:
Colleagues, let's begin our meeting this morning.
Thank you, everyone, for coming.
As members will know, as a result of the House's having referred to our committee Bill C-54 on Monday, May 28, today we are beginning our review of that bill.
I would remind members that this meeting is being held in public for the opportunity to go over this bill.
With us this morning, from 11 o'clock to 12 o'clock, we have the minister, Hon. Peter Van Loan, leader of the government in the House. The second hour we have reserved for our witness, the Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Mayrand.
Colleagues, if we're ready, we'll begin. Documents have been handed out to you, including copies of the minister's comments this morning.
Minister, I welcome you to the committee. It's a privilege to have you here before us today to discuss this bill. I'll open the floor for you. You can please introduce your team first and then proceed with your comments.
Thank you.
:
And I'm Peter Van Loan.
I'm pleased to appear today to assist the committee in its scrutiny of Bill C-54, the accountability with respect to loans bill. The bill is another important part of our agenda to strengthen accountability in Canada through democratic reform.
Our agenda in this respect is extensive and ambitious. It has three main components: strengthening our electoral system to make it more responsive, fair, and effective; second, modernizing the Senate; and third, reforming the financing of political parties to eliminate the undue influence of rich and powerful individuals.
[Translation]
To start, we are strengthening our electoral system by, firstly, ensuring our democracy remains fair to Canadians across the country through Bill , which seeks to reduce voter fraud, and Bill , which ensures fairness and representation in the House of Commons by restoring the principle of representation by population.
Secondly, we are taking steps to improve voter turnout through Bill , which adds two additional days of advanced polling on the two Sundays prior to election day.
Lastly, we are also providing a level of certainty and transparency to the public by establishing fix date elections. Under legislation that was recently enacted into law, the date of the next general election will be October 19, 2009.
[English]
Through another piece of legislation currently before Parliament, we hope that October 19, 2009, is the date of the first national consultations process for choosing senators.
For the first time, Bill C-43 provides Canadians with the opportunity to have a say in who represents them in the Senate. This legislation, which represents a realistic and practical way of modernizing the Senate, is one part of our plan to do so. The other part is our bill to limit the terms of senators to 8 years from the current maximum of 45.
The last major component of our agenda to strengthen accountability through democratic reform is our legislation to reform the financing of political parties, candidates, and associations to eliminate the undue influence of rich, powerful individuals in the political process.
[Translation]
We committed to doing this in the last campaign, when we introduced, as our first piece of legislation, the Federal Accountability Act. On April 11, 2006 we fulfilled that commitment and on December 12 of the same year, the Federal Accountability Act became law.
The act banned corporate and union contributions, imposed tighter rules on gifts and trust funds and limited annual donations to a political party to $1,100 in 2007.
The bill being studied by this committee today builds on the Federal Accountability Act and on our commitment to eliminate the influence of rich, powerful individuals from the political process.
[English]
The bill would amend the Canada Elections Act to establish stronger rules and better transparency for loans made to political parties, candidates, and associations. These amendments would enhance accountability and increase transparency around the use of loans as a political financing tool, which is vital to ensuring the confidence of Canadians in the integrity of the political process.
[Translation]
Along with the Federal Accountability Act, the changes proposed in Bill will ensure that the financing of political parties, candidates, and associations is fully transparent with straightforward rules that are easy to enforce.
The amendments proposed for the treatment of loans in Bill would extend to loans the same standards of transparency that are now in place for contributions. By removing chapter 3, which allows for the use of loans to circumvent the restrictions on the source or limit of contributions, the amendments will ensure that the reforms enacted in cannot be undermined through the misuse of loans.
[English]
Specifically, the amendments would make the following changes to the treatment of loans.
First, the bill would establish a uniform and transparent way of treating loans made to political parties, candidates, and associations. It would require mandatory disclosure of terms and the identity of all lenders and loan guarantors. It would achieve greater transparency and ensure that political parties, candidates, and associations are treated uniformly, which is, believe it or not, not now the case.
