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Hmmm, can you put a price tag on your vote?

We have launched into a new era of government’s strategies for currying favour with voters. Greasing the voter’s palm is not new. But now all pretense has been stripped from the process.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford welcomed in this new era with the announcement that his government will be sending a $200 cheque to all Ontario residents early in 2025. No bothersome needs-based calculation involved. All palms are being greased regardless of income to the tune of $3 billion in total.

Ford insists this handout is not tied to an early provincial election. We all know better. He will without question call an election in the spring of 2025 because support for the Conservatives is strong. Ford has pegged the cost of buying a vote at $200 per head.

Now Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau is adopting a similar strategy. He announced on Thursday a new suite of measures, to alleviate affordability pressures, under the pseudonyms Working Canadians Rebate and GST Holiday.

Front and center in these measures is a $250 handout to working Canadian residents which, as I understand it, excludes seniors. The going rate for a federal vote is apparently $50 more than for a provincial vote. There is a lip service, needs-based element in this case – an income of less than $150,000 in 2023.

The GST Holiday will be in effect from December 14 through February 15 and will apply to all food as well as booze, children’s clothing and toys, books and newspapers and Christmas trees. But you will need to do your Xmas shopping in a 10 day, door-crasher blitz to reap the benefits.

These measures are also meant to extend an olive branch to the NDP whose support the Liberals need to stay in power. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh’s response: “The NDP will vote for this measure because working people are desperate for relief and we’re proud we delivered for them again.” Translation: We made them bribe you so vote for us.

No one is likely to turn down these handouts and rebates. We all want more money in our pockets and more spending power. But do not be hoodwinked by the rhetoric. The Liberals are lagging 17 percentage points back of the first-place Conservatives and are stinging after two byelection defeats. The handouts are seed money for the next federal election.

This is certainly not the first time a government has dangled incentives to the public in advance of an election or to shore up tumbling support. But the sheer transparency of the efforts now are disconcerting:

Here is a fistful of money and some financial benefits. No strings attached, you understand. We are just trying to do right by you. If it happens to influence you to vote for us – well, that’s just a happy coincidence.

Welcome to the era of transparent, unapologetic vote buying. We finally know what the price tag per head is calculated to be. The question remaining is: Will it actually work for Ford or Trudeau? My vote is not for sale? Is yours?

~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel (now out of print) which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

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Tags:   Doug Ford · metaphor · Michae Robert Dyet · Pierre Trudeau · Working Canadians RebateNo Comments