No follow-up on 2014 partisan ad recommendations, says B.C. AG's office
Days after two Vancouver lawyers announced they were suing the B.C. government over taxpayer-funded ads, the auditor general's office says there has been no follow-up to a report they issued on the topic in 2014.
"We haven't followed up on the report yet," said deputy auditor general Russ Jones on Tuesday.
"I know there has been something put in the policy manual of government — a separate chapter on advertising — but we haven't looked at it," he said.
In 2014, the B.C. auditor general reviewed government advertising and recommended that a policy prohibiting partisan advertising be established.
On the Coast host Gloria Macarenko asked Jones if there was a timeline, with 2017 being an election year.
Jones said that his office plans to follow-up in the future.
"What we normally do with our follow-ups is we wait a couple of years before we actually go back in and take a look at whether they'd been implemented or not," he said. "Sometimes they get done immediately, or sometimes they take a bit longer."
Blurred lines
Jones said that while it's important for the government to inform the public about their services, so people can take advantage of them, the line between partisan and non-partisan is difficult to establish.
Jones also noted that policies and guidelines are less concrete than legislation. In Ontario, for instance, political ads must be vetted by the auditor general.
But he said that wasn't necessary for British Columbia.
"It takes an awful lot of time for the auditor general [in Ontario] to take a look at every single advertisement before it goes out," he said.
Jones would rather see the government produce clear policies and guidelines regarding political advertisement, then monitor for adherence to those.
In any election year, Jones said he'd pay extra attention to ads that contain budget promises that aren't actually programs yet.
"I would imagine the auditor general will speak to [the B.C. government] before the election," he said.
With files from CBC Radio One's On the Coast.
