Earlier this week, the NDP government rolled out its proposed Fair Elections Financing Act, after the all-party ethics committee was not able to come to an agreement on how to tackle the issue.
The act would limit the amount an individual can donate to a political party, constituency association, political candidate or byelection campaign in any given year. The cap is set at $4,000 down from the previous $15,000 limit, which used to be $30,000 in an election year.
The bill also puts a campaign-spending limit of $2 million for parties and $50,000 for individual campaigns. It’s worth noting that in the 2015 election the PC party spent a total of $4.3 million, compared to only $1.6 million by the NDP.
To help introduce the act, the government rolled a one-minute ‘streeter’ video showing several people’s opinion on who should finance election campaigns and of course, everyone in the video thought the same way as the NDP. The video itself highlights one of the problems with the act – it doesn’t limit the government’s spending on propaganda advertising.
The video is clearly agenda-driven, paid for by Alberta taxpayers and presents the issue as if everyone supports the new legislation. Whether or not the new act will keep ‘big money’ out of Alberta politics remains to be seen, but it’s clear from the all-party committee that not everyone agrees with all the changes. Curbing government spending on advertising during campaigns had been recommended from the all-party ethics committee, but was not adopted in the legislation.
“One of the things that didn’t come out of this was government advertising, both during general campaigns and by-election campaigns,” Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock MLA Glenn van Dijken said. “There has been concerns in the past that the government is doing government advertising and government announcement during campaigns and nothing has been done to put a stop to that.”
Democratic Renewal Minister Christina Gray has said that the government would consider banning government advertising during an election, but so far we have no commitment. One can wonder if the government could find enough Albertans who don’t support banning that type of advertising, to produce enough one-minute videos.
Van Dijken also raised concerns that the new legislation could see a rise in third-party advertising. While the new act will put controls on third-party spending – including limiting advertising to $150,000 for an election cycle and $3,000 per constituency – if the province sees a rise in the number of third parties it will be difficult for Elections Alberta to monitor. It becomes particularly hard to monitor in a social media age, and it’s fair to assume the budget for Elections Alberta will need to be increased to handle these changes.
Third-party advertising has been a problem in other jurisdictions for helping to decide elections. For individuals used to donating a much higher amount to political campaigns, they may use this avenue to continue that pattern.
While trying to reduce financial influence in elections is a worthy pursuit, without a ban on government advertising the playing field isn’t truly level. The new regulations may also have other implications on the amount of third-party advertising, which is not any better than the old system. Elections are important and any effort to change them should be fair. The Fair Elections Financing Act as it stands is not fair.
