Keeping democracy democratic
Rethinking Canadian federal elections
JACQUES MARCOUX
While you were watching the latest episode of Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader, democracy was kidnapped, blindfolded and hog-tied in a burlap bag.
A recent Globe and Mail article revealed that there exists a significant loophole in the political party donation laws that could allow an individual to donate up to $60,000 over the legal limit. As it stands, the maximum an individual, corporation or lobbyist organization can donate to a political party is $1,100 per calendar year. However, this amount can be easily bypassed by making several consecutive donations of under $200 to several ridings of the same party, since donation under $200 do not have to be reported to Elections Canada. In theory, an individual could donate $199.99 to each of a party’s 308 ridings nation-wide for a total donated amount of $61,596.92, all the while remaining undetected.
Democracy is the most precious piece of ideology this country has, and we must fight fiercely to protect it from distortion. The argument at hand is not that Canadian politics are corrupt, nor that they are cash-flow-dependent, but rather that further reforms would be beneficial to not only improve our system, but also to ensure that our democratic process remains just that: democratic.
There is no evidence that this loophole has been exploited to date, but it remains a possibility. Traditionally, Conservatives have acquired donations using a high-volume-low-margin approach, preferring to collect several thousands of small donations. On the other hand, Liberals have preferred massive fundraising drives where it is common to receive fewer donations, but of substantially more value. It is interesting to note that the Conservative government, whichlowered the maximum donation amount from $5,100 to the current $1,100 under the guise of Harper’s trademark “accountability” tag line, has been accused of lowering the legal donation cap since the $1,100 limit plays well into the Tory fundraising strategy while putting a stick in the Liberal spokes.
However many problems the Canadian electoral system may face, it remains far more balanced than the American system. Not only does Elections Canada limit donations to political candidates, but it also sets a cap on how much an individual can spend on his or her campaign. Compare this to the United States electoral process, in which current presidential candidates have raised as much as US$50 million for their personal campaigns, with still over a year to go before Americans cast their votes.
This is a far cry from the ideological Athenian democracy which forms the historic foundation on which both governments function. It is no longer a democracy when the only plausible candidates for election are the wealthy. In theory, a plumber with ingenuous ideas should have the same opportunity to be elected as an affluent lawyer. Cleary this is not the case; but nor should it be. Only a small per centage of people have either the knowledge or the character to become a politician. Even a smaller per centage of those people have the knowledge, the character and the money required to launch a successful political career. The divide created by the importance of money in politics is quickly eroding the democratic process and is instead further concentrating power in the hands of the few.
As mentioned earlier, the Canadian system has acknowledged this potentiality of plutocracy, and has implemented several checks and balances to prevent such events from occurring, with the exception of the newly discovered loophole, which has gone unnoticed publicly for far too long. In this author’s opinion, corporate and lobbyist pressures in Canada are infinitesimally small compared to what often appears to be a corrupt American political arena, where candidates are indebted (through their pockets) to aggressive lobbyists.
How can this problem be fixed? Ideally, political candidates would be sheltered from outside influences when it comes to policy-making. The only feasible way to ensure that this ideal is closely met is to develop a system where public funds are distributed proportionally to party candidates.
Such a system has additional beneficial side effects. First, since the political campaigns of local representatives will be funded by taxpayers’ money, eligible voters will be more likely to get actively involved in the entire democratic process since they will feel that they are entitled to quality levels of leadership. Second, citizens who were previously reluctant to get involved politically due to monetary barriers would likely reconsider their involvement. Finally, the focus of time and energy from party members could be redirected towards what they were originally elected to do: govern, rather than spend their time fundraising pennies by setting up a lemonade stand.
Canadians are in no imminent danger of having their democracy high-jacked. However, this does not mean that we can sit quietly and assume the pressures of outside influences will not trickle their way into the policy-making process more than it already has.
Jacques Marcoux is a fourth-year commerce student.
