We can achieve transparency around political donations

Much media coverage of the controversy about Daryl Katz and people close to him donating nearly half a million dollars to Premier Alison Redford’s governing Progressive Conservative Party election campaign is focusing on further limiting donations to political parties.

The sums that individuals and businesses donate to political parties matter less, however, than do the manner in which these sums are given and are received, or how they’re spent.  The focus should be on full transparency.

The supposedly high limit of $30,000 per donor is hardly the problem. Those arguing for lower limits suppose that if instead of the current limit, the rules called for a $10,000 limit, someone with $430,000 to spare would have been corralled into only giving a third of that sum to Redford’s Conservatives.

That’s a red herring.  One could find 42 other people in whose name to donate $10,000 for each without much difficulty.  Listening to Tory explanations about the grouping of large contributions, it is a…