Ban on corporate, union donations would include subsidy for parties
B.C.’s NDP government has brought in a bill to ban corporate and union donations, but flip-flopped on a pre-election promise not to stick taxpayers with the cost of subsidizing political parties.
Premier John Horgan introduced the bill on Monday to reporters at the legislature, which sets donation limits but also creates new public subsidies for parties that total $27.5 million over the next four years, with an option to continue or eliminate them after Year 5.
“This bill is what we committed to pass. This bill is what we campaigned on. This bill will come forward and be done in the days and weeks ahead,” Horgan said.
“The legislation will make sure that (the May provincial election) is the last election dictated by the size of a party’s finances.”
However, Horgan told Kamloops radio station CHNL seven months ago that the public would not have to subsidize political parties in exchange for reforming the system.
“What we propose is that Elections B.C. will look across the country and around the world at the best way to make sure that only individuals are paying for our political process and election process,” he told CHNL, while rejecting the idea taxpayers would foot the bill. The Elections B.C. review he promised also wasn’t in Monday’s legislation.
Horgan refused to take questions Monday at a media briefing.
Attorney General David Eby said the bill was “the subject of discussion and consultation on principles with the Green party.” The NDP has a power-sharing agreement with the Greens that gives it the votes required to govern.
Eby said the public subsidy was selected because the significant shift in electoral financing rules will leave B.C. with the secondlowest individual limits in Canada. But he acknowledged the move will be contentious and said he would welcome the debate in the legislature.
Green Leader Andrew Weaver, whose party stands to earn about $825,000 in public subsidies in 2018, called it a “historic day” and said “the consultations on this bill began months ago” with the NDP.
The bill contains a subsidy of $2.50 per vote in 2018, which declines slightly by 2022, when it will be reviewed by an all-party legislative committee to determine whether it should continue. In the first year, the NDP and Liberals each receive $1.8 million. Over four years, the two major parties would receive $6.8 million each, and the Greens $2.8 million.
The bill also creates a permanent taxpayer subsidy for parties in the form of a 50 per cent reimbursement for certain election campaign expenses, such as campaign offices, staff, advertising, research and signs. That subsidy would have been worth $11 million in the last election.
The NDP were sharply critical of the previous Liberal government’s so-called cash-for-access fundraisers, in which wealthy donors paid for private meetings with then-premier Christy Clark and her ministers. The party portrayed Clark in an advertising campaign as corrupt and beholden to donors for fundraising in such a manner.
The Liberals had countered during the election that the NDP’s reforms would cost the public money — a charge the NDP denied.
However, since taking power on July 18, the NDP has continued to hold its own cash-for-access fundraisers, in which donors could pay $500 to golf with Horgan or $3,000 later this week to attend his annual leader’s levee in Vancouver. The Liberals have called the NDP hypocritical.
On Monday, Liberal critic Andrew Wilkinson accused the NDP of breaking its campaign promises.
“We think it’s inappropriate to have taxpayers fund political parties,” said Wilkinson, who indicated the Liberals will vote against the bill. “Political parties should raise their own money, and not turn to taxpayers.”
The NDP bill caps individual contributions at $1,200 annually, split between a party or candidates, and bans corporate and union donations, including loans from unions and in-kind staff paid by unions to work on campaigns.
It also restricts spending and donations in leadership contests and party conventions, on third-party election advertisements and other scenarios.
If passed, the bill would be retroactive to the last election, with illegal donations forbidden from use in future elections, although parties could use the money to pay for staff or debt costs. The bill would also cut campaign spending limits by 25 per cent and set new fines. Public reporting would be mandatory for all fundraisers that involve MLAs within 60 days. The changes will not apply to municipal elections.
The new rules would dramatically change traditional fundraising for B.C.’s political parties.
For the Liberals, which raised $13.087 million in 2016, just 17 per cent (or $2.2 million) came from individual donations of $1,200 or under. Corporate donations accounted for more than 60 per cent.
For the NDP, which raised $6.17 million in 2016, 50 per cent — $3.103 million — came from individual donations under $1,200. Nearly 30 per cent came from unions that year.
Kris Sims, B.C. director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, called on Horgan to scrap the public subsidy, which she called a “vote tax.”
“We think it’s outrageous that $2.50 per vote is going to these parties,” she said. “Taxpayers shouldn’t have to wean political parties off this money: They should just stop cold turkey.”
Sims said parties already enjoy a generous tax credit, with donors getting a sizable tax receipt, similar to charitable donations.
University of B.C. political science professor Max Cameron said he supported the subsidy as a transitional measure, and would also support it if it was permanent.
“I think it’s appropriate given that the change in legislation is going to create a new ball game and all parties have to get used to this system,” he said. “The thinking is you want to limit as much as possible the influence of private money on political parties, but parties need to get funds from somewhere.”
“As much as we like to complain about political parties, especially the ones we don’t like, all political parties perform an incredibly important function,” one that in this day and age could come with a heavy price tag due to costs of advertising, campaigning and hiring staff, he said.
In 2011, then-prime minister Stephen Harper eliminated taxpayer funding for federal political parties. The subsidy was phased out in April 2015.
“The public generally doesn’t like parties and doesn’t like the idea of taxpayers on the hook for what parties do,” Cameron said. “The question we ask ourselves is if we are not putting public money into that, where does the money come from? The idea that parties should rely on ordinary citizens as much as possible is a good one.”