Election law fight heads to top court Communists battle 50-candidate rule By KIRK MAKIN JUSTICE REPORTER Globe and Mail (Toronto) Monday, November 4, 2002 Page A4
Communist Party of Canada leader Michael [sic- Miguel] Figueroa was despondent when he learned that his party would be stripped of its assets for not fielding 50 candidates in the 1993 federal election. "The atmosphere at our office was close to panic," he recalled. "We felt as if we were being banned as a political party. It was incredibly scary." The culprit was a new law to put fringe parties out of business, enacted in an attempt to limit a blossoming field of small parties and single- issue candidates. No one had even noticed the seizure provision until the Communist Party was suddenly faced with liquidating everything it owned. In one of the odder turnarounds in recent political history, a party broadly viewed as inclined toward totalitarianism was forced into a legal war to save Canada from an antidemocratic law. Its crusade concludes in the Supreme Court of Canada tomorrow,when CPC lawyer Peter Rosenthal will clash with federal government lawyers defending the 50-candidate rule. "The big parties have this shared interest in keeping the playing field for themselves," Mr. Figueroa said. "It is like having a private country club where the members can decide who gets to be in the club. But elections should not be a private club." Created out of the blue in mid-1993, the 50-candidate rule could hardly have come at a worse time for the CPC. Liberalized perestroika (restructuring) policies in the Soviet Union had created factional turmoil in the Communist Party of Canada. By the eve of the 1993 election, the party was so paralyzed that it could come up with just eight candidates. Along with a handful of other small parties, it was deregistered. The party quickly called an emergency meeting and hammered out a survival strategy. Members were told not to send election donations, since they would be seized by Ottawa. They were asked to send money instead to a legal defence fund to finance the court challenge. Shell-shocked party officials then set about liquidating their fixed assets. As much as possible, the proceeds were kept out of government hands by channelling them into non-election uses. "Can you imagine having to ask your supporters in the middle of a campaign not to send money?" Mr. Figueroa said. The deregistration created strange bedfellows. Mr. Figueroa recalled receiving a letter from the leader of the Christian Heritage Front, who said his members were praying for well-being of the Communist Party. In a brief to the Supreme Court, federal lawyers argue that with 301 federal constituencies across the country, 50 is "a reasonable line, drawn for the right reasons at the right place." They cite the need to weed out "frivolous" or one-issue candidates, leaving the field clear for serious parties who represent a substantial proportion of the electorate. The government also cites a need to prevent undeserving parties from issuing tax-deductible receipts, thus depleting federal coffers. So far, the government has not fared well. Mr. Rosenthal convinced Madam Justice Anne Molloy of Ontario Superior Court in 1999 to strike down the entire 50-candidate policy as a constitutional violation. The Ontario Court of Appeal gave a mixed ruling when it heard the case, restoring a couple of portions. As things now stand, Ottawa cannot seize the assets of a deregistered party, nor can it keep half the $1,000 deposit for each candidate of a deregistered party. The most critical issue for the Supreme Court will be the legality of the 50-candidate threshold itself, a threshold which prevents small parties from issuing tax credits to contributors and from having the party's name printed beside the name of its candidates on election ballots. -- Macdonald Stainsby, External Relations Co-ordinator, Douglas Students Union. ** In the contradiction lies the hope. --Bertholt Brecht. *** "`Order rules in Berlin.' You stupid lackeys! Your `order' is built on sand. Tomorrow the revolution will rear ahead once more and announce to your horror amid the brass of trumpets: `I was, I am, I always will be!'" -Rosa Luxemburg, 1918. _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
