While Alberta politicians fight about whether to allow corporate and union donations in municipal elections, a political watchdog says even deeper reforms are needed to ensure the political process is free of undue influence.
Democracy Watch co-founder Duff Conacher said banning corporate and union donations creates the impression that big money is out of politics, but funds can still be funnelled by organizations through individual donations from employees, proving to be even less transparent and more difficult to track.
Alberta’s Danielle Smith United Conservative Party government pushed through Bill 20 in May. It reintroduces corporate and union donations at the municipal level. Rachel Notley’s NDP government had banned them in 2014.
While Conacher is critical of such donations, he said the system it replaces wasn’t much better.
“It is a legalized bribery system,” he said, referring to overt corporate donations. But even when they are banned, corporate executives find ways around the rules.
“So what you have is five executives and their five spouses and their 10 kids each give, by miracle, $4,300... then $86,000 is given,” said Conacher. The current maximum donation amount in Alberta for a municipal candidate is $5,000 per person per election year.
Alberta’s legislation has also drawn the ire of local municipalities.
“Essentially, Bill 20 puts local governments up for sale to the highest bidder. We know this doesn’t sit well with Albertans, who have repeatedly said that ‘big money’ has no place in local politics,” Alberta Municipalities president and Wetaskiwin Mayor Tyler Gandam said in April.
During a virtual press conference last week, Gandam was more reserved, but maintained that the bill will have an impact on municipalities, though to what extent is yet to be determined.
“We might have to go through an election cycle to see what the impacts are for our municipalities,” Gandam said.
In an emailed statement, Ministry of Municipal Affairs press secretary Heather Jenkins said the bill will provide transparency about financial backing for election candidates. The next municipal election cycle is in 2025.
“The ban on union and corporate donations has not impacted the scale of donations to candidates and we want to ensure that candidates are fully transparent about where their campaign dollars are coming from,” said Jenkins. “Strict rules around eligible donations and public transparency and reporting will ensure that unions and corporations do not have disproportionate influence.”
During the Alberta Municipalities convention in Red Deer in September, NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi briefly spoke on Bill 20, implying that the party would repeal provisions of the bill.
Provinces have a wide range of donation rules
Most provinces don’t allow financial contributions from corporations and unions to municipal campaigns, but permit individual donations with limits, with the exceptions of Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon.
Saskatchewan, which is currently in a municipal election cycle, does not have maximum contribution limits and even allows contributions from outside the province, raising some questions about whether developers and companies who donate to a campaign would receive contracts in the future.
Conacher notes that in Quebec, following the Charbonneau commission into the awarding of public contracts, political contributions were capped at $100 per person. Corporate and union contributions were banned there in 1978. Quebec also has an extensive vetting system where donations are verified to ensure who is making the contributions.
“All the rest of the systems across the country are really shams that hide and obscure big money. They don’t stop it,” Conacher said.
But even if more provinces followed in Quebec’s footsteps, big businesses wouldn’t totally be out of the picture because they employ so many people and pay a lot in taxes, added Conacher.
“At least they can’t buy that influence.”
Read more: Alberta
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