I know my colleagues in the Bloc are looking for another humiliation, but they will not find one here.
The position of our party is based on a liberal democracy, an early foundational principle of liberalism as expressed by Thomas Jefferson in the preamble to the Virginia statute on religious freedom. He said:
That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical
The idea is that it is problematic in a pluralistic democracy to compel somebody through the coercive power of the state to finance views which he finds abhorrent. That is the position that we take, that we do not find it pleasant to compel members of the New Democratic Party to finance the propagation of our views.
However, no one in our party would suggest that we should be selective about which parties receive public support. We believe that, in principle, no parties should receive public support and that the free market of ideas should work when it comes to financial support for political parties.