Reforms Elsewhere

Campaign Financing Reform

Background/Reference Material:

• Toronto's Election Finance Review Task Force (2004) - Download their discussion paper (PDF, 31kB)
• Ontario's Good Government Act (2009) pertaining to local elections
• Toronto bans donations from unions and corporations (Dec 2009).  See some articles on this:  Toronto Star (1, 2, 3), Globe and Mail,  Ottawa Citizen (story describes response of the province, which is opposed).  Such bans are in force in Quebec and Manitoba as well as the federal government;  Toronto becomes the first city in Canada to do so.
• 2008 story about the impact of Chretien's 2003 federal ban on the Liberal party
• Where BC's provincial parties get their financial support from:
• Interesting thoughts about related rules:
  • require
    any company doing business with the city to disclose whether any
    principal of the company made a donation to a candidate (John Laforet)

Reform Abroad:

UK - Committee on Reform of the House of Commons

The Select Committee on Reform of the House
of Commons was appointed on 20 July 2009 to consider and report by 13
November 2009 on four specified matters:

• the appointment of members and chairmen of select committees;
• the appointment of the Chairman and Deputy Chairmen of Ways and Means;
• scheduling business in the House;
• enabling the public to initiate debates and proceedings in the House

Link for November 2009 report (HTML).

Main Recommendations:

1. Improve Committee Functioning:  Chairs of select committees should be elected by
   secret ballot of the house, and committee members should be
   elected by secret ballot from within party groups.
2. Shift Control of Parliamentary Schedule Back to Parliament:  Backbenchers should wrest a significant portion of the government's
   power over the scheduling of business in the Commons.
3. Increase Public Engagement, Initiative and Involvement:  The public should be actively assisted to play a real part, including
   through the use of e-petitions, in setting the agenda for debate in
   parliament.

All of these changes are intended to weaken the power of the party whips.  See commentary in The Guardian.