Murray Mandryk

COMMENTARY

Will province ever get credit?

It was pretty much the second order of business after Premier Rene Levesque's Parti Quebecois stormed into office in 1976.

And it's likely one big reason why Lucien Bouchard's PQ easily secured another maj- ority earlier this week.

After its infamous language law, the second major order of business for Levesque's newly elected separatist government was a complete rewriting of Quebec's election act.

A province rife with political corruption going back to the days of Union Nationale Premier Maurice Duplessis, the new bill took Quebec from the most archaic election laws in the country to the most modern.

Overnight, a province that had virtually no limits on how much money its politicians could spend or who they got that money from, was faced with a law that prohibited all donations from all corporations or unions.

Moreover, no individual could donate more than $3,000 to a political party in any given year. And the standard 75-per-cent tax credit now coming through the province (more on the significance of this in a moment) would only apply to the first $1,000 of a donation.

For reasons of both principle and practicality, this legislation has served the PQ well to this very day.

From the perspective of principle, it allowed the PQ to establish a foothold on the moral high ground in a province where political corruption was loathed by the electorate. (In fact, the law has become a point of pride with some Quebec nationalists. It even served as the model for France's new election law that also severely limits election spending.)

From a practical standpoint, however, the rewards in the act for the PQ have been even greater.

With the new elections act in force in 1976, Quebec became the first province to issue its own 75-per-cent tax credits. Prior to that, all provincial parties had to acquire the write-offs -- huge incentives for individuals to donate -- through their party's federal wing. (Of course, the PQ had no such federal wing.)

The restricting of union and corporate donations combined with the ability to issue receipts to individuals, actually gave the PQ a tremendous advantage over the Liberals in campaign fund-raising.

It's also became accepted practice. As of this year, every province in Canada but one now issues its own 75-per-cent-of-the-donation tax credit.

So guess which province doesn't?

You got it. Good old Saskatchewan.

And, sadly, the reasons we still don't are somewhat reminiscent of Quebec politics of a half century ago.

Of course, the practice does come with a price-tag. At a rate of 75-per-cent, it is estimated that issuing such provincial tax credits would cost Saskatchewan taxpayers an additional $600,000 in a normal year and $1.5 million in an election year.

But if Newfoundland can now afford it, you have to think Saskatchewan surely can as well.

Besides, our politicians happen to agree the province can afford it. The latest amendments to the Saskatchewan Election Act passed in the legislature in 1996 called for precisely such provincial tax credits.

Mysteriously, though, when the time came to proclaim the act as law on Jan. 1, 1997, sections 272 to 276 -- the section of the new law that pertained to the province issuing tax credits -- were left out.

So what happened?

Well, by coincidence, the Saskatchewan Party was formed in the interval between passage of the bill in the legislature and proclamation.

With no federal affiliate, it became a provincial party -- the NDP government's official Opposition -- with no capacity to issue tax receipts.

If you don't think that makes a big difference, consider these numbers:

In 1997, the Liberals declared $204,897 in donations ($107,000 of which came from the federal wing of the party). The NDP declared $1,510,571 donated to its party (and that doesn't include whatever was donated to the controversial Tommy Douglas House fund.)

The Saskatchewan Party received $14,000 in 1997. And even this year-- its first full year of existence -- general manager Tom Lukiwski anticipates it will get about $200,000 in donations.

While the policy doesn't affect corporate donations as much, Lukiwski candidly admits that the inability to issue receipts is killing the party when it comes to individual donations.

Some donors who appear willing to fork over $200 have often changed the cheque to $100 when they find there'll be no tax credit, said Lukiwski. He guesses the Saskatchewan Party would get 25 per cent to 40 per cent more in donations if the NDP proclaimed the four sections of the law the legislature has already passed.

But by all accounts, it doesn't look like the NDP cabinet has any interest in doing so -- at least not before the next provincial election.

It's hardly a level playing field.

In fact, it appears to be something out of a different era of politics.

Mandryk is the legislative columnist for Leader-Star News.