Getting Serious About Campaign Finance Reform in Ontario

Political fundraising is a major reason our faith in the political process continues to decline in this country. Over the last 20 years, voters have lived through the Sponsorship Scandal, Ontario’s cash-for-access system, and now the Greenbelt scandal. Too many of us now believe that while voters may decide elections, donors set the government’s agenda.

In the current Ontario Liberal Party leadership race, there has been a lot of talk about the role political fundraising is playing in the Ford Government’s policy decisions. There have even been some shots fired between the leadership candidates about whether it’s sufficient to follow the letter of the law when it comes to fundraising or whether the spirit of it should also be respected.

Yet the leadership candidates have made very few suggestions about what the path forward should look like. We have little information about who they will accept donations from should they become party leader or what reforms they would usher in should they become premier.

It’s not like there aren’t good ideas out there. When the rules were updated in 2016–17, Ontario political parties, as well as fundraising and election experts, weighed in on how the system should be changed. We also have examples from other jurisdictions in Canada, North America, and even Europe to look to for answers. Not all of these ideas would work together as some envision a political system with no private money while others offer tweaks to our current system.

For my part, I hope to focus the conversation towards real reform by putting the following questions to each of the leadership candidates to learn where they stand on reform and how far they would go to restore faith in our political system.

LEADERSHIP FINANCE REFORM QUESTIONS

Measures to Curb Influence & Increase Transparency:

1. Would you reinstate the ‘own funds’ anti-bundling declaration on donations introduced by the Wynne Government and scrapped by Ford?
2. Would you introduce US-style occupational and employer disclosures alongside donations to support anti-bundling investigations?
3. Would you restore the seven-day posting notice for fundraising events that the Ford Government reduced to the current three days?
4. Would you eliminate corporate and union contributions to third party advertisers (Ex: Working Families Coalition and Ontario Proud)?
5. Would you require existing provincial election spending limits and donor eligibility requirements also apply to Ontario Liberal Executive Council elections so that body is not open to influence?
6. In the next election, will you go beyond existing fundraising laws to institute internal policies that reject donations from known lobbyists, union leaders, developers, etc.?
7. Would you lower the party spending limit during elections?
8. Would you adopt the 2016 Green Party recommendation to create annual party spending limits between elections?
9. Would you create an investigation and enforcement body to address fundraising-related and other forms of political corruption?

Limiting Financial Disparities Between Voter-Donors:

1. Would you prioritize the $5/month Liberal Future Fund?
2. Would you continue accepting high-dollar Red Trillium Club donations?
3. Would you reinstate the high-dollar Heritage Dinner fundraising gala?
4. Would you increase, maintain, or decrease the annual maximum donation limit of $3,350?
5. Would you end automatic annual increases to the donation limit?
6. Would you eliminate the 33% tax credit for high-dollar donations?

Publicly Financing Elections:

1. Would you reinstate the per-vote subsidy that is set to expire in 2024?
2. If you reinstate the subsidy, would you limit subsidies: to parties with representation in the legislature; to parties that reach a threshold of overall votes cast; to parties that field candidates in a majority of ridings; to parties that nominate a quota of candidates from groups underrepresented in the legislature; or a combination of these options?
3. Do you support adopting a European-style ‘clean elections’ ban on all political donations in favour of a ‘voter owned’ expanded vote subsidy that is fully tax subsidized?
4. Do you support creating a non-partisan Citizens Assembly-style body to make ongoing recommendations about political financing in Ontario so that politicians aren’t responsible for setting their own rules?

CANDIDATE COMMITMENTS

Measures to Curb Influence & Increase Transparency:

Reinstate anti-bundling declaration:

• Bonnie Crombie: Unknown
• Nate Erskine-Smith: Reinstate and expand declarations to support anti-bundling investigations
• Ted Hsu: Unknown
• Yasir Naqvi: Explicitly ban the practice of bundling large political donations from multiple related donors

Occupational and employer disclosures:

• Bonnie Crombie: Unknown
• Nate Erskine-Smith: Unknown
• Ted Hsu: Unknown
• Yasir Naqvi: Unknown

Seven-day posting notice:

• Bonnie Crombie: Unknown
• Nate Erskine-Smith: No
• Ted Hsu: Unknown
• Yasir Naqvi: No

