NDP want tax payers to pay for campaigns

[dirtsniffer]

According to researchers from the opposition Wildrose party, since becoming Alberta’s government in late May 2015, the NDP under Premier Rachel Notley have spent $6 million in taxpayer funds on “government” advertising.

That’s an amount that would make even the former provincial Tory government blush.

The biggest chunks were spent on convincing Albertans the government’s 2016 red-ink budget was a really good idea and boasting about how remarkable the new Climate Change Leadership plan is.

The latter – the climate change ads – will likely cost well over $4 million.

The NDP are even spending $100,000 trying to convince voters they are not out of their minds for suing themselves to prevent the cancellation of power purchasing arrangements (PPAs) – large-scale, long-term electricity contracts – that the NDP’s own climate regulations and taxes have rendered unprofitable.

So what is the point of all this Wildrose digging into NDP propaganda costs, other than to shame the NDP for acting a lot like the Tories they claimed were corrupt after 44 years in office?

Wildrose House Leader Nathan Cooper explains that the NDP have also served notice they intend to impose a limit of $1.6 million for parties to spend during election campaigns and $40,000 for each candidate in individual constituencies.

Cooper notes that is just “60 cents per elector, the lowest in the country for jurisdictions with election spending caps.”

At present, while Alberta has fairly rigorous limits on political donations – no donations from corporations or unions, limited donations from individuals – it has no limits on campaign spending. As long as parties can raise millions from small donors, they are welcome to spend all they can raise.

But that’s not good enough for the NDP. Led by Calgary NDP MLA Graham Sucha, the New Dems want to place the most severe limits in the country on party and candidate spending.

Even if you believe “big money” has too much influence on politics, spending caps do nothing to solve the problem. Limiting the impact of big money is all on the donation side.

But purists and idealists such as Sucha are so caught up in their anti-money crusade they become blinded to ineffectiveness of their proposed spending limits.

Again, though, just what are Cooper and the Wildrose so concerned about? After all, they voted with the NDP a year ago to end corporate and union donations to political campaigns. Why won’t they go along with the Dippers on spending caps, too?

Because as Cooper points out, the NDP won’t also introduce legislation to limit government ad spending during by-elections or general elections.

The Climate Change Leadership ads, which are the most expensive government ads in Alberta’s history, are little more than $4 million worth of high-fiving and back-patting by the government. Without giving any details, the ads claim the NDP’s actions will lead to cleaner air and water, a greener future and more and better jobs for young Albertans.

They are campaign ads in all but name.

Curiously, they don’t mention the NDP’s $3 billion carbon tax coming next January or explain how NDP policies will lead to higher consumer electricity bills.

If the government won’t agree to stop such “government” advertising during official campaign periods, Cooper explains, the NDP could live within strict new spending limits as a party while simultaneously pumping millions of tax dollars into pro-NDP propaganda masquerading as government ads.

“That’s not a fair system,” Cooper contends. “They should focus on serious proposals to improve accountability in our system, instead of playing political games.”

More than anything, what the NDP’s system-rigging proposal proves is that the Notley government is no more moral or “clean” than any other government, including the Tories.

http://www.edmontonsun.com/2016/08/1...t-an-advantage

[Thaco]

i know right, PC's hide their scam money for years and it's all ok, NPD tries to make it transparent and legit and its a big story.

[dirtsniffer]

Who said what the PC's did was OK? What does that have to do with anything?

[SOAB]

Originally posted by dirtsniffer
Who said what the PC's did was OK? What does that have to do with anything?

he's just trying to justify voting for the NDP...

[Thaco]

Originally posted by SOAB


he's just trying to justify voting for the NDP...

rather crooks who do it to my face than behind my back.

[Seth1968]

Originally posted by SOAB


he's just trying to justify voting for the NDP...

Originally posted by Thaco
rather crooks who do it to my face than behind my back.

Too early to know whether or not they're crooks. At this point, I'd say they're just idealistic, clueless, and incompetent buffoons

[Xtrema]

Every sitting government has used funds and plans to self promote to be re-elected. Nothing new here.

Spending limit isn't bad IMO. But it is designed to limit corporate influences hence naturally bad for the right.

Originally posted by Seth1968

Too early to know whether or not they're crooks. At this point, I'd say they're just idealistic, clueless, and incompetent buffoons

1st term politicians are all boy scouts. 2nd or 3rd term is when they turn into crooks.

But I agree with your observation.

[schocker]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmont...nses-1.3715767

They can now only propose things that cost taxpayer money.

[reijo]

Maybe this is because no one is going to give the NDP any money for re-election after this series of fuck-ups that they are propagating! hahahaha unreal.

R

[codetrap]

.

[Stuart]

Originally posted by codetrap
I read this as you'd rather a dick in your mouth than a dick in your ass...



Me, I'd prefer no dick but my own.

Don't you know that when it comes to government you have no choice, they are going to find a way to fuck you.

[jwslam]

Originally posted by Stuart
Don't you know that when it comes to government you have no choice, they are going to find a way to fuck you.

Maybe he doesn't get fucked by evading taxes

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by reijo
Maybe this is because no one is going to give the NDP any money for re-election after this series of fuck-ups that they are propagating! hahahaha unreal.

R

They know they can't raise fund. But a tax payer funded campaign with upper limit imposed isn't a bad idea.

The key is a sensible upper limit.

[schocker]

Summary from the herald
http://calgaryherald.com/opinion/col...ut-of-politics
Whiney mason lols in bold though he doesn't mention also the $100k to tell people that they are taking legal action against the power companies.

If the Alberta NDP are going to devise a scheme to tilt election spending rules in their favour, they could at least hold off until after Premier Rachel Notley’s summer vacation.

Instead, we have proposed new rules being dropped on us in the dead of summer, with the premier nowhere to be found. By leaving the matter to two backbench MLAs, though, it gives Notley an easier out if this whole gambit backfires. And the early indications suggest that is exactly what is happening.

It fell to Calgary-Shaw MLA Graham Sucha to make the case for a cap on how much parties could spend in an election campaign, while Edmonton MLA Rod Loyola became the point man for the idea of rebates to political parties. The former might have gone through without much fanfare, but the latter has become a major controversy.

Sucha’s initial proposal was a limit of a $1.6-million campaign spending limit — coincidentally the same amount of money the NDP spent in last year’s election. Monday at committee, though, that was amended to 80 cents per eligible voter — just over $2 million based on 2015 numbers.

Of course, this does nothing to address the built-in incumbent advantage: the ability to spend millions of dollars on so-called government ads touting the merits of their various proposals (irony watch: how much will this government spend to promote the idea of limiting how much money can be spent on ads?).

Meanwhile, Loyola’s proposal would see parties receiving at least 10 per cent of the vote subsidized to the tune of 50 per cent of their total election spending. This would be a costly but convenient solution to the NDP’s fundraising disadvantage.

Loyola has argued that this is about getting big money out of politics and creating a level playing field, which is a curious argument to make, since it would both provide an incentive for parties to spend to the maximum and would subsidize only the bigger parties.

For example, in the last election, the Alberta Party, the Liberals and the Green Party all received less than 10 per cent of the vote. In fact, in the 2012 and 2008 elections, the NDP themselves received less than 10 per cent, and one can just imagine the NDP outcry if the PCs had tried to implement such a scheme.

Mind you, there’s a lot that the NDP used to complain about that they’re now quite content with. In 2012, when the PCs spent $425,000 to advertise their budget, then-NDP leader Brian Mason complained that the Tories were taking “a lesson out of Stephen Harper’s playbook” to “control the message.”

Or in 2014, when the Tories spent $1 million on the Building Alberta signs, Mason denounced the “waste of public money advertising Alison Redford.”

Yet so far in power, the NDP have spent $4.4 million in ads for the climate leadership plan, $750,000 on ads for the last budget, and $210,000 on ads touting Bill 6. They say they want to get “big money” out of politics, but they’re the worst offender.

The NDP have already banned corporate and union donations, and we already have limits on what an individual can donate to a party. For all intents and purposes, big money is out of politics. Everything else now to that end is redundant.

But even in banning those donations, the NDP still left the door open to corporations and unions guaranteeing loans to parties and allowing the donation of the time of paid employees to volunteer on campaigns.

Governments typically don’t design loopholes that they don’t intend to use, and this government appears intent on exploiting and creating every possible advantage going into the next election. Given their dismal poll numbers, that’s not surprising.

As for our electoral system, spending limits and rebates are really just solutions in search of a problem. The government’s confused approach on all of this is only logical when you consider how self-serving it really is.