Top Liberal fundraisers met secretly this week to launch a final $2-million push for corporate cash, just as the government was fine-tuning its latest proposals to clean up money politics by year’s end.

The ambitious target — $1 million a month in the home stretch — was disclosed to a select group of party stalwarts summoned to dinner by Ontario Liberal Fund chair Tim Murphy.

Call it the Last Supper.

About a dozen distinguished bagmen and bagwomen (the colloquial term for veteran political fundraisers and rainmakers) convened at Murphy’s corporate law offices to map out a final — and still lawful — sprint to the finish line: As of Jan. 1, corporate and union donations will be illegal in Ontario (as they are now at the federal level).

That was Monday. Two days later, on Wednesday, the Liberal government released its detailed proposals to reform money politics — the final elements in a package promised by Premier Kathleen Wynne after the Star first disclosed secret, six-figure targets for cabinet ministers last March.

The Liberal government taketh with one hand, but the Liberal Party leaves the other hand outstretched — hoping donors will giveth again. One last time.

At the meeting, participants were handed inch-thick binders profiling corporate and union donors over the past three years. The dossiers indicated who had not used up their full contribution room of nearly $10,000 for 2016 (allowed under the current law until year-end) and would therefore make good targets.

The well-connected bagmen were asked to study the research and make notations of whom they knew best. The marked binders were then collected at the end of the meeting to be collated by Liberal Party staff, who will then issue their marching orders to the bagmen by month’s end.

The appeal to big business and big labour?

“This is the last time we’ll be asking — you’ve been a good supporter in the past,” recalls one of several sources with a place at the table.

Asked about the meeting he hosted, Murphy declined to acknowledge it:

“I’m neither confirming nor denying,” he said by telephone.

But a moment later, Murphy elaborated on the strategy behind the meeting that he supposedly couldn’t confirm: “I’m not going to tell you about the meeting, but what I will tell you is ... this is about reaching out to those people who believe in the Liberal agenda.”

However, Liberal Party President Vince Borg was less lawyerly about the Monday dinner event they both attended. It was an opportunity to reconnect with corporate and union donors before their long-standing ties are severed by law:

“Yep — make a donation, there’s no (dinner) event, nothing other than a contribution to the democratic process and a party that ... has a progressive view of policy questions. And please consider making a pledge or making a donation,” Borg said.

While the $2-million target is ambitious, the money is needed to pay down a debt overhang from the 2014 campaign still hovering at $3 million, Borg added.

“We’ve got the debt, we’ve got operating expenses and a cost structure ... that still needs rejigging.”

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Will big corporate donors come through? “We’ll find out,” he said. “I mean, those are the likely prospects.... Some folks may not have given this year yet.”

Former staff fundraiser Bobby Walman, a key architect of the corporate and union outreach that underpinned the party’s growing revenues in recent years (now an independent consultant) also attended, along with his successor, Zak Bailey, longtime party adviser Pamela Gutteridge, and consultants from big government relations firms.

While the era of big money from big business and big labour is winding down, not all donors and fundraisers are nostalgic about the good (or bad) old days. In recent years, the Liberal Party had greedily pushed the envelope while passing the hat — shaking down corporations and hitting up unions for ever bigger sums.

But there was an inherent contradiction in this political pas de deux: In an era of increasing transparency, it’s hard to offer an explicit quid pro quo to donors, or even an implicit leg up for those trying to whisper in a minister’s ear. A wink and a nudge will only take you so far, making it harder for donors to justify the declining “return on investment” for rising sums.

Whatever the reality, the perception of money politics corroding Queen’s Park was becoming impossible to ignore. While the Star had long reported on cash-for-access meetings with top ministers, a week-long series on cabinet heavy hitters having to raise as much as $500,000 a year seemed to turn the tide. Days later, Wynne promised an end to corporate and union donations (which made up the bulk of all party revenues) by Jan. 1, 2017.

While party operatives were hatching their plans this week, Wynne’s government was fine-tuning the new fundraising regime that will replace it — notably a ban on any politicians making personal appearances at events where donors pay for access.

Yet the recent controversy hasn’t stopped the opposition parties from trying to get in on the action:

Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown will appear next month at the exclusive Albany Club, a Tory redoubt, for a $500 a plate fundraiser hosted by his party’s finance critic, Vic Fedeli, to tap corporate money. And NDP Leader Andrea Horwath is hosting her November “Vision Dinner,” advertising half-tables for corporate and union donors at $19,950, including entry to a private reception with the woman who could hold the balance of power in a minority legislature after the 2018 election.

For all that cash flow, none of the major parties is swimming in money. All three are drowning in debt from the last election, making them ever more dependent on donors merely to stay afloat.

More on that unhealthy symbiosis in a future column.

Martin Regg Cohn's political column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. mcohn@thestar.ca , Twitter: @reggcohn

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