* PLEASE NOTE -- Just after releasing this news release, Democracy Watch learned that Ken Dryden also has a self-loan from himself and his spouse totalling $100,000.  Democracy Watch's position is that Elections Canada should also rule that this self-loan (or at least the portion of the $100,000 that comes from Ken Dryden) is also, in effect a donation that exceeds the donations limits in the Canada Elections Act.

Friday, June 2, 2006

OTTAWA - Today, Democracy Watch called on the federal Commissioner of Elections to ensure an investigation into the donations to the campaign of Liberal leadership race candidate Joe Volpe, including an examination of the entire paper trail through the bank accounts of the donors, and should declare that the loan candidate Martha Hall Findlay has made to her own campaign is, in effect, a donation that exceeds legal limits.

Returning donations, as Volpe’s campaign has, is not a valid reason to abandon an investigation, as the donations were made and if they were not made properly than the Canada Elections Act was violated and the violators should be found guilty and penalized.

Candidate Martha Hall Findlay’s claimed “loan” of $50,000 to herself should clearly be viewed as a donation simply because it is not actually possible to loan money to oneself.

Democracy Watch also called on the Committee on Bill C-2 (the “Federal Accountability Act” - FAA) to amend the Canada Elections Act sections of the bill to prevent future political donation problems.

“Elections Canada should be investigating the paper trail through bank accounts for any donations to any campaign that raise questions about the source of the donation money, and should rule that loans candidates make to themselves are clearly donations that cannot exceed the donation limits,” said Duff Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch and Chairperson of the nation-wide Money in Politics Coalition. “Given that the Accountability Act changes the federal elections law, changes should be made now to end all large, secret donations and loans.”

The following changes are needed to the Canada Elections Act to ensure that wealthy interests can’t have undemocratic, unethical influence on politicians and the federal government (and to fulfill the Conservatives’ election promises to “end the influence of money in politics” and to ensure party leadership and nomination races are “fair, transparent, and democratic”):

• ban all non-voters from making donations;
• limit donations and require disclosure of “volunteer labour” donated to parties and candidates during nomination race, election and party leadership campaigns, to close this existing secret donations loophole;
• limit spending on leadership campaigns, and limit loans to parties, nomination race candidates, election candidates and party leadership candidates;
• require disclosure of the identity of each individual donor's employer (as in the U.S.) and direct organizational affiliations to the Chief Electoral Officer to ensure that businesses, unions and other organizations do not funnel donations through individuals to candidates and parties;
• require disclosure of all donations and loans made to election candidates, riding associations, and parties before polling day (as leadership race candidates are now required to do);
• strengthen the proposed new ban on election candidates accepting gifts or other advantages and extend it to nomination race candidates and party leadership race candidates;
• apply the limits on donations to all donations of goods, services and funds to ban unlimited donations by nomination contestants and election candidates to riding associations, parties and their own nomination race campaigns;
• add, as required by an international agreement Canada has signed, and as proposed by the federal Department of Finance, a requirement that federal politicians, their staff, Cabinet appointees and any government employees with decision-making power are placed on the anti-corruption watch list of the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (Fintrac) so that their bank accounts can be tracked for suspicious transactions, and;
• add a measure lowering the public funding of political parties from $1.75 per vote received to $0.75 per vote received (to ensure that in order to prosper parties need to have active, ongoing support of a broad base of individuals) and ensure riding associations receive a fair share of this funding (to reduce the control that the central executive of each party has over the associations).