A former resident of Bralorne’s quest for transparency at the Bridge River Valley Community Association (BRVCA) continues, even after a Civil Resolution Tribunal decision in his favour.
On Sept. 15, the BC Civil Resolutions Tribunal ordered BRVCA, located in Gold Bridge, north of Pemberton in the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District’s Area A, to provide resident Steve Oakley with unredacted copies of its financial and accounting statements, Oakley said in a press release.
Following the decision, Oakley received 72 pages of a general financial ledger from BRVCA.
But after speaking with accountants, Oakley (who has owned a home in Bralorne for more than 20 years, but now lives in Kamloops) doesn’t believe the documents are sufficient, he said on Nov. 29.
“In speaking with some other professional accountants, they’re suggesting that things such as profit/loss statements, balance sheets, statement of cash flow, trial balances, and detailed ledgers are some of the things that … should be included,” Oakley said.
While he’s not suggesting foul play at the BRVCA board, “I think there’s still some questions that need to be answered,” he said, noting that the documents he received don’t include info about BRVCA’s subcommittees.
“We haven’t seen any specific financials for the economic development committee, for example. And so that’s a real big thing that’s missing,” he said.
The BRVCA board declined comment.
But lawyer Martha Rans (Q.C.), founder and legal director of the Pacific Legal Education and Outreach Society, said disclosing full accounting records of a non-profit organization can lead to privacy issues.
The unredacted records would include confidential info like the names of anonymous donors, she said.
Rans pointed to a similar case in the Okanagan in 2016, in which a director publicized the accounting records of a society, “and it was very destructive … There’s the privacy issues, but it’s also incredibly intrusive and destructive,” she said.
A long-time advocate for B.C.’s non-profit sector, Rans said the issue of access to records arose with an amendment to the Societies Act in 2016.
“One of the concerns that I had was the idea that accounting records, as opposed to financial statements, would also be subject to disclosure to a member, upon request … unless the bylaws of the society restricted access,” Rans said.
The problem with that, she added, is that most societies—run by volunteers in most cases—incorporate using the model bylaws attached to the act, and may not think to change them.
“Why does any society exist? It exists because we’re trying to do community good, right? And you don’t really think too hard about what happens when there’s a dispute amongst your members,” Rans said.
“What purpose can possibly be served by somebody getting a copy of the general ledger? I just don’t know the answer.”
At its Annual General Meeting on Sept. 27, the BRVCA board passed a bylaw restricting access to accounting records to the directors of the society, and another stating that “a person other than a member or director may not inspect a record a society is required to keep under [Section 20 of the BC Societies Act] except those explicitly stated to be made available to the public by the Societies Act.”
Oakley said he intends to register the tribunal decision with the B.C. Supreme Court, and submit a chambers application to have the case heard by a judge.
“The hope is that a judge will hear our explanation as to why we don’t feel they were adequate documents provided, and have an order that they provide them,” he said.
