Dave McKee
At the end of October, Ontario’s Conservative government announced proposed changes to the provincial election laws which would “strengthen and increase public trust in the province’s electoral system.”
Unsurprisingly, the government’s proposals are a further push in an anti-democratic direction.
Here are some real electoral reforms that we’d like to see implemented in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada.
First the ban on trade union donations to political parties should be lifted. Unions are not corporations, and applying the same rules against political donations places a serious limit on the ability of working people, who are the vast majority of the population, to participate fully in the electoral process. This is especially true in a class society such as ours, in which the political marginalization of the working class is a constant and growing feature.
Not all working people are in a position to be publicly involved as individuals in the political process. In fact, many people have legitimate concerns for their employment, for their legal status in Canada or for the safety of their families abroad. At the same time, however, we all have the right to be politically active. Trade union political activity is a very important avenue for workers with these concerns to exercise their democratic rights through an already democratic and transparent organization.
Second, we need to shift away from the per-vote allowance to political parties. This relates to the partial reimbursement of campaign expenses for candidates who reach a vote threshold. It is problematic on a few different levels.
Providing an allowance on the basis of votes received overwhelmingly privileges the large parties who are able to run candidates in all ridings and collect higher province-wide vote counts. Smaller parties, who may have a loyal and generous individual funding base, will be doubly penalized by this approach. Furthermore, this funding model has already been proven in other jurisdictions to result in an increased gulf between those parties who are represented in legislatures and those who are not.
Beyond this, per-vote funding represent a further and very significant shift in political financing from the realm of donations from the public to greater state support to parties. We need to ask a basic question: Is democracy a function of a state bureaucracy or is it of the people? Political parties and movements emerge from the people, from their response to their lived experience. As such, it is the people who have the right to fund their parties and movements. Limiting that right and replacing it with a form of state funding that privileges the largest parties are mechanisms for diminishing democracy.
Third is to seriously reduce campaign spending limits. Without a doubt, the current high spending limits allow the largest and best-funded parties to buy elections by financially exhausting both their opponents and the public. Surely, any effort to “strengthen and increase public trust in the province’s electoral system” needs to address the anti-democratic effect of obscenely high spending limits.
Fourth, free broadcasting needs to be regulated under the Election Finances Act. Media is key to campaigning, and unequal access to free-time broadcasting amounts very clearly to a form of donation or subsidy to the largest parties, and especially the parties represented in the Legislature. For this reason, broadcasting needs to be regulated under the Election Finances Act. This applies to the free-time party broadcasts, which should be the same for all parties, but which currently is only available to parties in the Legislature during the period in between elections.
Furthermore, lack of regulation allows the private broadcast consortium to determine which parties and candidates will have access to election debates and discussions that they cover. In every instance, this consortium has restricted access and participation to the large parties represented in the Legislature. Access to free broadcast media must be equal, or it constitutes an unfair donation and subsidy.
Political financing rules have an enormous effect on democracy and democratic participation. Rather than partisan maneuvers, working people need a consultation process that is broad, inclusive and comprehensive, that engages all people in the province, and that points toward legislative proposals that can expand and deepen democracy.
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