Public Financing for Political Parties to be Slashed

Federal Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, is going to drop a bombshell in Ottawa tomorrow.

You may or may not be aware but for the past few years all of the major federal parties in Canada get $1.95 per vote on an annual basis. In the last election, roughly 14 million eligible voters cast their ballots, which translated to $27 million in taxpayers' money for the parties each year. Here are the funding cuts that Flaherty is proposing:

• Conservatives: $10.0 million
• Liberals: $7.7 million
• NDP: $4.9 million
• Bloc Quebecois: $2.6 million
• Green Party: $1.8 million

But when you examine what percentage of funding each party gets from public funds, a very different picture emerges:

• Bloc Quebecois: 86%
• Green Party: 65%
• Liberals: 63%
• NDP: 57%
• Conservatives: 37%
  

Some politicians are going to scream that this is dirty politics and is unfair. But is it? Here's why these politicians will be fighting a losing cause if they stay on this tangent:

1. The Conservatives will lose the most money by far.
2. The Bloc Quebecois' funding will be decimated, but who outside of Quebec will object? Many already feel that a separatist party, whose primary mission is to destroy Canada, shouldn't be funded in the first place.
3. Most people are generally sick & tired of all politicians of every stripe.
4. Demanding more money from Canadians as we (and the world) are entering a recession is a fool's gambit: "Dear Mr. Taxpayer, I know that you've lost your job and that you're struggling to keep your family housed & fed but don't you dare stop paying me even a cent less!"

And don't forget that each political party has every opportunity to attract more donations from millions of Canadians. It's long overdue that each party's supporters put their money where the mouth is. In other words, start walking the talk!

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What's exceedingly delightful is to read the fever-pitched whining of the Radical Left at the CBC News site. The top rated comment asserts that this is simply Harper's latest move at creating a dictatorship. ROFL

It made me wonder how a psychologist would evaluate a person who constantly exaggerates everything to the extreme? I'm guessing that the term "Delusional Paranoia" might be used. Or equivalently "radical liberal" would suffice!