Wildrose accuses government of stacking deck in its favour

A motion put forward by Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock MLA Glenn van Dijken was voted down by the NDP recently and he says the government is stacking the deck.

According to a press release issued on Aug. 15, NDP MLAs defeated a motion to level the playing field with regards to the current $2.3 million election spending cap. The motion would have allowed political parties to spend up to the combined averages of the previous three years of advertising spending, and while the Wildrose Party says their opponents have spent roughly $6 million on what the party says are risky economic policies.

To the Wildrose Party, van Dijken said, it is apparent the governing body does not believe in fair play. “Our ethics and accountability committee is working to try and improve our Elections Act and our Financing Act, and it is starting to become quite apparent that the NDP are using their majority to achieve a leg up over the rest of the parties,” he said. van Dijken said all of the parties agree big money – donations from organizations, unions, and corporations, should not be a part of political spending, and if the NDP can utilize taxpayers money to promote their agenda, other parties should be able to do the same.

“If they can use that money to promote the carbon tax, their lawsuit with regard to PPAs, Bill 6, and so forth, political advertisements in other words, instead of advertising programs Albertans can participate in, why are we not allowed to use the monies donated to us in the same manner?” he asked. He also thinks third-party donations, of which a majority are of the aforementioned ‘ big money', is also a concern because they are not currently prohibited from making contributions to political advertising during elections and makes it tougher to keep everything fair.

“Last spring we were able to put limits on the amount of donations corporations and unions could make, but yesterday's motion would have effectively prohibited that practice entirely, and the reason I brought the motion forward in the first place was to bring recognition to that issue,” he said. van Dijken said he believes the current government is setting the stage to allow themselves greater lassitude over campaign spending than that of their opponents, while also limiting those same parties to similar spending.

“If I had 1,000 people in my constituency that wanted to donate $100 each, for campaigning purposes in my riding and as an example, I can only spend $70,000 of the hypothetical $100,000, and I think I should be able to spend the entire amount instead,” he said.

The idea was to have Albertans be given the chance to voice their opinion, van Dijken said, adding it was frustrating to watch the government use their majority in such a way.