Second, total loans, loan guarantees, and contributions by individuals could not exceed the annual contribution limit for individuals established in the Federal Accountability Act, which is set at $1,100 for 2007. Since loans from individuals would be treated as contributions from the time they were made, loans could not be used to circumvent the limit on individual contributions.
Third, only financial institutions and other political entities could make loans beyond that $1,100 limit. Unions and corporations would now be unable to make loans, consistent with their inability to make contributions. They could not disguise contributions as loans. Since financial institutions would have to charge commercial rates of interest, neither borrowers nor lenders could exchange favourable rates for favourable treatment.
Finally, the rules for the treatment of unpaid loans would be tightened to ensure that candidates cannot walk away from unpaid loans. Riding associations will be held responsible for unpaid loans taken out by their candidates. Those would succeed to the associations.
At this point I want to pay some tribute—and I don't want to say I'm disappointed that Monsieur Godin is here, but I am disappointed that Mr. Martin is not—because Pat Martin deserves some credit for having kept this issue on the radar screen and pressing us to move forward with this legislation. I wanted to give him due credit for having done that.
[Translation]
In January 2007, the Chief Electoral Officer presented recommendations to Parliament for changing the rules on loans. This was the first examination of the rules for loans since 2000.
[English]
The CEO recommended that Parliament impose additional controls on loans, make loans more transparent, and establish consistency in the treatment of loans for all classes of political entities. Specifically, he recommended the kinds of changes we are including in Bill : the amendments in Bill C-54 implement the recommendations of the Chief Electoral Officer with respect to loans.
At second reading, several members expressed an interest in having the bill come into force earlier than six months after royal assent, which is the current wording in the bill. The government would like to see the changes in force as soon as possible. l would encourage the committee to discuss the matter with the Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Mayrand, when he is here next hour—how quickly the changes could be put into operation—and to feel free to encourage him and challenge him to do it as quickly as possible.
In conclusion, accountability with respect to loans is an important part of our new government's agenda to strengthen accountability through democratic reform. By adopting this bill, which updates the rules for loans and expands transparency, Parliament would demonstrate to Canadians that it remains serious in its commitment to clean up all aspects of federal political financing.
[Translation]
It will show that we will not allow rich, powerful individuals to influence the political process. It will show that we will continue to build upon the reforms made in the historic Federal Accountability Act.
[English]
Today, I am seeking your support for these measures and will be pleased to attempt to answer your questions.
:
Thank you very much, Chair and Mr. Van Loan.
We'll all resist the temptation to make puns on Minister Van Loan.
Thank you for being here and for bringing this forward, together with your set of other approaches for democratic reform.
We've had an opportunity to discuss many of those in the past and will in the future, as we all tackle this joint opportunity to tighten up our political system, including the political financing.
Let me say by way of preamble that Bill C-26, brought in during January 2004 by the former Liberal government, was perhaps the most dramatic change in political financing in Canadian history, creating one of the tightest political financing systems in any democratic country. This is taking that a step further, as did Bill C-2, with respect to limits.
One question I have is with respect to that. In Bill C-24, which didn't go as far as Bill C-2—in the sense that it allowed union and corporation loans at the level of $1,000, which is pretty limited, but left the individual, basic unit of democracy at $5,000—part of the government's consideration at the time was not to unduly infringe on the political, democratic rights of individuals under the charter to express themselves and take part in a meaningful way in the political process.
This was, of course, as you may recall, part of the Liberal opposition's concern in Bill C-2. It wasn't to do with corporations or unions because their contribution was going from $1,000 to zero—it effectively was zero, anyway, at $1,000—but with individuals it caused some concern that it might unduly restrict people's exercising of democratic rights.
When we look at this bill, my observation is that if someone were to enter a national leadership contest, for instance—it could be the Canadian Alliance in 2002, the Conservative Party in 2004, or the Liberal Party in 2006—understanding that it's a national contest to be contested over many months...to apply this to a person who at that point is not backed up by a political association, or, I might also add, but on a much smaller scale, someone who's seeking the nomination to be a candidate for an election and isn't a sitting member and doesn't have a riding association, and looking at the potential costs of engaging in, for instance, an 11-month leadership campaign cross-country, and thinking of the amount of money that must be spent and has been spent in those contests by all parties, and then thinking about who might be capable of getting a loan from a financial institution.... My concern is that for some individuals who are not wealthy enough to either be credit-worthy themselves to raise the amount of money that would be necessary for that sort of contest or who have the friends who would be able to guarantee that loan, this would effectively be a barrier to that person's taking part in that leadership contest or, on a smaller scale, a nomination contest.
