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37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Wednesday, May 28, 2003

1545

The Chair (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.))

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga Centre, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik (Brandon—Souris, PC)

1550

The Chair

Mr. Ted White (North Vancouver, Canadian Alliance)

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

The Chair

Mr. Lorne Nystrom (Regina—Qu'Appelle, NDP)

The Chair

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

The Chair

Mr. Lynn Myers (Waterloo—Wellington, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Lynn Myers

The Chair

Mr. Lynn Myers

The Chair

Mr. Lynn Myers

The Chair

Mr. Adam Giambrone (President, New Democratic Party)

1555

1600

The Chair

Mr. Bruck Easton (National President, Progressive Conservative Party of Canada)

1605

1610

The Chair

Mr. Paul Lepsoe (Legal Counsel, Progressive Conservative Party of Canada)

1615

The Chair

Mr. Paul Lepsoe

The Chair

Mr. Paul Lepsoe

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

Mr. Adam Giambrone

1620

Mr. Ted White

Mr. Bruck Easton

The Chair

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

Mr. Bruck Easton

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

Mr. Bruck Easton

The Chair

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

1625

Mr. Adam Giambrone

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

The Chair

Mr. Bruck Easton

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

Mr. Bruck Easton

The Chair

Mr. Bruck Easton

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

The Chair

Mr. Michel Guimond (Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île-d'Orléans, BQ)

Mr. Bruck Easton

1630

Mr. Adam Giambrone

Mr. Michel Guimond

Mr. Bruck Easton

Mr. Adam Giambrone

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada (Brossard—La Prairie, Lib.)

Mr. Adam Giambrone

Mr. Jacques Saada

1635

Mr. Adam Giambrone

Mr. Jacques Saada

Mr. Adam Giambrone

Mr. Jacques Saada

Mr. Adam Giambrone

Mr. Jacques Saada

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

The Chair

Mr. Bruck Easton

Mr. Jacques Saada

Mr. Paul Lepsoe

Mr. Jacques Saada

Mr. Paul Lepsoe

Mr. Jacques Saada

Mr. Bruck Easton

1640

The Chair

Mr. Chris Watson (Federal Secretary, New Democratic Party)

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Bruck Easton

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Bruck Easton

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Adam Giambrone

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Adam Giambrone

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Bruck Easton

1645

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Adam Giambrone

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Adam Giambrone

The Chair

Ms. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West—Nepean, Lib.)

Mr. Paul Lepsoe

Mr. Bruck Easton

Ms. Marlene Catterall

Mr. Bruck Easton

Ms. Marlene Catterall

1650

Mr. Paul Lepsoe

Ms. Marlene Catterall

Mr. Paul Lepsoe

Ms. Marlene Catterall

Mr. Paul Lepsoe

The Chair

Mr. Adam Giambrone

The Chair

Mr. Lorne Nystrom

Mr. Bruck Easton

Mr. Lorne Nystrom

Mr. Bruck Easton

Mr. Lorne Nystrom

1655

Mr. Chris Watson

Mr. Bruck Easton

Mr. Lorne Nystrom

Mr. Adam Giambrone

Mr. Bruck Easton

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

Mr. Bruck Easton

1700

Mr. Ted White

Mr. Bruck Easton

Mr. Ted White

Mr. Bruck Easton

Mr. Ted White

Mr. Bruck Easton

Mr. Paul Lepsoe

The Chair

Mr. Lynn Myers

Mr. Bruck Easton

Mr. Adam Giambrone

1705

Mr. Lynn Myers

Mr. Adam Giambrone

Mr. Lynn Myers

The Chair

Mr. Joe Jordan (Leeds—Grenville, Lib.)

