The City of Toronto is hoping to offer a new online resource
that will allow full public disclosure into campaign contributions
received by candidates in the upcoming November election.
If the necessary bylaws are passed, the public will be able to
view the full financial statements filed by electoral candidates,
said Greg Essensa, director of elections and registry services,
City of Toronto.
Among the recommendations put forward recently by the Toronto
Election Finance Review Task Force was that city staff consider
building and implementing an electronic financial filing system
(EFFS), said Essensa.
He said the City Clerk's Office oversaw the actual development
in partnership with their information and technology division. "We
consulted with major stakeholders, including academics, public
accountants, the auditor general's office, as well as other levels
of government - both provincial and federal - to provide input into
the application development."
Essensa said there are two major components to the system, the
first being designed specifically to ease the filing procedure for
candidates. "It's very similar to an e-tax filing application," he
said. "[Candidates] can simply input their information, download it
and print it."
Essensa added that will also have the ability to track
contributions and to manage all of their user administration
rights.
The second component of the system is the public disclosure
piece, which the City hopes will be accessible through its Web site
www.toronto.ca/elections.
Once all the financial statements have been entered, that
information is available on the Web and any interested party can
search the site on multiple criteria.
"If they're looking to view all of the contributions from a
particular individual to one candidate...they have that capability
to do so."
The application was developed internally with J2EE and uses an
Oracle database, according to Stephen Wong, director of information
and application services with the City's information and technology
division.
Wong noted that e-filing would not be mandatory for candidates
and the paper-based method will still be available. The aim of
online filing is to simplify the process. "In addition to sharing
the information, it obviously provides a time-saving benefit," said
Wong.
"For the public, it's really about transparency. They'll be able
to view this information any time they choose, whereas currently
the process requires them to come to City Hall to the city clerk's
office and request to see the paper copy."
Essensa said they have requested feedback from the public and
the media on the public disclosure piece of the system, as it won't
be live until 2007.
"If there are search criteria that we have not captured, or
would like additional information to be searched upon, we're taking
that information under advisement and we will make amendments to
the application to make it as user-friendly as possible."
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