Former elections watchdog pans proposed backdoor boost to campaign spending

OTTAWA – Canada’s former elections watchdog says the Harper government’s electoral reform bill provides both a front and back door route for political parties to significantly increase spending during campaigns.

And opposition parties say that will benefit the party with the deepest pockets — which happens to be Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives.

Former chief electoral officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley says it’s a bad idea to exempt money spent on fundraising activities from a party’s campaign spending limit.

He calls it “a reverse way” of raising the spending ceiling, which would be on top of the direct five per cent increase in the campaign spending limit proposed by the bill.

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair says the exemption for fundraising expenses is just one way the government has “loaded the dice” in the Tories’ favour in its proposed overhaul of the Canada Elections Act.

He says the bill is mostly about making life easier for the Conservatives, whom he calls “serial cheaters.”