Ontario Premier Doug Ford is defending his plans to scrap fixed election dates and significantly hike donation limits for political parties, calling one of the rules he is scrapping a “fake law.”
The Ford government announced on Monday afternoon it intended to make major changes to the rules governing elections in Ontario as part of its Fall Economic Statement, including to donations, spending and the date voters head to the polls.
The latter change would abolish the existing fixed election date for Ontario. Under the current rules, an election would have been held in 2029, four years after Ford’s snap win earlier this year. Instead, the premier will now be able to serve the full constitutional term of up to five years.
Asked about the change, Ford said he didn’t know if he’d call the next election in three, four or five years.
“As far as this is concerned, that’s a fake law put in by the Liberal government,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
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“We’re going to move forward and call an election when the time is appropriate. I think it’s up to five years, but could be four, could be three.”
Ontario’s fixed election dates were enacted about 20 years ago by then-premier Dalton McGuinty. Although the law provided a date for the election, it was still possible for premiers to dissolve the legislature early, as Ford did for February’s snap election, which he won for a third successive majority.
The changes announced by the Ford government for elections also raised the donations people can make to political parties by almost 50 per cent, to $5,000.
That’s a move opposition parties and advocates have criticized for increasing the amount of money which can enter provincial politics at a time the Ford government is under scrutiny for how it handed out public dollars through the skills development fund, including to applicants associated with donors and lobbyists.
Ford, however, said he was increasing the limit to bring Ontario in line with other, higher-donor political races.
“You can donate $5,000 to a mayoral candidate, why can’t you do it here? It’s very similar to other provinces across the country, so we’re just keeping up to the balance of the other provinces,” he said.
In Toronto, the individual donor limit for mayoral campaigns is actually $2,500.
The election changes, which will be included in the Fall Economic Statement next month, also include:
- The per-vote subsidy, which gives public money to political parties based on how many votes they receive, would be made permanent, rather than needing to be regularly extended.
- Strict spending limits on third-party advocacy groups — for example, unions — and political parties would be eliminated.
- Tighten the rules around third-party advertising registration and give Ontario’s chief electoral officer more investigative powers to deal with bad actors.
- Potentially ban political advertising on government property, which would include billboards and transit stations.
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