Globe and Mail columnist John Ibbitson.The Globe and Mail
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POLITICS BRIEFING
By John Ibbitson (@JohnIbbitson)
Justin Trudeau should be grateful to both Jean Chrétien and Stephen Harper, whose political finance reforms freed him from the accusations that bedevil Liberals in British Columbia and Ontario.
As The Globe's Gary Mason reports, donors are paying up to $20,000 a head for the privilege of intimate get-togethers with British Columbia's premier. In Ontario, cabinet ministers are given fundraising targets, according to a Toronto Star report, that can reach as high as $500,000 per minister.
Politicians in both provinces insist that such privileged access has no impact on their decision-making, and perhaps they believe that in their hearts. But we are all experts in human nature, and we know that people who donate money in exchange for privileged access expect something in return.
That may be why, mere hours after the news of cabinet fundraising targets hit the tablet, Ms. Wynne was promising new laws to limit corporate donations.
In Quebec, former Liberal deputy premier Nathalie Normandeau faces bribery and corruption charges, part of a scandal involving government contracts allegedly linked to political donations. But at least Liberal Premier Philippe Couillard could point to new laws, implemented by the Parti Québécois government in 2013, that limit donations to political parties to $100 a year.
Other provinces, to varying degrees, limit or ban corporate and union donations. But in Ontario donation limits are sky-high and in B.C. nonexistent. Pressure is building in both provinces to rein in the influence of Big Money.
At the federal level, money bought influence from Confederation until the early 2000s. Pacific Railway. Customs and Excise. Beauharnois. Sponsorship.
That last misadventure, involving fake sponsorship contracts and kickbacks to the Liberal Party from advertising firms, pushed Mr. Chrétien to limit corporate and union donations to federal political parties. Stephen Harper further tightened the rules by lowering the limit for personal donations and banning corporate donations entirely. The era of the Ottawa bagman has ended.
That doesn't mean interest groups don't seek to influence public policy in Ottawa. As Simon Doyle reports, a record number of registered lobbyists met with the new government in February, hoping to convince cabinet to see things their way.
But those lobbyists have only the art of persuasion available; the silent poison of financial services rendered no longer lingers in the air.
The Liberals in B.C. and Ontario don't even need to study the issue. They simply need to take the federal law and declare: Here as well.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS MORNING
By Chris Hannay (@channay)
> Jean Lapierre, a former federal cabinet minister and popular personality in Quebec media, has died in a plane crash along with other members of his family. Read our obituary for more on his colourful career.
> Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion says if Canada didn't make combat vehicles for Saudi Arabia, a country with a notoriously poor human rights record, someone else would. "This argument that if we don't do it somebody else will do it I find, frankly, the least convincing. It is not infused with moral, ethical values," said Louise Arbour, a former Supreme Court judge and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
> Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives in Washington tonight for a nuclear summit that will, among other things, discuss what could happen if terrorists got hold of nuclear weapons.
> In Calgary yesterday, Mr. Trudeau said the Liberals would monitor the new employment insurance program that targets just a dozen regions of the country. "Reviewing and monitoring means exactly that – looking at how the programs and the significant help that we put out in this budget, not just for the hard-hit areas, but for the entire country, actually translates into better jobs and better opportunities for Canadians," he said.
> The Bank of Nova Scotia held a $7,500-per-person fundraiser for two Ontario Liberal cabinet ministers just before the lucrative privatization of Hydro One, The Globe has learned. The Toronto Star has more on Bobby Walman, the party's chief fundraiser.
> And the long road for veterans advocate Sean Bruyea, who returned from the Gulf War with post-traumatic stress disorder so severe he couldn't read and now has successfully defended a master's thesis on soldiers transitioning to civilian life.
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WHAT EVERYONE'S TALKING ABOUT
"When it comes to foreign policy, Conservatives did realpolitik for a fantasy world, and Liberals prefer fantasy policies for the real world. On Tuesday, Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion set out to describe the difference – or at least to set out a principle that will guide him in managing foreign policy, Justin Trudeau-style. In the end, he got stuck in a familiar place: the murky corner where principles meet national interests." – Campbell Clark (for subscribers).
Preston Manning (Globe and Mail): "Canadians should take a moment to reflect on a fundamental truth concerning government spending: Of all the expenditures governments make on our behalf, infrastructure spending is probably the most susceptible to political corruption and manipulation for partisan political purposes."
Ramesh Thakur (Globe and Mail): "The demographic imbalance [of Sikh ministers in the Liberal cabinet] carries a domestic political risk. The more numerous, disaffected non-Sikh Indo-Canadians are open to recruitment by the Conservatives. But the bigger risk is stepping on the minefield of the extremely sensitive domestic Indian politics and damaging bilateral relations with this key country being courted by many other countries."
Don Braid (Calgary Herald): "But now we are faced with a new prime minister who comes to Alberta, clearly recognizes the deep crisis facing the province, loosens EI rules for the hardest-hit areas, talks to the people most affected and pleads for other Canadians to show friendship and understanding rather than hostility."
Susan Delacourt (iPolitics): "Still, if Canada has permanently done away with a formal deputy for the prime minister, it's worth asking (if only for formality's sake): Who would Trudeau call his second-in-command?"
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Chris Hannay