It's time to indulge in a few I-told-you-sos.
You may remember a prediction made in this space on Jan. 5 about Prime Minister Stephen Harper's plan to end subsidies for federal political parties. It's not dead, contrary to widespread media opinion.
Harper appeared to back down from the proposal more than a year ago, after the opposition parties -- but mostly their spear carriers in the media -- went screaming gaga crazy over the idea.
They were so hysterical, you would have thought Harper had proposed the end of the world.
And for politicians with so few friends they can't raise enough money from legitimate donors to run a decent election campaign, it would have been. And good riddance.
Each political party in Parliament receives $1.78 per vote cast in their favour, quarterly. The money can be used to fight elections, hire office staff and pay annual operating expenses between elections.
The annual tab runs taxpayers about $150 million. Peanuts, really.
But the beneficiaries include the Bloc Quebecois, whose raison d'etre is to leave Canada. Taxpayers in the rest of the country actually pay to keep separatist dreams alive -- which has to be the most masochistic political funding arrangement anywhere in the world.
Prime Minister Jean Chretien introduced the funding as one of his final acts as Liberal leader. Under his watch, his own party went from being able to raise tens of millions in corporate donations to having to steal campaign funds through such illegal schemes as the Adscam kickback scandal.
Forcing taxpayers to fund the activities of all political parties was Chretien's solution to curing his own party's addiction to financial skullduggery.
Harper backed off his plan to kill the funding when the three opposition parties formed a coalition to topple his minority Conservative government. The Governor General turned down their offer to govern and gave Harper another kick at the can.
My Jan. 5 column said that far from being dead, Harper's plan to scupper election financing was going to be a major campaign plank for the Conservatives in the next election. The media might scream blue murder, but internal Tory polls show voters love the idea.
Longtime Ottawa political columnist Lawrence Martin confirmed Harper's plan this week in a column that ran in Metronews in Edmonton and elsewhere.
"Remember (Harper's) election-finance manoeuvre of some time ago, the one that stank the joint out, almost toppling his government?" Martin writes. (A Chretien confidant and biographer, Martin is a longtime Liberal spear carrier, formerly of the Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Star before that).
"It's back. The Conservatives have confirmed that the measure, which would eliminate the per-vote subsidy that political parties receive, will be part of their next election platform."
Martin, who doesn't cite any sources, says the plan is part of "Harper's determination to cripple the Liberals." What a meanie compared to Chretien, who preferred punching or strangling his opponents.
The Liberals will survive the loss of the funding, and may be the better for it if they have to start actually listening to what taxpayers want.
The NDP will be pretty much unaffected by the loss of funding, since its supporters are almost as committed and generous in donations to their party as Conservatives.
If cancelling the funding cripples or even kills off the BQ, it will be worth it, in my view. But Canadians may have to dig a little deeper to support their favourite parties if Harper follows through.
http://www.windsorstar.com/story_print.html?id=2750888&sponsor=true
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