SURREY - With political parties in Vancouver voluntarily releasing campaign financing information before the civic election on Nov. 15, what about those in Surrey?
TeamSurrey was the only party to release a list of donors."We think that having full transparency and accountability is good for the electorate to see who is funding each of the parties," said the slate's Stephen Gammer, who is running for a seat on council alongside teammate Brenda Locke, former Liberal MLA for Surrey-Green Timbers."I think the people of Surrey want to know who is working behind the scenes with each of the parties. We think that the people of Surrey deserve to know now - not after the election - so they can look at things and see what funding sources are for each party or each candidate. It's an important thing," Gammer added.One Surrey's Barinder Rasode has also committed to releasing her team's contributors online prior to the election."When I talk to transparency and accountability, absolutely I feel people should know who is funding our campaigns," she said Friday, adding she is not accepting donations from gaming companies."I'm very proud of the fact that a lot of the donations are coming from businesses andresidents in the community," she noted.Asked when she'll have her contributors posted on her website, she said her team is working on it right now.The Surrey First team said they would put up a donors list prior to the election if all other camps do so."If everybody agrees to do it, then we'd be happy to go forward and do so," said campaign staffer George Psefteas.Meanwhile, Safe Surrey Coalition said the team would not be posting their donors online before voting day."No. We will not be able to get that together before the election. Particularly in the last week or two, we've been getting donations every day, coming in," said Jonathan Ross, communications director for Safe Surrey. "And so in terms of timeframe and the fact we're continuing to get a huge amount of donations in the door we will not be able to publish our donors before Nov. 15. Obviously as per the election rules we're all governed by we will be providing our donation list following the election."TeamSurrey has posted a list of their campaign contributors online.areid@thenownewspaper.com