PCs turn down $$

From the Sun - Manitoba Tories are turning down a $200,000 a year allowance.

The Tories have long opposed the $1.25 per vote allowance -- which they term a "vote tax" -- contained in Bill 37, the NDP government's omnibus election reform bill that passed Tuesday evening. Yesterday, Tory Leader Hugh McFadyen said his party would refuse the money.

"It's wrong, it's unconscionable and we're not going to take the money," McFadyen said during a campaign-style announcement at the Winnipeg Convention Centre. "What we are saying to Gary Doer and the NDP is 'Thanks, but no thanks.'
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Heh heh. I wonder if the table was turned, and the PCs had introduced the vote tax, would Evil Doer and his party decline their ill-got bounty?

I hope that McFayden gets the attention this issue deserves with his ploy.

As Brodbeck said in his column: "Gary Doer should be ashamed of himself."

Tell us why it's a bad idea, the "vote tax.". I haven't really followed the issue...

It is a cash grab. I believe that that people should voluntarily donate to a party's coffers. Further, the winning party will always receive MORE cash perpetuating this friggin theft from taxpaying citizens.

I agree. Political parties should be funded through private donations only imo. If you think about it, it really is a vote tax.

Should non-individuals be allowed to donate, like businesses and unions?

Sure, why not?

The theory being because people who can give more money ( unions, businesses, rich people) can be seen as buying votes.. hence.. limit the amount anyone can contribute and there is no vote buying....

umm yeah.. right.

Anyhoo... wouldn;t it say be better to oh I dont know...severly punish the politicians caught allowing their votes ot be purchased? Nah.... easier to screw over the populace so that people like Eli-May who does not even win a seat gets money every year...Yep thats right. its been in Federal politics for a while...sure dont see the federal conservatives turning the money down. hmm... who was the party in power federally when the new financing rules were put in place?

yeah... so the conservatives really have no leg to stand on here... unless they are going to force the Federal conservatives to nescind the federal policy

Chretein passed the legislation I thought.

December 2006 was its most recent incarnation.

Deank wrote:The theory being because people who can give more money ( unions, businesses, rich people) can be seen as buying votes.. hence.. limit the amount anyone can contribute and there is no vote buying....

umm yeah.. right.

Anyhoo... wouldn;t it say be better to oh I dont know...severly punish the politicians caught allowing their votes ot be purchased? Nah.... easier to screw over the populace so that people like Eli-May who does not even win a seat gets money every year...Yep thats right. its been in Federal politics for a while...sure dont see the federal conservatives turning the money down. hmm... who was the party in power federally when the new financing rules were put in place?

yeah... so the conservatives really have no leg to stand on here... unless they are going to force the Federal conservatives to nescind the federal policy

....except then you have to spend a whole pile of money investigating and proving that the politician allowed his vote to be bought. That could be potentially huge, involving a lot of time and resources, because people would go to great lengths to hide it. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Is it really $1.25 per vote, or is it a fixing amount of money, split based on percentage of voting?

If the former, wouldn't I abstain from voting if I think that my riding is a lock of whatever political stripe it may be? Save $1.25 of the public purse?

but your $1.25 goes to your party and they cna use that money to better beat the other guy next time

Pffft... they don't need it

There should not be any vote tax. ZERO. Props to the PC's for taking the high road and refusing it. They will get my vote again.

In case anyone wonders why i oppose it. It is taking Tax payer money and giving it to political parties with out asking my permission is BULLSHIT. Sorry, for swearing but there is no other word that comes to my mind when I think about it.

LivingDead, we(the DOER led Government) have decided that you will financially support 2 parties with which you do not share ideologies with. Farging bastages!

If I want to support a political party that should be my damn choice. This goes for federal votes as well, It is crap. if you want to be in power spend your own damn money to get in, or we can start paying your wage with party funds then. I wonder how they would like that!

From CKY TV:
Manitoba will be the sixth province to have this kind of financing.
It compares to $1.95 that federal parties get for every vote they win.

Still the Progressive Conservative call it a million dollar bailout
for the NDP. They're accusing the party of unfairly taxing the public
to finance their future campaigns.

