What’s your price?

There’s a famous story most often attributed to the playwright George Bernard Shaw. It involves Shaw asking an elegant lady at a party whether she would sleep with him for a million dollars. “I suppose I would,” she replies. “Well, would you sleep with me for ten dollars?” “Certainly not! What do you take me for?” “Madam,” goes the punchline, “we’ve already established that. Now we’re just haggling over the price.”

All this comes to mind following Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s unapologetic defence of his party’s cash-for-access fundraisers, which allow moneyed donors to spend private time with selected cabinet ministers.

Challenged on this in the House of Commons this week, the prime minister argued in effect that the limits for financial donations to federal political parties are too low to let donors purchase influence with his ministers.

“In our federal system, we have very clear, restrictive and robust rules concerning fundraising,” he said. “It’s impossible for someone to give more than $1,500 per year to a federal party . . . That is why we don’t have money influencing political decisions.”

Which begs the question: If you can’t buy influence for $1,500, how high would you have to go? Five thousand? Fifty thousand?

The issue, of course, is not the amount, it’s the principle. Allowing donors to pay for privileged access to key government decisionmakers is problematic, regardless of the price that’s paid. Once you’ve decided to take the money in return for intimate face-time, you’ve crossed the line. Like the lady in the joke, at that point you’re just haggling over the price.

The prime minister’s insistence that there’s nothing wrong with his government’s practice of involving ministers in exclusive Liberal party fundraising events is all the more puzzling because of his previous insistence that they “observe the highest ethical standards in everything you do.”

As we have written before, Trudeau was on the right track last fall when he told members of his newly minted team to avoid situations that would give even a hint that anyone could buy influence. In a document on “Open and Accountable Government,” he told them that “there should be no preferential access to government, or appearance of preferential access, accorded to individuals or organizations because they have made financial contributions to politicians and political parties.”

Bravo to all that. Yet, it turns out that various ministers, notably Finance Minister Bill Morneau, are hosting $1,500-a-ticket fundraisers for the federal Liberal party.

This falls within existing federal rules for political party fundraising, but it clearly violates Trudeau’s own open-government guidelines and it worries independent critics such as the federal ethics commissioner, Mary Dawson.

The federal lobbying commissioner, Karen Shepherd, now says she will investigate the Liberal fundraisers. And they are also at odds with evolving practice in other jurisdictions, such as Ontario, where the Wynne government is bringing in new rules to ban such fundraising effective Jan. 1, 2017.

The Trudeau government risks tarnishing its image on this issue and it should rethink its current practice. Getting known for haggling over the price of your integrity isn’t a smart move.

The Trudeau government risks tarnishing its image on the issue of cash for access