Public funding of political parties as a necessary condition for democracy

I do not know a lot about Canadian politics but when I read this article I thought that your Prime minister seriously threatens the democratic system by willing to eliminate the public funding of political parties. (I do not say Switzerland is better because there is actually no public funding and it is becoming a real issue too)

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/924883–dollars-and-democracy

In a world where the media has such a big importance and the campaigns can influence the results of the vote I think that each party should have the same amount of money to campaign for an election. The whole problems lies in the fact that it is very hard to control the funding anyway because it can be very indirect. Can we measure the value of a celebrity endorsing a political candidate? Can we prevent influential corporations or famous brands to express their political views? Certainly not, or at least it could be argued that it is a breach of their freedom of expression. That is what the article aptly points out. However, even though it is hard to limit the external funding I still think that there should be a minimum provided by the state in order to ensure that each party is able to compete. As mentioned by Dahl, Schmitter and Karl, it is necessary for each citizen to be able to pick his/her preference but if some political parties do not have enough funding they won’t be able to compete. Therefore it is essential for an equal political representation of the preferences of the citizens to have a public funding of the political parties. The argument that the suppression of this funding will save money is not valid because it will reduce the choice available to the citizens, therefore the money will be saved not in favor of the community but in favor of some citizens and  at the expense of others.