Published in the National Post and other Post Media outlets

When the Canadian Taxpayers Federation pulled its National Debt Clock in front of Parliament Hill last month, a formerly homeless man approached and stared in amazement. After a minute of staring at the massive, spinning clock, the man said, “I’ve lived on the street and it doesn’t take a lot of money to live. What the hell are politicians doing?” Before leaving, he added, “These guys need to get a job!”

Sometimes it takes someone from outside of the political system to make sense of things, and even though he was standing in front of Parliament, a formerly homeless man who now makes his own way is about as far outside of the Ottawa bubble as one can be.

And he was half right. Even though politicians do have a job, they and their respective parties still receive a generous welfare payout at taxpayer expense. This takes three forms: a $2-per-vote subsidy, costing taxpayers approximately $68-million since the last election; a 50% to 60% refund of election expenses costing taxpayers approximately $26-million per election; and, generous tax credits encouraging donations to political parties worth tens of millions more (the total figure of course ebbs and flows with each campaign). Each of these is a form of political welfare. They should all be scrapped.

Soon after winning re-election in the fall of 2008, the Conservatives moved to scrap the most egregious of these — the $2-per-vote subsidy. While a good move for taxpayers and a moral victory for democratic reform, the opposition parties immediately viewed the move as an attempt to take away their free lunch. Such was their anger that they quickly cobbled together a coalition to replace the Tories.

We all know how that turned out; but while the Tories stayed, so also did the per-vote subsidy.

Elections cost anywhere between $300- to $400-million, but such is the price of democracy. But while taxpayers picking up the bill for Elections Canada to set up polling stations is fair, forcing them to pick up the bill for partisan campaigns is not. Some voters claim to dislike attack ads, but when they are forced to pay for them out of their own pockets, they are complicit. Eliminating political welfare would make such dilemmas easier: “Don’t like attack ads? Don’t donate!” Nothing would force the parties to clean up their act faster than going after their bottom line.

Similarly, some voters are fatigued with having a fourth election in seven years. But losing “confidence” in a government is not the only thing that triggers an election. Having a flush war chest replenished regularly by Mr. and Ms. Taxpayer makes frequent, unnecessary elections an almost risk-free proposition for the parties. The dollars keep rolling in like clockwork. While party coffers are replenished between elections with the per-vote subsidy, the 50% to 60% refund of campaign expenses means that parties are flush again and ready to fund the next election campaign almost as soon as the ballots are counted.

Even if both the per-vote subsidy and the 50% to 60% campaign expense refunds were eliminated, parties would have little reason to fear. With a maximum 75% tax credit inducing donors to contribute, any party that cannot attract cash is likely not taken seriously by its own supporters. By contrast, donating to charities that provide services to those in need only qualifies you for a maximum 29% tax credit.

Put another way, from a tax perspective you are three times better off donating to the separatist Bloc Québécois than you would be if you gave the exact same amount to the Red Cross.

During the course of this election, Canada’s federal debt will increase by $3.3-billion. Canada’s next government will have tough choices to make. If it is to get spending under control and eliminate the deficit, it will have to cut. The first place it should start is with its own political pogey.

The following article appears in the January 25, 2010 edition of the National Post, & Canada Free Press.

Few politicians are thought to have Senate reform in their blood the way Prime Minister Stephen Harper does. Having campaigned for it beginning in the late 1980s and winning two general elections with it as a significant part of his platform, it is time for the Prime Minister to invest the political capital necessary to reform Canada’s upper house of Parliament.

By some accounts of legend, around AD 40 Roman Emperor Caligula attempted to appoint his favourite horse to a senior government position in the Senate as a way of showing contempt for the office. While Caligula may have been a mad tyrant, one would be hard pressed to find many Canadians with a more positive view of their own appointed Senate.

One hardly needs to make the case for why it should be reformed anymore, but rather how it should be. As a young MP serving as the Reform Party’s constitutional affairs critic, Harper passionately championed a wholesale makeover in the form of a “triple-e” Senate. Pushing his more modest, but still hugely positive, proposals during the last Parliament, he became the first sitting Prime Minister to appear before a Senate committee. Few then doubted the Prime Minister’s sincerity about finally bringing the needed change he had promised.

With the expected appointment of an additional five Senators to the Red Chamber prior to March 3, the Conservatives will hold 51 seats to the Liberals’ 49. For all intents and purposes, they will have the numbers required to pass legislation without major impediments.

To this point, unelected Liberal Senators have blocked the Prime Minister’s reform package — modest proposals for elections and eight-year term limits — to avoid the embarrassment of retaining their own seats while the chamber slowly filled with democratically elected representatives. The pressure to resign in such circumstances would be inconvenient for those eyeing a maximum $100,000-per-year pension upon their second retirement.

With the exception of Michael Fortier, the Prime Minister justified his two rounds of Senate appointments following the coalition crisis as a necessary evil to balance the numbers in order to eventually reform the institution — presumably now. With the Senate roadblock seemingly out of the way, there are only three scenarios in which the soon to be reintroduced legislation can fail: 1. There is an election; 2. Opposition parties in the House of Commons defeat it; or 3. The Prime Minister does not push it wholeheartedly.

Stephen Harper has proven that when he is serious about passing legislation that his opponents have reservations about — such as stiffening the Criminal Code — he has little trouble bending them to his will. It is doubtful that when push comes to shove enough opposition members would stand up and be counted as voting against such legislation, especially if it were deemed a government priority and therefore a matter of “confidence.”

No doubt, many opposition members will attempt to tie up and stop such reforms from ever coming to a vote, as did Liberal Senators during the last Parliament. Therefore, the Prime Minister should ante up and declare his reform legislation, both to elect senators and limit their terms, a vote of confidence and a government priority.

While fault will lie with the Prime Minister if reform legislation fails to pass before the next election, success in passing it may prove to be one of this government’s greatest achievements yet. Canadians should hope that the Prime Minister’s word is still solid on this issue and that the post-coalition Senate appointments are not a resumption of older times. Say, AD 40.

National Post

Derek Fildebrandt is national research director, Canadian Taxpayers Federation.