Liberals lower party donation limits, increase subsidy based on number of votes cast

Ontario government is beefing up its electoral fundraising legislation by lowering the maximum amount that can be donated to a party and increasing the subsidy for votes cast by party.

Thestar.com
Aug. 22, 2016
By Robert Benzie

Ontario’s Liberal government is beefing up its electoral fundraising legislation by lowering the maximum amount that can be donated and increasing taxpayers’ subsidy of political parties.

Under amendments to a bill triggered by a Star probe, annual donation limits will be slashed to $1,200 - down from the current $9,975 and lower than the previously proposed $1,525 cap.

To offset that reduction, the per-vote public subsidy for political parties will jump to $2.71 a year from a planned $2.26.

Under the formula, which is based on the results of the 2014 election:

• The Liberals, with 1,863,974 votes that year, would get $5.06 million annually starting next year.

• The Progressive Conservatives, with 1,508,811 votes, would get $4.09 million.

• the New Democrats, with 1,144,822 votes in 2014, would get $3.1 million.

• The Green Party of Ontario, with 232,536 votes, would get $630,000.

That subsidy allowance would be gradually reduced to 75 per cent of the 2017 level by 2021 as parties get acclimatized to the new regime.

Along with corporate and union contributions being banned, individual donation limits will be $1,200 to a party, $1,200 to candidates of a party and $1,200 to riding associations and nomination contestants of a party.

That means the most anyone can donate would be $3,600 a year, down from the $33,250 limit that applies now and even less than the $7,750 that had been proposed when the bill was introduced last spring.

The Liberals said the legislation, which will go through clause-by-clause debate by a committee of MPPs starting next week, “would modernize the province’s political fundraising and spending rules, making Ontario’s electoral financing system among the strongest and most transparent in Canada.”

“Our government is committed to working with all parties to provide opportunities for all Ontarians to provide feedback and make recommendations on the proposed legislation,” Kyle Richardson, an aide to Government House Leader Yasir Naqvi, said Monday.

“Through this legislation, our government is striving to reform third-party advertising rules, ban corporate and union donations, reduce the maximum allowable donations, constrain loans and loan guarantees to parties and candidates, reform byelection donation rules, and reduce donation limits by central parties in election periods.”

More than 50 groups and individuals testified at public hearings on the legislation in Toronto, Ottawa, Kingston, Kitchener-Waterloo, London, and Windsor this summer.

“Based on the important feedback heard at committee and the discussions we’ve had with opposition Parties, our government will be bringing forward several amendments to the legislation with the primary goal of strengthening it,” said Richardson.

However, a new code of conduct for MPPs to tackle “stakeholder interactions” to limit the influence of lobbyists at Queen’s Park was not included the legislation.

Progressive Conservative MPP Randy Hillier (Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington) complained that exclusion leaves too many “loopholes for cash-for-access” fundraisers with ministers.

“It makes a laughing stock of the process that we’ve already been through,” said Hillier.

“It makes a mockery out of what we heard at committee,” added Tory MPP Steve Clark (Leeds-Grenville).

New Democrat MPP Catherine Fife (Kitchener-Waterloo) accused Premier Kathleen Wynne of pushing legislation that will benefit the governing party, which boasts a majority in the house.

“All parties agree that it’s time to ban corporate and union donations, but Kathleen Wynne is using this as an excuse to ram through election rules that are all about helping the Liberal Party,” said Fife.

“These rules help the party in government, and they help the party with the richest donors. The premier is trying to write new election rules that will stack the deck in favour of the Liberal Party of Ontario.”

While Fife complained that there are still too many loopholes in the bill, the Liberals have acted on some of the NDP’s concerns.

All government advertising will be banned in the 60 days before the start of a scheduled election and party fundraisers must be “publicized one week in advance outside of campaigns and three days in advance during a writ period” to increase transparency.

As well, the definition of so-called third-party advertising - mostly in the form of union-funded organizations like the Working Families coalition that has helped the Liberals by targeting the Progressive Conservatives in attack ads since 2003 - has been made clearer.

MPPs were concerned that single-issue advocacy groups, such as parents seeking improved autism services for their children or environmentalists concerned about climate change, would have been prohibited from advertising under the planned bill.

Under the new rules, third-party groups would be limited to $100,000 in advertising during elections and $600,000 in the six preceding months. There would be a $1-million spending limit during that period for political parties.

Wynne announced the sweeping reforms days after the Star revealed on March 29 that Liberal cabinet ministers had secret fundraising targets of up to $500,000 a year.