Dec 18 2006
Thoughts on party funding
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John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
Conservative Party Economy News
Good idea, just put a limit on how much a single donor can give. That would give Labour problems as they have a few very big donors.
Here in Canada, parties receive C$1.75 for each vote they obtained in a federal election. Plus, with a new Accountability Act in place now, donations to parties are limited to C$1,000 per person, and corporations and unions are no longer allowed to contribute to political parties.
Why did you delete my comment about party funding in Canada, which I had provided as an example of doing things?
Werner Patel, can you please post your comment again. It may be it was deleted from the blog in error.
Here’s what I wrote in my original comment (as food for thought):
Here in Canada, we have adopted new rules for party funding.
First off, donations to parties are now limited to C$1,000 per person a year, and companies and unions are barred from making donations.
Second, and this has been around for some time now, parties receive C$1.75 for each vote cast in their favour in a federal election. The Green Party of Canada, for example, even though it is not represented in the House of Commons, received over a C$1 million for the votes it got in the last federal election (January 2006).
For new upstart parties, this C$1.75 per vote system is a good way to get off the ground, but generally I believe that parties should sustain themselves on donations from supporters and members. This would also create an incentive for parties to listen to their grassroots (which the Conservative Party of Canada has been doing, but the Liberal Party continues to silence the grassroots voices - as a result, the Tories have full coffers, while the Liberals are scraping the bottom of the barrel).