Jason Mann
Communist Party of Canada, Prince George Collective
There is much debate in Canada on the ethics of our current political parties today. One thing that has not been fully debated is corporate contributions to political parties. Corporations can give large sums of money to the political party that will benefit them the most, and then receive the majority of the money back in tax credit. The larger amount they donate, the larger percentage they receive as a tax credit. Tax credit, in other words the government and its taxpayers actually give money right back to the corporations. So ever though I would never support a conservative party, I must help pay for their campaign by giving money to these companies in tax credits instead of my money going to education. Corporations give huge amounts to the right wing parties to help them advertise to the masses. In the majority of cases, the party who spends the money wins the election. Clearly this is buying votes from the people by the corporations. Corporations would not partake in this if there were no benefit for the their organization. Bribery is defined in the dictionary as, an inducement offered to a person to act for the benefit of the giver. This is defiantly bribery. In return for the donation, political party passes bills that promote the corporate agenda instead of working on issues such as health and education. Remember when parties passed bills to actually help society? Certainly not the six dollar training wage. How can anyone really feel like their voice matters in “democracy” if bribery is allowed to occur. We must stand up to insure that this corporate bribery is stopped.