Third Party Political Participation and Anti-Collusion Rules
(2018) 61:2 Canadian Public Administration (Forthcoming)
Posted: 30 Jan 2018
Date Written: January 18, 2018
Abstract
One of the enduring questions regarding third parties is how to prevent collusion between them and political parties. Collusion raises the spectre of third parties being used as vehicles to evade the spending and contribution limits imposed on political parties. I will argue in this article that federal election laws are inadequate at deterring collusion. The episode involving the ‘HarperPAC’ and similar groups around the 2015 election helped to shine a spotlight on the vulnerabilities of the Canada Elections Act. I argue that the model deployed by the U.S. Federal Election Commission to regulate independent expenditures represents a promising path for reform, if carefully adapted to the Canadian context.
Keywords: Third parties, collusion, campaign finance, election advertising, Canada Elections Act, HarperPAC
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