"Paying at the Ballot Box"

February 5, 2003

So the Liberals want to clean up their act.  Too bad they’re attempting to stick taxpayers with the cleaning bill. 

Last week, the federal Liberal government introduced legislation to reform electoral financing.  Bill C-24 would ban companies, unions and associations from donating to a registered party or leadership contestant, and limit their donations to riding associations to a maximum of $1,000.  Individuals could donate up to $10,000 each year to a party, constituency association or candidate. 

The legislation comes with a hefty price-tag.  In order to replace the missing corporate and union donations, the cost to taxpayers in an election year would double to $80-million.  For each vote received, taxpayers would pay a political party a $1.50 subsidy, ultimately tripling the taxpayer contribution for sustaining political parties through non-election years to $33-million a year. 

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien says the Liberals have introduced the legislation to counter public perception that powerful corporations can buy government influence. 

Yet Canada’s electoral laws are not responsible for tarnishing the government’s public image.  It’s the ethically-challenged Liberal Party of Canada that has left voters mistrustful and suspicious that businesses regularly use political donations to influence legislation and win lucrative government contracts and grants. 

Nine years of Liberal political scandals and repeated allegations of corruption and conflict of interest have taken their toll.  Generous donors to the Liberal party are often found at the centre of many government spending controversies, such as Shawinigate and the RCMP investigation of the Public Works sponsorship program. 

If Canadians perceive that corporations have too much influence over our politicians, then the real solution is to remove government from the boardroom.  A heavy burden of government regulations and bureaucratic red tape are the very reason corporate attempts to influence politicians persist. 

The Liberals also say that this bill is their way of “protecting” shareholders and unions members who are helpless to prevent their contributions from being directed towards a party or candidate that they do not support.  Yet, if shareholders and union workers do not want their funds to be used to fund particular political parties, why should they be forced to do so as taxpayers?  I haven’t heard of a single taxpayer in favour of more of their tax dollars going to political parties. 

Worse yet, the legislation severely hinders the ability of a new political party to acquire the financing necessary to establish itself.  With no votes, a new party is ineligible for the $1.50 vote subsidy.  Under such legislation, it would have been extremely difficult for, say, the Reform Party, to have risen to the success it did.  But then perhaps that’s what the Liberals find so appealing about Bill C-24.  

For Jean Chrétien, it holds another advantage.  He may not be able to prevent Paul Martin’s coronation as his successor, but at least he can deprive him of the benefit of his intimate corporate connections.  The same kind of connections that served the PM so well for the past nine years.