in place to protect our sovereignty.

PC: Dermod Travis, thank you for your time. Appreciate it.

DERMOD TRAVIS: My pleasure.

PC: Dermod Travis is executive director of Integrity BC. He was in Victoria. Last year BC’s Liberal Party raised $13 million in political donations. That's more than twice the amount raised by the NDP, its biggest political rival. After months of being under fire for so-called pay to play, Premier Christy Clark committed to appointing an independent commission to make non-binding recommendations for reform if she wins this election. Andrew Wilkinson was a minister of advanced education until the election call yesterday. He is now the provincial Liberal candidate in the riding of Vancouver-Quilchena. He's in Vancouver. Hello.

ANDREW WILKINSON: How are you?

PC: I'm okay. I want to talk to you really with two hats on, one at a time, as a member of the cabinet in the government of Christy Clark until yesterday and as a member of the Liberal Party running for re-election. So let me start with the latter one. How do you respond to the criticism that there is an uncomfortable coziness between your party and your donors?

ANDREW WILKINSON: Well, there's a lot of innuendo involved here. I hold an annual fundraising dinner that anybody can come to and mostly it's people in my riding who come to it and some friends and family as well. As I say, anybody can buy a ticket and we don't talk about cabinet policy there. I tell them what's going on in government generally and encourage them to be supporters and this stuff is ubiquitous. It happens across the country.

PC: How much is the ticket?

ANDREW WILKINSON: Two hundred and twenty-five dollars.

PC: Okay.

ANDREW WILKINSON: And so when fundraising events are held in various locations around the province, the ticket price varies. For the most part, anybody can come to them and it's a way for parties to raise money. And I think the key point to get across here is if the parties aren't raising the money and are accountable of the ballot box, these funds go elsewhere. There is a large billboard, 10 feet by 20 feet across from my campaign office with a black and white photo of me from an American funded foundation that accuses me of bribery and corruption. So that is the alternative.

PC: Okay.

ANDREW WILKINSON: If the parties aren't running the fundraising, then it's going to go through third party channels and it's going to get very, very nasty.

PC: Okay. But here's the thing—$225 for your fundraiser—you say you just download information. There isn't any cozying up. But the accusation is that it's not about your $225 dinner. It's about the $5,000, the $10,000, the access to power, that there is that coziness between your party and your donors.

ANDREW WILKINSON: Well, there's this linkage drawn between being a supporter and donor and someone having what is called access. Anybody can come to see me. I see people in legislature on very short notice. I see people in my constituency office all the time. Anybody can come to see me anytime. There’s no gatekeeper saying that there has to be a donation. That's just absolute nonsense. But that's the innuendo that's been drawn, that somehow donations are required to meet with politicians in British Columbia. That's nonsense. There's no basis for that at all. And you know we've introduced this whole process of transparency so that everybody can see who our donors are on a real time basis. The NDP refused to do that. The NDP most recently disclosed that they've received the largest political donation in BC history—$675,000 from an American controlled union. So this issue is being muddied into what Mr. Travis called cute sloganeering. Well, I'm going to suggest that cute sloganeering is on all sides in this matter.

PC: Okay. There is also concerns about the ethics of this, the ethics of large cash donations in a legal situation where you can take them, but just being ethical about it. How do you defend that manner of political fundraising?

ANDREW WILKINSON: Well, ethics as you probably know is subject to numerous interpretations. And it's a term that can be used critically as you're implying.

PC: I'm not implying anything.

ANDREW WILKINSON: But the essence of it is that this system has been around for 40 years. The NDP benefitted from it throughout their time in office and it's a system that Premier Clark has said should be the subject of an independent commission to review proposals for political fundraising reform in BC and across Canada, make recommendations to improve the system. But there's this innuendo out there that somehow donations are required for access which is absolute nonsense.

PC: Here is the implication though. In other provinces, namely Ontario, the rules changed here. But other provinces have strict rules about how much and who can donate. Why not follow that? Why didn't your government bring in any reforms while in office?

ANDREW WILKINSON: Because those were all done on a piecemeal basis on the fly. They picked numbers out of the air to try and solve the political pressure upon them. We're saying get an independent commission to look at this and come up with a sensible package that actually makes sense as a whole, rather than do these things on the fly and try to mollify the newspapers by arbitrarily picking a number out of a hat. As I said earlier, we have a completely open access to our government. People can come and see us about just about anything. I hear from a full range of people from the SPCA to certain medical groups, to people interested in advanced education, setting up private institutions in British Columbia. Nobody is keeping that gate. They can come and see me anytime.

