Can't speak much as to the actual current crisis in Canadian politics but in terms of the structure of party funding I'll chime in and say that as a supporter of (but not much of a believer in) democracy, funding must be kept seperated from independent contributors. If it's not it effectively amounts to priority voting; individuals or groups with undue influence due to the increased value of their vote/contribution. I really can't understand how you don't see that MP-Ryan. I dont mean to insult, but primarily using taxes to fund parties cannot be seen as the individual paying for parties that they don't like but instead it's paying for the system that allows parties to exist. Thats what democracy is. Everyone has some level of representation regardless of their ability to contribute financially.
Everyone still maintains the right to vote - they just aren't required to pay for political parties. Keep in mind the funding we're talking about is not the funding of the government itself, but the discretionary funding of individual political parties - the money they use to create ad campaigns, operate their own party during elections, run sponsor events, etc. If parties actually had to pay their own way out of donations of party members and private citizens then they would have to be much more careful about how that funding is spent. One side effect would be the promotion of THEIR political message, as opposed to running smear ad campaigns in the media. Right now, parties earn money based on the number of votes they get. This creates an unfair advantage as well.
The way I see it, there are two options:
1) Fund themselves.
2) Everyone gets precisely the same amount of funding through tax dollars regardless of the number of votes and that value is capped - no private funding can be used.
Since the parties would scream even more if the actual amount of money they could use in their variety of media events, sponsorship dinners, and political party favours was capped to an absolute figure, the only viable fair alternative is to take the public out of it entirely and let all political funding be private.
My problem is with a system that allows private donations but simultaneously funds each party based on how
popular it is. When you look at it superficially it looks fair, but if you actually examine the system itself you'll find that minority and dissenting opinion is still entirely absent because the funding system only supports those political ideas which are popular with the majority. It just APPEARS to be fair - which is an injustice unto itself. That's why I believe our current system needs a serious revision. I'd be just as pleased to see that revision be capped funding equivalent for all parties, but we all know that will never happen because it removes the unfair advantages afforded to the large mainstream parties... namely, the Conservatives and the Liberals.
How does Canada's operate?
Badly.
Our system is designed as a Parliamentary system with two houses, but in practice things are somewhat different. Ridings for the House of Commons are distributed by absolute population (we do not have a proportional representation system in any way, shape, or form), and MPs in each riding are elected in a first-past-the-post system (e.g. the candidate with enough votes to take the riding relative to the votes distributed among the other candidates wins). The House of Commons is comprised of the MPs elected nationally. The political entity holding the most MPs governs - this is usually a single party, but in a few rare circumstances we have seen coalition governments. The Commons, therefore, is entirely based around representation by population.
The second house is the Senate. When Canada was created as a Confederation, the Senate was designed to be a regional representation system, based on an absolute number of senators with each region represented equally - this was designed to appease the smaller provinces and prevent the larger, more populous ones from dominating the federal government. Unfortunately, that little experiment didn't last long. The Senate currently functions as a body of appointed individuals, usually politically aligned with the Conservatives and Liberals, who review legislation passed by the Commons and provide an advisory capacity on policy. In practice, that typically translates into a brief, poorly-attended vote where legislation from the Commons passes without a great deal of debate and certainly none of the traditional idea of representatives from each region reviewing if it is in the best interests of the country as a whole.
In short, the second part of our system which is supposed to act as a balance to the demands of the population (most of Canada's population is located in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec) doesn't. Thus, the problems with national unity and some serious resentment towards the federal system at both the Western and Eastern ends of the country.
We could benefit enormously from either a reform of the Senate to its traditional role, or the elimination of the Senate entirely and a transition to proportional representation in the Commons.
