Ford doubled donation limits in spring 2021, and allowed leaders to attend events – so wealthy donors can use legalized bribery to buy even more influence over politicians

Ford also changed disclosure requirements in spring 2021, making it impossible to determine average and median donation amounts and overall statistics

To make system democratic and ethical, donations should be limited to $100 annually (as in Quebec), with donation-matching public funding if parties can prove they need it

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Thursday, May 9, 2024

OTTAWA – Today, Democracy Watch released its analysis showing that the Doug Ford PC Party’s doubling of Ontario’s political donation limit in spring 2021 (to now $3,350 annually) has made the system even more undemocratic.  The PC Party is supported more now by big money wealthy donors than they were before, and much more than the other three parties.  Click here to see DWatch’s analysis.

According to data from Elections Ontario’s donations database, in 2021-2022 Ford’s PC Party received on average just under 61% of its total donations from donors who each donated $1,000 or more.  That’s 12% more than in 2020, when the PCs received just under 50% of their total donations from donors who each donated $1,000 or more.

The other main parties’ top donors in 2021-2022 also provided a much higher amount of funding than in 2020. The Ontario Liberals received just over 43% of their total donations from donors who donated $1,000 or more (in 2020 they received 15%); the NDP received just under 26% (in 2020 they received 8%), and the Greens received just over 20% (in 2020 they received 14.5%).

Ford’s PC Party also received in 2021-2022 a much higher percentage of total donations (just over 14%) from donors who donated the maximum amount allowed. The Liberals received just under 8%; the NDP just over 4% and the Greens just under 3% from these max. donors.

Ford’s PC Party also received in 2021-2022 a much lower average percentage of total donations from low-level donors donating less than $250 of all the parties, at just over 11%.  The Green Party received the highest average percentage of low-level donations at just over 36% of their total donations.  The Liberals received just over 23% and the NDP received 21% of their totals.

Democracy Watch thanks Justin Myers for his assistance in calculating the above statistics.

The Ford government’s Bill 254, enacted in May 2021, doubled the annual donation limit, which has allowed wealthy donors to buy even more unethical influence over parties and politicians, including by having business executives and their family members all make donations.

In fall 2018, the Ford government also repealed the prohibition (in s. 23.1) on Cabinet ministers and their staff attending high-priced cash-for-access fundraising events that the Kathleen Wynne Liberal government had enacted in 2016.  Chief Electoral Officer Greg Essensa of Elections Ontario has also rolled over like a lapdog by allowing parties, riding associations, politicians and candidates to hide whether lobbyists are holding events for them by only requiring them to disclose the city where the event is held, not the specific address of the event.

“The Ford PC Party’s doubling of the donation limit in 2021, and allowing political party leaders to again attend exclusive fundraising events, along with Elections Ontario allowing parties, riding associations, candidates and contestants to hide the location of fundraising events, has made Ontario’s pay-to-play, cash-for-access, legalized bribery system much worse as wealthy donors can buy even more unethical influence over parties and politicians behind closed doors in secret,” said Duff Conacher, Co-founder of Democracy Watch and Chairperson of the Money in Politics Coalition.

Years of experience and scandals across Canada show clearly that setting a donation limit that allows individuals to donate more than $1,000 each year allows the unethical influence of big money donations, and cash-for-access fundraising schemes, to continue.  To see a summary of donation funneling scandals across Canada.  Click here to see a summary of big money donation scandals across Canada over the past 20 years.

“As donation scandals across Canada show clearly, the only way to stop the unethical, undemocratic influence of money in Ontario politics is to stop big money donations by allowing only individuals to donate only $100 a year, a change Quebec made a decade ago,” said Conacher.

Ford’s PC Party Bill 254 also changed the disclosure requirements so that parties, riding associations, nomination contestants, election candidates and party leadership contestants are no longer required to disclose the number of donors who donate less than $100.  This makes it impossible to calculate the average and median donation to each party and accurate overall statistics concerning numbers and percentages of total donors donating low, medium and top-level donations.

Based on the donation patterns in 2021-2022, Democracy Watch and the Money in Politics Coalition (made up of 50 groups with a total of more than 3 million members), joined by thousands of Ontario voters who support the call for these changes, called on Ontario’s political parties to make the following changes to get big money out of Ontario politics finally:

1. set an individual donation limit of $100 per year (as in Quebec);
2. set a limit of what candidates can give to their own campaign of $100 per year;
3. prohibit loans to parties except from a public fund;
4. cancel the per-vote annual public funding and, if the parties can actually prove they need public funding, instead use annual donation-matching public funding as that is a more democratic system than per-vote funding, and;
5. strengthen enforcement and penalties for violations.

Democracy Watch also called on Elections Ontario to conduct an audit, like Elections Quebec did in 2012, to ensure that businesses and organizations are not funneling donations through their executives and family members, and to ensure that lobbyists are not holding fundraising events to be “bundlers” of donations as a way of having undue influence over parties or politicians.

“Ontario’s too-high donation limit is also likely encouraging funneling of donations from businesses and organizations through their executives and employees and their families, and bundling of donations by lobbyists, both of which happened in Quebec and at the federal level, and Elections Ontario must conduct an audit to ensure these things are not happening,” said Conacher.  Click here to see a summary of donation-funneling scandals across Canada.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Duff Conacher, Co-founder of Democracy Watch
Tel: (613) 241-5179
Cell: 416-546-3443
Email: [email protected]

Democracy Watch’s Money in Politics Campaign