Based on previous elections the NDP will get about $1 million every
four years under the new provision. The Tories will be entitled to
$800,000.

But on Wednesday their leader Hugh McFadyen announced his party will
not take the money, saying they will stick to fundraising instead.

Premier Gary Doer calls the Tories stance hypocritical.

He says all parties have received taxpayer funded rebates since
1988, and that in 2007 the Conservatives accepted over $1 million
worth.

Time Lord wrote:From CKY TV:
Manitoba will be the sixth province to have this kind of financing.
It compares to $1.95 that federal parties get for every vote they win.

Still the Progressive Conservative call it a million dollar bailout
for the NDP. They're accusing the party of unfairly taxing the public
to finance their future campaigns.

Based on previous elections the NDP will get about $1 million every
four years under the new provision. The Tories will be entitled to
$800,000.

But on Wednesday their leader Hugh McFadyen announced his party will
not take the money, saying they will stick to fundraising instead.

Premier Gary Doer calls the Tories stance hypocritical.

He says all parties have received taxpayer funded rebates since
1988, and that in 2007 the Conservatives accepted over $1 million
worth.

And people wonder why Manitoba has debt, People wonder why Canada has debt. Every year every level of government thinks up new ways to suck us financially dry, then they spend money like drunken whore's looking to buy crack. But wait there is more, with every vote you get the privilege of donating money to all political parties.

I'm sorry, but that to me sounds like a move from Democracy towards Communism.

And yet the people smile and think its ok, and they continue to vote for these liars we call politicians.

So keep on stealing from the cookie jar, because everyone's been doing it since 1988?

FlyingRat wrote:So keep on stealing from the cookie jar, because everyone's been doing it since 1988?

You may have a point there. Maybe i'll go quit my job, put all my things in my wife's fathers name. Max out my line of credit and credit cards, convert it to cash. File bankruptcy and see my doctor and have him diagnose me as bi-polar, get some Tranquilizers and head over to the welfare office and apply.

Then I'll sit back on my pile of cash, live in my house that welfare pay's rent to my father inlaw, who inturn gives the money right back to me. I could live like a KING.

No doubt this is another reason to never trust a politician and the self rightious crap they try to sell . They get paid for my vote yet it is agaisnt the law to buy my vote but you can pay me for it . Sad real sad Gary you need money see your dirty money freinds in the union they have lots of Crocus cash .

LivingDead wrote:

FlyingRat wrote:So keep on stealing from the cookie jar, because everyone's been doing it since 1988?

You may have a point there. Maybe i'll go quit my job, put all my things in my wife's fathers name. Max out my line of credit and credit cards, convert it to cash. File bankruptcy and see my doctor and have him diagnose me as bi-polar, get some Tranquilizers and head over to the welfare office and apply.

Then I'll sit back on my pile of cash, live in my house that welfare pay's rent to my father inlaw, who inturn gives the money right back to me. I could live like a KING.

The only thing better than that is if you could turn that cash into investments and somehow manage to turn the interest earned into a tax deduction too!

egomaniac wrote:

LivingDead wrote:

FlyingRat wrote:So keep on stealing from the cookie jar, because everyone's been doing it since 1988?

You may have a point there. Maybe i'll go quit my job, put all my things in my wife's fathers name. Max out my line of credit and credit cards, convert it to cash. File bankruptcy and see my doctor and have him diagnose me as bi-polar, get some Tranquilizers and head over to the welfare office and apply.

Then I'll sit back on my pile of cash, live in my house that welfare pay's rent to my father inlaw, who inturn gives the money right back to me. I could live like a KING.

The only thing better than that is if you could turn that cash into investments and somehow manage to turn the interest earned into a tax deduction too!

Well, that is possible in the following way. I could take that cash give it to the father inlaw. have him invest it in Mutual's and have him put me down as a beneficiary. There it would grow untill He passed away, then I would receive it relatively tax free. At that point I could shift it all to stocks paying dividends and sit back and collect, but i'd have to drop welfare at that time.

Paying them for our vote is wrong simply wrong