Dear Editor,
Re: Municipal election financing
With Saskatchewan’s electoral financing system being decried as “the wild west,” many awkward questions are starting to be asked about how our local politicians fundraise for their campaigns.
This is not just a provincial or federal question; it demands serious consideration when we look at the municipal level.
A common theme throughout the recent Yorkton election was an increase in transparency and reporting back to the people of Yorkton. Many of our newly elected councillors made specific reference to this topic throughout the campaign; at meet and greet events, forums, and in candidate profiles online.
And yet there’s a grey-area here, given that municipal elections in Yorkton do not have any sort of system for financial reporting. It’s shocking to think that candidates who ran for election, and re-election, in Yorkton do not have to release any details of how their campaign was run.
We have no way of knowing if a candidate self-funded their campaign OR if they solicited and received donations. We have no way of knowing if donations came from businesses, private individuals, special interest groups, or what-have-you. We have no way of knowing if candidates took advantage of local suppliers and local businesses to create their campaign materials or if they sought out suppliers from outside of the local community.
The idea of public transparency on election financing is so the community at large knows whether a candidate could be “beholden to donors” after they find themselves elected. I doubt that there was any inappropriateness in the campaigns of this election, but the people of Yorkton deserve to know how and where campaign dollars were spent and raised.
As such, given the topic of transparency and openness that many of our new Councillors ran on: are they willing to put their money where their campaign was, and release the details of their campaign spending? Are they willing to commit to the creation of a bylaw that will ensure future elections include campaign finance releases at the end of the election?
This is a glaring omission that needs to be fixed before the next election, and our newly elected council can lead by example on this issue.
Alanna Harrison
Yorkton
