As thousands of people remained out of their homes in the B.C. Interior due to wildfires Friday, the province's two largest political parties attacked each other over a fundraising campaign for fire relief.
The BC NDP started the war of words, issuing a news release accusing BC United of using a party-branded appeal for donations to the Red Cross as a means of harvesting personal information from the public.
"This is reprehensible," said MLA Ravi Parmar, a member of the governing New Democrats, in the release.
"(BC United leader) Kevin Falcon and his party are exploiting this crisis and the generosity of British Columbians to harvest their personal information. We shouldn’t need to tell Kevin Falcon that the worst wildfire season in our history isn’t an opportunity to help himself or his party.”
It didn't take long for the province's official Opposition party to respond.
"BC United is proud to partner with the Canadian Red Cross in raising vital funds for supplies and relief efforts amidst a devastating wildfire season," the party said in a statement posted on Twitter.
"Our fundraising for the Canadian Red Cross is, and always will be, about helping British Columbians in need."
BC United called the NDP's release a "petty, partisan attack" and said it was the governing party that was "reprehensible" for suggesting that the Canadian Red Cross would enable data mining efforts.
The NDP's release pointed out that the BC United fundraising micro-site required donors to submit their name, address, cell phone number and email address, and said that donors consented to the Red Cross sharing their information with BC United.
Parmar called this "misleading, at best," and concluded his statement with a call for an apology.
“I am calling on Kevin Falcon to put an end to this despicable data mining scheme and to apologize to British Columbians,” he said.
In its statement, BC United explained that the information sharing line on the micro-site is a "default" setting found on all Red Cross fundraising partnership sites, and fired back with its own call for an apology.
"We are deeply disappointed that the NDP have caused additional work for Canadian Red Cross staff who are not only having to change the standard website form but are, in the midst of a devastating wildfire situation, now fielding calls from the media following up on the NDP's disingenuous news release attacking them and their vital work," BC United said.
"We call on Premier David Eby to issue an apology for trying to score cheap political points with this unfounded and baseless accusation and detracting from what matters most: aiding wildfire victims across British Columbia."
So far, neither side has issued any follow-up statement on the matter, nor the requested apology.
In response to BC United's statement, some Twitter users pointed out that the Canadian Red Cross has a non-branded fundraising appeal page for B.C. wildfire relief that the party could have linked to instead of creating its own micro-site. The BC NDP does not appear to have an equivalent fundraising page with the Red Cross.
As of early Saturday afternoon, the BC United fundraising appeal, which went live Thursday, had raised $5,950.
