Canada

The Conservative Party has announced plans to eliminate public subsidies for political parties if it won the parliamentary majority in Canada’s May 2 federal election. The system provides an annual $2 subsidy for every vote a major political party gets in a previous federal election, Reuters says. The Conservatives had tried to scrap the subsidy system in November 2008, a month after the election but Canada’s three opposition parties united against it. Reuters notes that eliminating the subsidy system will give Conservatives an advantage over opposition parties, which are not as efficient when it comes to raising money for campaigns.