PC: Christy Clark's proposed independent commission reforms would be non-binding. What's the point of their recommendations if they're not binding?

ANDREW WILKINSON: Well, obviously they’d have to go to the legislature. It's not a matter of outsourcing responsibility for these things. It's an essentially political phenomenon to talk about political fundraising. So it makes sense to get recommendations from the commission and decide whether there is something that the legislature as a whole thinks is worth debating and whether it would pass muster in the legislature. That to me is fairly obvious in that we can't just outsource the function of legislature and have an independent party do it. The courts have a function in that regard, but that's after the fact. The courts don't make policy. They make decisions about the past.

PC: Your government tabled a bill just before the election to curb corporate and union political donations. You raised concerns about union donations. This bill was the only one introduced by your government. It failed to pass before the election was dropped yesterday. How committed are the BC Liberals to change fundraising, given the fact that the bill couldn't pass and you haven't had a majority?

ANDREW WILKINSON: Well, Premier Clark’s been very clear about platform commitment and she's made a platform commandment in the document I’m looking at right in front of me to have this independent commission come forward and review all of the fundraising processes across the country and make recommendations to our legislature to improve the system. And I think that's an entirely responsible approach. We have a very strong track record of following through on our platform commitments and so that report, if we're elected on May the 9^th, would probably come in within a year and then it would be open for public debate. We've got to remember the public have a say in this as well. It's not something you just hand off to three or four commissioners and then take their view as gospel truth.

PC: Andrew Wilkinson, you've heard this before. People are describing the BC situation as the Wild West of political fundraising. How would you describe it?

ANDREW WILKINSON: Well, I think the Wild West allegation is probably best suited to these foundations and non-profits that are accepting money from the United States through a whole bunch of undisclosed sources and launching campaigns which are essentially defamatory, that are designed to destroy reputations. You know I've been in legal practice for 25 years and I find myself accused of basically criminal offences on a billboard across my office. That is offensive. That's got no place in the electoral system and if political parties are the ones who are involved in the political process, then they're entirely accountable at the ballot box and the public can make their decision about the political parties. But when we see this kind of completely defamatory advertising, that is a serious problem in our society. And so there's a level of disclosure there as well which a commission may want to look at in terms of where the funding is coming from for these attack ads from non-profits and foundations.

PC: Andrew Wilkinson, we'll have to leave it there. Thank you.

ANDREW WILKINSON: Good. Thank you very much.

PC: Andrew Wilkinson is a BC Liberal candidate in the riding of Vancouver-Quilchena. He was in Vancouver. That is our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One. q is headed your way. American tenor Michael Fabiano will be talking to Tom Power about making art forms like ballet and the opera more accessible to modern day audiences. Remember you can always take The Current with you to go on the CBC Radio app. It lets you browse through past episodes of our show, start listening in just a few seconds. You'll find the day's top stories and you can click and listen on the spot or make a playlist of your favorites to listen to later on. You can do that on your smartphone or tablet. It is free from the App Store or Google Play. Now tomorrow on The Current, tune in to hear Dr. James Maskalyk. He's an emergency room physician in Toronto. He is the author of the new book called Life On the Ground Floor: Letters from the Edge of Emergency Medicine and he'll be sharing his insights about the ER and what he learned from his work helping others. Dr. Maskalyk also works with medical students in Ethiopia and he has spent time working in Sudan. We're going to leave you with part of a talk he gave at the Whistler Wanderlust Festival a couple of years back. I’m Piya Chattopadhyay sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for lending us your ear here on The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

I remember I was back from Sudan and I was working there as a doctor. It was my first mission with MSF. And I was so hopeful that I participated meaningfully in the emancipation of those people who are still suffering in that long drawn out war in that wide desert. And unfortunately a few months after I left, that town was burned down. The hospital was abandoned. The people who I cared about and loved were forced to flee into the wide desert and I haven't heard from some of them since. And I was trying to put back together whatever gets broken in that moment. And I was sitting around a table with friends of mine. It was about six months later. I'll never forget it. It was snowing softly. It was around Christmas. And someone was making me laugh and I felt this clear sweet feeling. It had been so long. I could barely recognize it and I was like, “What is this?” Oh yeah, joy. I promised myself I would never be so far from it ever again.

[Music: Ending theme]

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