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When it comes to big money and politics, governing Liberals are behind the times… again
The winner of the Liberal leadership will have have to tackle some big financial problems, but just getting into the race presents a financial challenge of its own.Liberal Party president John Allan, left, and election committee member John Samms, say there just wasn’t time to bring in new rules to require more transparency from leadership…
The winner of the Liberal leadership will have have to tackle some big financial problems, but just getting into the race presents a financial challenge of its own.
When Dwight Ball won the Liberal leadership in 2013, he wasn't happy with the unlimited spending and secret donations.
He called for a spending limit in future campaigns.
“This would allow and open up the party and make [a leadership bid] available to many other candidates that actually show some interest in being the leader of the Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador,” Ball said at the time.
Seven years later, he's heading out the door, we have a new race to chose a new leader, but the same old rules.
The party never did take Ball's advice, and officials have thrown their hands up and said there's nothing they can do about it now. It's too late to change the rules.
That means the contenders for premier can raise as much money as they want, from whoever they want, and don't have to give names to anyone.
The public is already cynical about the motives of politicians, and these rules just give them even more reason to be.
Here's one scenario, completely legal under the leadership rules:
A mining company writes a $200,000 cheque to cover all the expenses for a candidate. That person wins the race and is sworn in as premier, deciding it's time to loosen the environmental regulations.
No one would ever know what was really going on.
It doesn't stand up to modern standards of political transparency.
But where the Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador failed last week, the City of St. John's councillors took major strides this week, opting to tighten up their own rules on election spending.
The city's plan is to ban corporate donations by 2025, reduce spending limits and forcing more disclosure of who donated to a campaign.
“[It's] part of the transparency and accountability we need to have for our residents and our constituents,” Mayor Danny Breen told reporters after voting in favour of the new rules.
Promised democratic reform languishes
The governing Liberals seem unmotivated to change the rules of the game for general elections, despite having some of the loosest rules in the country.
Every other province, except Saskatchewan has donation limits.
The governing Liberals made some half-hearted attempt at democratic reform, forming an all-party committee before the spring election, which did almost nothing, only to be disbanded and reformed with the Opposition now controlling the agenda.
It's not that Liberals don't want to see disclosure, they're just unwilling to actually force anyone to do it.
This week, Dwight Ball said he'd like to see candidates disclose who donated to their campaign, so did the party president, John Allan.
Whether or not a contender will release a list of donations will be one of the first questions for whoever decides to run.
But it will all be on the honour system.
No audits or enforcement. No one checking to see if a few key donors were “accidentally” left off the list.
And there will still be no spending limits.
“There is just a simple fact that elections cost money and you know fundraising is an element of being a successful politician in this province with the rules as they currently are,” said John Samms, who will serve on the party's election committee.
To be competitive in 2013 meant not just fundraising, but spending a small fortune of your own money.
Dwight Ball took $223,321 out of his own pocket to fund his winning campaign, two-thirds of the total cost.
This time, one cabinet minister has privately said he'd like to run, but can't afford to spend that much of his own money, and doesn't have enough well-connected friends who can write big cheques.
The winner of this race will have have to tackle some big financial problems facing the province, but just to get into this race, they'll have to tackle a big financial problem of their own.
Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador
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