Article content continued

The length of the campaign — 78 days — raised the spending limits for third parties (groups producing election advertising who are not registered candidates, parties or riding associations) and allowed unions like the United Steelworkers and Unifor to divert up to $439,000 each. When a number of unions banded together to form Engage Canada, we were in SuperPAC territory for the first time.

It’s unknowable how many votes shifted as a result, but it clearly did not help Harper’s cause.

U.S.-style Political Action Committees (PACs), where third parties band together to push for or against a political party, have not been a phenomenon federally in Canada; but a total of 114 third parties registered in 2015, up from 55 in 2011, and Elections Commissioner Yves Coté told Parliament he expected to see third party participation grow still further in 2019.

The good news is that the Liberal government appears to have taken action in the Elections Modernization Act, introduced late Monday, to end the era of the SuperPACs in Canada before it has begun in earnest.

The new bill states clearly that third parties shall not circumvent, or attempt to circumvent, the new maximum spending amounts in any manner, including splitting themselves into two or more third parties, or by acting in collusion with another third party so that their combined partisan expenses exceed the maximum amount.

The bad news is that, for reasons best known to themselves, the Liberals have increased that maximum amount — from $150,000 to $500,000 during the period after the writ has dropped, and up to $1 million in the two months or so before the official campaign. (The amount was higher in 2015 because of the length of the campaign, but the pro-rata increase dies with the higher limits in the new bill.)