A Reason to Vote

So, today, the Conservative government unveiled a "fiscal update" to try to address concerns with the upcoming economic downturn.

What's getting a lot of press right now is that the Conservative propose to do away with one of the federal subsidies to political parties. I've blogged about this in the past...if a political party gets more than 2% of the popular vote, then they get $1.75 for each ballot cast for them.

Well, the Conservative want to scrap that. The Tories say that the political parties should set a good example, "pay their own bills" and that "the free ride for political parties" has to stop.

The opposition parties are pissed, of course. They're calling it an attack on democracy. They're accusing the Tories of trying to cripple the opposition parties financially. According to this article at the CBC, the subsidy accounts for 65% of the Green Party's revenues, 86% of the Bloc Quebcois', and 63% of the Liberals.

As we all know, the Tories boycott the Ottawa Press Corp, claiming that the Ottawa Press Corp has the Liberal bias. So, this evening, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was doing the rounds via satallite on local news casts, selling this to Canadians.

I saw Flaherty getting interviewed by Daryl McIntyre on CTV Edmonton. The issue of the subsidy came up, and McIntyre asked, "But there are those who argue this subsidy combats voter apathy...that people will still get out and vote for their party, knowing that even if their candidate won't win, they'll still have done some good by giving some money to their party. Do you really want to get rid of this weapon in the war on voter apathy?"

Flaherty burst out laughing and said, "I've run in 6 elections, and I've never heard of anyone voting for that reason."

Well, Mr. Flahery, I know you probably don't read my blog, but this subsidy is the reason why I've voted in the past three elections. I don't agree with you and a lot of your party's policies, but I do know that this is Alberta, and no matter how many times I vote against you, you're going to get in.

The only reason I vote is to make sure that someone else gets another $1.75 to try to bring you down.

If you get rid of this subsidy, I'm going to start staying home on election days.