Queen’s Park reporter Jane Taber takes an inside look at the week in politics.
Hot: Alice Funke
Last January, Alice Funke made a surprising discovery, which led to a bold prediction.
A self-described political wonk, Ms. Funke, who is the publisher of PunditsGuide.ca, was researching the federal Conservative government’s new and so-called Fair Elections Act. She happened upon a change, buried deep in the bill, to the way in which elections were to be funded. It allowed for the spending limits to be prorated, meaning that if a campaign was longer than the usual 37 days, parties could spend more than the election cap of $25-million.
The result is an uneven playing field: The new rule will provide a tremendous benefit to the party with the largest war chest and ability to raise the most money. And for the past four years, Stephen Harper and his Conservatives have been continually out-fundraising their opponents, amassing millions of dollars in donations.
And so she posed the question: “What is to stop the PM from calling the election super-early and making it longer?” Only a couple of reporters picked up on her analysis, including The Globe and Mail’s Adam Radwanski. But, for the most part, Ms. Funke says, “everybody else dismissed it.”
Well, it turns out there is nothing to stop Mr. Harper from calling an election early. In fact, it looks as though he is about to do just that. The speculation is that he will drop the writ on Sunday or Monday, and launch the longest campaign since the 1920s.
Ms. Funke, who has published her political site since 2008, says this means that the political parties could be facing a 78-day campaign, more than twice the usual length of a campaign. To stay competitive, they will have to raise twice the amount that they had originally budgeted.
It means that the Conservatives can modestly spend throughout the campaign and then just dump millions into the last two weeks to get out their message. Other parties might not have enough money left to counter the Tory messaging, she suggests.
Ms. Funke calls the amendment “profoundly unfair.” “The fundamental principle in Canadian elections is that each of the parties has a level playing field and that the rules be set by all of the parties in agreement,” she says.
Under this new rule, each party’s central campaign can spend $25-million for 37 days; each candidate can spend about $100,000. If the election is called on the weekend, she says, overnight the parties will have to double their fundraising capacity. They will have to find new donors and beg for money at the door while canvassing.
“It’s going to permeate every aspect of the campaign,” she says. “The numbers have become absurd. It is beyond what our modest Canadian electoral system, which is largely based on volunteers, can support.”
She adds: “Political parties have spent four years budgeting for a 37-day campaign and suddenly they face a campaign going on 80 days. … If it happens, it is unconscionable.”
Not: Locking the media out of nomination battles
Last Sunday, print reporters, columnists and camera crews watched as floor-crossing former Conservative MP Eve Adams attempted to win the Liberal nomination in the Toronto riding of Eglinton-Lawrence. It was a competitive battle and, the divisions within the federal Liberal Party and anger at leader Justin Trudeau were on full public display.
In the end, Ms. Adams, who joined the Liberal Party with much fanfare and hype from Mr. Trudeau, lost to Marco Mendicino, a lawyer, who lives and works in the riding. She was a parachute candidate but had vowed she would move to the riding if she won the nomination.
The meeting was open and the candidates, voters and strategists were all accessible to the media as they usually are during these democratic exercises.
Contrast this with what happened the day before in the riding of Central Nova in Nova Scotia. There, Fred DeLorey, a high-ranking Conservative Party strategist, was running for the Tory nomination in the riding left open by Justice Minister Peter MacKay, who is retiring from politics. The media were locked out during their speeches and voting.
A party official told The Halifax Chronicle Herald’s Ottawa bureau chief, Andrea Gunn, that the decision was made at the “local and national” levels to allow the candidates to speak to constituents without the “pressure of the media being there.” Another party official told the Herald that banning the media at nomination meetings was “standard practice.”
Mr. DeLorey, who some observers believed was a shoo-in because of his close Tory-headquarter connections, defeated a retired principal from Pictou, in what party officials described as a “hot and closely contested vote.”
Canadians will have to take their word on that.
Not: Partisan stunts on the eve of a federal election campaign
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau needs all the help he can get in Ontario, given recent polls. Ontario Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne and her team are doing what they can.
On Thursday, Finance Minister Charles Sousa held a press conference to criticize the federal Conservative government for not helping with the Premier’s made-in-Ontario pension plan. He suggested, The Globe and Mail’s Adrian Morrow wrote, that Ontario voters should throw out the Conservatives and elect a federal government that will help with the provincial plan.
Never mind that this is old news. It has been two weeks since federal Finance Minister Joe Oliver said Ottawa was not getting involved. “This is a cynical, partisan stunt executed on the eve of the federal election campaign,” Mr. Sousa told reporters on the eve of what is expected to be a call for a federal election.