Campaign financing rules a growing threat to Ontario’s democracy

Our premier could learn a thing or two from our prime minister about democracy


Thestar.com
March 23, 2015
By Martin Regg Cohn

Thanks to Stephen Harper, this fall’s federal election will be free from corporate or union donations, and any outside advertising will also be sharply limited.

The national ban on big money politics showcases the best of democracy for all Canadians - except Ontarians.

Thanks to Kathleen Wynne, Ontario will still be the Wild West of campaign financing rules when the next provincial election takes place in 2018 - her Liberals will be counting on big money from companies and unions, plus unrestricted negative advertising campaigns from vested interests.

Our premier could learn a thing or two about democracy from our prime minister.

Thanks largely to business fat cats and big labour, Wynne’s provincial party harvested $2.75 million in a single night at their annual Heritage Dinner in Toronto this month. At $1,550 a plate - up to $17,500 a table for big spenders - the event was bankrolled by high rollers with high expectations.

Why do donors do it? To gain political favours, inoculate themselves against political risk, and gain access in ways that advantage them over rivals.

It is better to give, lest they not receive. For donors, it’s all about value for money.

“Thank you,” an effusive Wynne told her audience, as she does every year.

The premier continues to argue - yes, with a straight face - that corporate donors are doing their bit for democracy, dipping into their profits and dividend statements in order to promote freedom, justice and the Ontario way.

Lest there be any doubt that political donations pay political dividends, let’s look at what happens when that direct link is broken:

The Beer Store stayed away from this month’s dinner in a fit of pique over reports that the government plans to dilute its stranglehold on sales. The foreign-owned brewers that control the quasi-monopoly were also conspicuously absent.

Traditionally, those brewers have donated generous quantities of beer to Liberal events. They also contributed more than $217,000 to the party over the past two years.

This time, rather than donate their beer, they cried in it. By contrast, the big brewers came out in force when then-Tory leader Tim Hudak held his 2014 fundraiser in Toronto. His Progressive Conservatives had been talking for a year about dismantling the Beer Store’s stranglehold, but just ahead of the 2014 campaign Hudak dropped the idea.

All three parties profit shamelessly from the province’s lax campaign financing laws. Like the Liberals in 2012-13, the PCs are now in the middle of a leadership campaign that is even more unregulated than regular elections.

Aspiring premiers market themselves to the highest bidder, with almost no restrictions on the amount that can be donated. Christine Elliott, one of the three candidates in the Tory race, recently accepted an unprecedented $100,000 donation from a single individual. One assumes that person will have his calls returned if Elliott ever becomes premier.

The politicians’ defence for this fundraising racket is transparency - the theory that all donations are disclosed fully and promptly to Elections Ontario, which supposedly posts the figures on its website. The reality is that few people pay attention to the numbers - and those who do are easily thrown off the scent by an Elections Ontario website that operates in unreal time, in unintelligible ways (the webmaster should be jailed for violating the spirit of the Elections Act).

Then there is the double jeopardy of so-called third party advertising, by which vested interests bankroll their own advertising at election time. Elections Ontario reported they spent nearly $9 million in the 2014 election, up dramatically from $6.7 million in 2011.

The Working Families coalition of unions (opposed to Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives) spent $2.5 million. The provincial PCs - traditionally wary of any restrictions on freedom of speech - are furious about this unfair advantage that anti-Tory unions confer on the Liberals and New Democrats.

The PCs have a point. Federal election rules cap spending by these third-party private interest groups at $188,000. With a smaller electorate, Ontario should aim even lower.

Current laws allow an individual, corporation or union to contribute nearly $10,000 to a political party annually, plus nearly $10,000 more in an election year, and almost as much to candidates and riding associations. Factor in a few family members or corporate subsidiaries, and it’s easy to exceed six figures in a good year.

Big money politics and vested interests are corrupting U.S. politics. Our own federal election laws have kept Canadian politics on an even keel.

Which way will Ontario go? How much longer will Wynne hide behind the fig leaf of “transparency,” while fundraising and negative advertising undermine our democracy?