You may recall that in a 10 Tough Question interview on the Hamiltonian, Mayor Eisenberger stated
“I have no doubt that the majority of special interest campaign contributions are intended to influence. At the municipal level, the concentration of campaign contributions from a single set of interests is extraordinary and the imbalance is systemic. In the 2006 Municipal election nearly half of the money raised by Hamilton candidates came from corporations or trade unions. Of that 77% of the corporate donations and 62% of Union contributions, went to incumbents. In addition, individuals who own a business or businesses or an individual who heads a union or is involved with one has multiple opportunities to contribute to election campaigns through both their business and personal contributions. Regular citizens do not have the same opportunity. It is about a level playing field for all Hamiltonians
I believe when one source of campaign funding dominates municipal campaigns - and is consistently shown to favour incumbents over other candidates, then there is a need to review the rules. With public confidence in elected officials and democratic institutions in decline, it is incumbent on us to explore every measure to enhance the integrity of the political process."
“I’d be surprised if there weren’t more candidates who decided to run without corporate or union contributions,” says Robert MacDermid, a York University professor who tracks municipal election donations. “We do need to get the influence of developers out of municipal politics.”
Corporations provided between 69 and 82 percent of the reported contributions to nine of the individuals who won council seats – Maria Pearson, Bernie Morelli, Sam Merulla, Dave Mitchell, Terry Whitehead, Tom Jackson, Chad Collins, Lloyd Ferguson and Brad Clark – and 40 percent for Rob Pasuta. Scott Duvall avoided corporate gifts but took 40 percent of his funds from unions.
Maria Pearson topped the list, collecting 82% of her funds from corporations. She was closely followed by Bernie Morelli (80%) and Sam Merulla (79%). Dave Mitchell, Terry Whitehead, Lloyd Ferguson, Tom Jackson and Chad Collins were clustered in the 73-75% range, while Brad Clark got 69% of his financial support from corporate donors.
Bob Bratina, Margaret McCarthy, Russ Powers, Brian McHattie and Mayor Fred Eisenberger did not accept any donations from corporations or unions. Source of this information are various CATCH reports.
Do you agree with the Mayor’s assessment? Will you be supporting candidates if they are accepting these types of donations? Does it begin to explain why certain policies or positions taken are not exactly "people friendly"?
Mayor Freds got this one right Cal. Its all corrupt. Get rid of the takers at the polls. Fred cant do anythign about it. We gotta vote em out.
ReplyDelete"Maria Pearson topped the list, collecting 82% of her funds from corporations. She was closely followed by Bernie Morelli (80%) and Sam Merulla (79%). Dave Mitchell, Terry Whitehead, Lloyd Ferguson, Tom Jackson and Chad Collins were clustered in the 73-75% range, while Brad Clark got 69% of his financial support from corporate donors."
Out ya go!
Elvis P.
I agree. Politicians who get bribes, er, donations become bought hacks - ie. Bush & Obama both 'bought' by Goldman Sachs. No wonder we had a financial meltdown that continues to this day. It starts at the lower levels and it must be stopped at the lower levels.
ReplyDeleteAs well as outlawing corporate/union donations, a financing mechanism should perhaps be considered, such as the subsidy available at the provincial/federal level.
Its not an easy task though since organizations are run by private individuals - do you outlaw private donations too? From your family? Limits are circumvented by having multiple employees donate in a way that the origin is known (ie. while wearing the company hat).
Another way to go at this is to cut costs by outlawing expensive practices, or by requiring equal time although municipal elections rarely involve parties. Lawn signs should go (expensive enviro Waste) - voters should be encouraged to ply the internet for their information.
Would these ideas work? Probably not. This problem is like the proverbial iceberg. The Butani debacle illustrates the hidden part, ie. the Spectator has a huge influence and their parlour tricks such as the minimization we saw are just part of the toolkit.
But what drives the Spec? I say the exact same interests as are providing the donations in question, via advertising revenue, so crucial to the floundering news industry. So even outlawing signs or donations still leaves a huge influence peddler intact. How do you stop that? Cancelling one's subscription is the only thing that comes to my mind, which I did years ago. As the blogosphere grows, commercial influnce might wane but guess what -- the wolves will not let go without a fight and the battleground will be our rights to blog in peace. Consider the following
"The controversy surrounding White House information czar and Harvard Professor Cass Sunstein’s blueprint for the government to infiltrate political activist groups has deepened, with the revelation that in the same 2008 dossier he also called for the government to tax or even ban outright political opinions of which it disapproved.".
The flip side of the question of preventing bad stuff is to consider how to encourage more folks to run - could be the subject of another discussion? Bloggers party anyone?
I agree with you Elvis, it's time for Maria Pearson, Bernie Morelli, Sam Merulla, Dave Mitchell, Terry Whitehead, Lloyd Ferguson, Tom Jackson and Chad Collins to GO!
ReplyDeleteI can gaurantee you that non of these people could get in on their own merit.
Deborah
Accepting campaign donations from corporations and/or unions is the coward way out, or should I say IN. I can't respect anyone who is willing to be BOUGHT. Any candidate running for office and accepts donations from these sources are clearly not in it because they care about the community. They are political prostitues as far as I'm concerned. The only people who benefit from these candidates getting into office are the corporations and/or unions who bought them. Take a close look into the Wards of our current bought councillors. Need I say more!
ReplyDeleteBrian
Bob: I think people need to be really aware of what the future may hold, considering our ability to speak freely, meaning to disagree or agree with specific issues.
ReplyDeleteDisagreeing with the Capitalists Could be Deemed as a Hate Crime.
I have started to read Shock Doctrine, The rise of Disaster Capitalism, very intersting reading.
I think that people are not so aware of the slippery slope we are on and how the really big corporate interests can change a whole society to something that is not in the interests of the people.
"I think that people are not so aware of the slippery slope we are on and how the really big corporate interests can change a whole society to something that is not in the interests of the people." - Michelle
ReplyDeleteToo true Michelle and that's why I'm thankful everyday for the parenting I received.
After Naomi Klein(not my cup of tea), read some Howard Zinn.
Kiely: Yes, I have seen a few clips on you tube and many various articles I have read and I do like his view of things as well.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info and I will follow that up.