Someone leaked a draft version of the Conservative Party election platform. Some of it isn't surprising, like their claim they'll cut taxes by 18 billion while still running a surplus. Which of course means something will have to be cut heavily someplace, despite what they may claim. But one thing that definitely bugs me is the idea of adopting a system like in the US where you have to choose a party affiliation, on your tax form in this case, and this will be used to decide which parties get money. I don't like the idea of being forced to do this, especially since your support for a party may change between one tax return and another. And given some of the patronage stuff that goes on I can't help but wonder if this info won't somehow be used for patronage purposes ie town X in riding Y will get such and such a government grant because lots of people supported the ruling party on their tax forms, while town Z in riding Y doesn't because they supported the other guys.

Interestingly they say nothing about MP recall, which was one of Reform's concepts. I wonder who objected. Perhaps they're afraid of getting in a situation where they win a bare majority, or even a minority government, and someone weakens them by organising recall campaigns against their MPs. Of course recall needs a high threshold to prevent frivilous recalls, so you have to wonder what else might be up.

The whining about unelected judges having such an influence on the law is as always amusing coming from this bunch. After all its fair to say that Reform/Canadian Alliance supporters tend to be more favourable to things American than supporters of the NDP, Liberals, and old Tories, and the US has long had judges heavily involved in deciding law.

This is supposedly a draft, so how much of this will hand around is another question. And we all know that some of it will go by the wayside if they actually get into office, perenially pushed off to some unspecified future date.