Thursday, January 6, 2011

Can the Voter Tax

Do you know how much you gave to the various political parties through the forced contribution voter tax last quarter?  Yup, you've donated $27 million.   That's just last quarter.
 OTTAWA — Canadians have paid more than $27 million in allowance to the country's main political parties, under a public financing system Prime Minister Stephen Harper unsuccessfully tried to eliminate in 2008.
 Elections Canada released fourth-quarter numbers Wednesday, illustrating how Canadian tax dollars continued to tell the story of the federal election held more than two years ago.
Fourth-Quarter    payments:
Bloc Quebecois
$691,289
Conservative Party of Canada
$2,609,418
Green Party of Canada
$469,686
Liberal Party of Canada
$1,819,999
New Democratic Party
$1,260,002

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister tried to eliminate this tax in their fall update shortly after the election in 2008 in which the opposition had a hissy fit and the coalition of the three stooges were exposed and tried to overthrow a recently duly elected government that got more seats than they. Where the separatist party would have had a major say in what goes on in the ROC.  

Kevin Gaudet from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is perfectly right.
"We totally supported Harper when he tried to get rid of it," said Kevin Gaudet, national director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. "None of them should get one red cent. Political parties ought to be raising money on their own."
The problems with the allowance run deep, he said, noting that some voters end up giving funds to parties they don't support. All taxpayers subsidize the allowance, but only registered parties that meet voting thresholds qualify to receive funding.
Another longtime source of contention concerning the subsidies involves the "disproportionate amount" of funding the Bloc receives, said Gaudet.
Since we have to go into an austerity period it would be a perfect time to end this tax. Why should we be forced to contribute our tax dollars to political parties that we don't like? The elimination of this tax would hurt all the opposition parties but the hardest hit would be the separatist Bloc and the Liberals the most.   The Bloc is just a regional party that runs candidates in only one province whose one objective is to break up the country. Rest of Canada should not be subsidizing a party like that. It's just not right.

Should it be a part of the up coming budget?  I say yes. The opposition wouldn't like it, they'd defeat the government and off we'd go to the polls.  If not part of the budget, it should at least be a major part of the CPC election platform plank in the next election. How would the other parties explain at the doors why taxpayers should be forced to fund parties they don't like?








2 comments:

  1. No matter what the PM tries to do,as is in this case, the OP decided to form a coalition to unseat the PM.Yet, those so call coalitions bellow each day for the 'little' guy right frmgrl. So, to show how much they care deeply for the 'little' guy, you would have have thought right there and then, the opposition parties would support the PM ideas on erasing the $1-97 subsidies so the 'little guy wouldn't have pay,leaving money in their pockets.






    O/T, Did you read this on today's NP,

    Alberta schools apple of U.K.'s eye, but not emulated at home

    Kevin Libin, National Post · Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011


    There are places where the Alberta way of doing things has fans; they're just not always in Canada.

    Take the province's approach to education. School officials in Oakland, Calif., have admired it so much, they've tried copying it there. Management texts have been written about it. They've praised it in New Zealand, Germany, Sweden, New York City and Chicago. And now, the U.K.'s Education secretary, Michael Gove, is hailing the Alberta education model as the prescription to fix his country's ailing state school system.

    "In ... Alberta, schools have been liberated, given the autonomy enjoyed by charter schools in the U.S.," Mr. Gove said last summer. "Headteachers control their own budgets, set their own ethos and shape their own environments. And the result: Alberta now has the best-performing state schools of any English speaking regions."

    Read more:http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/Alberta+schools+apple+emulated+home/4066850/story.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. O/T, Did you read this on today's NP,

    Alberta schools apple of U.K.'s eye, but not emulated at home


    Yeah. Kevin Libin was on with Adler today talking about it. No our educational system isn't perfect not by long shot but we should be thankful that our system in Alberta is something others are praising and would like to emulate.

    ReplyDelete

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