read this in the Herald this AM...I find it mind boggling that Canadian taxpayers are paying to fund a party that stands for the break up of...Canada. And although it would hurt the Libs and Dippers as well, the reason why the subsidy is such a lark.
Quote:
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The big winners in this taxpayerfunded bonanza are the Liberals at $122.2 million and the Conservatives at $119.4 million. The NDP garnered $70.4 million and the Bloc Quebecois have snatched up $37.5 million. The Greens received $11.5 million; minor candidates and now-defunct parties picked up the remainder of the cash.
But the big numbers don't tell the dependency story. For that, you must compare how much parties raised from individual donors since 2000, versus how much they receive in taxpayer subsidies. Here are the ratios courtesy of Elections Canada data: For every dollar raised privately between 2000 and 2010, the Liberals received $1.83 in subsidies; for every buck donated to the Conservatives, 99 cents then arrived in taxpayer subsidies. The Greens and the NDP took $1.62 and $1.40 respectively from the public purse for every donated dollar.
All of those ratios pale in comparison to the Bloc Quebecois. In dollar terms, the Bloc raised just $7.6 million from individual donors since 2000. So imagine if the Bloc were forced to fight five elections (including this year's) and finance its operations on just that amount. But, as noted, the separatist party in Parliament also received $37.5 million in taxpayer-financed subsidies. That's a ratio of $4.94 in subsidies for every donorraised dollar -the highest subsidy ratio of all the parties.
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It just seems and feels so.....absurd and wrong to me.