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Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne attends the Ontario Liberal Party’s 20th annual heritage dinner in Toronto on March 30, 2016.Kevin Van Paassen/The Globe and Mail

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has agreed to meet the province's opposition leaders to craft new campaign finance rules as she tries to head off a mounting furor over a cash-for-access fundraising scheme.

Her government is also set to unveil legislation on Monday that would give all Ontario municipal governments the power to ban corporate and union donations – part of a package of local government reform that includes allowing municipalities to adopt ranked ballots for elections.

In a letter on Sunday to Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, the Premier said she would sit down with both of them "within the next few days" to discuss plans to outlaw corporate and union contributions, lower the cap on individual donations and restrict third-party election advertising at the provincial level.

"My government remains committed to enhancing the integrity of the election finance system and protecting the public interest," Ms. Wynne wrote, adding she hopes they will consult their respective parties and give her "formal input on a responsible way forward to reform the current system."

Political fundraising is causing coast-to-coast controversy. B.C. Premier Christy Clark promised last week to improve disclosure rules to compel political parties to publish donations every month rather than once a year, after The Globe and Mail revealed that she sometimes charges up to $20,000 a plate at secret fundraisers. Meanwhile, two former Quebec cabinet ministers, including ex-deputy premier Nathalie Normandeau, were charged criminally last month with allegedly receiving illegal campaign contributions from companies getting government contracts.

And in Ontario, as The Globe first revealed in March, Ms. Wynne and her cabinet regularly sell exclusive access to themselves at secret, small-scale fundraisers to corporations and lobbyists who do business with government. At one such event in December, for example, executives with some of the banks that profited from the government's privatization of Hydro One paid $7,500 apiece for an evening with Finance Minister Charles Sousa and Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli. At another event in March, energy industry insiders paid $6,000 a plate to have dinner and cocktails with Ms. Wynne and Mr. Chiarelli.

The opposition leaders have also held small-scale, high-priced events.

Ms. Wynne has promised to bring in new legislation in the fall to "transition" the province away from corporate and union donations. But she has been vague about what those new rules would entail.

Ms. Horwath wrote to Ms. Wynne on Thursday to ask for a meeting and to call on the Premier to hold open consultations on what the new rules should be.

Mr. Brown wrote to the Premier on Friday, seconding Ms. Horwath's request and also asking Ms. Wynne to agree to an all-party legislative committee to draft new rules. In an e-mail on Sunday, Mr. Brown wrote that he was "looking forward" to meeting the Premier – and that he would keep pressing her for a committee.

"Of course I am looking forward to meeting with Premier Wynne and Ms. Horwath. However, as I stated in my letter to the Premier on Friday, we hope she'll agree to strike a select committee with equal representation from all parties, where all deputations and consultations are made in public and not behind closed doors," he wrote.

Ms. Horwath said in a statement that the three party leaders must come up with a process to consult their parties as well as "broader civil society" in crafting the rules. "It is time to put an end to the undue influence of big money in Ontario," she said. "The question now becomes how are we going to finance our democratic process?"

Currently, corporations and unions can donate to political parties and politicians in Ontario. The province also has a relatively high donation cap of $9,975 annually, plus numerous loopholes that allow corporations and unions to give many times that amount, sometimes more than $100,000.

The federal government and several provinces, including Quebec and Alberta, ban donations by corporations and unions. They also have lower donation caps – $1,525 both federally and in Alberta; $100 in Quebec – than Ontario. B.C., by contrast, has rules even looser than Ontario's, with no donation cap at all.

On the municipal front, meanwhile, Toronto is the only Ontario city with the power to ban corporate and union donations, which it did in 2009. Campaign contributions are also capped at $2,500 for mayoral candidates and $750 for people running for city council.

Sources said Municipal Affairs Minister Ted McMeekin will announce on Monday that the province will now allow all cities and towns to ban corporate and union contributions. The announcement is to be made at a media event scheduled for a Ryerson University residence building over the noon hour.

Mr. McMeekin is also expected to grant all municipalities the ability to switch from the first-past-the-post to alternative voting systems. Under a ranked ballot, if no candidate receives a majority of first-place votes, second choices (and, in some cases, third or fourth choices) are tallied up until a candidate reaches a majority.

Advocates of the system contend it is more democratic than first-past-the-post because it eliminates vote-splitting and encourages less fractious campaigns since candidates must try to win second- and third-choice votes from their opponents' supporters.

"We're really excited to see what's in the announcement," said Katherine Skene, co-chair of the Ranked Ballot Initiative of Toronto.

Ms. Skene said councillors in several cities and towns – including Toronto, Guelph, Whitby and Barrie – have expressed interest in exploring an alternative voting system, and have been waiting for the province to put the rules in place to move forward.

"The hesitation on the part of municipalities is that they don't know what they will be allowed to do," she said.

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