Canada has among the financially cleanest political systems in the world. After half a century of success, however, today it is under serious threat.

From the first election expenses limits used in the 1974, ours has been regarded as good a system as any in the world. This election revealed that there is new and serious loophole, one able to be exploited heavily using digital media.

Under the most recent version of the law, it is permissible for third parties — people who are not candidates or political parties — to spend money and advocate on policy issues in a campaign. They are limited to a little over $500,000 each and must report their spending and where they got the money.

The Manning Centre appears to have found a loophole. It admits that it gave more than $300,000 to a series of groups for third party advertising. They are mostly groups associated with the hard-right digital media group Canada Proud. This is all according to the law.

What is curious, however, is that the centre does not have to say where it got the money.

Indeed, Elections Canada says “there is no requirement in law to disclose” the original donors of the funds! This is much more serious. Canada Proud could spin off dozens of local entities across Canada, registering each separately. Manning, or any other Canadian organization, could distribute millions of dollars to them this way.

One of the foundation stones of Canadian elections expenses law is the concept of “beneficial entitlement.” The person claiming to have made the donation must be able to prove that it was their money to give — that they could have spent it on a condo in Maui or anything else. When you are merely a conduit for someone else’s money you would be guilty of perjury in making such a claim.

You may not be able to buy much political sway with half a million dollars, with $10 million you could put a heavy thumb on the electoral scales — that’s roughly one third of the limit parties themselves can spend. It gets worse. The Canadian organization’s source of funds may not be Canadian. It is very hard to establish a well-concealed “beneficial entitlement” beyond knowing the name of a law firm or some other agent.

One can well imagine a well-endowed American source wanting to influence Canadian debate on carbon tax or pipelines using this conduit for achieving a shift in public opinion. But it gets worse still.

The money transferred through a Canadian organization to a social media advertiser would be virtually untraceable. Recognizing what a swamp they risk being dragged into, Twitter has wisely decided to forbid political advertising. The ugly duckling of social media and public policy, Facebook, has vigorously resisted the idea; Mark Zuckerberg going so far as to suggest his taking money from publishers of lies on his website, is a “contribution to democracy.”

A “Free Canadian Oil from Ottawa’s Control” paid message pounded out on Facebook would generate a buyer’s name in Facebook’s much touted “archive of ad buyers.” What would an Elections Canada investigator see there? Only the name of the end purchaser — no clue about where they got their money.

This perversion of the electoral system is an especially difficult issue for smaller democracies, such as Canada, Australia or some East European countries. It is dirt cheap to buy very heavy influence. In the United States a serious campaign would cost tens if not hundreds of millions. The Clinton campaign alone spent more than a billion dollars in 2016, hundreds of millions on social media.

In Canada such a campaign could be funded for less than ten million and have enormous impact.

An early focus of the new parliament should be loopholes only now emerging in Canada’s edifice of electoral law, a 50-year-old project now under threat.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Among the related questions should be giving Elections Canada the muscle to play its role as defender of the law. Today, it has neither investigative nor enforcement power, depending on the RCMP and provincial Crown attorneys to carry its sword when required. No wonder we have had so few prosecutions and even fewer convictions under these laws.

We might give the Manning Centre credit for having surfaced this loophole, and for being candid about their freedom to use it and their intention to continue. Now it is time we got it plugged.

RS Robin V. Sears is a principal at Earnscliffe Strategy Group and was an NDP strategist for 20 years. He is a freelance contributing columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @robinvsears

Read more about: