Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives will campaign on killing the $30-million per-vote-subsidy to political parties in the next election, the Prime Minister's Office confirmed.

But University of Calgary professor and former Tory strategist Tom Flanagan, the Conservatives' former national campaign manager, says if the party successfully eliminates it, other changes need to be implemented either by raising donation limits or allowing Canadians to volunteer their tax dollars to political parties.

"It's hard to find an approach that would yield the amount of money that's equal to the subsidies unless you go back to some level of corporate donations or raising the level on individual donations. The other one is a taxpayer check-off system, which is used in the United States," said Prof. Flanagan, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) former chief of staff. "But those systems aren't that productive. They do raise some money, but the best estimate is that in Canada, a taxpayer check-off system might raise, based on the American experience, $4- or $5-million, but not $30-million a year."

The House voted to eliminate MPs' privilege of sending Ten Percenters, or the one-page political flyers, outside of their own ridings last week, and Mr. Harper said if the parties really want to save money, they should eliminate the subsidies to political parties.

"The position of our government is clear. If all the parties wish to abolish this particular subsidy for mailings outside of an MP's own riding, of course this party would be delighted to do that. Of course, we would also like to see the $30-million direct tax subsidy to political parties abolished," Mr. Harper said in the House.

Minister of State for Democratic Reform Steven Fletcher (Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia, Man.) also reiterated the Prime Minister's comments last week when asked about it by The Hill Times. "We believe that the per-vote subsidy is not necessary, particularly in these tough economic times. I think Canadians support the Conservative Party position and I would not be at all surprised if it came up in an election," he said.

PMO press secretary Dimitri Soudas confirmed last week to The Hill Times that eliminating the subsidy, $1.75 plus inflation which political parties receive for each vote they garner during federal elections, would be part of the Conservatives' next election campaign platform. When asked to confirm, Mr. Soudas said, "yes," in an email.

The issue was met with a near constitutional crisis in December 2008 when the government proposed this measure in an economic and fiscal update, leading to coalition talks among the opposition parties and Prime Minister Harper getting Parliament prorogued.

Prof. Flanagan told The Hill Times last week that it's "good campaign fodder," to promise to kill the public subsidies to all federal political parties, but responsible legislation will require additional changes and that getting rid of the subsidies without doing anything else "would probably bankrupt the Liberals."

Declared Prof. Flanagan: "As much as I applaud that, there would be bound to be a backlash from that. The media would beat you up for deliberately bankrupting your competition and I think the blowback from that would be pretty intense, so if they are going to do it, they have to find some practical way of replacing at least a substantial portion of the lost revenue."

Opposition parties didn't agree the American system is the way to go. NDP MP David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre, Ont.), his party's democratic reform critic, told The Hill Times: "With the greatest respect to Mr. Flanagan and our southern neighbours, I don't think there's too many things about the American way of doing politics that we want to emulate. I think there's an awful lot of people in the political system in the U.S. who would give their right arm for the system and the controls that we have."

Similarly, Liberal House leader Ralph Goodale (Wasacana, Sask.) said that while Canadian legislators should be open-minded to political financing alternatives, the U.S. model is "not particularly" a good one. "You've also got to remember the American system is fraught with so much bias and so much corruption that I'm not sure we would just want to adopt it holus bolus," he said. "If we're going to have a debate on this subject, let's consider all the alternatives, but the reality is the American system is not a particularly good alternative."

Mr. Fletcher, however, said political parties should simply find ways of successfully fundraising for themselves. "People voluntarily donate to political parties in Canada. That's one of the problems with the per-vote subsidy, is that it's not a voluntary donation," he said.

Last year, parties received $27-million in per-vote-subsidies. The Bloc Québécois received $2,757,912 for receiving 10 per cent of the national vote, the Conservatives received $10,410,324 for receiving 37.7 per cent of the vote, the Green Party received $1,873,820 for 6.8 per cent of the vote, the Liberals received $7,260,920 for 26.3 per cent of the vote and the NDP received $5,026,804 for 18.2 per cent of the vote.

This is compared to the money raised by direct donations to the parties. According to the quarterly returns by parties on Elections Canada's website, in 2009, the Bloc fundraised $834,762.42; the Conservatives raised $17,770,477, the Greens raised $1,166,874.20; the Liberals raised $10,120,312 and the NDP raised $4,039,104.10.

The changes to the political financing rules came into effect in 2004 when the Chrétien Liberal government reduced corporate, union, and individual donations to $5,000 and introduced the per-vote subsidy. When the Conservatives took power in 2006, they introduced the Federal Accountability Act, which lowered individual donations even more to $1,000 and banned corporate and union donations completely.

"Parties do not need [the subsidy]," Mr. Fletcher said. "They should rely on voluntary donations by grassroots members. And by the way, the Conservative Party would be hurt the most by getting rid of the per vote subsidy, but we believe in principle it should not be present."

Mr. Christopherson said, however, that it's fine for parties to raise their own money, but for some of his constituents who might want to donate they may not be able to afford to, which is why the per-vote subsidy is needed. It's also more democratic, he said.

Mr. Goodale agreed that if the per-vote-subsidy is eliminated, it would effectively help to silence those who can't afford to donate money to political parties, but support them. "I think that would actually set our democracy back because it would silence a lot of voices that just couldn't afford to participate. That is pretty consistent with Conservative party policy, they want to shut up everybody who holds a contrary view," he said. "You'll find that in the writings of Mr. Flanagan too, where he says one of the political strategies of the far right needs to cripple the communications capacity of any other political movement other than the far right. That's part of their strategy, to monopolize communications, to make sure that nobody else has the ability to offer an alternative point of view. That attitude is typically right wing, but it's not good for democracy."

Despite the backlash that the Conservatives received from political parties last year on the issue, Mr. Fletcher said Canadians support them and will continue to do so if the issue comes up during an election campaign. "It's that simple. The opposition parties demonstrate their hypocrisy by demanding one thing on the Ten Percenters but not on the per-vote subsidy. I'm sure that hypocrisy will be highlighted as time moves forward," he told The Hill Times.

Conservative strategist Tim Powers, vice-president of Summa Strategies, said last week, however, that the per-vote-subsidy has a "controversial history" and while it's important to eliminate it, there are still "bigger economic issues" to deal with at the moment. "The economy is still the number one issue and I think you have to look at those issues in an order of magnitude. There are bigger challenges out there," he said.

Meanwhile, Prof. Flanagan said he doesn't think the next election is Mr. Harper's last chance to win a majority, adding that Mr. Harper could, if he wants to, remain as Prime Minister even if he wins a third minority government because the Conservative base is so strong and likes him.

Prof. Flanagan said that "people may grumble, and criticize," but there's no "concerted effort to overthrow him," and "no evidence" that any future prospective leadership candidates "are intriguing against" the Prime Minister.

"Part of Harper's political genius is that he wouldn't let that happen," Prof. Flanagan told The Hill Times. "He is the one, he's the father of the merged party, the one who led them to victory and I think people would be satisfied as long as they remain in the government. Now if he were to be defeated that would be different."

Prof. Flanagan said the party's "universe of support"—the technical term in polling for the number of people who would consider voting for the party—is too small right now to win a majority. He said the party needs 40 per cent to win a majority. It won 38 per cent of the vote in the last election, but that means the party has to "get everybody who's willing to look" at it, to vote for it. He said the party's two main attempts have been with voters in Quebec and new Canadians, but the party needs another block of voters to "get their universe up" from 40 per cent to 50 per cent. Then it becomes realistic on election day to win 40 per cent, Prof. Flanagan said.

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