The flip side of it is that we're handing over to financial institutions, really, the power to decide who can enter those contests and who can't, by virtue of their need—understandably, given their responsibilities and the way this is written—to have it guaranteed or to find the person credit-worthy themselves.
It doesn't take much to imagine a large group of people who are incapable of entering those sorts of contests.
I noted, Minister, in your introductory remarks, on six occasions I believe, you mentioned that one of the intentions of this bill is to limit the influence of the powerful and the rich and such. I'm worried about the people who aren't rich and powerful, who may face a barrier to enter those types of contests when they don't have means themselves.
I wonder if you could comment on that.
:
Before I do, I'll pick up on another point Mr. Owen raised, that those who don't have the backing of a wealthy riding association can't run. Riding associations cannot transfer funds to leadership campaigns already. If they're doing that, they're engaging in an illegal practice under the act. So that's not a factor.
On the question of nominations, again I think we have the same phenomenon. I'd remind everybody that nomination campaigns are already strictly regulated under the act. The spending limit is strictly regulated. It's 20% of the spending limit of an actual campaign for that riding. From that perspective, you already have the playing field levelled. Those restrictions come from the legislation that Mr. Owen referred to previously.
You're talking about a typical campaign in a big riding limiting somebody to spending $14,000 or $16,000. That's the most you can spend on a nomination, so already you have very limited potential.... To say that putting everybody on a level playing field so they can't reach in to find their own $15,000 and that they have to borrow it from a bank and so on.... I don't buy that notion that there is any barrier there. Again, this is something that puts everybody on the same level playing field.
There is some suggestion that women have a more difficult time raising money as candidates. I'm not sure I agree with that. They will now be on a level playing field with everybody else in terms of being able to run a campaign. They won't be able to rely on a rich, powerful person to come up with that $14,000, or, if you're in a riding in Saskatchewan, the $9,000 or $10,000 you can spend on a campaign for a nomination.
I think the effect of what we've done here will create greater fairness and put everybody on the same level playing field.
:
I don't have a figure. I've gone through the statistics, and they vary for just the province of Ontario. I have no idea what the typical loan would be for a Bloc Québécois candidate, because you have not yet started running them in Ontario.
What you will find I think is that among the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party it's pretty consistent. It seems to be that about 28% or 30% had loans of one type or another, and they ranged widely. Some had very significant loans; some had very modest ones. Some had them from financial institutions; a lot of them had them just from themselves or family members in significant amounts. The NDP seems to have shied away from loans. There seem to be very few loans on the NDP side, at least in Ontario.
So I couldn't give you an exact statistic. I could tell you, though, that about 30% of Conservatives and Liberals take loans of some type, in Ontario, at least. I should say, though, that most of those were probably in total under $10,000.
I might comment on one other thing, while I have the opportunity, concerning bank loans.
[Translation]
Provincially, banks provide loans based on the rebate that the candidate gets after the campaign. That determines the level of the loan, it is the guarantee.
[English]
That means it should be fairly easy for any candidate, assuming you're in the range where you have confidence you'll get 10% of the vote, to get a loan from a bank at least equal to the amount you will get in your rebate after the campaign, in terms of your spending. At the provincial level, where this is the case, they tend to use as the guarantee the candidate's guaranteeing of the loan by writing their promise of the rebate they get from Elections Canada. That way, the banks have found a pretty good practice to approach this.
Minister, I welcome you, too, and I would ask you to get out your pen, because unlike my colleague, I have a whole bunch of questions. I think I'll just put them forward at the beginning and then give you a chance to answer them.
