Virtually everyone who called a certain radio talk-show last week to criticize the Liberals’ new Bill C-24, which basically bans businesses from funding political campaigns, didn’t understand it.
Time and again they called Dave Rutherford’s QR77 and CHED phone-in show, raising objections that revealed their ignorance.
That’s because Jean Chretien’s new law came about through a classic political manoeuvre – something that ought to called a “Chretien.” He had backed his opponents into a corner.
On the outside, Chretien might look like a bumbling Everyman. Underneath, let me tell you, he is a cunning, experienced strategist.
For starters, businesses who object to Bill C-24 basically destroy their own argument. If they say that banning them from giving to the federal parties will prevent businesses from having influence in the political sphere, then they are supporting Chretien’s own contention that our current system lacks the appearance, if not the substance, of fairness: it appears that the biggest and wealthiest are able to buy the ear of government.
Since Chretien’s bill says as much, he has effectively defanged his most influential opponents. The controversial bill passed on June 11, seeming to sail over to the green-carpeted chamber without much fuss.
C-24 now awaits Senate endorsement and royal assent, both of which are likely to be formalities. Chretien has called C-24 a piece of legacy legislation and it will likely take effect before the next election.
It’s been called the federal elections spending bill, and it revises many technical aspects of the Election Act and Income Tax Act, the most important element being the cap it imposes on business donations to federal political campaigns, including elections, leadership races and local nomination drives. The cap for individuals is set at a fairly lofty $5,000 per election campaign, but businesses or their agents may only contribute up to $1,000 per federal nomination, election or leadership campaign (or fiscal year to a particular party) – to all candidates combined.
This effectively slices out the majority of funding that any party in Canada has been receiving, since non-profit businesses, such as unions, are included in the restrictions, and large multinational corporations, such as banks and tobacco companies, have been among the largest donors to the Liberal, PC and Alliance parties.
Early on there were critics. At least one Liberal backbencher called it “dumb” because he could not see how parties would be able to afford their expensive operations: TV spots, newspaper ads, head offices, debate preparation and brochures to every house in the country.
To quiet such critics, Chretien first threatened to dissolve Parliament and call a summer election. This gave him two levers: one, as leader of the Liberal Party, he signs all nomination papers, giving him a veto on any obstinate opponents who want a seat in Parliament; two, if nominated, the backbenchers know they would not get a summer vacation nor see their families, since they’d be out campaigning. This punchy kind of threat is typical of the scrapper-from-Shawinigan’s style.
But he also brings some candy. Chretien offered to make the pay (a grant for each registered party, paid from the treasury) $1.75 per vote per year, instead of $1.50 per vote per year. As long as a party gets two per cent of the popular vote, or five per cent in any riding, they get a stipend from general revenues to help fund operations. It makes each vote worth between $5.75 and $8.75 to each party, depending on how much time there is between elections. That’s enough to replace what the Liberals raised last time around. (We hope this won’t encourage people to “sell” their votes.)
The only parties that ended up objecting to this idea were the Progressive Conservatives and Alliance. Their objections centred on the taxation argument, telling the Liberals they were acting in typical tax-and-spend mode. This argument is murky, since (1) both the PCs and Alliance already accept a lot of money from the federal government, consistent with “official party” status, (2) we expect them to accept the C-24 stipend, and (3) they had no better ideas of how to fund their next election.
Rutherford objected to one sad consequence of Bill C-24, namely that the best way to protest it (and save the government the money) would be to abstain from voting. Others have objected to the way it stacks the deck against grassroots movements.
But these objections ignore the economic realities. Can something be called “grassroots” if it is funded by big business, as it is now? In C-24, by contrast, individuals get to donate up to $5,000 per party. If there were popular support for a party, $5,000 per head could raise a lot of money, in addition to the stipend.
As for the objection that C-24 will “cost” the Canadian treasury a great deal of money, they should look just below the surface.
Do they believe that the big businesses that have donated to our political parties in the past expected nothing in return? It is possible, I admit, that the corporate giants simply wanted to make Canada a stronger democracy. But we’d also have to admit that this political goal contravenes the companies’ pledge to shareholders that all company spending would increase shareholder value. Either these companies were deceiving their shareholders or they were violating the principles of democracy – seeking to influence by de facto bribery.
If it’s the latter, and large Liberal donors such as Bombardier have received generous loan guarantees because of their generous political contributions, then our federal treasury would be better off without the money.
If it’s the former, and the large companies are giving inferior value to shareholders in order to hold up our democracy, then surely if we all paid our fair share, allowing these companies to give more to their deserving employees, shareholders, or re-investments, then the companies could grow and flourish even more, bringing us all spinoff economic prosperity.
Either way, the federal treasury will be better off without accepting money from big business. All taxpayers, including small businesses, will win big, because parties will start focusing on winning voters instead of corporate “sponsorships.”
