OTTAWA—The Conservative government’s new Fair Elections Act has made no attempts to rein in political advertising, one of the most powerful tools for all parties in modern campaigns.

But a new bill introduced in the Senate on Wednesday would clamp down on the fastest-growing, but unregulated type of political advertising in Canada in recent years — the ads that parties run in between elections.

Though a bill introduced in the Senate doesn’t have much chance of coming into force, Sen. Dennis Dawson is hoping that his legislation at least reminds Canadians that the current and proposed laws over political advertising are filled with gaping holes.

“Instead of closing loopholes, they’re opening them with their Fair Elections Act,” Dawson, a Liberal appointee to the chamber, said in an interview. “Well, I’m trying to close them.”

As the law now stands, for instance, parties are subject to spending limits only on advertising when an election campaign is officially under way. Up until the days before and immediately after voting day, parties can spend as much as they like on advertising —millions and millions of dollars, if they have the resources available.

And the Conservatives have done just that in recent years. Political ads in non-election periods have become commonplace since the Conservatives took power eight years ago, notably expensive attack ads which ran against Liberal leaders Michael Ignatieff and Stéphane Dion.

Dawson’s bill would stretch the spending-limit regime to three months before an election is called, discouraging any party who tries to get around the spending limits by flooding the public space with ads right up to the official election call.

He points out that Canada now has a fixed election date — the next federal election is set for Oct. 15, 2015 — yet the laws governing ad limits haven’t changed to take account of that reality.

“With the introduction of fixed election dates, all parties know when an election will take place and can easily start spending on campaign-style advertising in the months leading up to the call,” Dawson said in a news release. “That undermines the values and fundamental fairness of the Canadian system.”

The past chief electoral officer, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, called for this reform on political ad spending eight years ago.

Dawson is not alone in his belief that Conservatives are creating loopholes for their own potential benefit in the massive, election reform bill called the Fair Elections Act.

The New Democrats are shining a light on a part of the law that would allow political parties to get around strict, election-spending limits if they were making contact with previous supporters – defined as anyone who had donated more than $20 to the party in the previous five years.

Under this provision, parties would have to mind their costs when soliciting support from new sources, but not when it came to contact with previous donors. It would be a built-in advantage for parties who already have large donors’ lists — such as the Conservatives.

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In the Commons, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair said: “Hundreds of paid telemarketers, hundreds of thousands of phone calls in a federal general election. No problem. It’s not in your campaign limit. How would Elections Canada even know if these calls were going to prior Conservative Party donors? It is just not plausible.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper replied that it wasn’t a part of the bill with widespread implications. “This refers to people who have been long-time donors of a political party, which is a very small percentage of the electorate,” he said.

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