There’s something unseemly about putting a cabinet minister behind a $1,500 paywall

Feds ought to follow Ontario’s lead after Morneau’s presence at shindig

Well, that’ll teach me to get overly smug about the squeakyclean superiority of the federal political fundraising regime.

Courtesy of The Globe and Mail, we learned this week that Finance Minister Bill Morneau was able to find time in his busy cross-country, pre-budget consultation schedule to drop by the Halifax home of “former gold and silver magnate” turned land developer Fred George for a $1,500-per-head meet-and-greet attended by just over a dozen local business types, including several “prominent Nova Scotia property developers.”

Not surprisingly, the report of Morneau’s presence at the Oct. 13 shindig was immediately seized upon by critics — particularly, though not exclusively, those on the other side of the Commons aisle — as still more evidence that the federal Liberals were running a “cash-for-access” scheme by using the promise of a few minutes of face time with a cabinet minister as bait for high-priced fundraising soirées.

It is precisely the same charge that has been lodged against their Ontario Liberal counterparts in the past — so convincingly, in fact, that Kathleen Wynne’s government has already brought in legislation to tighten the rules by banning corporate and union donations entirely, and capping individual contributions at $3,600.

That is, admittedly, more than twice the current federal limit of $1,525, but the reaction to Morneau’s headline appearance in Halifax suggests that, when it comes to public perception, it’s not just about the dollar figure of an annual limit.

After all, from the perspective of the party, which was the ultimate beneficiary of the Halifax event, there is no tangible difference between someone who ponies up the full $1,525 for the chance at an over-the-canapé chat with a senior (or even midlevel) cabinet member and a diehard Liberal supporter who donates the maximum through pre-authorized monthly instalments.

(In fact, an argument could be made that the latter is actually a more desirable catch, as their support isn’t dependent on getting them to show up at a brickand-mortar party event.)

There are also various layers of rules and restrictions imposed on cabinet ministers and other public office holders covered by the Conflict of Interest Act and, separately, on lobbyists and others with vested interests, as well as the guidelines laid out by the Prime Minister’s Office itself.

At the same time, when it comes to public perception, there just seems to be something ineffably but unmistakably unseemly about putting a minister behind a $1,500 paywall — or, indeed, $1,000 or $500 or possibly any ticket price at all, depending on how stringent your personal political purity test may be.

And, in politics, there are times when the simple fact something looks bad is more than sufficient grounds to at least consider doing something to make it look — if not good, at least not quite as bad.

In this instance, that could mean invoking dramatic, if almost certainly draconian measures like banning cabinet ministers from attending any party fundraiser. (Currently, ministers and other public office holders are only legally barred from “personally soliciting” funds from any individual or organization that could create a real or perceived conflict of interest.)

Another approach could be to drop the cap even lower, perhaps even following the trend set in Quebec, where annual donations cannot exceed $100.

Alternately, we could grudgingly admit that, actually, while it may be late to the party fundraising regulatory party, Ontario may be on to something with its efforts to pair financial limits with increased transparency.

Under the proposed new provincial rules, political parties will have to post the details of any and all fundraising activities on behalf of themselves, their riding associations and their candidates, including the date, venue and cost (if any) to attend at least seven days before it is scheduled to take place.

The federal law could, however, take an even more targeted approach, and require ministers and parliamentary secretaries themselves, rather than the party, to disclose the same details on any and all political fundraising events they attend — or, at least, all those in which they have a prominent or speaking role — on a quarterly basis, as is the case with travel and hospitality expenses.

(Interestingly, while the annual limit to be imposed in Ontario is, as noted, more than twice as much as the federal cap, there will also be a sub-cap of $1,200 for a “single fundraising activity,” which, if converted to the federal scale, would set the maximum that could be charged for a ticket at approximately $500.)

It’s never going to be possible to entirely debunk the perennial suspicion — and, in the case of rival political parties, strategic exploitation of that suspicion — that politicians are more likely to pay attention to the priorities and potential concerns of those who have contributed to the party war chest.

But sharing the wheres, whens and, most critically, how muchs from the fundraising circuit would go a long way to reassuring Canadians that the days of the cash-stuffed envelopes changing hands in smoke-filled backrooms are long over. (Even if we do have to give Ontario grudging credit for having come up with the idea in the first place.)