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VICKY MOCHAMA
‘Rape culture is when women who do the right thing have to ask for justice from the wrong person’ metroNEWS
Plus More on Halifax sexual assault verdict metroNEWS High 7°C/Low 2°C Showers
Weekend, March 3-5, 2017
POT PITCH
Legal bud will keep kids safe and money out of hands of criminals, PM says in Victoria metroNEWS
THE CANADIAN PRESS
Clark’s $50K ‘top-up’ deeply unpopular: poll Salary
Pollster questions if public will get over it by May David P. Ball
Metro | Vancouver Seven-in-10 British Columbians — across every region of the province, and even half BC Liberals’ own voters — are opposed to the $50,000-a-year “top-up” their premier collected from her own party, totalling more than $277,000 over her time in office. That’s according to a new poll Friday by Forum Research, which gauged public reaction to Christy Clark supplementing her taxpayerfunded $195,000-a-year income with a bonus thanks to private donors at high-cost fundraisers critics have de-
$500,000 GUARANTEED
IN SLOT AND TABLE GAME PROMOTIONS IN FEBRUARY AND MARCH
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rided as “pay-to-play” politics. Sixty-nine per cent of voters said they were uncomfortable with the salary top-up when asked, with just 17 per cent supporting it. Women tended to oppose her top-up more than men, but even many BC Liberal backers were uneasy with it — nearly half, or 46 per cent, of people who voted Liberal last election were turned off. In January, Clark said she would no longer receive the top-up. But pollster Lorne Bozinoff said there’s just a narrow window before May’s election for the government to restore confidence. “The optics of this are terrible,” said Bozinoff, Forum Research president. “Nothing burns the public more than politicians enriching themselves through their public activities, even though it may not be illegal or not public funds per se paying for it.... The issue is: has the damage already been done?”