One more thing to add to electoral reform...
Nobody has talked about it, but shouldn't we decrease the $1.75 that gets paid for each vote? I'd like to see a sliding scale that reduces that down dramatically over time. I think it would be to everybody's advantage if the amount of money for campaigns were reduced. Just think, fewer ads by all parties, and more reliance on individual contributors.

4 Comments:
Yeah, but that'd benefit the Tories. Who would want that? ;)
Canada pays who by the vote? ... I don't understand.
Before Chretien left, he passed a law through Parliament banning corporate, union and other big money donations to political parties to $5000 apiece.
Instead, they were to replace the fundraising money with taxpayer-supported money. I think it's $1.75 or $0.75 per vote, per year. So if you vote for the NDP and the government lasts for two years, the NDP gets either $3.50 or $1.50 (I can't remember how much).
To qualify, you have to get either 5% of the vote nationally or 10% in any one province.
It's a ridiculous system. The laws are full of holes (individual riding associations can still take as much big money as they want), they're contradictory (how does it help smaller parties by restricting their donor base and only paying them for performances in unsuccessful elections?), and so-on.
Tories hate it, but the majority of Tory donations are individual, small money donations. The Liberals' had mostly corporate donations (the law was designed by Chretien to screw with his successor), and the NDP relied on big unions.
if we're setting new policy then i would prefer the parties don't get money from the ignorant tax payers. if i say i'm a tory then i would hate the law in the first place according to jarrett who knows more than me what i think. unfortunately i can only speak for myself. toss the payment. congrats to the greens who've fallen into the category but their payment should come from fund raising the population not being fed by the government. what about the Bloc. why would we support separatist by giving them 1.75 per vote.
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