Di Ianni avoiding CBC questions
July 25, 2006

CBC radio's national public affairs program, the Current, interviewed Joanna Chapman this morning about the 41 charges facing Hamilton's mayor. But the program host says the show "made several requests for comment to Mayor Di Ianni's office, but did not receive a response".

The Chapman segment of the broadcast occupied over 20 minutes and included comments by Robert MacDermid, a York University professor who has investigated campaign donations in cities across the province.

Joanna Chapman addressing city council earlier this year on March 6.

Chapman told Current host Derek Stoffel that she was "horrified" when she discovered multiple illegal donations to Di Ianni's 2003 campaign. "The more that I looked, the more that I became convinced that the 2003 municipal election in Hamilton was not a fair election," she said, as she recounted a brief history of her two-year battle to get a compliance audit completed.

Stoffel asked who made the illegal donations, and Chapman said "the bulk" came from developers. "I found that they're the same groups who come before council with their development proposals," she noted.

"Because they stand to benefit a great deal from the decisions of council. And a pro-development council can make millions for a developer by approving zoning changes. And Hamilton has been approving a lot of development in greenspace and agricultural land, and that's very lucrative."

Stoffel noted that Di Ianni had previously told CBC that the illegal donations "were the result of honest mistakes", but Chapman didn't agree.

"I find that very hard to accept," she replied. "I don't know how you can honestly make a mistake by changing the name of a contributor on your financial statement from the name of the contributor that appears on the cheque. And that happened in numerous instances."

Chapman said she hasn't tallied all the bills from her efforts but believes they now exceed $30,000 - a sum she called horrifying. She said she had expected the provincial government to enforce it's own law, "but that isn't what happened".

Asked if she was thinking about running for mayor this fall, Chapman laughed and said "absolutely not" although she hoped there would be someone she could vote for.

Professor MacDermid praised Chapman's determination, noting that it was rare for citizens to pursue these questions with such determination. He also echoed her concerns about developer domination of municipal governments - but not just in Hamilton.

He said in the Toronto suburb of Vaughan, 80 percent of donations over $100 came from corporations and "of that about 60 or 70 percent came from the development industry alone" and he emphasized their donations are targeted very specifically "to candidates that they believe will support their development industry and interests."

"The process of municipal politics creates value for developers," he explained. "It creates value in the way that a company creates widgets to be sold later, because it's politicians who rezone land. When a developer buys a piece of land it's worth virtually a fraction of what it will be worth when eventually it is sold with a house on it. And that process that goes through the rezoning, and the subdivision of the property, is overseen by politicians. And that creates value for developers. And it creates millions and millions of dollars, so of course they have an interest in trying to find politicians who will support them."

Both Chapman and MacDermid called for a ban on donations from corporations and unions. Chapman said when that happens "I think council will be more accountable to people, as opposed to corporations and developers."

MacDermid noted that corporate donations mean some people can unfairly fund their candidate twice. "If you own a corporation, you can give once as the director of that corporation, or the owner of that corporation, and once as an individual."

He also called for the posting of financial statements on municipal websites - and in advance of the election as is done in the United States so that voters can see who is financially backing the candidates.

CATCH has prepared a full transcript of the CBC broadcast. It is available at http://www.hamiltoncatch.org/pdfs/Current-Chapman.pdf.