Pigs at the trough. They'll never leave willingly.
What amazes me is that each and every one of us in Canada pays out $1.75 per vote in Quebec for support of Le Bloc(among others). We pay separatists to sit in our Federal Parliament? Talk about paying to cut our own throats.
Canadian Taxpayers are absolutely insane. This $1.75/vote for parties one would never support in reality should be instantly withdrawn. Taxpayers in this country shouldn't be forced to support ideologies they abhor and totally disagree with. I really don't appreciate my tax dollars going to support LeBloc or any other Party I wouldn't support privately.
Insanity. How did Jean Chretien ever manage to get this bill accepted by Canadians and the Canadian Parliament?
![[bash]](./images/smilies/bash.gif "Bash")
This is only accepted in Canada because a majority of the population hasn't a clue this is even happening. If they did there would be far more dissension about this particular Bill.
$1:
Is it true that political parties now receive taxpayers' money for each vote they earn in a federal election?
Yes, it's true. Changes to the Canada Elections Act making this public policy came into effect on Jan. 1, 2004.
The same package of changes limited individuals to donating $5,000 per calendar year to the registered political party of their choice, and banned contributions from companies, lobby groups, unions and associations. (An exception to the $5,000 limit was made for people who leave bequests to political parties in their wills.)
Imposed in isolation, that kind of sudden severing of a major source of funding would have a huge impact on parties, of course. So there is now a system for paying publicly financed allowances to registered political parties under certain conditions. The system is meant to ensure that parties are beholden primarily to Canadian citizens for their annual funding, based on a relatively fair formula: their share of the popular vote in the previous general election.
Now every registered party gets $1.75 every year for each vote they received in the previous general election, as long as they attracted two per cent of the national votes cast or five per cent of the eligible votes cast in the ridings in which they ran candidates. The $1.75 per vote will be adjusted for inflation, so it will rise as time goes by. The allowances are paid out quarterly, as long as the parties eligible file their financial papers and all other Elections Canada documents properly.
Let's crunch some numbers: In the 2004 general election, the Liberal party received just more than 4.98 million votes, so it received about $8.72 million in public funding in the year following the vote. If the government hadn't fallen early, that number would increase according to the rate of inflation each year until the next general election. In the same election, the Conservative party's 4.02 million votes earned it an allowance of $7.03 million; the NDP's 2.13 million votes garnered it $3.72 million; the Bloc Québécois earned $2.94 million for its 1.68 million votes; and the Green Party's 582,000 votes won it $1.02 million.
As the same bill went through, Parliament also voted to increase assistance for political parties and candidates in other ways. The percentage of election expenses that can be reimbursed to parties has been increased from 22.5 to 60 per cent; the definition of reimbursable election expenses has been broadened to include polling; and the ceiling for expenses eligible for reimbursement has been increased as a result. Finally, individual candidates have to earn only 10 per cent of the valid votes cast in their riding in order to have 50 per cent of their personal campaign expenses refunded. The old threshold was 15 per cent of the votes.
CKA Elite 
