Four years ago the NDP provincial government introduced to Manitobans the vote-tax. Under the plan, political parties would receive $1.25 from taxpayers annually for every vote that the Party received in the previous election. It was clear that the NDP, which hoped to pocket $250,000 annually from the vote tax, was just looking for an easy way to get money into the pocket of their Party without having to work for it.
As a result of public pressure and the PC Party taking a stand and refusing to take the vote tax, the NDP backed down and ultimately didn’t take the money. But they did not give up. Following the last election they self-appointed a Commissioner to come up with a recommendation on a new vote-tax.
Before they did that however, they ensured that the Commissioner was not actually able to determine whether a vote-tax was truly necessary. The only thing he was allowed to do was set the amount. The NDP hand-picked their own Commissioner and then went out of their way to ensure that the results would be what they wanted. And so it was no surprise last week when the Commissioner recommended that the NDP vote tax, now the sequel, be reintroduced and in fact increased. Now, political parties will be able to take $1.37 annually per vote that they received in the previous election. That would give the NDP more than $270,000 annually from taxpayers dollars and, of course, the NDP responded by saying they were going to be accepting the vote-tax.
And once again, the Manitoba Progressive Conservative Party has taken a strong position declaring that we will not accept the vote tax money. Instead, we will be asking people to support our Party not because they are forced to by law, but because they choose to do so based on our ideas and beliefs.
The NDP vote tax reveals something else that has become very clear. The NDP are no longer working for Manitobans. At a time when the NDP have just run a $1 billion deficit they have decided to take hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars annually for their political party. The NDP reduced the snowplowing shifts during this past winter as a cost saving measure and yet they see it as a priority to provide their political party with a new pool of taxpayer dollars.
The NDP have lost the enthusiasm to raise their own funds for their own political party. The new vote tax will force all Manitobans to contribute to political parties that they do not support. The reality is that there is already enough public funding for political parties and there doesn’t need to be any more. This sequel is as bad as the original and the NDP should once and for all reject the vote tax.
