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A very Canadian coup
by Scott Gilbreath ~ December 2nd, 2008
The Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition is not only a bald-faced power grab by the losers of the October election, it is also a colossally stupid idea doomed to failure. As historian Michael Bliss points out, it will be inherently unstable and dangerous. He hopes that Governor-General Michaëlle Jean will not “allow herself to be complicit” in the coup, lest she risk making her abuse of her office a key issue in the next election.
The coalition was motivated by the Conservative government’s short-lived proposal to reduce public funding of political parties. Closing down the public trough for federal politicians is long overdue, but wallowers were aghast at the suggestion. The Frontier Centre for Pubic Policy (FCPP) has background:
Since 2000, parties have raked in $313 million from the public treasury. What’s noteworthy is how the cost has jumped dramatically over the past four years: $290 million was handed over to parties since just 2004.
That’s because in addition to election spending reimbursements for parties and candidates (and we’ve now had three elections since 2004), an additional honey pot of money was created for political parties in 2004– annual allowances.
For every vote a party receives in the most recent election, that party gets $1.95 every year. Since 2004 and to the end of this year, those new annual allowances padded political party coffers by $131 million. It is that amount which the Conservative propose to cut, thus saving taxpayers an equivalent amount over the next four years (higher actually, as it is indexed for inflation).
An FCPP study argues that federal funding saved the Bloc’s bacon in the 2008 election.
Of interest to the four federalist parties given the success of the Bloc Quebecois in the recent federal election, Bloc fundraising was significantly down in recent years.
• In the first six months of 2008, the latest period for which statistics are available from Elections Canada, the Bloc raised just $73,704.
• Compare that to the Bloc’s public subsidies: In the first six months of 2008, the Bloc received over $1.5 million.
• Without federal funding, the Bloc would likely have been handicapped in its ability to fight the most recent election.
Of Canada’s major political parties, the Bloc Quebecois is by far the most dependent on taxpayer subsidies.
Between 2000 and 2008, the Bloc’s ratio of public dollars to individual donations was 5.6 to 1, or $31.8 million in public money compared to just $5.7 million in individual donations.
The Bloc Quebecois needs government funding far more than it needs individual donors. The Bloc has become, in effect, a ward of the state. Now it plays a key role in a coup so it can ensure the gravy train continues. It wants to break Canada apart, but it needs Canadian taxpayer funding.
Ezra Levant covers the public finding angle and more in his 18-point analysis.
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December 4th, 2008 at 03:30 PM
[...] A VERY CANADIAN coup; Time for a trip to the woodshed …. (novascotiascott, [...]