Ontario political leaders must work together to reform fundraising
Premier Kathleen Wynne has convened a rare meeting with her rivals Monday afternoon in the premier’s office. The challenge, however, is getting all of them to agree on recommendations.

thestar.com
April 10, 2016
By Martin Regg Cohn

Now that our political leaders finally recognize Ontario’s fundraising problem - or more precisely, now that they realize voters have caught on - we’re seeing unexpected momentum.

Premier Kathleen Wynne has convened a rare meeting with her rivals Monday afternoon in the premier’s office. The challenge, however, is getting all of them to agree on recommendations - and speedy implementation.

Ahead of the summit, here’s what the leaders of the Progressive Conservatives, New Democrats (and Greens) tell me is on their agendas. And here’s what readers and political activists tell me should be top of mind when they sit down together.

It’s not enough to heckle and hector each other. They must work together to reform the laws - and redeem themselves - at their Monday meeting.

Give credit to the new PC leader, Patrick Brown, for being first among his rivals in the legislature to decry big money from big business and big labour (declared illegal federally in 2006). Brown also holds the key to moving us beyond a mere ban - by replacing it with a new funding formula offering greater fairness and transparency.

Speaking in his third-floor Opposition Leader’s office, directly above the premier’s office he hopes to occupy one day, Brown expressed astonishment that Queen’s Park was so far behind the federal Parliament.

“Coming here it was a bit of an eye-opener for me about how it was the Wild West, as you’ve described it,” Brown mused.

In 2006, then PM Stephen Harper had banned all corporate and union money outright. But Harper foolishly went further by eliminating the so-called “per-vote” subsidy for parties, catching the opposition off guard.

Harper kept raging at the per-vote subsidy, casting it as an obscenity for politicians to be sucking at the public teat, and phased it out in 2015. Yet he conveniently ignored the massive per-donor subsidy his party still benefited from, thanks to generous tax credits (up to 75 per cent) for individual contributions from relatively affluent Tory supporters.

From his new perch at Queen’s Park, Brown says he doesn’t necessarily share Harper’s animus toward a per-vote subsidy provincially.

“I’m not passing judgment on whether it should be permanent, or simply a (transitional) phase-out, but I think there has to be some adjustment process involved,” he told me.

Brown is calling for a special legislative committee that would give the opposition an equal say, rather than letting the government reflexively use its majority to get its way. He’s right on this one - election finance reform is one of those rare occasions where the opposition isn’t merely stamping its feet, and deserves a fair hearing. Is Wynne listening?

The PC leader said he’s not enamoured of perpetual public subsidies, but would leave it up to a legislative committee to explore the timing and transition: “My preference would be as expeditious as possible (on transition) but . . . I would say, let them weigh in on what’s appropriate.”

That’s good as far as it goes. But Brown needs to show leadership on public funding issue after Harper’s mischief.

Like Wynne, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath comes late to the issue of campaign finance reform. Now, she is cautioning against the legislature acting too hastily and unilaterally, saying she wants an expanded consultation process, insisting that Brown’s committee idea doesn’t go far enough.

“I’m much more committed to the idea of having a broad, open process,” Horwath said in her Queen’s Park office.

But Horwath remains vague on what form that consultation should take (in fact, legislative committees hold public hearings). Nor is she willing to put forth any substantive ideas at Monday’s meeting until the process is ironed out. She remains unwilling to publicly support, at least not yet, the same public subsidies that the federal NDP advocated for in the past.

“I don’t know at this point, I don’t know what we’ll end up with, but I do think that the more important thing is to end up with a product that has the confidence of Ontarians.”

Her hesitancy won’t help move the debate if she enters it too late, however. Horwath needs to find her voice sooner rather than later.

Green party leader Mike Schreiner takes the opposite view. Like Brown, he will be presenting specific proposals to the premier (he will meet her separately Tuesday), and argues that the sooner changes are made, the better.

Unlike the established parties, the Greens have long sought a ban on corporate money (obviously an easy thing for them to give up, given that they got so little). That gives the Greens more credibility, Schreiner insists, in leading the way for public funding.

“If you want public policy developed in the public interest, then the public needs to fund the political process,” he says. “If we want transformative change, that’s got to be one of the key components.”

Despite the Green party’s enthusiasm, not everyone is persuaded that public financing will sell with the public. Robert MacDermid, a York University political scientist who has studied Ontario’s election financing morass for years, told me he fears Harper has poisoned public attitudes toward per vote subsidies.

But Schreiner counters that Ontario’s political leaders must show leadership. Now is the time to speak up - and take action - through a legislative committee, not a new consultative mechanism that tries to reinvent the wheel, nor a public inquiry that turns into a fishing expedition:

“My fear is if you delay, delay, delay, then you’re going to get into a situation where none of these changes can happen before the 2018 election.”

My own view is that the NDP is being too timid at a crucial time. Horwath’s dogged pursuit of public “buy in” is no guarantee of making a sale with the public. We’ve been through this before, during Ontario’s failed electoral reform process, which relied on an elaborate consultative mechanism whose recommendations were strongly rejected by voters in a 2007 referendum.

Yes, process is important, but not pre-eminent - and substance shouldn’t be secondary. In politics, timing is everything.

And momentum is a terrible thing to waste.