Tories to run on elimination of $30-million dollar policital subsidy in next election
Thanks once again to the "Unthinking Opposition", who have opened the door WIDE OPEN for us to reintroduce this sensible idea.
With the Opposition recently banding together to pass a motion restricting the use of "ten percenters", which they said was an effort to save the taxpayer millions of dollars, the Tories have indicated that they're perfectly willing to go along with the Opposition's idea... IF they're willing to also eliminate the political subsidy.
If you'll recall, this is exactly how I said this one would backfire on the Opposition... another strike for the Liberal Don-OLO.
Just try backing out of that one now guys. I think the Canadian public will support BOTH of these measures, and will link them together as both being "wasteful spending" that should be eliminated. Thanks for your help once again!
With the Opposition recently banding together to pass a motion restricting the use of "ten percenters", which they said was an effort to save the taxpayer millions of dollars, the Tories have indicated that they're perfectly willing to go along with the Opposition's idea... IF they're willing to also eliminate the political subsidy.
If you'll recall, this is exactly how I said this one would backfire on the Opposition... another strike for the Liberal Don-OLO.
Just try backing out of that one now guys. I think the Canadian public will support BOTH of these measures, and will link them together as both being "wasteful spending" that should be eliminated. Thanks for your help once again!
Labels: coup d’état 08, election, Liberal/NDP Coalition, Liberals, NDP
posted by Christian Conservative @ 7:56 a.m.
12 Comments:
At Mon Mar 29, 09:38:00 a.m. EDT,
Jen said…
"The Lord works in Mysterious Ways."
At Mon Mar 29, 10:02:00 a.m. EDT,
Anonymous said…
And just think about it. The Liberals brought this all on themselves. With their insistence that the PM needs to take bold steps to help fight the deficit then they should have no problem supporting the nixing of a wasting of tax payer dollars on subsidies for political parties!!
Looks very good for the PM I must say!
Whoever tries to paint the Ignatieff led official opposition as any sort of a threat to the PM or the gov't needs to have their head examined.
I want the economist not the thinker in charge of the county's money!
At Mon Mar 29, 10:05:00 a.m. EDT,
Anonymous said…
I would think that the maximum amount of contributions should go up to compensate for this move.
Having voters funding political parties is simply wrong. It is their day to speak not the politicians.They get to speak the reast of the time.
At Mon Mar 29, 10:43:00 a.m. EDT,
wilson said…
Ducey will hurt the most,
the French Resistance depends almost wholly on the ROC supporting it financially.
At Mon Mar 29, 10:45:00 a.m. EDT,
West Coast Teddi said…
"Don't you know how hard it is to raise money?" ... when you have no ideas.
At Mon Mar 29, 10:50:00 a.m. EDT,
Christian Conservative said…
I'd be fine raising things to say $1500 max per person to compensate, but not really any more than that.
We can also make this an issue about "negative advertising"... remind the voters that with less money for each party, they'll have less to spend on attack ads.
At Mon Mar 29, 02:33:00 p.m. EDT,
Anonymous said…
When this grant program was created, the recommendation was that the level of public support should be 75-cents per vote per year. Chretien looked at how much it would take to replace corporate and union funding and immediately went to $1.75 per vote per year. Naturally this was indexed and rose to $1.95.
I think political parties should be self-financing. If your supporters won't put their money where their mouth is, you don't deserve to be a party.
Biggest beneficiaries of the $1.95 gift: The Bloc Quebecois. They only raise about $400,000 per year from their supporters but get something like $1.2-million as a gift from the federal government they are trying to separate from.
At Mon Mar 29, 03:38:00 p.m. EDT,
Anonymous said…
While I'm not completely opposed to the idea, I fear that the elimination of voter subsidies will put pressure on the sitting government to re-introduce a policy of allowing more lucrative corporate donations -- a slippery slope, to be sure. Also: if political parties in a voter subsidy-free climate are supposed to rely more on individual donations, won't that have a discriminating effect on parties that's support bases are less affluent (the BQ, for example)?
These are interesting questions to raise, anyhow.
At Mon Mar 29, 04:10:00 p.m. EDT,
Michael Harkov said…
So the Liberals would help out corporations by freezing their taxes and the Conservatives would save Canadians millions of dollars by cutting off political welfare for all political parties.
