WATCH: Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson and Former Chief Electoral Officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley talk to Tom Clark about the issue of American-style “political action committees” coming to Canada.
The concept of third-party political advertising reared its head this week when a group calling themselves HarperPAC launched a YouTube channel with a low-budget ad attacking Liberal leader Justin Trudeau.
For four days before the group went bust, Ottawa was awash in debate, taking sides on whether the American-style “political action committees” that fund attack ads have a place in Canada.
For Jean-Pierre Kingsley, Canada’s former elections chief, the answer is simple: there is no place for no-limits third-party advertisers in a system that values fairness in elections.
READ MORE: How much should third parties be allowed to spend on political ads?
“What we’re seeing now, is effectively no law abides,” he said in an interview on The West Block with Tom Clark. “Whether it favours one party or another … I denounce them all because this is basically a free for all.”
In the United States, third-party ads are funded by political action committees — special interest groups often with hundreds of millions of dollars in their war chests.
The concern with PACs, both above and below the 49th parallel, is they can spend as much money as they want without having to abide by campaign spending rules.
READ MORE: HarperPAC shuts down just days after launching
Moreover, third-party organizations don’t have to reveal where they’re getting donations; although last week’s HarperPAC listed its advisers, it wouldn’t name who gave them money.
“We don’t actually know who’s behind these ads. We don’t know where the money’s coming from, we don’t know how much money it is, whether it’s on-shore or off-shore,” said Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson.
“We don’t know who’s speaking, except for this entity that’s been created for the purposes of advertising.”
READ MORE: Unpacking the politics of third-party advertising and election timing
In Canada, an anti-Harper group called Engage Canada recently launched a TV spot rallying against the Conservative government. The ad was paid for in part with union money.
A similar scene was playing out on the provincial level last year, when organized labour spent millions of dollars trying to influence the outcome of the Ontario election.
At the time, some observers said there was no question the third-party funded commercials had a significant effect on the election’s outcome.
READ MORE: Do the Feds need an advertising watchdog?
As it stands, advertising spending is split into two time periods: pre- and post-writ drop. Before an election is called, spending limits are rather free. Once the writ drops, however, limits are imposed on the amount an outside party can spend on national and riding levels.
The thing is, with fixed election dates, everyone knows when polling day is, opening the door to campaigns —run either by a political party or third-party — that run longer than the official writ period, Simpson said.
“It’s taking us back 40 years,” Kingsley said, suggesting politicians extend spending limits to the pre-writ period. “We had the best regime for controlling money in politics in the world. We were second to none. And I’ve looked at them all.”
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