…assuming the Tories actually bother to release a platform this time, that is.

Stephen Fletcher reiterates the call to eliminate public subsidies of political parties – I think it’s a safe bet we’ll be hearing about public subsidies, coalitions, and all the other things that made the end of last year so much fun, whenever an election is called:

Canadians outside of Quebec find it galling that the Bloc Québécois, whose raison d’être is Quebec sovereignty, receives 86 per cent of its funding from the federal government, said Democratic Reform Minister of State Steven Fletcher, who is calling for an end to political party subsidies.

“Virtually every Canadian is forced to make involuntary contributions based on parties’ results. I know a lot of people in other parts of the country are not pleased that … the vast majority of the funding that one particular party [the Bloc] gets is from this voter subsidy,” he told The Hill Times last week.

As for Fletcher’s straw-man argument against the BQ – I hate the Bloc, I would vote for the Tories before I voted Bloc and I would rather the Conservatives win seats in Quebec than the Bloc. But, so long as they’re a political party, you have to treat them the same as everyone else. And, even if you scrap the public subsidies, there would still be millions (of taxpayer dollars) going to the Bloc and their MPs through other salaries, subsidies, and budgets.