City Councillors Limit Political Donations
Toronto city councillors have decided they will no longer accept campaign donations from corporations or unions.
"This is kind of a revolutionary day, " Councillor Michael Walker, who pushed for the reform, said after the 29-12 vote. "We've broken the dam of resistance". The issue has been before Toronto council off and on for several years, but the politicians haave resisted reform until now.
This means that future candidates will have to rely on individuals to fund their campaigns. Toronto city council also voted to study the feasbility of providing some city funding for campaigns.
And here's a piece on Councillor Jenkins' position:
Jenkins asked councillors to listen to their citizens. He said when he was first elected, he got no offers of corporate donations until he eventually emerged as a front-runner, and then was surprised to see a flow of unsolicited offers of support.
"What they were trying to do, I believe was have influence – perhaps undue influence – on decisions being made at council," he said.
And here is a CATCH article that lists which Hamilton City Councillors have accepted corporate and union donations, and the degree to which they have. Click here to see
This should happen here, but won't. Council lacks the intestinal fortitude or consensus to do so. All talk, no action. And unions are just as bad as corporations since most of city staff are unionized. I wonder how many times councillor Scott Duvall, who got almost half of his donations from unions, squares with his votes on raising the pay of unionized staff, or voting on accepting their contracts? Does anyone smell the stench of a conflict of interest here?
ReplyDeleteI dont think this will happen soon. Especially now because all these people think they are going to get back in and are going to need the donation money. They dont realize that everyone is sick of the way they have tried to do their jjobs. I dont think any should get back in. They are better and worse ones but they are all responsible. Zen
ReplyDeleteAny donations should come from the people, those that believe in the vision/platform of the person running has. Bit I think more importatnly that if someone has a good vision, that people would volunteer to do much to help that person, so that they get elected.
ReplyDeletePeople do not vote because they feel they are not represented and disenfranchised, thus we get people who are elected by very few.
How can those who accept corporate or union donations represent the needs of the many? We see many struggling in our city, that have no representation, they barely have any voice and it has been a struggle just to get noticed and listened to, but these voices are growing. Their stories of life experiences are what need to be heard and many across this province are learning how to stand up and speak out.
I think candidates should be able to draw funds for campaigns from where ever, since such things are listed for public scrutiny after the election.
ReplyDeleteWhat needs to be done is that of, say, a candidate receives funds from developers - then they should be subject to automatic censure on those issues of development. Or if say, they are funded by businessmen in a certain area, then they are censured from those matters. Then there is no problem with conflicts of interest, since the Councillor in question would not be eligible to partake in discussions or votes on such matters.
Thus, the entire matter would be taken care of, since no one would "invest" in influence peddling when the funds would end up going nowhere, as those that do not participate in influence peddling would be the decision makers. And those councilors that would want to vote on everything and participate fully in the decision making processes would simply not partake of such funds.
There is no need to leave the taxpayer holding the bag for the costs of campaigning.