Developer donations loom large at city hall

"However, when The Oshawa Express looked further into his list of personal donations, it was found to include names with links to several companies who provided funds to other councillors’ campaigns under a corporate name."

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This story is the epitome of how past research comes in handy. 

After the municipal election in 2014 I began to collaborate a list of all the companies providing donations to the councillors who won seats. It's no surprise that as development booms in the north end of Oshawa, that developers are some of the bigger donors to municipal political campaigns. 

Now, the issue is more about optics, as donations are capped at $750, not really enough to provide real influence one would think. For that reason, I abandoned the story for more interesting topics.

However, when the province announced changes to the Municipal Act that would ban the practice of union and corporate donations to municipal campaigns, I figured it would be a good time to pull out my old research and let readers know what I'd found. 

Published in the April 27, 2016 edition of The Oshawa Express.