Well, that was quick.

Last November the Ford government turned the clock back on legislation enacted by the Liberals that lowered the maximum donation to political parties and banned Ontario MPPs from attending fundraising events.

And just like that, it’s back to the old cash-for-access system that has been discredited in Ontario and across the country.

Allowing well-heeled donors to pay for face time with ministers and other MPPs was always bad for democracy. The Ontario Liberals came under intense criticism for abusing the system, and were embarrassed by revelations in the Star and elsewhere about ministers having to meet yearly party fundraising targets of up to $500,000.

The Wynne government was right to finally do away with this broken system in 2016. Even the Progressive Conservatives supported that reform at the time.

What’s changed? Nothing, other than Doug Ford now heads the PCs and the Ontario government and clearly believes his party will benefit by going back to the bad old days of trading access for dollars.

So his government snuck major changes to the Liberal law into its fall economic update, which went by the remarkably cynical title of The Restoring Trust, Transparency and Accountability Act of 2018.

In fact, it’s doing just the opposite. It raises the maximum a person can donate to a political party from $1,200 to $1,600 over the next four years, and will phase out public subsidies to parties. And it repeals the ban on MPPs (including ministers) attending gatherings designed to raise cash for their party.

At first, the PCs made a stab at making it look like its fundraising events would be different. Theirs would be ones where the little guy could afford to rub shoulders with the politicians. So the first event under the new regime was a modestly priced $25-a-plate spaghetti dinner in Kitchener-Waterloo.

But now the party is getting down to the business of raising serious cash. To wit: next Tuesday Energy Minister Greg Rickford will speak at an $800-a-ticket cocktail party at Toronto’s exclusive Albany Club. And on Feb. 27, Premier Ford will headline a $1,250-a-plate dinner at the Toronto Congress Centre. That one is being touted as the biggest fundraiser in the PC party’s history.

This is a terrible move for at least two reasons.

First is simple fairness. Access to politicians shouldn’t depend on how fat your wallet is. Typically, ministers and others raised the most money from the very sectors they were supposed to be overseeing. That’s an obvious conflict of interest that voters could smell a mile away.

The other reason is more self-serving.

The Ontario Liberals took full advantage of the old system when they were in power. That was a big contributor to public anger against the party, and we saw how that ended when the Liberals were crushed last June.

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Does Ford really want to lead his party down the same path? Does he believe the “for-the-people” PCs can play by the old rules and not be tainted in the end?

Voters aren’t stupid. Eventually they’ll see the same old influence-seekers playing the same old game and draw the same conclusions they did when the Liberals were at the trough. And the PCs will pay the price.

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