No More Free Political Rides

I am happy that Stephen Harper’s Conservatives won the last election. I am not happy that his Conservatives didn’t win with a majority.

I am not happy with the way Harper panders to Quebec and spends Canadian tax dollars to buy Quebec nationalist votes. But I understand that no politician or political Party can be everything to everyone.

I am also not happy that Harper has increased spending beyond what we saw from the Liberal government he replaced. The surplus money the government took from us in taxes would have been much better spent paying down the near half TRILLION-dollar debt.

But now that Harper has announced his plans to kill one of the MOST anti-Democratic and egregious spending policies in the name of supporting political Parties based upon the number of votes they got in the last election, I find reason to be pleased with Harper’s Conservatives.

Remarkably, MOST Canadians do not have a clue that their hard earned tax dollars are used to support politicians and political Parties they might find to be absolutely objectionable, such as the Separatist Bloc Quebecois.

Every vote that is won by a Political party, whether they win Seats in Parliament or not (Green Party) is worth $1.95 paid every year until the next election where the process starts all over again.

In the case of the anti-Canadian Bloc Quebecois, which won 1,379,565 Separatist votes, you, the Canadian taxpayer will pay them the sum of $2,690,151.75 every year until the next election.

In terms of ‘private’ donations to the Bloc Quebecois, they’ve only earned about $400,000, which is hardly enough to maintain a political Party let alone fight an election.

They need the largesse of the Canadian Taxpayer just to stay alive. The Liberal Party is in even worse shape proportionately because of their huge debt.

In the last federal election, the Liberals received 3,629,990 votes, which translates into $7,078,480.50 every year until the next election. In a regular 4-year election cycle, the Liberals would gain more than $28 MILLION hard earned TAXPAYER money.

Where is the fairness in this?

As for the NDP and the Greens, without this forced injection of MY MONEY and YOURS, they could very well be out of business.

The biggest loser of our tax dollars if this atrocity is ended will be the Conservative Party, which would give up a 4-year total of more than $40 MILLION because of their 5,205,334 votes.

If this Communist style Party financing would come to an end, as it really should, the Bloc would cease to exist. They would lose a 4-year total of more than $10 MILLION.

Where does it make Democratic sense for unwilling TAXPAYERS to finance Political Parties and their politicians? Especially Parties we are absolutely opposed to?

The Opposition is threatening to bring down the Harper Government if Harper presents a Bill to abolish this Political Welfare. GOOD! Let them.

Let’s go back to the polls because the HAVE-NOT Parties want the TAXPAYERS to keep them alive.

Let the Liberals, NDP, Bloc and Greens explain to the people of Canada that they had to overthrow the just elected government because the government wants to keep their Parties’ hands out of the PEOPLE’S pockets.

I would very much like to see a new election where the Conservatives will win a majority, once and for all ending political financial Party entitlements at the people’s expense.

If this happens, who knows what could happen next in terms of responsible government? But it won’t happen, because there is not enough courage of principle between all the opposition Parties combined to make it happen.

Gerry Nichols wrote in today’s National Post (November 28, 2008) that this is just one very good step in Party finance reform. What he wants to see next is the Campaign Finance Donation Limit ($1,100) either eliminated or raised to a real amount that could actually make a difference in terms of citizen participation.

I’m with Gerry Nichols. But I would even go further than that.

The financial forms Election Canada burdens upon candidates are so complicated and repressive, that it is an enormous burden for anyone wanting to run for elected office.

I cannot even begin to describe how utterly ridiculous, useless, cumbersome and idiotic this reporting process is, to the point that it is an absolute obstacle to the Democratic process.

I can best describe it as a document that thousands of bureaucrats must have spent most of their lives conceiving, just to complicate the process because they could.

There is much Harper can do to make our system better just by applying some common sense and making the government work for the people opposed to the people working for the government.

Best Regards . . . Howard Galganov