Third-party advertiser corporate and union donor ban:

• Bonnie Crombie: Unknown
• Nate Erskine-Smith: No
• Ted Hsu: Unknown
• Yasir Naqvi: No

Executive Council spending limits:

• Bonnie Crombie: Unknown
• Nate Erskine-Smith: Reduce the donation limit to match the federal rules and apply this to party elections
• Ted Hsu: Unknown
• Yasir Naqvi: No

Reject some donations during writ:

• Bonnie Crombie: No
• Nate Erskine-Smith: No
• Ted Hsu: Unknown
• Yasir Naqvi: No

Lower election spending limits:

• Bonnie Crombie: Unknown
• Nate Erskine-Smith: Reduce the donation limit to match the federal rules
• Ted Hsu: Unknown
• Yasir Naqvi: Unknown

Annual spending limits:

• Bonnie Crombie: Unknown
• Nate Erskine-Smith: No
• Ted Hsu: Unknown
• Yasir Naqvi: No

Corruption enforcement body:

• Bonnie Crombie: Unknown
• Nate Erskine-Smith: Empower Elections Ontario to better police bundling
• Ted Hsu: Unknown
• Yasir Naqvi: Establish an Ontario Anti Corruption Force (OACF) similar to Quebec’s Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit (UPAC)

Limiting Financial Disparities Between Voter-Donors:

Prioritize Liberal Future Fund:

• Bonnie Crombie: Unknown
• Nate Erskine-Smith: Support local grassroots outreach and fundraising through the Liberal Future Fund
• Ted Hsu: Unknown
• Yasir Naqvi: Unknown

Maintain Red Trillium Club:

• Bonnie Crombie: Unknown
• Nate Erskine-Smith: Unknown
• Ted Hsu: Unknown
• Yasir Naqvi: Unknown

Hold Heritage Dinner:

• Bonnie Crombie: Unknown
• Nate Erskine-Smith: Unknown
• Ted Hsu: Unknown
• Yasir Naqvi: Unknown

$3,350 Donation Limit:

• Bonnie Crombie: Unknown
• Nate Erskine-Smith: Reduce the donation limit to match the federal level (currently $1,700 per year)
• Ted Hsu: Unknown
• Yasir Naqvi: Unknown

End Annual Limit Increase:

• Bonnie Crombie: Unknown
• Nate Erskine-Smith: Unknown
• Ted Hsu: Unknown
• Yasir Naqvi: Unknown

Scrap High-Dollar Tax Credit:

• Bonnie Crombie: Unknown
• Nate Erskine-Smith: Eliminate tax credits for higher-value donations
• Ted Hsu: Unknown
• Yasir Naqvi: No

Publicly Financing Elections:

Reinstate Vote Subsidy:

• Bonnie Crombie: Unknown
• Nate Erskine-Smith: Reinstate the per-vote subsidy and help to pay for this change by eliminating tax credits for higher-value donations
• Ted Hsu: Unknown
• Yasir Naqvi: Unknown

Subsidy Requirements:

• Bonnie Crombie: Unknown
• Nate Erskine-Smith: Reinstate previous requirements
• Ted Hsu: Unknown
• Yasir Naqvi: Unknown

Voter-Owned Clean Elections:

• Bonnie Crombie: Unknown
• Nate Erskine-Smith: No
• Ted Hsu: Unknown
• Yasir Naqvi: No

Fundraising Citizens Assembly:

• Bonnie Crombie: Unknown
• Nate Erskine-Smith: No
• Ted Hsu: Unknown
• Yasir Naqvi: No

Other Content: To follow along with complete policy updates from the race, visit my leadership policy commitment tracker here. To follow along with media engagement, check out my leadership communications tracker here. To see how much the candidates fundraised over the summer, check out my now-retired leadership fundraising tracker here.

Theresa has served as the Communications Coordinator for the Ontario Liberal Party, the VP Communications for the Ontario Women’s Liberal Commission, the Director of Communications to Ontario Deputy Premier Deb Matthews, and an election-speechwriter for former Premier Kathleen Wynne. As a member of ‘Team Neutral’, she helped manage the 2013 and 2020 OLP Leadership races.