As everyone knows, the campaign is on! The writ has not yet been dropped but federal parties are already in campaign mode. According to a recent article on CTV, both the Liberals and the Conservatives have been spending lots of money in the run-up to the campaign and plan to spend even more in the days ahead. We’re already seeing the early TV campaign ads and we’ll certainly see more when the writ drops.

Where do they get the money for these expensive ad campaigns? In addition to contributions from their members, both the Conservatives and the Liberals have benefited from taxpayer-funded “reimbursements”. After the 2015 election, they each received over $20 million in direct subsidies, based on vote counts and campaign expenditures. Additional significant amounts were handed out to their candidates, who—if they got over 10% of the vote—received from taxpayers funds equal to 60% of their campaign costs. The CHP and the smaller parties did not benefit from these generous “reimbursements”. It seems so unfair that taxpaying members of the CHP are compelled to support politicians in the big parties with whose policies they disagree . . . but, of course, the rules are made by those already in Parliament and favour their own re-election.

In spite of having access to these large amounts of money, the Liberals still had to borrow $1.34 million last year just to keep their party machinery running. Of course, if you look at how they’re mismanaging Canada’s budget, it’s not surprising that they would run their own books in the red. By contrast, the Christian Heritage Party and its candidates in their local campaigns operate on available funds, not on borrowed money. For individuals, for governments and for political parties, the truth is, you can’t borrow your way to prosperity. Canada’s skyrocketing national debt will never be reined in without the firm economic policies of CHP Canada. Politicians will have to stop buying votes with taxpayers’ money.

On another point, as the election draws nearer: what promises are being used to influence voters? Let’s have a look at a few of the Liberal promises made on the campaign trail in 2015 and which they have failed to keep.

1. Trudeau promised to run “modest” deficits of $10 billion or less and balance the budget by 2019. He has failed on this in a big way. In their first three years, the Liberals have added $56 billion to the national debt and 2019-2020 looks like another $20 billion deficit. Of course, they’re not alone in this; Mr. Harper promised in 2008 and again in 2011 that the budget would balance but in their 9 years in office, his Conservatives added more than $144 billion to the national debt.
2. In 2015, Trudeau promised that the election that year would be the “last election under first-past-the post”. He changed his mind after the election and dropped that one like a hot potato. Those who voted Liberal hoping for electoral reform must have been severely disappointed.
3. Trudeau’s promises to build a new relationship with indigenous people and to operate his government with greater transparency have both come off as nothing more than pandering after his rocky and public separation from his former Justice Minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould. As well, his attempts to characterize himself as a “feminist” took a big hit when Ms. Wilson-Raybould and Treasury Board President Jane Philpott refused to cover for his bully tactics and showed their seriousness by resigning from cabinet. Passions have cooled but the warm glow is gone.
4. More could be said about these and other scandals, like the SNC-Lavalin kid-glove treatment, his cash-for-friends subsidies of $595 million to friendly newspapers, the biased attestation requirements of the Canada Summer Jobs Program, etc. but the evidence is in: he’s not a man to keep his promises unless it will benefit him and his party.

The Christian Heritage Party offers our consistent promises to do our best to protect innocent human life, to restore and protect traditional marriage, to defend freedom of speech and freedom of religion and to really balance the budget and pay down the national debt. If voters give us the opportunity to serve in government, we will keep our commitments and we will do it within our means.