Cheque books open and a full pen to write with!

Sniff, sniff, hmmm, must be an election coming soon. The NDP is about to spend the most money ever, in a bid to gain more electoral support from across Canada. With a freshly minted leader to show off, the socialist band is ready to hit the road with twelve million bucks to spend.

Taking advantage of newly created election financing laws and some largesse from the Union movement, the NDP plans to spend twice as much on Smilin' Jack Layton, than they did on poor Alexa McDonough in the last campaign. And it will be 4 million dollars more, than was spent on Ed Broadbent's last campaign as leader back in 1988. That one was their most successful ever, netting the NDP 43 seats, the largest amount they have ever had in Parliament.

With a membership list that has doubled in the year since Layton took charge, the NDP is enjoying a bit of a renaissance and looking to take advantage of the popularity bounce. Recent polls show that 16% of Canadians find the policies of Jack Layton to be to their liking. A splashy media campaign is on the way to help Canadians get to know Layton and his fellow travelers a little bit better.

The new financial regulations that they are taking advantage of, provide the party with a federal subsidy (money from you and I) of 1.9 million dollars. Still rather low compared to the Liberals 9.2 mil, the Conservatives 8.5 million dollar and the 2.4 million dollar Bloc Quebecois winfall, but it's a start. Where things start to even up for the party, is with the new individual regulations. Those changes limit each contribution to under 5,000 dollars for the common folk and under 1,000 dollars for corporations or unions.

But what about that union largesse mentioned earlier, you ask? Well it's quite simple, a number of unions got together and bought the NDP an office building in Ottawa, to be used for a party headquarters. Purchasing and delivering the deed to the building before the Dec 31st deadline. The Party plans to lease out some retail space for revenue and to use it for collateral on any election loans they take out.

Hmm, land speculating, revenue producing and beating changing tax deadlines! That sounds pretty capitalistic, for a party normally thought to be of a more collective bent.