A Liberal promise
Party says new rules needed for leadership race financing
Campaign finance records for political leadership campaigns remain outside the reach of Elections Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Liberals are promising to amend the law and change financing for leadership runs, despite the fact that Liberals received big, anonymous donations and were the biggest spenders, when looking at the Liberal race of 2013 and the most recent Progressive Conservative race in 2014.
As reported, candidates in the last Liberal contest said they operated under the rules as decided upon by the party.
That’s why, for example, the public disclosure issued by candidate Paul Antle reads “Company 1, Company 2” and “Individual 1, Individual 2,” not citing real names. Donors were not told up front their donations might be disclosed.
That lack of disclosure would be a no-no under the laws governing a general election, but is allowed in leadership races here.
Some candidates ran hefty expenditures. The ultimate win- ner, Dwight Ball, spent $312,733 on his campaign, MHA Cathy Bennett $411,000 and Antle $438,000. Smaller amounts in the Liberal leadership race were spent by Danny Dumaresque, at $32,850 and then there was MHA Jim Bennett.
“I did file,” Bennett said when asked about his records. “I think as soon as it was determined that my campaign was only about $40,000 in total and I raised only about $11,000 ... everybody lost interest in me. I wasn’t exciting anymore.”
The Telegram asked him if the money actually matters.
“If all other things were equal, I think that you would have to say that,” he said. “If you have two evenly matched candidates, parties and if everybody’s at say 50-50 in the polls or 33, 33, 33, the person with more money stands a better chance of getting that message out. And so it’s like advertising. So why wouldn’t they have a better chance of winning?”
Antle said the party’s structure for the leadership contest meant it was reaching out to all voters, pushing beyond the bounds of the standard convention hall of a few hundred, but that also meant candidates were spending to identify themselves with more voters.
He said he supports new rules for leadership runs, noting none of his contributors received the tax benefits donors would see with other races, making it that much harder to raise support and leaving candidates pitching in large sums of their own.
Ball said he expects the provincial Liberals to have new rules on financing embedded in the party’s constitution by the next leadership race.
“As you know, this issue really goes back many years. If we go back to 2003, there was a commitment made then by the current government, the PC government, to bring in legislation through Elections Newfoundland and Labrador that would deal with leadership campaigns,” he said.
When questions around leadership race financing came up in 2013, he released a list of his own donors, refunding in cases where they did not agree to the disclosure. He said he did not set the rules for the race and, as premier, would seek mandatory disclosure, spending caps and oversight by Elections NL.
A few months later, in February 2014, the CBC issued an investigative report highlighting the lack of transparency and challenges of fairness in provincial party leadership financing, re-stating the commitments to change.
In June 2014, the Liberals held an AGM in Gander, but the party didn't debate changes to leadership campaign finance rules.
“In absence of that (change by the PCs), at the next annual general meeting of the Liberal party, what we will be bringing in is public disclosure for all individuals and corporations that actually make donations to leadership candidates,” Ball told The Telegram recently.
“If at some point we’re in a position to change legislation around donations, around the way campaigns are financed, it would be based on the fact the information would be publicly available, the donor’s name — either to a corporation or an individual or an organization — would be publicly available and there would be a cap on what the donor could make.”
Cathy Bennett is confident the changes will come.
“I think it’s really, really important for me to say that I do support making the necessary amendments to the legislation that puts everybody on a level playing field,” she said.
While in power, premier Kathy Dunderdale said Elections Act oversight was something that could be looked at. But premier Tom Marshall said it was decided leadership financing rules and oversight would be left to the individual parties.
Working off their own rules, the latest set of PC leadership candidates publicly disclosed their donors and agreed not to spend more than $350,000.
Candidate John Ottenheimer recorded $128,727 in expenditures; MHA Steve Kent $172,191 and now-Premier Paul Davis $154,697.
“I think it’s really, really important for me to say that I do support making the necessary amendments to the legislation”
Cathy Bennett