Money talks, politicians listen

Perhaps the laugh’s on us — we keep electing the same two parties in this province and expect them to somehow act differently than they always have, with innovative thinking, accountability, and free of influence.

Fat chance.

Political parties are at their most altruistic on the campaign trail, when suddenly they can see keenly just the sort of strong leadership, good governance and transparency the populace wants, then one of them forms the government and it’s right back to whatever-we-have-todo-to-stay-in-power mode.

It’s so predictable, it’s pathetic.

And so here we are again. Dwight Ball and his Liberals vowed they’d tighten up the policies governing political donations. What they didn’t add at the time — and should’ve — is that they wouldn’t actually do anything until they had wrung every last benefit out of the current guidelines that they can.

And so donations to political parties by companies and trade unions continue apace and we’re all supposed to accept that the money is given without expectation of reward.

Sure. Uh-huh.

So it’s pure coincidence that the provincial government has just propped up the pension fund at Kruger corporation’s Corner Brook Pulp and Paper mill, which — how weird is that? — was the largest contributor to Liberal coffers last year, with a no-strings-attached gift of $20,000. The company gave the Liberals $10,600 in 2015.

Now, I’m glad retirees and employees at the paper mill won’t have to worry about their pensions drying up — they’ve earned them, after all.

No, what bothers me is that this province’s current rules mean that big companies and big unions are able to influence policy decisions and legislation more than the average voter, purely because they have bigger wallets than you and I. That’s not how democracy is supposed to work.

“This idea that we’re scratching Kruger’s back is absolutely, categorically untrue,” Liberal cabinet Minister Eddie Joyce told The Telegram this week.

The trouble is, though, whether you believe Minister Joyce or not, it sure as heck looks as though that’s exactly what they’re doing.

We all know that some of the most influential members of the current cabinet are from the west coast of the province — free skiing anyone? — and that if Corner Brook Pulp and Paper ever folded, or its pension fund bottomed out on their watch, they’d have a very tough time of it out on the stump come election time.

If political parties in this province want the electorate to believe that their actions aren’t motivated by the size of company’s or union’s campaign contribution, there’s an easy remedy. Ban such donations. Other provinces have done just that, and they’re still out there running successful election campaigns.

Asking us to swallow the notion that politicians have blinders on when it comes to who’s smoothing their way to power — “At no time did I even know how much Corner Brook Pulp and Paper donated,” Joyce says — shows contempt and disrespect for voters, who have no trouble reading the writing on the wall, particularly when it’s in such large, bold script.

Writing in The Guardian in September 2014, columnist Warwick Smith puts it plainly: “Corporations don’t give their money away for nothing. There is an understanding (rarely made explicit) that large campaign donations buy political access and favourable consideration in policy development and legislation. Why else would a corporation, which is bound by law to pursue profits, make these donations?”

Why else, indeed?

Now, if our provincial government doesn’t actually want to reform the political donation process, it should just go ahead and acknowledge that it likes the rules just as they are, thank you very much. That, at least, would be the truth and they could be judged accordingly as they laugh all the way to the bank.

This shabby bill of goods they’re trying to sell us at the moment is more than I, for one, can take.

“I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be.” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,

U.S. Supreme Court