Conservatives To Slash Federal Funding of Political Parties [Update-CPC backs down]

[evman150]

Originally Posted by oilers_fan

LOL, forget it. If you weren't talking about Kim Campbell, I have no idea why you even brought up those 5 months.

My post followed directly from your post. You asked about a dead duck leader being prime minister. I gave you a time period 15 years ago where we had a dead duck leader.

Pretty simple I thought, but thanks for the history lesson!

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by Caged Great

Well, If the NDP Liberals and Bloc form a coalition government, then at least 60% of Canadians will be happy, myself included.

So was Jean Chretien's 1997 38% popular vote elected majority any more of a 'real' mandate?

[Caged Great]

Definitely not, but then again Canada's electoral system is kind of stupid.

For example in Alberta if the vote break down is this

Con 60% Lib 25% NDP 10% Green 5%

Then the Seats should be divided up Con get 60% of the seats so on and so forth. That would make sense, but it would kind of kill the whole Majority thing permanently

[Devils'Advocate]

Originally Posted by flamefan74

In the end it didn't as the rich will always control the government anyways.

So if the rich just control the government anyway, then you would support people not voting on election day? Or do we supposed to play party to this farce out of duty?

[metallicat]

Originally Posted by evman150

My post followed directly from your post. You asked about a dead duck leader being prime minister. I gave you a time period 15 years ago where we had a dead duck leader.

Pretty simple I thought, but thanks for the history lesson!

Are you really this pretentious, or do you just do it for kicks?

It was pretty obvious that I "mistook" what you were even talking about, and you could have corrected me immediately. The situation with Kim Campbell becoming Prime Minister while Mulroney was a "dead duck" as you said, isn't the same as what could happen with Dion. The elected party would no longer be in charge, as opposed to what happened in 1993 with the Tories staying in until the election.

[jammies]

I voted Green the last two elections, and I have no problem with this law. 940 000 people voted for the Greens last election, if you had just 10% of those people giving just $100 each, that's 9.4 million dollars right there. If you can't get a mere 10% of your putative supporters to donate, your party is doing something wrong and I see no reason why public money should shore up your incompetence.

This is no threat to democracy, it's a threat to parties who can't organize themselves properly. And if you can't even run your own party, why should you be trusted to potentially run the country?

[Dan02]

Originally Posted by Caged Great

For example in Alberta if the vote break down is this

Con 60% Lib 25% NDP 10% Green 5%

Then the Seats should be divided up Con get 60% of the seats so on and so forth. That would make sense, but it would kind of kill the whole Majority thing permanently

Not a fan of that solution, you lose the ability to choose the person who represents you.

I would prefer a system where you have to win by a majority in your riding, if you don't get it the first go around the top 2 on the ballot have a run off.

[Jade]

Originally Posted by Caged Great

Well, If the NDP Liberals and Bloc form a coalition government, then at least 60% of Canadians will be happy, myself included.

Yeah, sounds like a great plan, lets give the separatists control of the country. Can't see anything going wrong with that.

[Resolute 14]

Seditionists, communists and Stephane Dion.

Such a coalition would lead to a Conservative majority inside of a year.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by EddyBeers

Tory Times are Tough Times, and Harper is proving it again. Guy blows all the fiscal room due to his lack of experience and education in economic matters, and now we are set for the little leprechaun pissing on my leg today and telling me it is rain. C'est la vie I guess.

Bwahaha really? You do know he has a bachelor's and masters of economics right. The thing about Stephen Harper is he's more a psychopath than he is a conservative. And he has to be, otherwise he wouldn't be in government. The conservatives aren't fiscally conservative at all: the liberals just cleaned up the last mess they've created and now they're creating a new one. They're socially conservative, but they're not acting like it because they don't have a majority and they know that the kind of social conservatism they would actually want to implement would result in a quick and crushing defeat if they tried to implement it.

I'm sure Harper (like every other economist) knew that cutting the GST was not the right thing to do for Canada's economy: cutting the income tax would have been more effective for generating economic growth. But he also knew that cutting the GST has better optics, so that's what he did.

The Canadian Press did a pretty good job explaining what this is all about:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/can...H5SxQnPdy89n6A

The path to Conservative political dominance is to financially bankrupt your opponents.

So wrote Tom Flanagan, one of the deep thinkers of the conservative movement in Canada and a mentor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.


Flanagan's prescient op-ed piece from August appeared to come to fruition in Thursday's fiscal update when Harper's Conservatives moved to end public financing of federal political parties under the guise of austerity.

