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Why can't Canadians elect their government by designating their tax dollars to Party X or Party Y etc. The Party with the most revenue is the ruling Party the next down the line would be coalition Party #2 and so on. If you pay taxes you get your say, pay no taxes and you have no voice. Every Party would control some of the revenue and all would have a stake in the operation of our country. Lobbyists would be outlawed. Political contributions would be outlawed. All spending would be absolutely accessible by everyone. We would never need another election.

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    "If you pay taxes you get your say, pay no taxes and you have no voice." -- Why should poorer segments of the population get no say? Especially given that they pay e.g. sales taxes.
    – Denis de Bernardy
    Oct 9, 2019 at 18:00
  • So someone with (say) $10B could start his own party, pay several billion in taxes allocated to it, get himself elected President (because nobody has the money to oppose him) and then pay himself a subsidy which returns all the money to himself? Then repeat next election?
    – DJClayworth
    Oct 9, 2019 at 19:07

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In much of the world, the common people fought long and hard not to be governed by kings and nobles. A principle and rallying call was "one man, one vote" (this was before women's franchise became generally accepted).

Generally speaking, places without democracy are not very pleasant to live in, and what you are proposing is an oligarchy, specifically a plutocracy.

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  • Just to add to this answer, there are a few experiments with vouchers being run in the wild that OP might be interested in. In Seattle in particular the government is running a Democracy Voucher program, whereby you can spend $100 at the tax payer's cost on whichever candidate you prefer.
    – Denis de Bernardy
    Oct 9, 2019 at 18:06
  • @DenisdeBernardy That's a totally different thing from what JohnnieMatt is talking about. The Democracy Voucher program is public financing for candidates, with the twist being that people can vote on how that public funding is distributed
    – divibisan
    Oct 9, 2019 at 18:48

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