I'm sure it didn't escape your notice, but I am a woman in politics. I have to tell you that it's interesting that your opinion isn't that women in politics have trouble raising funds, because I'm here to tell you, after 10 years of public life, that women do have a problem raising funds. Sometimes it's the fact that they don't have the equity or credit history that a lot of their male counterparts have. So I'd be interested to know if this committee or you, when you wrote this, consulted with the real experts, such as bankers, to find out if that would be a problem.
I'd also like to ask about how this bill will impact the role of funds like the Judy LaMarsh Fund—set up in the Liberal Party years ago because of this impediment to women raising funds—which donate to female candidates, and something like Equal Voice, which also funds female candidates, again, because of the historic reality that women cannot raise funds.
You started by talking about some of the changes, and I am sure you didn't mean to mislead anyone, but from some of the wording in the bill and from some of your comments, you'd almost think that somebody can currently walk away from loans and that these can be done in secret. I guess I'd just like to put on the record that under the current law, the details of loans, including every loan in the name of the lender and the guarantor, must be, and are, publicly disclosed. So I would just like to put that on the record. That is the case, as it currently exists.
You listed, at the beginning, some of the efforts your government has made to enhance transparency and accountability in public life. But it's interesting. Are any of these initiatives ever going to address third-party advertising and spending? I look south at this, where we've all seen some of the effects of the political action committees in the United States. Nationally, we have the National Citizens Coalition, and I'm wondering how, if at all, there is any effort to address these kinds of expenditures—which I would tell you do impact the outcome of elections.
The other issue that I don't see covered right now, and which I think would be interesting to explore.... I can choose any number of floor crossings, but I think I would choose , because his was probably one of the more recent floor crossings. Under this regime, how, if at all, would the Liberals—who were so upset with that floor crossing two weeks after an election—recover the money if they had taken out a loan? What would their recourse be to recover that money, because it seems to me they had legitimate umbrage? So I'd like to hear how you would address that, if at all, through this.
And my last question would be, are we sure this is charter compliant? Has that question been referred to an expert, and has that been answered?
:
If I could, Mr. Chair, I already addressed the issue of wealthy or powerful individuals.
In terms of women and the question of equity and credit history, I think I already addressed that. This bill does create a level playing field. In particular, if you're talking about women as candidates in a campaign, as I said, where this has been the case in Ontario, banks tend to make contributions based on a guarantee of the return of the rebate you get. In our case, it would be from Elections Canada. That would allow somebody a fair bit of financing room. So that is how they tend to approach it, rather than on the creditworthiness of the individual, because they are well aware of the individual's constraints in making the contributions. That's where it actually levels the playing field, for those who are not of great means and who lack those financial resources and networks, as women do. In fact, this improves their position and their opportunities.
I know Madam Redman is writing something on that response, but in terms of the Ellen Fairclough Fund, the Conservative equivalent of the Judy LaMarsh Fund and Equal Voice, and so on, those contributions to people's nomination campaigns effectively became illegal under the Liberal legislation. That's where that difficulty arose. There's nothing new in this legislation affecting that one way or another.
The next issue is the details of loans. There is a requirement for disclosure, you're quite right, but it is inconsistent between different types of candidates. Whether you're a riding candidate or a party or a candidate for nomination, there are different disclosure requirements. We are trying to make them consistent across the board.
On third-party advertising and spending, there is a law in place now. It continues to be in place and in effect; it does have limits. Of course, the limit nationally is $150,000 for a third-party campaign.
The next item is the issue of people crossing the floor. I know that's an interesting one. I'm sure the member from Mississauga—Streetsville, who actually made his own loan to his riding association, will be interested to see how that gets resolved and whether the party reimburses that. This is another matter.
Our legislation, of course, is only prospective; we are not seeking to have any retrospective application. I don't think that would be fair or equitable. So there won't be any retrospective application, either to cases like that or situations like, for example, the Liberal leadership campaigns. Under our legislation, it's not proposed to have those existing loans fall under our coverage.
There are some who have argued, including in the other parties, that we should make it retrospective in reach. My view has always been that it's a fundamental principle of natural justice that legislation should not be retroactive. It should not capture people who were relying, at the time they did whatever it is they did, on a legal regime in place at the time. They should be entitled to continue to rely on the law that was there at the time they made those decisions.