This is an attempt to bankrupt the other parties. Really though, that would only hurt their creditors. Whether or not they succeed in bankrupting the Liberals, at least the Liberals aren't bankrupting the country. Canada, generally speaking, is full of small 'l' liberals, and no amount of campaign propaganda can change that. That's why you don't see Harper trying to ban gay marriage or abortions. Kill the Liberal Party of Canada, and it will create a void that the Conservatives could never fill. A new party of liberals would arise in its place, free of debt, free of the legacy of the sponsorship scandal, but with values and policies are ultimately more closely aligned than the Conservatives with what the majority of Canadians want.


Even better for this new liberal party is if the Conservatives kill off the Greens, and thereby put and end to the vote splitting on the left. That vote splitting is the only reason the Conservatives are in power in the first place.


A writer for the Globe wrote that "the Green Party is just the most visible element of a movement-wide failure of environmentalists to think and act strategically."


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl.../BNStory/Front


Meanwhile the conservatives have had a very good political strategy to get elected, twice. But then again, so did George Bush, under the direction of Karl Rove (another phsycopath... see the recurring theme?) It works for a while, but in the long run the the net result is the more power conservatives get, the more they implement the policies they believe in, the stronger they ultimately get rejected by the liberal majority. They can rise to power for spurts, but it is a fundamentally unstable position to be governing a country where the majority does not share your ideology.

[Devils'Advocate]

Originally Posted by jammies

I voted Green the last two elections, and I have no problem with this law. 940 000 people voted for the Greens last election, if you had just 10% of those people giving just $100 each, that's 9.4 million dollars right there. If you can't get a mere 10% of your putative supporters to donate, your party is doing something wrong and I see no reason why public money should shore up your incompetence.

There is an absolutely huge difference between your membership and those that vote for you. Those that become members in a political party, volunteer and donate money are far less than 1% of those that vote for the party.

If the inability to get 10% of those that vote for a party to give $100 to that party equates to incompetence, then every single party in Canada is incompetent. Which might be the case.

But let's try this out Jammies. You voted Green in the last two elections. During that period how much money did you give to the party?

[Ronald Pagan]

Bwahaha really? You do know he has a bachelor's and masters of economics right.

And yet there is piling evidence that he remembers nothing from those degrees. Rolling his education out to say that he's a qualified economist ignores considerable evidence that he isn't.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by SebC

(another phsycopath... see the recurring theme?) It works for a while, but in the long run the the net result is the more power conservatives get, the more they implement the policies they believe in, the stronger they ultimately get rejected by the liberal majority. They can rise to power for spurts, but it is a fundamentally unstable position to be governing a country where the majority does not share your ideology.

It has been decades since the majority supported the governing party's ideology. The recurring theme here seems to be your bias against the Conservatives. Of course, everyone in this thread is biassed one way or another, and the worst offenders appear to be the ones who have deluded themselves into thinking they are the voice of reason.

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by jammies

I voted Green the last two elections, and I have no problem with this law. 940 000 people voted for the Greens last election, if you had just 10% of those people giving just $100 each, that's 9.4 million dollars right there. If you can't get a mere 10% of your putative supporters to donate, your party is doing something wrong and I see no reason why public money should shore up your incompetence.

This is no threat to democracy, it's a threat to parties who can't organize themselves properly. And if you can't even run your own party, why should you be trusted to potentially run the country?

You know what pisses me off?

Instead of these unorganized parties deciding to just get organized and stop living off the public dollar, they decide to band together to overthrow a Government we just democratically elected a month ago! All so they can keep billing us for their BS campaigns that don't even accomplish anything.

I'm willing to bet that, if there was a referendum on this issue, it would be a landslide in favour of the Conservatives. Even my Liberal and NDP friends are completely in favour of this. We can't have a referendum, though, because POWER is more important than what's right for this country. You don't get POWER by letting people have a say. You have to gang up and take POWER if you want it.

What's so different about what the Liberals and NDP are trying to do, compared to what we see all the time in the Middle East? I mean, sure, they're using saner tactics and not blowing up buildings and people... but the end goal is exactly the same.

I am so sick and %^%$%$$##$# tired of this crap, that it's not even funny.

[ikaris]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

You know what pisses me off?

Instead of these unorganized parties deciding to just get organized and stop living off the public dollar, they decide to band together to overthrow a Government we just democratically elected a month ago! All so they can keep billing us for their BS campaigns that don't even accomplish anything.

