[All] Election Funding in Ontario's Greenbelt

[Kevin Thomason]

GREN folks,

The municipal election is in full swing with voting day rapidly approaching.  Municipal politics is the least controlled and regulated of any level of government in Canada and it should be no surprise to any environmentalist to learn that many people in the development industry take full advantage of this lack of oversight to influence campaigns, buy off politicians, and ensure that future Councils are sympathetic to their wishes (i.e. when payback time comes...).

I have been helping the Ontario Greenbelt Alliance (of which GREN is one of 74 member organizations) to study election funding in the GTA area.  While our study didn't reach out as far as Waterloo it looked at the campaign finances of 209 elected Mayors and Councillors in the Greater Golden Horseshoe and found a lot of alarming information that some candidates certainly do not want made public.  The report is being released to the media today and I imagine a number of politicians are going to have some fast explaining to do as the reports lists every politician in York, Peel, Mississauga and Durham Regions and the sources of their campaign funding.

Overall about 43% of all campaign financing came from the development industry - far out of proportion to its size in the provincial economy.   Some Councils such as the Town of Richmond Hill were funded as much as almost 60% by developers, whereas in the adjacent Town of Aurora only 3% of donations and election funding accepted by Councillors came from the development industry.  Quite the contrast!   One has only to look at the pro-development stance of Richmond Hill over the past four years to the environmental efforts of Aurora or Oakville (4%) to see the difference in quality of life for their communities and citizens.

Overall, the report makes it clear that developers are seeking to buy influence at some City Halls and election reforms are needed in Ontario if we want to ensure our elected representatives are accountable to the communities they represent and not other influencers.

I've attached a PDF of the report below and you can also learn more at:

http://environmentaldefence.ca/reports/under-influence-election-funding-ontario’s-greenbelt

There are certainly a number of good ideas we should consider working towards seeing adopted here in Waterloo Region such as banning corporate and development industry donations (they wouldn't be handing out money unless there was an expectation of results), ensuring all Council votes are recorded, ensuring only local citizens can contribute to a candidates campaign, and placing a limit on the contributions allowable from any one individual.

Check the out report and let me know any ideas or questions.

Kevin Thomason.

----------------------------

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://gren.ca/pipermail/all_gren.ca/attachments/20101020/feae6fab/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: ED VoteSmartReport_FINAL.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 2000180 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://gren.ca/pipermail/all_gren.ca/attachments/20101020/feae6fab/attachment.pdf>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://gren.ca/pipermail/all_gren.ca/attachments/20101020/feae6fab/attachment-0001.html>