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As for election spending, the laws are always in flux but basically restrict corporations and trade unions from donations and limiting donations by an amount that is accessible to the majority of Canadians if they see fit to contribute to a political party (important point here - guess Canadians hate free speech as viewed by many Americans - but that's OK because they love democracy and their country still belongs to their middle class). The last federal election had a cost in the tens of millions - not more than $40 million to be sure. The per vote subsidy is in flux, but the criticism from the right was that due to the lower cost of elections the subsidy actually encouraged more elections under minority parliament conditions. The formation of political parties is far more easy and accessible in Canada than in the US. The parliamentary system is in fact far more flexible and responsive to changes in Canadian society. For example, Quebec separatism easily found expression within parliamentary and federal structures despite being "unconstitutional" at the time - something that the American political system could not handle in relation to any state or region.

I n the end, we are not scaling up and down in the endless American pursuit of false equivalencies. The US is not Canada writ large, sorry to tell ya. But glad you're interested anyhow.

@Monk - OK, I was wrong you are not a Republican - sorry. You are still a little culturally chauvinistic but at least you take some time to look at Canada. Even with your points, Canada is still far better at running clean elections. It has an independent federal body called Elections Canada that oversees elections and promotes common standards across the country, with paper ballots used everywhere and universal confidence in the system. There has been some issues related to Robocalls in the last federal election - allegedly sponsored by the Conservative Party and allegedly at the instigation of PM Harper's American consultants (themselves linked to Christian Conservative groups) - a point that has not gone unnoticed in Canada. Any proven wrongdoing also would result in the immediate annulment of that riding's result and a by-election called. Therefore, there is a remedy to proven electoral fraud unlike in the US where it is difficult to remedy after the fact - resulting in less pressure for action. Voter suppression is taken very, very seriously and never attempted at levels seen in the US as there was never a history of denying people the right to vote, thank you very much.

The Republic stuff is a red herring, and please don't mention Thomas Jefferson or I will barf. Canada as a constitutional monarchy is in effect a Republic - the monarch/crown simply a symbol for the sovereign people - therefore the term the "crown" refers to the people. It is a representative democracy where universal suffrage is universally accepted (unlike for the southern heirs to Mr.J).

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@SNAFU (unregistered) & @Zooty (unregistered)- As usual your kind at RT did not read what I said. First, I am a Liberal Dem. Second, I did condemn the money spent but in a truely free election you bemoan that but passing laws against it is inhibiting free speech. Who gets to decide how much is too much...you? Next, it is difficult to compare a parlimentary election to a Republic election. The Per-vote subsidy looks to us as a way to intrench a party and keep out minority views. Public subsidy of contributions is no different than big business hiding as a government program. Under this subsidy, the more a party spends, the more they are subsidized. I even saw Robocall problems. In the end...Canada's population is one tenth of the USA and when you multiply those issues by 10 there isn't much difference between the two.