Ottawa

Question, answer: Jack Layton

Inkless makes a too-rare visit to the scrums after Question Period and poses this question to Jack Layton.

Question: when you borrowed to finance your campaign, only a year ago, your collateral was your anticipated per-vote public subsidy. How can that be your collateral for another campaign — because the Prime Minister has said he will abolish the per-vote public subsidy?

The Hon. Jack Layton: I’m not sure about this, but we may be the only political party to own a building in downtown Ottawa that has a very good tenant, in fact more than one in it.

Question: That wasn’t your only collateral a year ago.

The Hon. Jack Layton: You’ll, you’ll have to talk to — well there’s actually many sources of collateral. There’s the percentage that comes back as a percentage of the campaign expenditures automatically, there’s all kinds, it’s a fairly complicated set of revenues that make up the revenue of a political party. What I’m very happy about is the surge of financial support that’s come in just in the last five days to our party. And I think Canadians like the fact that we’re standing up and fighting for the unemployed and not chomping at the bit to try and fight an election. And so, we’ll, we’ll keep on this path and try to get those results.

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