A B.C. government-appointed panel is floating an idea that’s generating a lot of discussion across the province: Should the owners of businesses be allowed to vote in municipal elections in their place of business, even if they don’t live there — or get a second vote if they do?
No, this is not some sort of April Fools joke. It’s an actual, real (no foolin’!) idea that’s been presented to a body called the Local Government Elections Task Force, which is engaged in a three-month review of the rules — everything from campaign spending and donation rules, violations enforcement, terms of office and the like — governing local elections in B.C. The idea of bringing back the corporate vote — it was abolished in B.C. in 1993 — has the support of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
The argument goes something like this: More than most people, the owners of businesses large and small are affected by local government decisions. In particular, municipal councils decide on the split between the tax rates charged to residential and commercial property owners, and in most cases the gap between the two has been increasing, with commercial property owners forced to pay an increasing percentage of the total being sought by local government. The owners of businesses located within a given jurisdiction who don’t live there, though, can’t influence those and other decisions that affect their business by voting: It’s taxation without representation.
One big question tied to this debate is: What sort of businesses would qualify for such a vote? From 1976 to 1993, corporations could either lease or own property to qualify, and if a person controlled more than one corporation, the owner would have to register only one of those corporations as being eligible for the franchise. To be eligible for such a vote, at least 50 per cent of the shares in the corporation had to be owned by one person, or by one person and others with close family relationships to that person.
Among the reasons cited for the abolishment of that system was that the criteria for eligibility was complex and at times difficult for local governments to verify — the potential for abuse (for example, someone might try to rent a parking space or storage locker in a given municipality for the right to vote) was ever-present. What’s more, because of the small number of actual corporate votes cast in a given election, the voter’s real influence on decision-makers was minimal.
Our view is that democracy is based on the principle of one person, one vote, and that there are more effective ways to influence elected leaders’ decisions than by voting. Business lobby groups — yes, including the B.C. Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation — are perfectly capable of influencing politicians by making the case that in many cases, what’s good for business (i.e. competitive commercial tax rates and the like) is good for the community.
We would never say all business owners are wealthy — many who own small businesses are just getting by, and most work as hard or harder than do their employees. However, the perception that that the rich and powerful have more influence on government than do others is one reason that in general, voter turnout for elections at all levels has been falling for the past several decades. Giving the vote back to the owners of corporations would only reinforce that perception and further erode the underpinnings of our democracy.