Mr. Paul Lepsoe

Mr. Joe Jordan

Mr. Bruck Easton

Mr. Joe Jordan

1710

Mr. Paul Lepsoe

Mr. Joe Jordan

Mr. Paul Lepsoe

Mr. Adam Giambrone

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Adam Giambrone

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Adam Giambrone

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Adam Giambrone

1715

Mr. Rick Borotsik

The Chair

Mr. Chris Watson

The Chair

1745

Mr. Ted White

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan (Halifax West, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

1750

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Ted White

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Lorne Nystrom

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

1755

Mr. Lorne Nystrom

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Lorne Nystrom

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Lorne Nystrom

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

Ms. Michèle René de Cotret (Senior Privy Council Officer/Counsel, Legislation and House Planning/Counsel, Privy Council Office)

M. Jacques Saada

Ms. Michèle René de Cotret

M. Jacques Saada

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Jacques Saada

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Ms. Marlene Catterall

Mr. Geoff Regan

1800

Mr. Lorne Nystrom

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Ted White

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Ted White

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Ted White

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

The Chair

Mr. Lorne Nystrom

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

1805

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Lorne Nystrom

The Chair

Mr. Lorne Nystrom

The Chair

Mr. Lorne Nystrom

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Ted White

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

1810

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Joe Jordan

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Jacques Saada

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

Mr. Geoff Regan

1815

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

1820

Mr. Rick Borotsik

The Chair

Mr. Michel Guimond

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Michel Guimond

Ms. Michèle René de Cotret

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

1825

Mr. Jacques Saada

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

The Chair

Mr. Joe Jordan

Mr. Ted White

Mr. Joe Jordan

Mr. Ted White

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Ted White

The Chair

Mr. Lorne Nystrom

1830

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

Mr. Lorne Nystrom

Mr. Jacques Saada

The Chair

Mr. Michel Guimond

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

The Chair

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Lorne Nystrom

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

The Chair

1835

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

1840

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

1845

Mr. Rick Borotsik

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

Mr. Rick Borotsik

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Michel Guimond

1850

The Chair

Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik, Lib.)

Mr. Michel Guimond

Mr. Guy St-Julien

The Chair

Mr. Guy St-Julien

Mr. Michel Guimond

The Chair

Mr. Michel Guimond

The Chair

Mr. Michel Guimond

The Chair

1855

Mr. Jacques Saada

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

Mr. Michel Guimond

Mr. Jacques Saada

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Jacques Saada

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Michel Guimond

Ms. Michèle René de Cotret

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

Mr. Michel Guimond

The Chair

Mr. Michel Guimond

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

Mr. Michel Guimond

1900

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Michel Guimond

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

The Chair

Mr. Michel Guimond

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

Mr. Michel Guimond

1905

The Chair

Mr. Michel Guimond

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Lorne Nystrom

1910

The Chair

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

Ms. Michèle René de Cotret

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

Ms. Michèle René de Cotret

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

Mr. Stéphane Perrault (Senior Counsel, Privy Council Office)

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

The Chair

Ms. Marlene Catterall

1915

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Joe Jordan

The Chair

M. Jacques Saada

The Chair

Mr. Stéphane Perrault

1920

The Chair

Mr. Stéphane Perrault

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Stéphane Perrault

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Stéphane Perrault

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Rick Borotsik

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

1925

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Lorne Nystrom

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

The Chair

Mr. Joe Jordan

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan

1930

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

NUMBER 045

2nd SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Wednesday, May 28, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¹ (1545)

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.)): Colleagues, perhaps we could begin.

The order of the day is Bill C-24, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act (political financing).

Our witnesses are here. I want to explain to you where we are, and I'm sure there will be comment on it. We invited all 13 registered federal parties to appear before us, and the vast majority did. They sent people, sometimes their leader, sometimes their president, sometimes their secretary, a variety of witnesses. We had a very full meeting, which I think was very well received by all of the parties. Later there was discussion that given the fact that there are five of those parties in the House of Commons at present, it might be appropriate to hear from them again, if they so wished. We wrote to each of the five parties and requested written submissions. We received a written submission from the Canadian Alliance. They felt their previous witnesses had presented their case very well. We did not receive written submissions from the other parties.

There was then discussion that we should invite the presidents of the parties, that is to say, the elected heads of the parties. It was agreed we should do that. They were all invited. The Canadian Alliance--I'm sure Ted White will correct me if I'm wrong--repeated that their representation had been okay, and their president, if he came, would simply be repeating what was said. The Bloc Québécois president, Gilles Duceppe, their leader, picked, as I understand it, the witnesses they had here before. They said they did not want to appear. The NDP and the PCs took up our invitation, and we have witnesses from those parties here. The president of the Liberal party, Stephen LeDrew, contacted the clerk and me and the government vice-chair by phone and said he could not attend today--he's in court, I understand--and expressed the wish to come tomorrow.

