Taxpayers will pay for lengthy election campaign

Dear Editor

Well, Canada's longest election campaign since 1872 (there was a logical reason for longer campaigns then) is now officially underway. It will also be the most expensive election ever.

In his official announcement of why he was calling the election so soon, Stephen Harper said it would be paid for by the political parties. Of course, that is only true in a limited sense, as the taxpayer will be refunding 50 per cent of expenses to the political parties after the election and even more to individual donators at tax time, translating into tens of millions of tax dollars.

That was not the first time the Harper Conservatives have resorted to this kind of Orwellian double-speak, though. The so-called Fair Elections Act, passed by the Harper government to give the Conservatives several unfair advantages during elections comes to mind.

Russell Lahti

Battleford