It seems the Ontario Liberals want to keep politics in Ontario as a rich person’s game. After all, how many of us can come up with as much as $7,750 in donations each year to our party of choice? And that is on top of the more than $2 per vote subsidy to be provided to the parties to supposedly wean the parties off the big bucks from corporations and unions.
Mind you a single corporation can probably contribute $150,000 with judicious giving through its executives and board members. To which Premier Wynne would probably say: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
You really do not think that the party in power would do itself any harm in updating political donations do you?
The Liberal dominated legislative committee will be considering this bill over the summer. It is expected that they will stick to a minimum of sitting days. And they would hardly invite a skeptical Liberal apparatchik such as this one to make comments.
Besides, the Conservative and New Democratic members of the committee will only be there to earn some extra money over the summer. (Oh, you did not know that they were paid handsomely for their onerous summer chores?)
But it is the experienced campaign managers for each party who are the most knowledgeable about how political donations get from the deep pockets of contributors to where they are influencing votes for the party. And, in this Internet age, all parties are becoming more adept at drawing maximum funds from their on-line supporters.
And the party apparatchiks would hardly be among those who would leave the central party’s fundraising unlimited. That would leave the leader and the central party in total control of the party and its election process.
Nor would the apparatchiks like the high limit of $100,000 on third-party advertising. That would certainly buy a lot of full-page ads that could help turn an election around.
What also needs to be recognized are the many unrecorded debts that a candidate and party accumulate throughout an election. While these contributions might be considered of no monetary value, they are of very real value to the campaign and to the member of the provincial parliament.
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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