On The
Ground

Josiah Mortimer

Tackling Crypto-Politics

We talk a lot about the intoxicating stench of big money in politics but politicians often see it as impossible to tackle. How would parties operate without mountains of cash?

Well, there’s one person who knows better than anyone how to do it.

When I recently wrote about Labour’s Andy Burnham backing a cap on UK political donations, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, the former Canadian Chief Electoral Officer, got in touch – “astounded that no one seems interested in the Canadian experience, which has the same parliamentary system”.

The office of Canada’s Chief Electoral Officer was created in 1920, answerable solely to Parliament, as an independent body to oversee elections. Unlike the UK’s cap-in-hand Electoral Commission, it has the legal authority to spend the money required to achieve its purpose: to deliver free and fair elections. Governments cannot starve Elections Canada of funds to influence how democracy is run, and no election rules can be implemented without the Electoral Officer’s say-so.