This is suspicious to me to say the least.Possibility of snap Canadian election looms
By Randall Palmer
OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian government is set to propose an end to public subsidies of federal political parties, a Conservative source signaled on Thursday, an explosive move with the potential to trigger an election.
The minority Conservative government, just re-elected last month, needs the support of at least one of the three opposition parties to survive, but is moving ahead with big cuts to funding for all political parties, the source said.
"This has nowhere been an easy decision," said the Conservative source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Conservative cabinet minister Peter MacKay told reporters: "Our party is obviously taking the biggest hit ... we recognize that there are tough economic times ahead, so as a result we all have to make sacrifices."
However, the move would hit the opposition parties much harder as a proportion of their financing since they have a much smaller base of donors and rely more on the subsidies.
It would be advanced as part of a package with Thursday's fall fiscal and economic update. If financial measures are voted down in Canada's parliamentary system, that would normally force a new election.
The annual subsidies to the political parties are based on the number of votes they received in the last general election.
The left-leaning New Democratic Party, the smallest of the three opposition groups, promised to oppose the move and said the Bloc Quebecois, the next-largest party, would also do so.
"They're going to hit a brick wall with us in the House (of Commons). We'll never put up with it. I know the Bloc will never put up with it," Thomas Mulcair, deputy leader of the New Democrats, told CBC television.
"It remains to be seen whether the Liberals are going to take a principled stand here or whether they're going to be bought off."
The Liberals, the biggest opposition party, called an emergency meeting early Thursday to discuss how to react to the Conservative move, which one legislator called "tactics" and "playing games."
"This is not the most important subject for today ... right now we have a job to do and we'll do our job, and nothing the government does is going to intimidate us away from that," said Liberal Gerard Kennedy.
Kennedy said the focus of the day should be the looming federal deficit likely to be revealed in the fiscal and economic update, and the troubled economy.
The Liberals have very little money left after the October 14 election and would be unable to come close to Conservative levels of spending in any snap election. The party is also in the midst of a leadership change, with current leader Stephane Dion planning to step down in May.
Still, the Liberals must also deal with the fact that if they do not block the subsidy cuts they could be handicapped for elections to come.
(Reporting by Randall Palmer and David Ljunggren; editing by Rob Wilson)
In many ridings, the Conservatives only lost by a small margin.
The other parties don't have money for a election, the Conservatives do.
Quite frankly, this seems like an opprotunistic political move by the Conservatives.
If they get this passed, they are heroes for reducing spending during a time of economic criss.
If it fails, then they look like Heroes for trying to get it passed, and the parties that moved to block it look like the villians. Worse yet, villians that can't defend themselves.
This could result in a Conservative Majority. The liberals are not in any condition to fight them right now, the NDP would really, really have to pull something off, and Quebec is begining to wake up to the PQ.