Media Frames Defunding of Parties as an Attack on Opposition
November 27, 2008 · By Shane Edwards
It looks like some people were paying attention to what the Conservatives did to Stephane (I keep wanting to call him Celine) Dion. When the Conservatives went out and bought TV spots all over the place talking about how wishy-washy and flaky he was, they successfully framed him and framed the conversation around him.
Now, in a time of economic crisis, the Conservatives are looking for things to cut that will save us from more taxes, a very bad thing when people already are paranoid they might not have any money or employment to tax. They recognize that Jean Chretien, a decade or so ago, came up with the brilliant idea of addicting federal political parties to the government’s largesse. He had this clever scheme, you see, of making sure that rich people (or any organization with a vested interest in the political process) could not give scads of money to political parties to curry favour.
The less well-publicized reason was to handicap conservative political foes with business contacts.
Still less publicized was the fact that Chretien still needed money coming into Liberal offers to run things like elections, which he preferred to call every 3 or so years because that was when he could most handicap his opponents, despite the cost to taxpayers for an election. So he decided to make elections even more expensive – he dreamed up the current system where the parties get money, for free, from the government, instead of having to fundraise.
Conveniently, the Liberals were running high in the polls, so they got most of the money.
However, because of this program, parties which have become immensely lazy and poorly organized can now garner national attention and spend money on advertising and campaigning, without expending hardly any effort to fundraise.
So now the Conservatives, having prudently planned for the future (something most leftists aren’t familiar with), have a solid fundraising infrastructure and no debt. If the government teat for political parties gets shut off, sure as the party polling highest, they will lose the most funding, but they know they will hurt their opposition more because the opposition has not created the fundraising infrastructure to seriously compete.
Is this the Conservatives’ fault? No.
But the media is surely working hard to frame them that way. They are trying desperately to make this cost-cutting, pro-democracy, populist, conservative move to do away with federal funding of political parties into a totalitarian move bent on crippling any voice of dissent.
Funny, the media isn’t affected by this cut.
To de-fund political parties is a brilliant move to save this country tens of millions of dollars per year. Political parties were never meant to be funded by government. It is crazy to think that Canadians for the last 10 years or so have been forced to contribute to political parties via their taxes. I can’t believe that law was ever passed. If I contribute to a political party, it is because I choose to, based on their positions and their platform. If I disagree with them all, I should be able to take my contribution and move it to another party that better reflects my viewpoint. That was how the Reform Party was begun. That was how every party in existence began. Forcibly requiring all Canadians to contribute to political parties is completely undemocratic and only serves to entrench the current parties as the only options. It makes it doubly hard for any new party to arise to replace moribund or untrusted parties. Any new party starting up faces the uphill battle of raising all of their support from the grassroots, while those they fight against simply siphon off the government the money they need to beat back any competitors.
Especially in light of a party like the Liberals, so close to simply collapsing, they are being propped up by the government after their fundraising and all public faith has evaporated in them. If this program didn’t exist, a new, energized form of Liberals (or something) could arise with a strong network of support on equal footing. The Liberals’ waste and corrupt ways would drag them off the political map in a well-deserved hurry. Then we would have true renewal.
Keep in mind, it isn’t that I don’t think there should be opposition. But there should be effective opposition. There should be opposition that actually listens to its roots, and doesn’t simply tell them what is good for them. Whether it is left or right or center, this is the way politics should be. As long as the government props up failed ideologies, we will suffer under a lack of true democracy.
I wonder what public financing for political parties would have done for the progressive conservatives in 1993. It would have severely slowed their descent in the polls. And what would the 2006 liberals have done in 2006 without public financing. You are right, this public financing only serves to sustain the status quo. I think Canadian politics moves slowly enough already, scrapping public finance can only help the political discourse in this country.
In principle, I have to agree that it is wrong to force tax-payers to fund political parties. Now, I would love nothing more than to have the federal government cut its budget. Thus, cutting this funding is a good thing. However, the first thing that comes to my mind is that this money is peanuts. In relative terms, I spend more money on coffee every single day than the measly $1.95 that one of the parties will get for a vote. This is really no money at all relative to the entire federal budget.
There is no doubt that it will financially cripple the opposition. I really do not care about the opposition parties much but at the same time, I am not entirely happy with a one-party state.
Once again, the Conservatives have shown themselves to be masters of politics. If they get away with this, they will have scored a masterful stroke against the opposition, and will likely cripple the other parties for years. I agree that political parties should be self-funded, but this move leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
At a time when the Conservatives should be worrying about the economy, it looks like they are still playing with politics. I don’t know what I’m more scared of – that they will succeed with this maneuver, or that they will fail. I doubt Jean would automatically call another election, so that means a coalition government of the opposition is plausible. Can you imagine Deputy Prime Minister Gilles Duceppe?
Great post Shane. Celine? LOL. She has more cajones than Stephane!
I just heard Baird talking about this. He said that Canadians ELECT their government. We don’t need the likes of political has-beens such as Chretien and Broadbent telling us what we should do. Gerard Kennedy, the Obama-wannabe, chimed in later but I had to turn it off so that I could listen to nails on a chalkboard to soothe my ears after hearing his first cry-baby sentence.
On a strictly ideological sense, this is a good move. However, as has been mentioned, the money doesn’t matter.
Looking at the big picture, this is a good political move, a crappy move from a moral stand point, and while it’s idealogically sound, it brings to mind Obama telling people to pump up their tires to save gas and help the economy. It may help, but not in any palpable way.
The media don’t get it, and the opposition parties don’t get, but it’s really so simple: if a party cannot sell its ideas to members and supporters, and thus generate revenue from donations, as Barack Obama has done so expertly, it loses its legitimacy and does not deserve to be kept alive at the expense of taxpayers.
It is at times like this that people have a chance to see the real nature and character of their politicians. When the Liberals are willing to thrust the country into a political and economic crisis of immense instability – and this would trigger not only a recession, but a full-blown depression in Canada – over a lousy $1.95, voters realize that there is a reason why the Liberals have been unable to raise funds to stay afloat: because they are a joke and really have no place in the political landscape any longer.
What this sorry episode has made crystal-clear is that the Liberals are still have ways to go before they can consider themselves reformed, remodelled and reconstituted. At this time, they’re still the same old morally and politically corrupt party they were between 1993 and 2006.
Unfortunately for them, it doesn’t seem likely that the next leader will be able to change that. Ignatieff, despite spending most of his adult life outside of Canada, because this country was beneath him, has already donned the old and tattered Liberal mantle, and Rae is spouting the same stale platitudes (in shorthand: “Liberals good, Conservatives bad”).
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