Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 17th, 2017

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I have a question. In terms of what my colleague Ms. Tassi just said about circumventing the rules, I'm thinking that people have access to me as an MP all the time. I make sure that I go back to my riding as much as possible, throughout our riding weeks, and on most Fridays, and anyone who wants an appointment with me can have one. I rarely say no to anybody. Who's to say they can't write me up a cheque after having an hour-long discussion with me about whatever issue and then donate later on?

Isn't the purpose of these financing and fundraising rules to connect the dots and to figure out who might be gaining advantages from giving donations, rather than just the fact that you can't be in a room with an MP, period, or an MPP in this case, or a minister? To make maybe the Ethics Commissioner's job simpler and to be able to connect those dots, you're not necessarily doing that by just preventing MPs from showing up at these events. What you want to catch is whether there is anything inappropriate happening.

Fundraising, in and of itself, is not a bad activity.

[Greg Essensa]

I would not disagree with your last statement. I have been a big believer and I articulated three times before the committee in Ontario that I am a big supporter of a balance between private and public funding. I would by no means suggest that we should eliminate the opportunity for political parties, candidates, or political actors to raise funds by those means, but there needs to be a balance.

With respect to your transparency comments, I would suggest that although the political arena has been fraught with some implications of improprieties, I don't believe they are actually there. Among the general populace, what I heard consistently across the province is that there is a perception of there being cash for access events at which wealthy donors get the opportunity to engage with parliamentarians, political actors, and operatives, and that their interests are being far more pushed forward because of that undue influence, because of the money they can bring to the table.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you, Ms. Sahota.

Mr. Nater.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Essensa, for joining us this afternoon. It's always intriguing to hear from different jurisdictions. I appreciate this.

I want to follow up about the process that was undertaken by the provincial legislature. I was intrigued by the role you played. It sounded as though you were actively involved in the drafting of the legislation and as an expert adviser to the committee on general government.

Was it a conscious decision by the provincial government that the Chief Electoral Officer would be engaged throughout the process of drafting this legislation?

[Greg Essensa]

I was approached by the Attorney General to consider whether I would sit on the committee. I established a set of parameters under which I would consider it, as an adviser. As an independent officer of the legislature, I was there simply to advise the committee on what deputants had put forward and on how those things might be operationalized or what administrative role Elections Ontario might play with regard to some of those suggestions.

I was not involved necessarily in the drafting of the legislation. I was consulted during the deliberation process again, appearing a couple of times to provide insight and recommendations.

It was a conscious decision on my part, because as I indicated in my comments to the committee, I saw Ontario as being at a watershed moment at which we had the opportunity to reform the political financing regime in Ontario in a significant manner, which had not been undertaken, quite honestly, in 40 years. I felt it was time to see that.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

You commented briefly on public and private funding for political actors. One challenge, I think—and I would like you to shed some light on it—concerns how public funding is made available to individual riding associations through Ontario's regime.

[Greg Essensa]

Ontario undertook a unique process—my understanding is it's the only process in the country—whereby every quarter constituency associations divvy up $6,250 based on the previous election's results. If party A received 40% of the vote, it will receive 40% of the funding. There was also a provision that required those constituency associations to be in compliance with Elections Ontario for the four previous years.

I can tell you that this has created greater transparency in Ontario. One of the challenges I have as the Chief Electoral Officer—and I'm sure many of you have encountered this—is that when a particular political party has had a long stretch of success in a riding, the other constituency associations are oftentimes challenged to get their required reporting in to electoral management bodies.

In Ontario, the case was no different. This requirement, though, for providing the funding has provided greater transparency, because many if not all of those constituency associations have worked devilishly hard to make sure they're in compliance now. There is thus in fact greater transparency in that regard.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Currently, ministers, the premier, and MPPs are all forbidden from attending fundraising activities. That ban currently doesn't apply, if I understand correctly, to nominated candidates, and I understand that the legislature is considering amendments to include nominated candidates as well.

Is this something that you support also, to include nominated candidates; for example, to include a PC candidate in a Conservative stronghold such as Hamilton Centre in the act, yet not include someone such as the chief of staff to the Minister of Finance. Is that something you support?

[Greg Essensa]

I do support that, because, as the provision is worded in our act, candidates can be nominated by their party but are not considered registered candidates until they register with Elections Ontario. There is thus a gap period. This means that you can be the nominated candidate and attend these fundraising events because you have not been the “registered candidate”. I therefore support the proposed amendment in that regard.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

You support keeping the exclusion for chiefs of staff?

[Greg Essensa]

That's correct.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

What's your reasoning on that?

[Greg Essensa]

I'm sorry?

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Why don't you support including the chief of staff to the Minister of Finance, for example?

[Greg Essensa]

Oh, chiefs of staff to ministers, yes, I do support that; for non-ministers, I don't.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you.

Could you maybe shed some light on some of the activities that were happening that led to the creation of this legislation? What was going on in Ontario at the time that caused the legislature to go ahead with this type of financing?

[Greg Essensa]

I believe the genesis of this was really several media articles that dominated the newspapers in Toronto and other parts of Ontario, which identified the current government as having what were deemed cash for access events. There would be private dinners with substantive amounts of money to gain entry. There might be only 20 or 30 people, and the dinners might be with perhaps the Minister of Finance, the Premier, or other influential individuals. There were a number of articles throughout Ontario during that time frame last spring, March and April, and the government at that point deemed it necessary to address that, which resulted in the creation of Bill 2 and the committee travelling the province to hear from Ontarians.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

If my memory is correct, there seems to have been also an unofficial quota—or perhaps an official quota—from the Premier's office to each minister to raise a certain amount. Are you familiar with that?

[Greg Essensa]

I'm only familiar with it through what was reported in the newspapers.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Going forward, there would still be nothing preventing the party leadership from encouraging each riding association, each fundraising wing, to raise money, just with the provision that ministers couldn't directly attend but their surrogates could, right?

[Greg Essensa]

There's nothing in the act that would prevent that.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

You mentioned the seven-day notice required provincially. Federally, a five-day notice is proposed. So I have two questions on that. One is whether you think that's reasonable. Second—and those on this side have raised this multiple times—in a situation in which a long-standing event is organized but at the outset there is no attendance of a designated office-holder, no attendance necessarily of a prime minister or of a minister, and there might be a wink-wink, nudge-nudge, but then that person is added a day or two or a matter of hours before the event is actually held, and perhaps there was general knowledge that the person would be there. Do you see that as a loophole, or do you see some way that the act ought to be changed to address that?

[Greg Essensa]

I would suggest that the last part might be difficult to enforce and difficult to actually adopt from a practical standpoint. I believe that someone as busy as the Prime Minister or the Premier of Ontario or any other large jurisdiction may in fact, because of the nature of their schedules, have last-minute alterations that allow them to attend such events. I think it would be difficult to enforce from an electoral management body perspective, and I'm not necessarily sure of the public nature of best practice for having that in place.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you very much.

Our last questioner is Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair. It's always a blast from the past to be talking about Ontario, where I spent 13 happy years.

Thank you so much for coming. Obviously, Ontario often provides a lot of guidance on these issues, being the largest province in the Confederation.

I just want to revisit your comment about public financing and how you believe there should be a balance. Do you think Ontario has the right balance? Could I have your thoughts on that and any thoughts on the federal..., which would have to be.... I don't think I'm being unfair when I characterize it as being.... Well, I'll just leave it at that, and you can comment on the federal side of things as you see fit.