MONEY AND POWER POLLUTES CANADIAN POLITICS

The fact is that money and influence pollutes all politics everywhere not remotely just Canadian politics. The Waterloo Region Record April 9/16 edition carryied this story titled "Let's stop big money from polluting Canadian politics". The author is Duff Conacher, the co-founder of Democracy Watch. Over the last several years I have read and appreciated many of his articles. That said I must admit that I had real problems fully understanding his financial comments in this article. The gist certainly is that there are too many ways both legitimately and otherwise for monied individuals to donate that money to their favourite parties or candidates in the hope of buying even more influence.

Numerous suggestions are made regarding prohibiting unions and corporations from donating as well as from putting individual limits on the size of donations. Federal law is touted by some whereas the author strongly prefers the Quebec model. He also believes that ethics and election watchdogs should be doing regular audits including of politicans' bank accounts. All I can say is that the municipal elections act here in Ontario is far worse than a joke. Even when stupid politicians contravene it and are caught there are no consequences. That is said from first hand experience here in Woolwich Township, Ontario.