The real story seems to have originally been broken by Dan Levin of the NYT back in January 2017.

http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/01/18/ny-times-reporter-story-on-bc-kafkaesque-political-donations.html

Quote : "No elected official in the U.S. is allowed to get a stipend; that would be bribery.... lived in China for seven-and-a-half years; in China or Russia this would just be called 'corruption' or 'nepotism.' But here, it's just ‘legal.’"