If you work long enough in, or around, government, you get used to tall tales. It comes with the territory. And now, with an election almost upon us, our provincial politicians are at it again.
For the sixth time since 2005, the NDP has introduced a bill to prohibit all union and corporate donations. The reason given for the ban is that it will prevent wealthy donors from having a disproportionate influence.
And for the sixth time running, the B.C. Liberals have ensured the bill dies, on the grounds that corporations and unions are entitled to have their say.
Both sides, in other words, are engaged in virtue signalling. They would have us believe it’s all about the sanctity of the electoral process and high moral principle.
Nope. It’s all about trying to put the other guy at a financial disadvantage.
Between 2005 and 2015, the provincial NDP collected $55.9 million in donations, while the Liberals grossed $107.8 million — almost a two-to-one advantage for the Liberals.
However, ban both union and corporate donations, and the picture changes completely. Over that 10-year period, the NDP took in $11.6 million from unions, and only a tiny amount from corporations, meaning if both sets of contributions were outlawed, the party would have netted $44.3 million.
In contrast, the Liberals raked in $70.2 million from corporations, and predictably, a pittance from unions. Remove both sets of contributions, and the Liberals would have received only $37.6 million — well below the NDP’s take.
That’s what this skirmish is really about.
It would indeed be harmful to the machinery of policy-making if fat-cat donors could sway governments with huge gifts of money. Yet both unions and companies have legitimate interests to protect.
Shackle the labour movement, and a Liberal government might wreak havoc. How about legislation making union membership voluntary in unionized workplaces, as some American states have done?
Shackle the business sector, and an NDP administration might introduce a whopping hike in the corporate income-tax rate.
These aren’t the issues that normally attract attention during election campaigns, when it’s all about jobs, house prices and saving the environment. But they still have far-reaching consequences.
The issue, it seems to me, comes down to this. There is a case for limiting the amount of money that unions and corporations can donate to political parties. No one wants to see the kind of obscene fundraising that goes on south of the border.
But we are nowhere near the American experience, where Hillary Clinton raised $1.2 billion for her presidential run (and much good it did her).
There is one more matter to deal with. B.C., we frequently hear, is a rogue province, since most other jurisdictions in Canada have banned or severely limited corporate and union donations.
So that makes us wrong? Let’s take a closer look at what’s going on elsewhere. Needless to say, it’s not quite what’s advertised.
Between the federal government and the provinces, there are eight small-l liberal administrations in Canada.
Five ban corporate and union donations — for the advantage-grabbing reasons given above. But interestingly, three do not — New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland.
And why might that be? Because the governments of these three provinces rake in bags of corporate money.
In other words, private-sector donations are perfectly fine, so long as you’re getting your share.
Bottom line: This whole affair is self-interest masquerading as principle.
The left bans both corporate and union donations when it loses out on the deal. The right permits them, because it comes out ahead.
Politics as usual.
