NDP Passes the Buck on Money in Politics

The NDP has balked at limiting the influence of money in elections by not limiting political contributions to individual citizens only

By: Aaron Freeman

  To criticize the federal NDP these days seems cruel, akin to berating Canada's Olympic athletes for their poor medal performance. So to my NDP comrades, heading into the next election in desperate need of policies that will resonate with the public, please consider this column a piece of helpful advice.
  Election after election, the NDP is massively out-fundraised and therefore outspent by the other parties, a gap that gets wider each decade. The party generally has a broader base of support, often having more contributors than even the governing Liberals. But the more business-friendly parties - the Liberals, Conservatives and Canadian Alliance - raise huge sums from a small number of high-end corporate donors, with the result that they bring in several times the NDP's revenues.
  When a small number of high-end donors are bankrolling the political process, this situation is, of course, something less than democratic, especially when these donors also have a huge stake in government decisionmaking, as is usually the case.
  The NDP in Manitoba recently recognized this, passing legislation that limits donations to provincial political parties to $3,000 per year. The law also bans corporate and union donors, for the simple reason that an entity that does not vote should not be able to try to influence elections by using its financial wealth.
  This sensible law is based on a system that has successfully been in place in Quebec for more than 25 years. It should be implemented federally, but thus far, no party will champion it for fear of losing the revenues from their corporate contributors. The Liberals' demonstrated their resistance to the idea last spring, when they rammed through amendments to the Canada Elections Act that left virtually all the loopholes of Canada's political finance system firmly in place. The Alliance, which was recently awarded Bay Street's Good Housekeeping Award at a $25,000-a-table fundraiser in Toronto, are not about to turn off the tap. The Tories once suggested capping donations, but that was in 1988, and the key advocate of the proposal was Lucien Bouchard. When Bouchard left to form the Bloc Quebecois, the proposal left with him.
  Sources within the NDP say their upcoming election platform will include several democratic reform proposals. No doubt in response to this year's secretive Alliance leadership race, the party will likely propose mandatory disclosure of all political donations made to party leadership candidates. Also expected is a limit on the business deductibility of lobbying expenses, a ban on MPs serving on company boards of directors, and a call for some form of proportional representation in Parliament.
  While these are all important initiatives, the NDP has nonetheless balked at limiting the influence of money in elections, surely a central democratic reform issue and one that the party is ideally situated to champion.
  Many within the party agree that it's a good idea, but they are afraid of losing their union donors. However, politics is a game of relativity. While the NDP would undoubtedly forego several hundred thousand dollars under a Manitoba/Quebec system, their rivals would lose several millions. Moreover, if a public financing system were to be implemented in place of the current corporate-funded system, the NDP would likely come out ahead.
  Last year, the NDP's convention passed a vaguely worded resolution for "state-funded campaign financing, possibly modeled after the system currently being used in Quebec." But the party failed to raise the issue during the contentious debate over the Elections Act amendments.
  It has fallen to a coalition of 50 public interest groups led by Democracy Watch to raise the profile of the Quebec system. Ironically, the coalition even includes the Canadian Labour Congress, a top NDP donor. Yet the NDP has shown little interest, and only the Bloc Quebecois has spoken out in favour of these reforms. (Bloc members have historically adhered to the Quebec restrictions voluntarily, although after the Liberals passed the Elections Act amendments, they announced they would no longer follow the Quebec rules.)
  In addition to helping clean up Canadian politics, promoting democratically financed elections could serve as an ideal "wedge issue" for the NDP. They could easily garner public support for the issue, and embarrass the other parties into addressing inevitable and inherent conflicts of interest with party fundraising.
  But will they raise their eyes above the party's bottom line for long enough to see this opportunity?

Aaron Freeman is an Ottawa-based writer and a regular columnist with the Hill Times, Canada's Parliamentary newspaper. He can be reached at freeman@essential.org.

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