Finally, in terms of charter compliance, we're quite confident this is charter compliant. As I indicated, this regime has operated at a number of levels. There are far more restrictive regimes. For example, in the province of Manitoba, the regime is far more restrictive, and it has continued to operate successfully, regardless of complaints. We have a system that creates a level playing field, that creates adequate opportunities for public financing as well, and that ensures there is a functioning process. I think it would be very difficult for anybody to argue that their charter rights are in any way significantly compromised under this, or any of the previous legislation brought in regarding political financing.
:
You can take out a loan for whatever amount a bank is willing to give to you. The only limits on the loans are the ones from individuals, which treat them the same as contributions.
The approach under the regime, which as I said parallels the approach under provincial law in Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario, is that if you're going to have loans, they should only be bank loans, as Mr. Martin has argued, because then you're dealing with a different kind of loan. Individual personal loans have an entirely different element from those of a financial institution that is governed by a law that has to do—
An hon. member: What about car dealers?
Hon. Peter Van Loan: That too; it's the same thing. Anybody who's not in the business.... Well, I guess car dealers are sometimes in the business of making loans to....
The idea is to focus just on those financial institutions. They will make their loans with their normal commercial approach and with commercial interest rates, being fully aware.... Remember, they're all federally regulated, so they're all cognizant that they have civic obligations, but they are also fully aware that they're going to have the public spotlight shining on them, in that all these things are fully disclosed. So they'll ensure that there is consistency in approach and consistency in treatment.
As I said, though, the practice has been—certainly for riding candidates, for example—to link the loan to the rebate.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
With me today are Mrs. Diane Davidson, who is the deputy chief electoral officer and senior legal counsel at Elections Canada; Mrs. Janice Vézina, who is the executive director of political financing and corporate services; and Mr. Stéphane Perrault, who is the senior general counsel at Elections Canada.
Thank you again.
[Translation]
As the chairman just said, it was only on Tuesday that we were invited to appear before your committee regarding this bill, which is very important for the political financing system. At that time, we were very busy preparing our appearance before the Senate regarding Bill , which greatly hindered our ability to prepare a detailed and adequate analysis of the bill at hand.
Nevertheless, I think that it is important to share some comments with you today. I did not have the opportunity to prepare type-written notes. However, I would like to speak to you about certain issues that are raised by this bill. First, let me note that this bill responds to a recommendation my predecessor made and that it reflects his suggestions very well. Nonetheless, I must say that we were not consulted about drafting the bill. Therefore, we were informed about it only when it was tabled before the House.
[English]
The bill adds an important piece to the financial framework as regards the inflow of moneys to regulated entities under the Canada Elections Act. While the bill certainly responds to recommendations made by Elections Canada last January, it only touches one aspect of these recommendations, which is the loan aspect.
One observation I have in reviewing the piece of legislation is that loans should not be looked at in isolation from other rules regarding access to money, such as the one regarding stricter contribution limits, the existence or absence of spending limits for various entities governed by the act—mainly leadership contests—the rules governing transfers among various entities, and the availability of tax credits for certain entities during or outside the writ period, as well as other subsidies, such as the allowance offered to parties. The interaction of those evolving rules may have significant implications for candidates, lenders, and parties who have different financial needs and borrowing capabilities.
The proposed restrictions on loans, in conjunction with the recent contribution limit, will require entities to rely more heavily on loans from financial institutions to fund their activities. That's one likely outcome of Bill .
The question arises as to whether financial institutions will be willing to play this role, and if so, to what extent, and how they will adjust their lending practices under the rules set out by Bill . For example, a guarantor may not guarantee a loan for more than $1,100, except for parties and district associations. As parties are the only ones allowed to guarantee substantial loans, this may have an impact on the relationship between parties and candidates or between independent candidates and those supported by political parties. Will candidates or small parties be able to find sufficient financing to support their campaigns?
These are some of the questions that come to mind when we look more comprehensively at the financial framework for financial entities. I must admit that I have no answers at this time to those questions. It will require much more analysis.
