In the olden days of Canadian democracy, corporations would write two equal-sized cheques each year, one payable to the Liberal Party of Canada and the other to the Progressive Conservative Party. The big banks, in particular, were scrupulously "egalitarian" in contributing identical high-five-figure amounts to the two main parties. Most corporations gave nothing to the New Democratic Party, since socialism (which the NDP espoused then) was antithetical to their interests, and besides, the NDP had a monopoly on union money.
High-minded corporate leaders – Canada was once awash in them – considered it their civic duty to fund the political process at a time when few individuals did. They didn't need to buy the influence they enjoyed anyway in a country founded on the concept of elite accommodation.
It was genteel – and patently undemocratic. Even the elites came to recognize that real democracy must mean more than one-person-one-vote. It must ensure all citizens have equal access to the political process. That's why reform eventually led to bans on corporate and union political donations at the federal level and in a few provinces. The democratization of political fundraising – with parties forced to rely on small contributions from thousands of individuals – sought to make politics more aspirational and less transactional.
That this age of democratic enlightenment has yet to dawn in Ontario, British Columbia and several other provinces, is an indictment of politicians who prefer the status quo, with Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne leading the list. No single political formation in the country benefits more from the status quo than the Liberal Party of Ontario, which has found a sweet spot, drawing on the financial support of corporations and unions alike. The B.C. Liberals draw most of their money from corporations, while unions give mainly to the B.C. New Democrats.
Unsavoury revelations of annual cabinet-minister fundraising quotas of up to $500,000, and invitation-only private fundraisers that provide a handful of corporate execs with one-on-one access to the Premier for a mere $6,000 or so, have finally forced Ms. Wynne to promise reform. Until recently, she had defended these machinations as "part of the democratic process." She topped that on Tuesday with this sophism: "Nor would we want a system where only people wealthy enough to fund their own campaign could run." Banning corporate financing and slapping a $1,525 maximum limit on individual donations have not made federal politics any poorer, only fairer.
Political financing laws are more lax in Ontario than in the much-maligned (from a money-in-politics perspective) United States, where corporations and unions can't contribute directly to parties or candidates and individuals face a $2,700 (U.S.) donation limit per election (super PACs are another story, of course). In Ontario, the annual limit is $9,975 for individuals, corporations and unions alike, but donors can multiply their generosity thanks to subsidiaries, affiliates and relatives whose donations are tabulated separately. Other loopholes abound.
Money corrupts democracy. Not necessarily in ways that are defined in the Criminal Code. It's usually far more subtle than that. U.S. academic Lawrence Lessig has defined the concept of "dependence corruption" in which politicians grow so dependent on their relationships with donors that their view of the policy process and their role in it is skewed away from the public good toward the special interests who fund their campaigns. Yasmin Dawood, Canada Research Chair in Democracy, Constitutionalism and Electoral Law at the University of Toronto, has advanced the idea of "corruption as inequality," in which those with money have privileged access to the political process, creating a form of political inequality that results from and exacerbates economic inequality.
Worse still, the days when the big banks wrote a single cheque to each party have been replaced by a sinister system of relentless solicitations of corporate executives by quota-filling cabinet ministers (or their surrogates) offering "invitations" to private fundraisers. It's a form of extortion, pure and simple. Attendance is optional, but any fool who RSVPs his or her regrets knows that a rival who attends will earn a friendlier ear from the minister. Check out Ontario's electricity sector or the sale of beer in the province for a lesson on how this system works.
Don't shed a tear for corporate honchos who stand to gain big time in exchange for a risibly small investment. But in Ontario's pay-to-play political culture, it's not always clear who's being played.