Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s June 6 federal budget contained some praiseworthy items: an increase in the guaranteed income supplement for low-income seniors and the elimination of $15 million worth of tax incentives for oil-sands projects, for example.
But the budget also brought bad news. Indeed, I consider one proposed measure — the phasing out of a key federal subsidy to political parties — an alarming threat to our democratic system.
This subsidy was introduced by the Chretien government in 2003. When it came into effect on Jan. 1, 2004, it provided $1.75 per vote to every federal party that garnered more than a very minimal percentage of the ballots cast in a general election.
Since it was tied to the cost-of-living index it had risen to $2.04 per vote by 2009 and this year was worth some $27 million. Because the Conservative party has received more votes than any other party in recent elections, it has been the chief beneficiary.
Why, then, does Stephen Harper’s government want to cut the subsidy out? The simple answer is that its disappearance will hurt the Conservatives less than the other parties.
That’s because the Conservatives usually do better in collecting more and especially larger donations from Canadians than do the other parties and because the party-financing rules allow the Tories to parlay those donations into an even fatter election-spending kitty.
These rules reimburse from the federal treasury any party that gets at least two per cent of the votes cast nationwide, for 50 per cent of its campaign spending. (If it doesn’t make the two per cent target nationally but does get five per cent in some ridings, it gets back the 50 per cent of its spending in those ridings.)
In addition, every constituency association is reimbursed to the tune of 60 per cent of its campaign spending if its candidate gets at least 10 per cent of the vote cast in that riding. And these sums spent can include money that has been borrowed for the campaign.
Thus, the more a party spends during an election the more it gets back from the Canadian taxpayers. This usually favors the Conservatives, who have more wealthy supporters than the other parties.
And that is why the per-vote subsidy was introduced in 2004. In this age of electronic media, campaigning is expensive, especially TV advertising. The per-vote subsidy was intended to put the financial ability of parties to get their messages out to the voters on a playing field that was a bit more level.
Now, the playing field is being tilted even more than it has been during the past seven or eight years in favor of the party that can afford to spend the most. And that threatens to diminish significantly the voters’ opportunity to become aware of other parties’ platforms. It also makes it harder for other parties to criticize the “richer” parties’ programs and performance.
To put it bluntly, by eliminating the per-vote subsidy, the Harper government is trying to make it harder for opposition parties to be heard and to win votes. In the process, it is making our political system less democratic.
That’s the point that should worry every adult Canadian, in my view.
What can we do about it? We can use every available means of letting the government know that we object to having the subsidy cut out. We should tell our MPs and the prime minister by petition — or, better still, by individually written letters and e-mails — that we don’t like what is happening to the per-vote subsidy.
In this context, as in others, the future of democracy rests in our, the voters’, hands. It is far too fragile already. We dare not let apathy allow another valuable bit of it slip through our fingers.
Peter Hepher is a retired journalist who lives in Creston.