The campaign finance reforms Ontario needs now
Reforming the rules isn’t as complicated as the politicians pretend. We don’t need more time to reinvent the wheel.

thestar.com
April 7, 2016
By Martin Regg Cohn

Gotchas will get you only so far. The question is where we go from here on campaign finance reforms.

Recent columns shedding light on the dark art of fundraising have prompted politicians to give up their vow of silence - see no money, hear no money, speak not of money. MPPs suddenly accused each other of selling out to the highest corporate donors this week, and dared their rivals to renounce upcoming fundraisers.

Now, Premier Kathleen Wynne has announced she’ll introduce legislation overhauling Ontario’s moribund rules this spring. She has scheduled a rare three-way meeting Monday with Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown and the NDP’s Andrea Horwath to thrash out ideas for reform.

Can they find common ground? This is no time for excuses.

The NDP keeps cautioning Wynne against any imposed solutions, demanding more time for broader consultations. The Tories insist on a full anti-corruption inquiry, plus a special legislative committee.

But reforming the rules isn’t as complicated as the politicians pretend. Queen’s Park doesn’t need more time to reinvent the fundraising wheel here - Parliament led the way a full decade ago.

All it takes is political will and common sense, because democracy delayed is democracy denied. Here are a few obvious steps that Queen’s Park should take as soon as possible:

• Ban all corporate and union donations, which are contrary to the public interest because they emanate from vested interests. If companies can’t vote - after all, they’re not citizens - they shouldn’t be able to draw on a massive stash of cash. (A similar ban should also be mandatory (not optional as proposed) for all municipalities - as adopted by the City of Toronto in 2009.

• Dramatically reduce contribution levels for individuals. The current $9,975 limit is way out of line with the federal maximum of $1,525 per party, which seems a good place to start. Some point approvingly to Quebec’s $100 limit, but that’s a mere 1 per cent of Ontario’s current maximum - too draconian a downsizing if corporate money is banned.

• Remove the egregious loophole that allows donors to give another roughly $10,000 for byelections. The current law allows a doubling up of contributions in a general election year, but why should a byelection - one riding out of 107 - merit the same amount of money?

• Impose the same comprehensive limits for party leadership races, which are now bizarre free-for-alls. It is a public disgrace that a potential future premier can raise massive amounts for a leadership campaign without any donation caps - such as the $100,000 donation to a major candidate in the 2014 PC race.

• Reduce the total spending limit in elections. The current maximum of about $8 million is outdated in an era of technological change. Polling is cheaper than ever, email blasts cost a fraction of snail mail, and the Internet offers alternatives to massive negative advertising buys of the past. A lower spending limit would be doing a favour to all three parties, whose oversized ambitions leave them with perennial multimillion-dollar debts.

• Set new limits on third-party groups during election campaigns. Companies, unions and ad hoc coalitions or interest groups can spend millions of dollars, drowning out political parties. If registered parties are forced to curb their spending in future, outside groups shouldn’t be able to move into the void - as they have in the U.S.

• Expand public subsidies of election campaigns. If people like me don’t like corporate and union money skewing campaigns, we should put our money where our mouths are. A subsidy of roughly $2 a vote applied federally after company donations were banned, and allocated to each party based on electoral performance (until Harper mischievously phased it out in 2015). Based on Ontario’s last election results, that formula would give the Liberals about $3.7 million, the Tories $3 million, the NDP $2.3 million and the Greens about $465,000. That’s a pittance in a province with a $130-billion budget.

We’ll know more about where we stand with Ontario’s three parties next week. A government source tells me Wynne’s final proposals will be introduced next month, with a legislative committee holding hearings through summer to meet a fall deadline. Changes would be phased in starting next January, in time for the 2018 provincial election.

That’s a belatedly speedy timetable. But it comes a full decade after the federal Parliament acted.

Four other provinces have already followed Ottawa’s lead. How much longer must the people of Canada’s biggest province wait for their turn at democratic reform?