A recent Fair Vote Canada survey of 474 city councillors and mayors in Ontario’s 42 largest cities (other than Toronto) found only 35 city councillors and two mayors willing to support a ban on corporate and union campaign contributions in municipal elections (see list here) – a ban already instituted in many jurisdictions in Canada.
Candidates are not obliged to make their election contributions public until five months after the election. Candidates who voluntarily disclose the contributions received two weeks prior to the election demonstrates transparency to potential voters.
Email or ask your candidates at a public debate if they intend to pre-disclose and let voters know how much and from whom they have collected money.
In Toronto you should also ask candidates whether they will support continuing the by-law that bans corporate and unions from making contributions to candidates for election.
Ontario municipal candidates who will not solicit or accept corporate or union donations in the current municipal election campaign as compiled by FairVote.ca
Robert MacDermid looks at Rob Ford's pre-election donor disclosure list, and questions what the list can tell us about his supporters and how it might compare to the full disclosure list in the post-campaign environment.
