‘Unintended’ fallout from election fixes concerns Nenshi

New rules aimed at limiting the influence of money and increasing transparency in municipal elections are welcome improvements that still fall short of the mark, says Calgary’s mayor.

Naheed Nenshi said Wednesday the NDP government’s move this week to tighten up spending, contribution and disclosure rules in municipal election campaigns don’t quite reflect the realities of local politics.

“It’s really important that politics be about the best ideas, not the most money, so I’m pleased that they ’re doing something,” he said.

“My concern is that they are doing it more from a provincial perspective than from a municipal one, and I think that they’re going to have some unintended consequences.”

The changes mirror rules already brought in by Premier Rachel Notley’s government to limit contributions and increase transparency in provincial campaigns.

Under the bill introduced Monday by Municipal Affairs Minister Shaye Anderson, corporate and union donations will be banned.

“After consulting over the summer with Albertans, we have taken their feedback and are proposing these updates to get big money out of local elections, make it easier for Albertans to vote, and create a more transparent election process,” Anderson told the legislature.

Nenshi’s view, which is also the position of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association, is that a ban on corporate and union donations is useful — but only if candidates for mayor or councillor are permitted to issue tax receipts to the people who donate to their campaigns.

Tax receipts provide incentive for regular citizens to donate to the campaigns of federal and provincial politicians. Without the same incentive in local elections, Nenshi said, it’s much harder for council candidates to raise money from individuals.

And the ban could inadvertently lead to less transparency, if corporations opt to skirt the rules by funnelling donations through individual employees or family members, Nenshi said.

“Right now, (corporations) give under their name, so at least you know (if ) a candidate got a lot of money from land developers in their area,” he said. “In the new system, there is very little preventing (companies) from distributing funds to their employees or their family members and having them donate under their individual names.

“It actually, ironically, has less transparency than the current system.”

But Nenshi admitted some of his concern is mitigated by the contribution limits the province is seeking to impose.

Under the proposed legislation, during an election year, individuals can donate as much as $4,000 in total to municipal campaigns, as well as another $4,000 in total to school board races.

The rules, and any infractions, will be investigated and enforced by the Office of the Election Commissioner.

“The overall contribution limit will at least make it a little bit better. It’ll make it harder to game the system,” Nenshi said, though he would have preferred seeing the province go the route of imposing a much lower contribution limit on donations to individual campaigns, rather than capping the total donation allowable during an election cycle.

The bill would allow for third parties to support candidates through advertising spending, but those third parties would be banned from working with or fundraising for that candidate.

Nenshi said he’s also pleased with the requirement for thirdparty advertisers to register with each local jurisdiction where they intend to advertise.

Among the other changes, money can only be collected during the calendar year when the election is held.

Outside of that period, the proposed rules would allow only small fundraising for door-knocking and other activities up to a maximum $2,000.

If the bill is passed, the new rules would kick in on January 1.