One good move on campaign finance, and one bad
Doug Ford did it.
He did the right thing — by finally supporting public funding for political parties, buttressing the democratic process.
And then he did the rightwing thing — by wrongly doubling private donation limits, undermining the democratic process.
Think of those controversial Ministerial Zoning Orders (MZO) that do the devil’s work for developers who donate money to the party in power. Like a Greenbelt up for grabs, MZO equals quid pro quo, not to mention highways to nowhere that lead to the developer’s door.
That’s why it’s worth circling back for a closer look at the government’s byplay — and its unexpected about-face — on campaign finance rules last week. Let’s get the bad news out of the way first.
Under cover of COVID-19, Ford’s Tories have set back the cause of campaign finance reform by boosting the individual contribution limit of $1,650 by what can only be described as an astronomical amount — 100 per cent — to $3,300 a year. That’s not an inflationary hike, nor a catch-up increase, it’s double your money — and double trouble for democracy.
In the spirit of democratic dialogue, I asked the guardian of our election laws, Attorney General Doug Downey — whose courtroom experience and legal training equip him to defend the indefensible — why he would bring forward such backward legislation. Here’s how the minister, now practised in politics as well as the law, spun his press lines:
The newer, higher limit “takes us to the middle of the pack in the country,” he explained helpfully. “Going to the middle of the pack is going in the right direction.”
Ah, no it’s not. It’s going in circles.
Before the Toronto Star ran a series of investigative columns in 2016 crusading for campaign finance reform, the upper limit was an astronomical $9,975 a year. Under pressure, the last Liberal government dialed it down to $1,200 annually per person, which Ford’s Tories adjusted up again to $1,650 — and are now doubling up on.
How is heading backwards “going in the right direction?” It wrongly and unfairly advantages the provincial Tories, who rely far more on big donations than the opposition New Democrats and Liberals.
But in fairness, all is not lost. Buried in this bad news is the surprising revelation of a policy reversal by Ford on his long-standing opposition to public financial support of political parties.
The premier has come a long way since plunging into provincial politics three years ago with his populist attacks targeting the so-called per vote “subsidy.” I prefer to call it a voter allocation, with the entire electorate deciding the cash flow rather than the bigshots calling the shots.
At the Ryerson Democracy Forum I hosted for him last October, Ford stuck obstinately (if not theologically) to the theory that political parties must be pure, not tainted by public money. When I countered that donors now get generous tax credits — as high as 75 per cent — from the public purse to subsidize their contributions to the Progressive Conservatives and other parties, he wouldn’t budge.
“Well Martin, really good question — you make a really good, valid point,” Ford said back then. “I just don’t believe that everyone should be forced to pay if they don’t support a certain political party, or any political parties.”
In fact, nobody pays a penny to anybody they don’t support. Parties are entitled only to a “per vote” allocation based on their electoral performance.
Those so-called subsidies were introduced provincially (and federally) as reasonable compensation for the sudden loss of far more insidious corporate and union contributions, which former premier Kathleen Wynne banned, belatedly, in 2016. Upon taking power, Ford’s Tories unilaterally and ideologically declared they would phase out the pervote subsidy ahead of schedule this year.
Now, to their credit, the Progressive Conservatives have reconsidered. Downey has announced a three-year extension and an increase in the “subsidy” from the current 45.2 cents per vote every quarter to 63.6 cents (where it was in 2018), which works out to $2.54 per vote annually.
Based on the results of the most recent election, the Tories will receive $5.7 million annually, the NDP $4.9 million, the Liberals $2.9 million, and the Greens $672,000 (the amounts would be adjusted after the 2022 election to reflect the parties’ new vote totals).
Give the premier points for listening — if not to me, then to Downey and other cabinet ministers who understood that this is no time, in a pandemic, to pull the plug on public funding. It’s worth noting that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has never restored the per vote subsidies that Stephen Harper’s Conservatives eliminated before losing power in 2015 — an indefensible lapse by the Liberals.
“The logic of it made sense in COVID times,” Downey said in an interview Monday. Political parties “need stability to be able to present proper platforms and be part of the dialogue. We wanted a sense of fairness. This is not just theoretical, it’s good for democracy.”
In fact, fundraising is the ugly underbelly of democracy. Doubly so in mid-pandemic when the ghoulish appeals for cash can seem especially unseemly.
A recent fundraising blast from Ford boasted of his government’s work in “helping pass the COVID-19 Recovery Act.” The opposition New Democrats appealed for donations to prevent deaths, citing the number of “people in longterm-care homes lost to COVID-19 every day.”
Against that backdrop, there is a compelling case to be made for eliminating individual donations entirely — or dialing them down to the more modest $100 cap in Quebec — while making public financing permanent. That might be expecting too much from the Ford government, but ahead of the 2022 election it’s worth asking all major political parties if they will stick with business as usual should they hold power.
Will they keep profiting from money politics, or will they do the right thing for democracy? The answer is to dial down fundraising limits and shore up public funding so that we can be governed financed by voter preferences, not donor preferences.