Comment 1081

By Jelly (anonymous) | Posted September 25, 2006 at 17:12:21

Well, yeah, corporations do tend to give more- it's about influence... unions (as far as I can tell) are in it more for political purposes than anything, the benefit to them is a bit more abstract. I suppose for CUPE employees it makes more sense to have a labour-friendly council. But much of the push for unions to give is made by their political action committees, especially teachers- these groups usually have a broad political scope, supporting issues not necessarily beneficial to the union or it's members, but just in the political interest of it's members.

Regardless, it would be good to see all donations banned, other than individuals. It would even be good to see the maximum donation lowered for individual donations too, perhaps to $500.

The only real benefit of having donations is that candidates can spend this money to promote themselves but more importantly promote the election itself- but this ought to be the responsibility of the city itself to get the word out. Maybe we ought to tax each donation made to municipal campaigns and put that into general promotion of the election itself? I dunno.

Maybe we could also have a couple more widely publicized debates too, as a way to reach more people.

It would be great to see candidates run on merit alone.

Once this council is elected, I hope the same people who have been pushing for the ban continue to keep the heat on council- formally ask that city council adopt these changes as law for the 2010 election, that way no one can back out and say 'you can't change the rules midstream'.



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