Bill C-25 allows one voter to spend millions influencing a federal election, mostly in secret
Foreign “proxies” and wealthy Canadians and lobbyists also still allowed to spend unlimited funds in secret in nomination and party leadership contests, including on disinformation campaigns, and to hide their funders, and to fundraise in secret, and high donation limits make it easy to funnel big money into the political system
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Thursday, June 4, 2026
OTTAWA – Today, Democracy Watch criticized Liberal MPs on the House Procedure and House Affairs Committee for voting against key changes (on May 28 or June 2) proposed by opposition MPs to Bill C-25, which changes Canada’s federal election law. The changes are needed to close the huge loopholes in the law that allow for secret, undemocratic and unethical spending, fundraising, donations, loans, and disinformation campaigns by wealthy Canadians, lobbyists and front groups funded by foreign governments, businesses and other organizations.
Democracy Watch Co-founder Duff Conacher testified before the Committee on May 26th and filed a list of 20 key changes needed to the Bill.
Only Liberal MPs on the Committee voted against the following change proposed by Conservative MP Michael Cooper:
1. To require all “third party” interest groups to track and disclose the source of the funds they spend to influence elections and by-elections (clauses 19 and 23 of Bill C-25).
Only Liberal MPs on the Committee voted against the following changes proposed by NDP MP Don Davies:
1. To require the date and time of regulated fundraising events to be published in advance (clause 28);
2. To require the postal code of a regulated fundraising event to be published after the event (clause 29);
3. To require parties to return donations made at fundraising events that are not publicly reported as required by the Canada Elections Act (CEA) (clause 30), and;
4. To retain several measures in the CEA that make it a violation for various people and entities to fail to disclose a public report providing details about a regulated fundraising event (clause 61).
As a result of the Mark Carney Liberal government proposing a loophole-filled Bill C-25, and Liberal MPs voting against the above changes to Bill C-25, Canada’s election law (the CEA) continues to allow the following secret, undemocratic, unethical activities, either legally or effectively:
• One voter will still be allowed to spend millions influencing a federal election, mostly in secret;
• Foreign front group “proxies” and wealthy Canadian voters and interest groups (“third parties”) will still be allowed to spend unlimited funds in secret to influence nomination and party leadership contests (unlike in the U.S.);
• Everyone, especially foreigners, will still be allowed to mislead voters with disinformation campaigns making false claims about any issue, and making many false claims about party leaders and candidates;
• Foreign front “proxies” and “third parties” (Canadian voters and interest groups) will still be allowed to hide their funders (unlike in the U.S.);
• Everyone (including lobbyists for big businesses, unions and other organizations) will still be allowed to secretly fundraise, campaign and do other secret favours for parties, party leaders, riding associations, candidates and nomination and party leadership contestants, and;
• Everyone will still be allowed to funnel big money amounts into the federal political system because of the much-too-high annual federal donation and loan limit.
Among the 20 key changes Democracy Watch called on the Committee to make to Bill C-25 are the following overall sets of changes:
1. Prohibit all false claims made by anyone at any time anywhere about elections and other processes in Canada, including false election promises by parties and party leaders.
2. Prohibit the publishing of survey results in the few days before the election, given how easy it is to mislead voters with an invalid survey.
3. Prohibit foreign influence activities that are currently legal.
4. Prohibit foreigners and people under age 18 from voting in nomination and party leadership contests.
5. Require public disclosure of staff, top-level volunteers and campaigners, fundraisers (and amounts raised and how) by nomination and party leadership contestants, candidates, riding associations and parties, and disclosure of all volunteers to Elections Canada.
6. Require all third parties to register and disclose all their donors and spending if they spend more than $100 during a nomination contest, party leadership contest, or during a pre-election period, election period or policy-making process, including trying to influence political party officials, and prohibit them from colluding with contestants.
7. Only allow a third-party individual to spend $100, and citizen groups to spend an amount based on how many voters actually support them, and prohibit business “third parties” from spending at all, during contests, elections and policy-making processes.
