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As promised, the Liberals tabled their recommendations for Bill 201, the act to amend Ontario’s campaign finance rules, which will ban corporate and union donations and lower the caps on individual, party and riding donations to $1,200 each, or $3,600 in total. The proposed amendments include banning government advertising 60 days before an election, placing a $100,000 cap on third-party advertising during an election and instituting a $600,000 cap on advertising in the six months before.

The amendments will not, however, prohibit construction companies vying for lucrative government contracts from shelling out thousands of dollars to dine with Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca, or pharmaceutical executives who want to bend the ear of the health minister from writing $10,000 cheques to reserve a seat at the table. So while corporate donations might indeed be banned, and individual donations limited to $3,600, essentially anyone can still donate virtually as much as they want, just so long as they sign a card indicating whether they prefer chicken or fish.

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When Wynne announced plans to reform corporate donation rules, the government promised that the result would make “Ontario’s electoral financing system among the strongest and most transparent in Canada.” And indeed, the government did commit back in April to eliminating “private” cash-for-access fundraisers, though that was just the Liberals’ cute way of saying they will start posting the details of their fundraisers online, instead of keeping them under wraps. With the omission of any mention now of dialing back cash-for-access fundraisers, it’s clear that they either see nothing wrong with selling access to themselves — it’s all out in the open now, after all — or they simply don’t care how bad it looks. This government has proven time and time again its willingness to flirt with ethical impropriety for the sake of the party: why should this situation be any different?