[Translation]
Following our study which, I repeat, was only preliminary, I can say that this bill has some problems with implementation. Let me mention a few of them. For instance, the bill states that loans to candidates must be paid back 18 months after the date on which they were made rather than 18 months after the date of the election. In this way, a loan might have to be paid back even before the election is held. In our opinion, this is an operational problem.
Secondly, although the bill allows candidates to borrow from financial institutions, a candidate cannot use more than $1,100 worth of his personal resources or goods, for example his house, as collateral. We want to know whether a candidate can be exempted from these restrictions on loans or collateral, without violating the spirit of the bill.
A third example, which has more to do with the operations of Elections Canada, would be a situation in which a candidate tells us that the bank, following its usual accounting practice, considers a loan to be unrecoverable or written off. According to this bill, the Chief Electoral Officer must determine whether the loan has really been written off following the usual practice of the financial institution. However, nothing in the bill provides that the Chief Electoral Officer should have access to the documents of the financial institutions and that he will be able to verify their practices in such cases.
If a loan is written off, the riding association becomes responsible for the debt as if it had put up collateral. As we interpret the bill, this is more or less an automatic process triggered by writing off the debt. If this occurs, the association might not have agreed to collaterize the loan. Perhaps this is the intention of the bill, but I must draw it to your attention. Of course, these are only examples. A closer study would probably come up with more such examples.
[English]
In conclusion, Mr. Chair, I was--
Thank you, Mr. Mayrand, and thanks to your colleagues.
I have just a couple of quick questions to start with.
Is it your opinion that the current Canada Elections Act provides for the conversion of loans into contributions after 18 months, under the current terminology? Has there been some doubt expressed about its not being as explicit as this is? Is that what we're trying to accomplish here, or do you see it as accomplishing that? My understanding was that these would always be converted into contributions after 18 months, under the current language. I understand it's perhaps more explicit now, but I wonder whether that understanding is correct.
I'm interested in the exceptions under proposed subsection 405.7(2). It is the exemptions to the provisions for deeming loans to be contributions. Just to make it easier, it lists a number of situations, including an unpaid amount that is subject to a legal agreement to pay. Other exemptions are being subject to legal proceedings, subject to a dispute. I'm not sure what an unpaid amount that is subject to a legal agreement to pay means. Maybe Ms. Davidson can give me that explanation. It sounds to me as though it means an agreement to extend the obligation to pay to a later date. If that is so, it's confusing to me, because it seems to subvert the intention of having it converted within 18 months.
The last question is much more general. Really I think you touched on it in your remarks. The specific concern is that the low amounts of contribution in Bill , now $1,100 per individual, combined with the restrictions on who can provide loans—financial institutions—and therefore the obligations they will extract from the person they are lending to, guarantees or some sort of collateral, may create an unrealistic barrier to entry for people entering, say, a national leadership race in a party or even a nomination, and they may not have a political association to fall back on should they default. Up front, therefore, the financial institution may be very severely inhibited from extending them a loan.
:
Mr. Mayrand, thank you for coming and for sending us your documents in answer to the specific questions we put to you during your last appearance.
Moreover, Mr. Guimond, Mr. Mayrand sent us a list of all the returning officers, both new and old.
We also have a profile of the employees, in answer to the questions that I had put. We also received that. I thank your team for this. I note that you are endeavouring to satisfy the requests made by the members of this committee. Thus, I would like to request a second thing from you today.
You said that your study of this bill was limited. You did not see it before it was tabled and you were busy working on another Senate bill. Could you continue your study of this bill? You will not have to come back with your team, but at least, you could tell us about it so as to answer some of our more specific questions. I think that it would be of great help to us. We greatly appreciate your offer of sending us experts to help with our clause-by-clause study of the bill. I think that in the meantime, a closer study of the bill would be of great help to us in adopting the right regulations.
