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In court today — Democracy Watch’s and PIPE UP’s lawsuit challenging ethics of Kinder Morgan pipeline approval

Groups request that court order B.C. Liberals to disclose internal documents detailing fundraising activities by pipeline-connected companies for Liberals over the past 5 years

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wednesday, April 12, 2017

OTTAWA – Democracy Watch and PIPE UP Network announced that today, Wednesday, April 12, 2017 at 9:45 am, it will be in the B.C. Supreme Court motions court for a hearing on its motion requesting that the court order the B.C. Liberal Party to disclose all the fundraising activities Kinder Morgan and Trans Mountain pipeline-connected companies were involved in during the past five years with the Liberals, Premier Christy Clark, Environment Minister Mary Polak and Natural Gas Development Minister Rich Coleman. The motion was filed on March 16, 2017.

The motion will be considered by the court:

DATE: Wednesday, April 12, 2017
TIME: 9:45 am (when court opens, motion will be on the day’s schedule)
PLACE: B.C. Supreme Court, Motions Court, 800 Smithe St.
Vancouver, B.C.

The application is the next step in Democracy Watch and PIPE UP’s lawsuit that alleges Premier Clark and the Cabinet ministers were in an apparent conflict of interest when they approved the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline in January because of the more than $550,000 donated by pipeline-connected companies to the B.C. Liberal Party in the past five years.

Democracy Watch and PIPE UP filed another motion on April 10, 2017 for an order requiring the B.C. government, Premier Christy Clark, Environment Minister Mary Polak and Natural Gas Development Minister Rich Coleman to respond to their lawsuit. Premier Clark and the ministers are refusing to respond because they claim they have been improperly named in the lawsuit.

“Premier Clark and the B.C. Liberals can run but they can’t hide from the law, and we hope the court will order them to disclose details they have been hiding about all the fundraising activities pipeline-connected companies have helped the Liberals with since 2012,” said Duff Conacher, Co-founder of Democracy Watch.

Democracy Watch called on the Special Prosecutor to prosecute everyone before election day that the evidence shows participated in an illegal donation scheme, and called on Elections B.C. to release an audit on likely illegal donations, also before election day.

Democracy Watch also called on B.C.’s provincial political parties to make clear, strong election promises to make the same world-leading changes to the province’s political donation system (including at the municipal level) as Quebec made in 2013. Click here to see Backgrounder on the key changes that need to be made.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Duff Conacher, Co-founder of Democracy Watch
Tel: (613) 241-5179
Cell: 416-546-3443
[email protected]

Jason Gratl, Gratl and Company, Tel: 604-694-1919

Democracy Watch’s Government Ethics Campaign and Money in Politics Campaign