Sounds about right to me!
At Mon Mar 29, 08:39:00 p.m. EDT,
gimbol said…
Frankly I don't have a problem with someone throwing bags of money into a political parties coffers....with one stiplation.
Those donations have to be in their name and they cannot be making payments in kind.
At Tue Mar 30, 12:07:00 a.m. EDT,
Anon1152 said…
[[#2]]
But I digress.
I don't think that the Liberals brought in the public financing because of self interest. [I have no insight into internal decision making, and I admit that in this instance, I am looking at the decision as rationally as I can... which I admit that politicians don't always do].
When it comes to accepting donations, it is surely easier to get large donations when you are in government (b/c people with lots of money who want more money are more likely pay for access to people in power than to pay for access to people without power). "The natural governing party of Canada" could not have brought in public financing out of [rational] self interest.
I think it was principled. There are other countries that publicly finance elections. And political theorists have for some time (with reason, I think) said that publicly financed elections are more democratic.
By bringing in that subsidy, the liberals were putting themselves, the [long term] ruling party on the same terms with all other parties. Equality. Every party gets the same per-vote subsidy.
*
What do you think about the Conservatives (at least initially) voting against eliminating the 10-percenters? They were the biggest and most effective users of them... and they have showed a willingness to keep the 10 percenters and a desire to eliminate the subsidy. If the opposition is inconsistent on this issues, then so are the Conservatives.
In general, that makes me disappointed with all of the parties. [Though I think that there is good reason to keep the 10-percenters--and the conservatives have believed the same thing--and there is good reason to keep (and eliminate) the political subsidy... though not for the reasons that the opposition (or the government) have in mind.
A while ago Joe Clark, who I respect (but have never voted for) said that he felt like "a political orphan".
Me too.
At Tue Mar 30, 12:07:00 a.m. EDT,
Anon1152 said…
[[#1]]
Here I see a misrepresentation that is, I think, unintentional. Your headline is: "Tories to run on elimination of $30-dollar policital subsidy in next election" Yes. Sortof. This in the article you link to. The article says: "Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives will campaign on killing the $30-million per-vote-subsidy to political parties in the next election, the Prime Minister's Office confirmed." There is an ambiguity here that I think constitutes a misrepresentation. The TOTAL cost is "30 million dollars". So your headline in a sense drastically reduces the actual figure: 30 million.
BUT I first thought that your headline was referring to the subsidy PER VOTE. And the article you link to seems to do just that. The first paragraph suggests that the subsidy is 30 million PER VOTE.
But b/c that number (per vote) is crazy. I think that $30 per vote is also crazy. But also, unfortunately, believable. But, as one of the commenters here--and the article itself--states, the PER VOTE subsidy is less than 2 dollars per vote.
As a voter... I'm quite willing to have 2 of "my dollars" go to the party I vote for. In fact, if I'm not willing to see two of my tax dollars go to the party I vote for, I can always not vote, and (as a Canadian) "save" the money. And if I'm not willing to have the (less than) two dollars go to the party I vote for... I probably shouldn't vote at all.
You paint the vote subsidy as a government attempt to steal from the Canadian people. An attempt of the Liberals to enrich themselves and the Bloc.
The Liberals have no love of the Bloc. Bouchard, recall, was a friend of and later cabinet minister for Mulroney. Quebec did not sign onto the 1982 constitution [in part?] because Trudeau et al would NOT agree to putting something in the Constitution saying that Quebec was a "distinct society".
Harper is on the record saying that "the separatists" should not be pandered to in that way. But that was years ago. Back when he wasn't in power. So let's forget about that.
He was against pandering to separatists until he proposed (and passed) a bill declaring Quebec "a nation within Canada". That bears repeating: a NATION WITHIN CANADA.
The liberals did not do that. I was about to say "would never do that", but, as Robert Fowler said the other day, the Liberal party doesn't seem to take principled positions anymore. [Rene Levesque said this... in terms I know would be edited out here... many years ago].
But Harper came around during the late 2008 "coalition/constitutional crisis" when he railed against the opposition parties joining with the separatists. The separatists who had promised to do for the opposition... exactly what they had been doing for Harper for the previous couple of years.
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