More specifically, I must say that my colleagues Mr. Owen and Ms. Redman raised questions regarding access to loans for certain persons who want to stand for nomination. We are concerned about independent candidates or those who cannot easily get loans from financial institutions through the usual channels in their private lives. We, as women, are very aware of this. I know many women entrepreneurs who have had to deal with this problem during their lives. We are not talking about $100,000 loans, but about small loans for launching small businesses. Some women have never succeeded in getting a loan from a bank. Can you imagine what happens to women who have never stood as candidates and who must apply for a loan from a financial institution that would amount to, let us say, $15,000. It will not be as easy as some male colleagues in this room might think.
I would like you to pay attention to this. The bill intends to give equal opportunities to all those who want to stand as candidates, so that anyone can succeed in doing so, regardless of their financial means. The financial institutions must also understand this, or else, we will not meet the objectives of this bill.
:
Thank you Mr. Chairman, I would like to make three comments.
First of all, I was surprised when you candidly admitted earlier that no one had asked for advice from either you or your staff on the drafting of the bill. In my view, that must not occur very often. And yet, I think that that is normal procedure.
My two other comments do not deal with Bill C-54. If I were chairman, I would not accept them. The interpreters will need some time to catch up to me.
First, the Advisory Committee of parties has not met since last October. In the letter you sent me, you promised that the committee would meet by the end of June. We hope that you made that promise with your hand on your heart, and that there will be a meeting.
Second, with regard to the list of pieces of identification presented in polling stations, we will study it in committee. Some people showed up with a self-addressed copy of Chatelaine magazine. A Hunting and Fishing magazine or membership card in a fishing club is not sufficient identification. We should stick to more substantial proof of ID. The grocery list you sent us is not very serious.
My two last comments were not relevant to the matter at hand, Mr. Chairman.
:
Sure. Thank you, Chair.
Just one quick comment, perhaps, and a question. The comment, just to underscore what Monsieur Godin was saying in response to Mr. Guimond with respect to your not being consulted, I would suggest that the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer certainly was consulted extensively, because your predecessor had written a report in January 2007, which Madame Robillard has requested.
The minister and the government took a lot of advice from that report into construction of this bill, so there was extensive consultation with your office, and I'd just like that to be on the record.
I want to bring to your attention a situation my colleague had raised in his interventions with the minister. The minister wasn't quite sure how to deal with it, so I'd ask your opinion. A situation that could occur with this right now is if you guarantee or put your name down as a guarantor on a bank loan, your limit would be $1,100 because it would be viewed with the same limits as a contribution.
Let's hypothetically assume a situation occurred where I guaranteed $1,100 for a loan for another candidate, for Joe, my good friend Joe, because Joe is, of course, penniless. Then his riding association goes out and does a lot of fundraising. They raise a lot of funds and they pay off the loan. In other words, my guarantee of $1,100 has been expunged because the loan has been paid off.
Would I then be prevented from contributing another $1,100 to either my campaign or someone else's campaign in the same year?
:
Could I just ask for some order?
I know we're having a bit of a conversation, and it's not that I'm lonely up here, but I would like folks to talk to the chair, partly because then it can get on the record with the very good comments I can hear out of one ear, but barely.
That's all fine. Thank you very much. I understand your questions are done. I have no one else on my list, so I'm going to take the opportunity to ask a follow-up question.
On this issue of the contributions being paid back and whether or not the person can then use that to donate to a different candidate or perhaps the same candidate in the year, I appreciate that you're going to get back to us on your interpretation, but I wouldn't mind if you could also look at the income tax ramifications of that and the ability to write off. I wouldn't want to see somebody get a loan paid back but still ultimately have a write-off on their income tax. Perhaps you could clarify that as well.
Having no more names on the list, we will dismiss our witnesses with the understanding that you will provide your further research to the committee.
I want to express yet again the committee's appreciation for the hard work you've done. All members, you should know, received their briefing notes yesterday as well. I was watching a terrible hockey game last night that did not come out the way I wanted it, so I found my reading material to be quite enlightening and a lot of fun. All members here have been under the gun to get this legislation up and prepare themselves for this meeting today. I appreciate all members doing that, and in particular the witnesses today.
I would just offer that if we could possibly have your analysis in the hands of our clerk, would next Wednesday be difficult? That would allow the committee to have your report for their Thursday meeting.