Monday, May 30, 2005

OTTAWA - Today, Democracy Watch released its initial analysis of the first quarterly disclosure of donations to federal political parties under the new political donations system.  The new system requires donations made directly to parties to be disclosed quarterly (in the past, donations were disclosed once each year), bans donations to parties by corporations, unions and other organizations, and limits individuals to donating a combined annual total of $5,000 to each party and all of the parties candidates and riding associations.

As a result of the change to the new disclosure system this year, the 2005 first quarter donations have been disclosed before the 2004 annual donations (which will be disclosed in July 2005).

The key point of Democracy Watch’s analysis is that the new donations system has many serious loopholes that allow wealthy interests to use money as a means of undemocratic, unethical influence over the federal government and federal political parties, as follows:

• secret, unlimited donations to nomination race and election candidates are still legal as long as the candidates do not use the money for their campaign;
• donations of volunteer labour do not have to be disclosed, allowing corporate and special interest lobby groups to make large, secret donations to parties, riding associations and candidates;
• the individual donation limit of $5,000 facilitates funnelling of donations by corporations, unions and other organizations through executives and employees, and is much higher than an average Canadian can afford and therefore is undemocratic (the limit should be lowered to $1,000);
• a donor’s employer and major affiliations are not required to be disclosed, nor are the identities of donors who donate less than $200, making it too easy to hide funnelling of donations by corporations and other organizations (for example, Jean Brault of advertising company Groupaction testified at the Gomery Commission Inquiry that he funnelled donations to the federal Liberals and the Parti Québécois through his employees), or by one individual through another individual, and;
• the identity of donors who donate to a candidate or riding association and then have their donation transferred to a party are not required to be disclosed quarterly, allowing parties to hide the identity of donors for up to 18 months, and;
• donations received during a year in which an election is held do not have to be disclosed before election day, and as a result voters have to cast their ballot without knowing who has bankrolled each party and candidate.

The Election Canada statistics for donations made from January 1, 2005 to March 30, 2005 to the Bloc Québécois, Conservative Party of Canada, Green Party of Canada, Liberal Party of Canada, and New Democratic Party reveal the following:

• the identities of many donors to all the parties are not required to be disclosed because they have donated less than $200 so far in 2005, and these donors have donated a large majority of the amount donated so far in 2005 to the Conservatives and NDP (Percentage of each party’s donors donating less than $200, total they donated, and percentage of total individual donations made so far in 2005: Bloc - 97% of donors donated less than $200, and donated a total of $21,220 (which is 17% of total donated); Conservatives - 95.8% donated total of $2,011,099 (77.9%); Greens - 95.5% donated total of $16,284.90 (36.6%); Liberals - 61% donated total of $190,691.91 (11.2%), and; NDP - 96.1% donated total of $426,393.90 (76.2%) -- if this trend continues until the end of 2005, or is present in the 2004 donation figures (to be disclosed in July), it will be clear that small donations must be disclosed to ensure funnelling of large donations from wealthy interests through others is not occurring;
• the Liberal Party received four times more money from riding associations and candidates than all the other parties combined (Bloc - $2,040 received from ridings, $0 from candidates; Conservatives - $64,986.36 from ridings, $0 from candidates; Greens - $0 from ridings, $172.97 from candidates; Liberals - $260,685.47 from ridings, $282,082.87 from candidates; NDP - $0 from ridings and candidates) and as a result, the Liberals are, in effect, hiding the identities of donors that donated 20% of their total donations until mid-2006 (because riding associations and candidates only disclose their donors once per year);
• the Liberals have many more donors donating more than $1,000 than all the other parties combined (Liberals - 141 (plus 39 groups of donors with the same family name who donated a combined total of more than $1,000; Bloc - 1; Conservatives - 36 (plus 7 groups of donors with the same family name who donated a combined total of more than $1,000); Greens - 3; NDP - 5 (plus 3 groups of donors with the same family name who donated a combined total of more than $1,000));
• the average donation to the Liberals was 3-5 times larger than the other parties (average donations were Bloc - $66.10; Conservatives - $90.23; Greens - $62.26; Liberals - $314.84, and; NDP - $64.57);
• the Conservative Party has a base of individual donors that is much larger than the other four parties (the Conservatives received donations from 28,624 individuals, 3.3 times  more than the NDP (which received donations from 8,663 individuals), 5.29 times more than the Liberals (which received donations from 5,409 individuals), 15.19 times more than the Bloc (which received donations from 1,884 individuals), and 40.03 times more than the Green Party (which received donations from 715 individuals), and;
• the Conservatives raised the most money ($2,647,633.36) of any of the parties in the first three months of 2005, followed by the Liberals (2,245,743.17); NDP ($559,352.48); Bloc ($126,577.73), and; Greens ($44,691.37).