Well... a coalition of the Liberals, NDP, and BQ would represent the majority of Canadians.

Originally Posted by FanIn80

I'm willing to bet that, if there was a referendum on this issue, it would be a landslide in favour of the Conservatives. Even my Liberal and NDP friends are completely in favour of this. We can't have a referendum, though, because POWER is more important than what's right for this country. You don't get POWER by letting people have a say. You have to gang up and take POWER if you want it.

I'm willing to bet that you're wrong. When a policy is there clearly to just benefit the governing party, and to make it a confidence issue, the conservatives are just asking for this.

Originally Posted by FanIn80

What's so different about what the Liberals and NDP are trying to do, compared to what we see all the time in the Middle East? I mean, sure, they're using saner tactics and not blowing up buildings and people... but the end goal is exactly the same.

Wow. I can't even respond to this. Been to Mumbai lately?

Originally Posted by FanIn80

I am so sick and %^%$%$$##$# tired of this crap, that it's not even funny.

I think the majority of Canadians are sick of the conservatives.

[burn_this_city]

This whole thing is utter rubbish. First off, Canada doesnt need a stimulus package yet. Why should we write a blank cheque that morons in Ottawa will waste? Second, if that stupid party funding clause wasnt in this we wouldnt even be discussing this economic update.

[Ronald Pagan]

From Simpson:

There were no tensions, however, in a typically Harperite move - the proposed elimination of tax subsidies for political parties, a measure designed to hurt the Liberals, in particular, but an outrage against encouraging people to donate to political parties. This is Conservative partisanship at its very worst, and so typical of the party these days.


The Conservatives raise money more easily than the others, so by eliminating the $1.75 per vote subsidy, they are trying to use this economic crisis for their partisan advantage. Canadians fought a long battle to get these inducements for people to give to political parties; they can't let one party's naked self-interest push back the progress.

Good article otherwise on the Fiscal update:


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...Story/politics

[EddyBeers]

It is too bad the Tories do not take the following steps as well:

1) Eliminate the Tax Credit for donating to parties. This is a blatant misuse of taxpayer funds to support political parties.
2) Eliminate 10 percenters
3) Eliminate Riding subsidies

If the Tories did this, then someone could actually claim they are committed to getting political parties off the dole. Until then, it is just a cynical ploy.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

You know what pisses me off?

Instead of these unorganized parties deciding to just get organized and stop living off the public dollar, they decide to band together to overthrow a Government we just democratically elected a month ago! All so they can keep billing us for their BS campaigns that don't even accomplish anything.

I'm willing to bet that, if there was a referendum on this issue, it would be a landslide in favour of the Conservatives. Even my Liberal and NDP friends are completely in favour of this. We can't have a referendum, though, because POWER is more important than what's right for this country. You don't get POWER by letting people have a say. You have to gang up and take POWER if you want it.

If this gets voted down, the government collapses and we have another election, it essentially will become a referendum on this issue.

Maybe I'm out of touch with the rest of the Canadian population (which is definitely possible), but it seems like it would be very easy for the Conservatives to spin this into a majority.

If I was planning the Cons' election message, it would be simply to point out that the first time the opposition parties have shown any backbone against the Conservative government is when their taxpayer funding is threatened. They want to keep bellying up to the trough and propping themselves up with taxpayer money.

Personally, I don't want my tax dollars going to any political party, whether I voted for it or not.

To me, the question is: If there is another election, less than six months after the previous one, is this issue going to cause a lot of people who voted Conservative last time to change their votes? Is it going to cause a lot of people who voted for someone other than the Conservatives to change their votes?

The Cons were very close to a majority last time, and I could see a lot of frustrated voters changing their votes towards them in anger against the opposition for forcing an election that no one wants, especially on such a self-serving issue.


But, like I said, maybe I'm out of touch and this is an issue that other people feel strongly enough about that they'd put the Libs back in power, whether they have a leader or not.

[transplant99]

Well... a coalition of the Liberals, NDP, and BQ would represent the majority of Canadians.

How so?

Canadians didnt vote for all 3 parties vs 1 party. This kind of thinking is laughable actually. The Bloc and NDP working to govern is about as oxymoronish as it gets.

So unless EVERY vote for the Bloc, NDP and Libs was ONLY a vote AGAINST the Conservatives, and not a vote for the party they chose to gain governing power, this way of thinking is completely fallible.

Are you really this pretentious, or do you just do it for kicks?

Yes he is really that pretentious and truly believes he is smarter than anyone else that posts on here. Its pure comedy at times.