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Flaherty to Slash Public Funding for Federal Parties
It was a good move for [/FONT][FONT="]Canada[/FONT][FONT="] as a whole.
It benefits all Taxpayers.
Flaherty did the right thing but tactically I believe it should have been bundled with the new budget in January.
Let’s take a quick peek at how we got here.
Back in the good old days the Liberal Martinites were viciously back- stabbing the Liberal Chretienites.
Both Martin and Chretien knew about the $100 million that had been stolen and funneled into Liberal controlled advertising agencies.
The master plan was that some of these stolen funds were to redirected into Liberal Party of Canada accounts to be used for campaign advertising and other pro-Liberal election activities.
It was Chretien who did it of course, Martin probable didn't find out about the thefts until after the fact.
So polling tells Chretien that the back-stabbing Martinites are winning the war.
Martin is going to replace Chretien as the PM.
Chretien who utterly despises Martin decides to screw him as best he can on his way out the door.
Chretien leaves the $100 million dollar theft buried as a massive time bomb for
Paul to deal with.
And he changes the election laws so that no union or business can contribute to a Federal Political party.
And then he sets the maximum private donate limit as $1100 or something like that.
From a Liberal Party perspective he is pissing on the pillow on his way out the door.
And then he heads off to the links and leaves Paul to deal with it all.
The campaign funding regulations turn out to be a great move for Canadians and democracy in [/FONT][FONT="]Canada[/FONT][FONT="] because rich corporations and business are banned from donating to the individual federal political parties.
No more corporate vote buying.
And the $1100 private citizen limit prevents rich fat cats from buying votes.
It’s a really fair and honest new system.
The problem was however that the Liberal Party of Canada has historically always received its funding from rich corporations that are later rewarded with huge government contracts.
That and rich Liberal bag men that then sold favors at a later date.
They never did get any funding to speak of from Joe Q Public.
The Conservatives and NDP however, actually always did and still do receive their funding from private citizens.
Fast forward to today and you have a well funded NDP party, Conservative party and even Green party.
And a flat broke Liberal party.
So Harper and the Con's of course approve of these new Liberal fund-raising regulations.
They improve and strengthen them.
New regulations for lobbyists (bag men) that publicly announce exactly who they are and what they spend and more importantly whom they spend it on.....stuff like that.
It’s all good for the taxpayer.
On a slightly different but related issue.
Harper and the Con's don't really approve of the Bloc Quebecois.
And who can blame them; the sole stated purpose of the Bloc is to break up [/FONT][FONT="]Canada[/FONT][FONT="].
And for any Canadians outside [/FONT][FONT="]Quebec[/FONT][FONT="] allowing the Bloc to be in the debate for the future PM of [/FONT][FONT="]Canada[/FONT][FONT="] during an election makes no sense.
The Bloc wants nothing to do with [/FONT][FONT="]Canada[/FONT][FONT="] as a whole.
It only cares about one province and has zero interest in putting forward the future Prime Minister of Canada.
So obviously the Con's are not about to do the BQ any more favors than they have to.
So the Con's then spot a strange funding anomaly.
The BQ who are dedicated to breaking up [/FONT][FONT="]Canada[/FONT][FONT="] are being funded by taxpayers outside [/FONT][FONT="]Quebec[/FONT][FONT="] who in no way support the breaking up of Confederation.
Weird that.
What it is, is a funding system that was set up in the Canadian Federal Government that provides taxpayers money to all the parties in Canada (that have a seat) to spend on research and the like.
Every Federal party gets $1.95 or so for each vote it receives.
The problem is none of the parties spend the money on research, the money goes straight into campaign coffers, it has been for years.
And why should the taxpayer be forced to donate money to political parties in the first place anyway?
Harper and the Con's know that the Bloc desperately need this funding because their fund-raising base is so small, I mean who outside of Quebec would give the BQ money?
And they also know that because close to 80% of Canadian live outside of [/FONT][FONT="]Quebec[/FONT][FONT="] the BQ party is being primarily funded by taxpayers outside the province courtesy of this stupid old funding system.
And as a huge bonus if they scrap the system it also deprives a broke Liberal party of free taxpayer funding.
And the Con's also know that Canadians are still not donating money to the Fed Lib's.
The Conservatives of course were the biggest recipients of this free taxpayer money, but the truth is, they don't need it or even want it.
So Flaherty scrapped it.
Another few bucks returned to taxpayers of [/FONT][FONT="]Canada[/FONT][FONT="].
It’s all good.
And every penny counts.
Trex
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