Financing law ‘outsmarted,’ corruption inquiry told

MONTREAL • The landmark Quebec election-financing law that inspired similar reforms across Canada has been systematically flouted since its inception, a witness at a provincial corruption inquiry recalled Tuesday.

The elderly political organizer said that, within three years of the Rene Levesque-initiated political reform of 1977, unscrupulous fundraisers were already circumventing them.

The law was introduced by Mr. Levesque’s Parti Québécois in the wake of scandals tied to the previous Bourassa Liberals; it banned corporate donations and limited personal contributions in Quebec.

It has since been emulated in numerous jurisdictions including the federal level, where donations can no longer come from companies and must be less than $1,000 per person.

But the latest witness at the Charbonneau commission, retired engineering executive and political organizer Gilles Cloutier, said the vast majority of money collected by political parties is illegal.

Mr. Cloutier estimated that less than 10% of funds collected at the municipal level, and 20% at the provincial level, actually came from legal eligible donors.

As for the rest, he said, corporate money quickly breached the barricade set up by the 1977 law. He said it was easy to find people to pose as donors because they would get reimbursed, along with the added bonus of a tax credit.

“A few years later — I’d say two or three years later — the law was being outsmarted,” Mr. Cloutier, 73, told the inquiry.

“The director general of elections didn’t check and it was easy to find strawmen because of the tax credit. everyone called me because it was essentially a $300 gift.”