Quote:
Originally Posted by oilers_fan
I agree...I really don't see why my tax dollars should be supporting parties that I personally don't support. Maybe it this was like how they do it with the school systems, where you have to declare support...but that wouldn't work either. Just scrap it alltogether. I hope the CPC do just that if they get their majority.
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They always have been and they still would have been under the Conservatives' new plan because political donations are tax deductible. Basically, if a person in an upper tax bracket donates some money to a political party, the taxpayer is paying for about 40%-50% of that donation through reduced collection of taxes. Even with lower income people, the taxpayer is still paying at least 25% of the contribution. If some unions (through its members) donates $3 million to the NDP, the taxpayer is probably paying about 30%-40% of that.
What the Conservatives were seeking to do is maintain pubic subsidization of campaign finance through the means that benefit them the most. They get more money from donations than other parties, so that form of subsidy via tax deductions would continue. However, the form of subsidy that the other parties benefited from more would be removed under the guise of saving a little money for tax payers.
Virtually every free democracy in the world has some form of public financing of political campaigns. There are a few reasons for this. The main idea is to make politicians less beholden to private interests. Also, by tying it to the number of votes they get, people do, in a sense, determine where their share of the tax dollars are going.
Another important reason is that a lot of a politicians' and their staff's time can be spent raising money when he/she could otherwise be working and/or interacting with constituents. It's estimated that some politicians in the United States use over 50% of their and their staffers' time soliciting various forms of financing. That time can better be spent doing more productive things.