Why we should pay more for democracy
Ask voters how to improve our democracy, and they might reply: “Take the money out of politics.” Agreed. So far so good. But replace it with what? Agreement goes no further. Reform is easier said than done, but, in truth, it’s doable. We need only focus on the reality versus the rhetoric of money politics.
Everyone grumbles about grubby politicians getting addicted to cash. But talk is cheap and cheap shots are easy.
Rather than merely badmouthing money politics, we should put our money where our mouths are — by allocating more public funds to elections. True reform means reducing dependency on the seamier underside of fundraising, by adding an above-board allowance from the public purse.
Many will reflexively criticize any use of public money to (partially) underwrite campaign costs. But they might not realize that elections are already heavily subsidized.
As it is, Elections Ontario spends roughly $100 million on organizing the campaign and counting the ballots. If we spend that much on tallying votes, is it asking too much to allocate a further $12 million, plus or minus, to defray costs for the men and women running for elected office?
Under current laws, candidates who gain a percentage of the vote already qualify for a partial reimbursement. Also, individual donors receive generous tax deductions and credits from the public purse (distributed disproportionately to the most affluent). Future reforms require us to learn lessons from the past, but also acknowledge presentday problems:
When Ottawa finally outlawed all corporate and union donations a decade ago, Parliament funded per-vote “subsidies” to help wean the major parties from big business and big labour. It worked well — until then-PM Stephen Harper severed all public funding, calculating that his governing Conservatives were best positioned to outdo their ill-prepared rivals with private money.
Today, it’s the federal Liberals who are taking the heat for hosting socalled cash-for-access dinners. Cut out public funding and the private fundraising becomes awkward again for one party or another.
Ontario could avoid these mistakes by resisting Harper’s antipathy toward public funding. Yet the major parties are deeply conflicted — fearful of sticking their necks out and having them chopped off by voters who criticize them either way.
The most consistent politician on this front has been Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner, who urged the government to boost “voter allowances” proportionate to their election standings. PC Leader Patrick Brown told me last April, after a Star series on fundraising excesses, that he, too, would support public funding; but he wants them phased out over time, which would invite a return to money politics.
To their credit, the provincial Liberals have put forward ambitious proposals for public allowances, based on the most recent party standings (which is how our democracy is tallied between elections). But they, too, have suggested scaling back funding in future years.
Canada’s former chief electoral officer, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, argues that public allowances are so foundational to any reforms that they should be permanent:
“It would give political parties a base on which they can count for four years after an election,” he told public hearings last summer. “Right now, they don’t know.”
There’s another prudent way for the major parties to reduce their dependency on feverish fundraising: Lower the total election spending limit for each party (about $8 million in the 2014 campaign).
Yet, our politicians seem perennially incapable of tightening either the spending cap or the fundraising tap. Not to worry. There’s an easier way to achieve pecuniary sanity that is psychologically (and politically) painless: Ontario should close the loophole by which parties exempt their growing spending on polling, research and travel.
Pollsters and related marketing researchers play a decisive role before and during elections; to exclude them from the bottom line is an indefensible fiction in 2016. As NDP finance critic Catherine Fife points out, this long-standing loophole can give one party an unfair advantage over its rivals: “It’s still very much off the books,” she says. “It certainly doesn’t level the playing field.”
Leveling that playing field requires us to level with ourselves. If we think money politics has a distorting, corrosive effect on Queen’s Park, we have the power to do something about it — by embracing public allowances and closing outdated loopholes, in order to lower overall spending.
It’s a small price to pay for better government.