Vancouver mayoral candidates return Millennium's donations

CBC NEWS

Both Vancouver mayoral candidates have rejected campaign contributions from Millennium Development Corp., the builder of the controversial Olympic Athletes Village for the 2010 Games. Non-Partisan Association's Peter Ladner said Millennium delivered a $2,000 cheque to him last week. "Somebody at city hall notified me that there was a cheque there for me from Millennium and I said send it back," Ladner, who is currently a councillor, said Wednesday. "This is too sensitive right now for us to be accepting cheques from Millennium."

Vision Vancouver's Gregor Robertson said he received Millennium's $1,000 donation cheque Wednesday."The timing of it is troubling given that decisions have been made and driven in secret by the NPA and campaign donations are arriving after the fact," Robertson said. "I think we need to ask hard questions about where the dollars come from and why?"

Council's decision to give Millennium a $100-million loan made headlines last week, drawing criticism over the secrecy behind bailout to be taken from the city's property endowment fund estimated at $2.7 billion. Another controversy emerged after a copy of a confidential city report on the development disappeared after the Oct. 14 in-camera meeting. The missing copy belonged to Ladner, who said he left it on a pile with other copies after the meeting. Ladner's copy of the report turned up on fellow NPA councillor B.C. Lee's desk two days later, and Vancouver police are now investigating the incident at the request of Mayor Sam Sullivan.

Valerie Wan, a senior consultant for Millennium, told CBC News Wednesday that the developer has donated just under $10,000 to the Nov. 15 civic election to both the NPA and Vision Vancouver. Wan did not give details of the breakdown of the donation or if the two cheques given to Ladner and Robertson were part of it.Both the NPA and Vision Vancouver received campaign contributions from property developers in the 2005 municipal election. Corporate and union donations in civic elections are allowed under election laws.