Canadian PM visits Ontario Honda plant in election year. Demotix/Victor Bior. All rights reserved.The role of money in politics is an issue of concern all over the world. Political donations and campaign spending, if unregulated, can have a profound influence on electoral results. Canada has long been viewed as an example of good practice at keeping the role of money in politics in check. Limits on political finance introduced in the 1970s and tightened around the millennium ensured that citizens, not money, were at the heart of Canadian political processes.
Much has been said about the Fair Elections Act from 2014 and the reforms it introduced on political party financing. Making the spending limit for parties and candidates dependent on the duration of the campaign, opens the door to what could be the costliest election in Canada’s history, with political parties now allowed to spend $54.5 million in total on this 78-day campaign.
Various analysts have pointed out that, compared to the US, Canada’s ongoing electoral campaign is still relatively short and inexpensive. But is the US a good comparison? The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), an intergovernmental organization that supports democracy worldwide, puts forward another frame of comparison in its Handbook on Political Finance. It calls them the “established Anglophone democracies” of Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK and the US – a group of countries that vary in size and geography, but share with Canada a common political and legal heritage influenced by their British past. They are all high-income countries, have a long tradition of free elections, and all but the US have parliamentary systems like Canada.
