The Finance Ministry in Nova Scotia has introduced an omnibus budget bill, the Financial Measures Act of 2007, that includes a provision to extend the public financing of political parties and includes the Green Party in the extension.
Update (29-March-2007): The Chronicle Herald has some of the details on the “transitional” public funding:
Finance Minister Michael Baker said Wednesday the Greens, like the province’s three other political parties, should have the option of taking 90 cents per vote and a lump sum of $125,000 per year over the next two years.
“It will give them an extra $119,000 or $120,000 over what they would have received otherwise,” Mr. Baker said Wednesday after introducing the Financial Measures Act.
The MacDonald government passed a bill in January to limit campaign contributions from individuals and organizations to $5,000. The legislation also has taxpayers giving political parties an annual grant linked to the number of votes they receive in provincial elections. One vote would net $1.50.
Over the next two years, parties that received at least 15 per cent of the popular vote in the 2006 provincial election would have the option of taking so-called transition money. That would have excluded the Green Party, which received 2.33 per cent of the popular vote in the June 13 election. The Greens ran 52 candidates but did not win a seat.
“We decided that all of the political parties who were in existence at the time of the transition, which is Jan. 1, 2007, should have the advantage of transition funding,” Mr. Baker said.
…The party had been threatening to sue the province because of the 15 per cent rule.