A rather bizarre and niche issue has been roiling Vancouver municipal politics in recent days.
Mark Marissen, political insider and candidate for mayor in the 2022 election, and his party, Progress Vancouver, have been found guilty of violating B.C.’s campaign finance laws over its late filing of financial reports. For their sins, Marissen is banned from running for office for three years and Progress Vancouver has been deregistered as a political entity. The party’s financial reports revealed additional problems: improperly recorded donor records, prohibited donations and a prohibited $50,000 loan. Marissen, on behalf of himself and Progress Vancouver, has stated that they were victims of bad legal advice as to the origination of campaign dollars.
Donation limits are too low, and resulting pay and salaries are so minimal, that campaigns and political parties are frequently amateurish or fanatically ideological. Few sane people who have other options would willingly insert themselves into the thankless circus that politics has become for the measly financial rewards available. As a result, many campaigns are run by first-timers or part-timers doing their level best to keep up with complicated rules. Canada would benefit from a more professional political class and higher contribution limits.
Campaign contribution limits are absurdly low. Federally, the most one can contribute to a single candidate is $1,700. The same applies to the various political parties. In B.C., the provincial limit is $1,324 for 2023. Donations from corporations are banned entirely, when not so long ago they were permitted to give up to $5,000.
When violations are chased down each election cycle, the results are often comical. Recent violations from independent candidates have seen Elections Canada going after people who are not even financially able to pay the $500 dollar fine assessed. How is this a good use of anyone’s time or resources? We can’t defend ourselves against actual foreign interference, but let’s nail the guy who was never a threat to win and came in fourth in his riding.
While some may think that if Elections Canada is going to “miss” one way or another, missing by reducing donations to a trickle is better than allowing too much influence via a large monetary contribution. However, this is frequently not the case. Ask any candidate and they will tell you that the pool of people willing to donate even a modest amount is vanishingly small. As a result, candidates will appeal to and take money from almost anyone they can.
The political environment these days makes candidate recruitment harder than ever. Campaign financing laws make recruitment of qualified, professional staff equally difficult. The frequent consequence: campaigns run by amateurs with listless candidates who sometimes violate election laws with little or no intent. This is not a recipe for strong local representation or elected member independence.
Canada’s campaigns should be better and the system we set up to select elected officials should match. Right now, however, we are not allowing candidates or political parties the funds needed to run the professional system Canadians deserve.
