Peter Aucoin has penned an alarmed critique of the government’s Bill C-20, which will govern how parties raise and spend money during future Senate elections. The important points:

• No public funding for Senate candidates
• Individual contribution limits of $1000
• No spending limits for candidates

The much-ballyhooed money problems of the Liberal Party illustrate why the C-20 regime would spell disaster for the Liberals in any future Senate election. In the last quarter, even the NDP had more individual contributors than the Liberal Party. Under C-20, the Liberals would continue to struggle for individual contributions, but without the mitigating benefit of public funding. In other words, they’d be dirt poor.

And the news gets worse for the Liberals. Aucoin points out that concurrent elections for the Senate and the House of Commons would also favour the Conservatives in the H of C election:

By having no spending limits, Bill C-20 would create loopholes that would diminish, if not eliminate altogether, the effectiveness of the spending limits on candidates for election to the House of Commons and on their political parties if elections for the Senate and the House of Commons take place at the same time.

Needless to say, if at any time in the future the Conservatives and NDP are in a position to pass legislation without the support of the Liberals or the Bloc, they would do well to extend C-20’s provisions to House of Commons elections. Given the differences in the parties’ ability to collect individual contributions, eradicating public funding (recently advocated by the National Post) while maintaining individual contribution limits would likely bankrupt the Bloc, cripple the Liberals, and benefit the Conservatives and, to a lesser extent, the NDP.