Big corporate funding if per-vote subsidies ditched

The Hill Times:

Canada's former chief electoral officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley says it's a level playing field right now and warns parties not to change it.

Canada's former chief electoral officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley says if the per-vote public subsidies for federal political parties is scrapped, it may force the parties to return to corporate funding, something Prime Minister Stephen Harper does not support.

Mr. Kingsley, a senior fellow with the University of Ottawa's graduate school of public and international affairs, told The Hill Times last week that if the Conservatives execute their campaign promise if they win a majority government, "[P]arties will have to find ways of getting money. And there may well be pressure to come back to funding from corporate sources—the very things we've attempted to eliminate and have successfully eliminated."

In 2003 and in the wake of the sponsorship scandal, then Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien effectively initiated the end of corporate, union, and other organizations' donations, limited individual donations to $5,000 per year, and introduced the per-vote subsidy. Any political party that receives more than two per cent of the vote nationally in a general election or five per cent of votes cast in ridings where the party endorsed a candidate receives a $1.75-plus-inflation subsidy (roughly $2 now) for each vote it receives.

When the Conservatives took power in 2006, they totally scrapped corporate, union and association donations and lowered individual donation caps to $1,100 (plus inflation).

Continue reading here.