| Ald. Ric McIver says he’s "disgusted" that city council has decided to discuss his proposed changes to campaign financing rules behind closed doors instead of at a September 26 public city council meeting.
McIver put forward a motion to amend the city’s bylaw governing election campaign contributions at the council meeting. However, council voted to refer his motion to a private aldermanic committee meeting on September 28.
"I’ve never accused anyone of having anything to hide but they’re certainly acting like it," says McIver. "I was kind of disgusted. We owe the public better behaviour than that."
In his motion, McIver points out what he calls several flaws with the existing bylaw, including the fact that city-owned or -controlled institutions such as Enmax, the Calgary Airport Authority and the Calgary Stampede Board have been allowed to donate money to municipal candidates. McIver says aldermen have also made campaign donations to each other and claimed those donations as campaign expenses. McIver says in the last election several aldermen received "tens of thousands of dollars" in donations without any donor names being disclosed. Under the current bylaw, names of campaign donors only have to be reported if they’ve donated more than $100.
"There’s no rules against it so I’m not accusing anyone of breaking any rules. What I am accusing all of us, including me, of, is having a lousy rule book and it’s our responsibility to improve the rule book, especially when it’s so obvious that it shouldn’t be happening."
McIver also says it’s inappropriate that candidates are allowed to keep all election contributions that they didn’t spend during their campaign. In Edmonton, candidates have to immediately put any surplus funds in a trust. It can then be spent if they run again. If candidates don’t run in another election, the money has to be donated to a charity.
"I don’t know if there’s any other municipalities where, after you’re done being in office, that you can take any leftover campaign money you still have in your account and keep it tax free and just spend it. That’s huge," says McIver.
In Calgary, there’s also no cap on election spending, which is something many Calgarians have raised concerns about. In the 2001 election, Mayor Dave Bronconnier spent more than $800,000 to get re-elected. However, McIver doesn’t raise this issue in his motion.
Ald. Gord Lowe asked council to vote to refer McIver’s motion to the private aldermanic committee.
"The reason is quite simple…. The substance of Ald. McIver’s motion was already on the agenda," says Lowe. "It’s been there for some time and in fact, there’s a fair amount of work being done on the aldermanic campaign expenses and the whole transparency issue…. The work is in progress."
McIver says he wanted the issue debated in public.
"People should be comfortable that the people they elected are working under a set of rules that’s appropriate," says McIver. "(Council) voted to hide the issue from the public."
But Lowe says the issue will come back before council, probably in December, after the aldermanic committee has discussed it.
A motion made by Craig Burrows was also referred to the aldermanic committee instead of being discussed at the council meeting. Burrows wants all aldermanic ward expenses to be posted on the city’s website. He argues in his notice of motion that currently citizens have to pay a fee and make requests under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act to access that information. |
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