“Bill C-25 proposes some ineffective half-measures that won’t stop the undemocratic influence of wealthy interests, disinformation or foreign interference on Canada’s elections, and Liberal MPs on the committee voted against all the changes proposed by opposition MP to strengthen many measures and make other key changes to close many other huge, unethical and undemocratic loopholes in Canada’s election law,” said Duff Conacher, Co-founder of Democracy Watch. “The Liberals’ Bill C-25 also proposes to add a loophole to the law that will make it essentially impossible to determine if a lobbyist or someone who wants something from politicians is helping organize or holding a fundraising event for a party, riding association or candidate, and that secrecy is a recipe for corruption, waste of the public’s money and other abuses.”
“The only way to stop foreign big money from flowing into Canada’s political finance system is to stop big money donations and loans,” said Conacher. “As long as big money donations and loans are allowed, it will be easy for foreign governments, businesses and organizations to funnel large amounts of money secretly to nomination and party leadership contestants, election candidates, riding associations and parties.”
“Loopholes in key laws mean third-party businesses, organizations and individuals are currently allowed to spend an unlimited amount of money in secret supporting or opposing nomination and party leadership contestants, to hide the identity of their funders, and to lobby Cabinet ministers, government officials, politicians and political party officials in secret, unethical ways,” said Conacher. “These loopholes must be closed or third parties will continue to be used as fronts for foreign governments and entities to interfere in and influence Canadian elections and government policy-making processes in secret, unethical and undemocratic ways.”
Liberal and Conservative MPs on the Committee also voted against the following changes proposed by Bloc MP Christine Normandin:
1. To Bill C-25 reduce the annual donation limit to each party to $500, and to each parties’ riding associations to $500, and to party leadership contestants to $1,000 (clause 25.1);
(NOTE: Another change proposed by MP Normandin, to cancel the current tax rebate for political donations, which mostly goes to wealthy donors, and use the money to restore per-vote quarterly public funding for the parties, was ruled out of order by the Liberal MP who chairs the Committee (clause 35.1)).
The loopholes in other key laws that need to be closed to ensure fair, democratic, ethical elections, and to stop foreign interference, are set out in Democracy Watch’s final submission to the Hogue Inquiry (Click here to see details), including:
1. Prohibit anonymous social media accounts and Internet sites, and bots.
2. Prohibit media and social media outlets from allowing posts with false claims, including fake videos and audio files.
3. Have complaints about disinformation go to federal agencies, boards, commissions and tribunals (ABCTs) that already have expertise in various issue areas.
4. Empower the ABCTs to order Internet and social media companies to remove false posts and webpages, and to block sites that refuse to remove or prevent false claims from being posted on their site.
5. Empower the ABCTs to penalize misleaders and misleading social media companies and websites with significant fines.
6. Make all enforcement ABCTs, including the RCMP and CSIS, fully independent from Cabinet, with the heads appointed through an independent process, and require them to do regular, random audits, to issue public rulings after reviewing any situation, and make them accountable to the courts for proper enforcement of whichever law they enforce.
7. Lower the annual donation and loan limit to $75 which is the amount that 75% of donors give, as DWatch’s study of donations from 2016-2022 showed (to match Quebec’s world-leading $100 donation limit);
8. Prohibit financial institutions from making loans (if parties can prove they need more funds than they can raise from voters in $75 donations, establish matching and per-vote public funding and a public loan fund to close the gap).
9. Prohibit giving fake jobs, compensation or other benefits or advantages to anyone who is considering running in a nomination or party leadership contest, and to contestants, election candidates or political party officials.
10. Prohibit donations to nomination contestants, candidates and electoral district associations (EDAs) from outside the electoral district.
11. Require disclosure of all the identity of all donors/lenders and the amount donated/loaned, and spending, before voting begins, and require quarterly disclosure between elections of donations, loans and spending by EDAs and parties.
12. Close all the loopholes that currently allow for secret lobbying, and prohibit lobbyists from sponsoring interns in MP offices.
13. Reverse the changes made to the Lobbyists’ Code in 2023 so lobbyists will again be prohibited from fundraising, campaigning and assisting politicians and party leaders.
14. Prohibit politicians, their staff, Cabinet appointees and government employees from having outside jobs, secret investments, and from accepting gifts or other benefits, and prohibit them from taking part in decision-making processes when they have even an appearance of a conflict of interest.
– 30 –
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 Stop Foreign Interference in Canadian Politics Campaign and Honesty in Politics Campaign and Money in Politics Campaign and Stop Secret Unethical Lobbying Campaign and Government Ethics Campaign and Stop Bad Government Appointments Campaign