After an election in which city councillors were grilled on Calgary’s “Wild West” campaign financing, the new council will have an opportunity to debate proposed new rules at council’s first meeting November 12.

Ward 12 Ald. Ric McIver is putting forward 10 recommendations that would change the way municipal election campaigns are financed. “I want to see rules in place that have been lacking for a long time in Calgary,” he says. “I think this is a good time and a good place to make that happen.”

The proposed changes would put limits on the amount candidates could fundraise and spend. McIver’s suggested rules would also create a real estate registry for candidates, and regulate what happens to surplus campaign money. (McIver is proposing that if a candidate chose not to run again, he or she would have to donate the money to charity, or carry it over to a provincial or federal election campaign.) “The vast majority of people really want us to have some fair and transparent rules about how we deal with the money we collect to get re-elected,” says McIver.

At present, Calgary has few rules. Candidates can fundraise and spend with abandon whenever they want, and they’re free to keep whatever’s left over for themselves. Unlike other Canadian cities that have set campaign periods, Calgary’s period runs from one election to the next, which allows the mayor and aldermen to receive campaign contributions at any time during their council tenure.

Rookie Ald. Brian Pincott, who campaigned largely on a platform of bringing transparency and accountability to council, says he’s “glad this is going to be on the table right away,” but says McIver’s proposed rules don’t go far enough. Pincott wants to see limits on how much a single individual or corporation can contribute to a campaign. He also wants the campaign period to be more narrowly defined. “(We need) limits on when you can actually do your fundraising,” says Pincott. “We certainly heard loud and clear (during the campaign) that we need to have rules in place. And I firmly believe that myself.”

Last November, council voted on whether or not to regulate campaign surpluses. It was voted down eight to seven. Three of the eight council members who were opposed — Helene Larocque, Craig Burrows and Barry Erskine — are no longer on council. “There’s four new faces on council, and I’m hoping that will make the difference to get some reform done,” McIver says. (The other current city councillors who voted against surplus regulation are aldermen Dale Hodges, Linda Fox-Mellway, Ray Jones, Gord Lowe, as well as Mayor Dave Bronconnier.)

New Ward 6 Ald. Joe Connelly, who replaced Craig Burrows on council, says campaign finance rules are “something we need to look at.” However, he doesn’t think council members should make the rules. “I believe that as an interested party, they should really take a back seat to this and probably get in some expertise that can look at some other jurisdictions,” says Connelly.

Ald. Jim Stevenson, who replaced Helene Larocque in Ward 3, also wants an independent body to look at campaign financing in other cities and come up with recommendations. “We don’t have to re-invent the wheel,” he says. “If there are other jurisdictions that have something working well, then we need to look at that.” Stevenson says he’d like to see the province put in campaign finance guidelines that would apply to all municipalities.

Other provinces like Ontario have done this, but Alberta leaves it up to each municipality to make their own rules. However, under Alberta’s Local Authorities Election Act, municipalities are limited in how they can regulate campaign financing. Under the Act, a municipality can only make rules around contribution disclosure and surplus campaign money. The act doesn’t allow municipalities to regulate contribution or spending amounts, so some of McIver’s proposed changes would likely have to be made on the provincial level.