The part that would ban corporate and union donations to political parties, bring leadership and nomination races under the law, and force MPs to disclose who contributed the large sums of cash on deposit with their riding associations is the visionary part. On its own, it would count as one of the most sweeping reforms to our democratic system in a generation. But all this good work is undone by the second part, the one that would let the parties dip into public funds instead.

There are those who detect a strong whiff of hypocrisy in Mr.

Chretien's sudden interest in campaign finance reform, after the endless series of scandals that have marked his time in office. Was it not his government, to take one example, that displayed a suspicious preference, in handing out sponsorship grants, for corporations that made large contributions to the Liberal party? And now -- now that the gig is up, now that he's leaving -- now he wants to ban those same corporate donations?

But in truth it is all of a piece. Another way of looking at the sponsorship scandals is as a scheme to steer public funds into party coffers, by way of the Liberals' corporate friends. Officially, the money was doled out to recipient firms, in the form of grants. But some of that cash made its way back into the party's hands, in the form of contributions.

Mr. Chretien's proposed reform amounts to cutting out the middle man.

Rather than siphon off public funds by such roundabout manoeuvres, the parties could just tap directly into the treasury. What once was scandalous becomes the norm.

To be sure, the parties already help themselves to millions of dollars of the taxpayers' money, notably by means of the tax credit for political contributions. But this is at least tied to a party's ability to persuade willing contributors to part with their cash.

Under Mr. Chretien's plan, they would be spared the effort. The parties would simply be awarded a share of public funds, based on their performance in the last election: number of seats, percentage of the popular vote, etc. Existing parties and incumbent candidates could gorge themselves at public expense for four years, then use the public's money to entrench themselves in office. Challengers, besides being shut out of public funding, would be prevented from raising much in the way of outside funds by the ban on corporate donors. Neat, huh? As a formula for perpetual Liberal rule, it's even better than sending corporate bagmen out to do the rounds, in the traditional fashion: much less labour intensive, and no need to cut the corporations in for a share.

However odious to democracy, this was also entirely unnecessary.

There is no reason, even now, why Mr. Chretien could not simply ban corporate and union donations, period. The parties would then have two options. Rather than rely on a small number of sugar daddies -- or worse, the biggest daddy of them all --they could get out and hustle, raising funds from thousands of small individual contributors by offering policies that appeal to a broad mass of the electorate. Or (do I dare even suggest this?) they could make do with less.

If the first is unpalatable to Liberal MPs, the second does not seem even to have occurred to them. "How do you run a national party from coast to coast on $100 donations?" wondered Stan Keyes, the caucus chairman. (Why are the Liberals so worried about money, anyway? Ten years in power, more than $100-million in contributions, and still they're $5-million in debt? Where did all the money go? Up their noses?)

Oh boo hoo hoo. You mean the parties would have less money to spend on spin doctors and attack ads, push polls and focus groups, and all the rest of the machinery of modern politics, with which they have succeeded in driving voter turnout rates to all-time lows? God forbid.

There is no objective yardstick that makes it obligatory to maintain party funding at current levels. Elections didn't use to cost nearly as much, even in real dollars. The only reason the parties spend so much is because the other guys do. But parity can be maintained at lower levels of spending.

As for my libertarian friends, who object to the first part of Mr.

Chretien's plan, on the grounds that banning corporate contributions is an assault on free speech: If a corporation were to place a sum of money in a politician's personal bank account, we would not regard this as an exercise in free speech. It would not matter whether there was any quid pro quo, and it would not matter if the contribution were disclosed on some public register. Its very existence would be considered an offence -- if not a bribe, certainly a conflict of interest.

What, fundamentally, is the difference, whether the contribution is to his personal financial benefit, or to his personal political benefit -- with all the financial implications that follow? Why such nice distinctions, between his right pocket and his left?