Never having been reluctant to give Premier Wynne advice before, we can hardly resist the opportunity to give her and her Liberal Party of Ontario advice on fund-raising. The first advice we will give her is to get her and her fellow members of the provincial parliament out of the fund-raising trough. They should not be involved. Nothing spells out corruption more than the politician being their own fund raiser
And having the legislature making decisions about the fund-raising rules is like having the inmates making decisions on prison reform. No elected person should be involved. And, in as much as the premier has told the media that her party makes the fund-raising decisions, we should go that route. We should have an all-party committee of non-elected fund-raising experts make the recommendations.
The first recommendation from such a committee would probably be putting an end to third-party involvement in elections. You either run for office or support someone who is running. There should be no interference in the political game from the sidelines.
Another change that is desperately needed is to take away the power of the party leader to select candidates. The party leaders are chosen by the membership to lead the parliamentary wing of the party—not to dictate to the entire party.
Obviously there needs to be some accommodation and similarities between federal and provincial fund-raising rules. There are many party fund-raising people who work for their party in both federal and provincial capacities. And, the truth be told, in municipal elections as well. Similar rules can help keep these people out of jail.
The most important objective of this all-party committee is that the rules are fair to all parties involved. We have seen too much manipulation over the years by the party in power trying to ensure rules to their own advantage.
Nor would we suggest listening to the current Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leader. This is a person who has his own interpretation as to what is fair in politics. He already proved to his party that he can win the leadership through the simple expediency of swamping the party membership with temporary members. Ask him where his 40,000 new members are today and what they are contributing to the party?
Frankly all three major parties in Ontario need to do something about their leadership at Queen’s Park.
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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