I would like Carolyn Parrish, because she's more up on this, to explain to us exactly what Stephen LeDrew said. Then I would like some discussion about this matter before we proceed--witnesses, please excuse us for taking this time.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga Centre, Lib.): I'd like to preface my remarks with a strong recommendation that we consider having Mr. LeDrew come tomorrow, as we've all had difficulties getting people here on very short notice. He was in court yesterday afternoon and this morning, and is again in court tomorrow morning, but would very much like to come. I told him that we were starting clause-by-clause, and he had no problem with that. He was very clear that he would like to get his position on the record. He understands that if we've completed clauses, we can't go back without unanimous consent to reopen them. If you agree to have him here tomorrow, we will ask him at the beginning of his testimony if he again agrees that these are the conditions under which he's here. He tried very hard, but he just couldn't rearrange it. He very much would like to come tomorrow, and he would be here promptly after question period.

The Chair: Colleagues, I would point out to you that tomorrow is the last day of the parliamentary week, because of the PC convention. Tomorrow afternoon has particular implications for the PC members who are here, but quite frankly, it also does in organizing a full committee, because it is essentially a Friday.

Rick Borotsik.

Mr. Rick Borotsik (Brandon—Souris, PC): Mr. Chairman, I would suggest that we give every opportunity to Mr. LeDrew to appear before this committee and make his opinions known. I can't be hypocritical and suggest that we should have that right to put our position forward as a party and not have the Liberal party and Mr. LeDrew put their position forward. I think it's only fair, it's only right. I am still disappointed in the amount of lead time we had, from 6:30 last night until today. I will congratulate the two representatives from my party for dropping all their responsibilities at home and making it here. However, I would like to also say, because it's tomorrow, as you've already indicated, I will not be able to attend the meeting. I'm extremely disappointed. I also didn't know that we had the choice of today or tomorrow.

¹ (1550)

The Chair: Actually, we didn't.

Ted White.

Mr. Ted White (North Vancouver, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I was desperately trying to look up clause 40 here to see if there was an amendment, because the media are abuzz out there with some sort of deal that was reached this morning, apparently, in the Liberal caucus to raise the subsidy from taxpayers from $1.50 to $2. I just wonder if that has any relationship to what is going on here?

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: No, absolutely none.

The Chair: I know nothing of that, but it may be so. It has nothing to do with what Carolyn and I are discussing here.

Excuse me. Please continue.

Mr. Ted White: I'm interested to have Mr. LeDrew here, obviously, for reasons I've expressed in past meetings, but if there is any truth to this rumour, I would obviously want to question him about whether it's still as dumb as a bag full of hammers.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Lorne Nystrom.

Mr. Lorne Nystrom (Regina—Qu'Appelle, NDP): I have no comment on the bag full of hammers, but I certainly agree that Mr. LeDrew should come, all the party presidents should have equal opportunity, and I understand he's busy today.

The Chair: I'd like to ask Carolyn this, because he left voice-mails for me, so we never actually spoke. There is no chance of his coming in the morning? Our regular meeting on our schedule is 11 o'clock tomorrow morning.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: No, he's in court tomorrow morning, finishing the case he's in court with today.

The Chair: My understanding is that if we agree that Stephen LeDrew comes here tomorrow afternoon, we will proceed, as planned, following these hearings, with the clause-by-clause. I don't think we'll get there anyway, but we will not close off on this bill before he appears. We will proceed in good faith through the clauses. My understanding from the media is that Mr. LeDrew's main concerns are financial items that involve an increase in expenditure, rather than a decrease. If that is so and there were amendments, I would simply rule them out of order here, because they can only be dealt with at report stage in the House of Commons. That I think will simplify our consideration clause by clause.

Lynn Myers.

Mr. Lynn Myers (Waterloo—Wellington, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, I just want to be clear. We are then proceeding with the 11 o'clock meeting tomorrow morning?

The Chair: Yes, we are.

Mr. Lynn Myers: Clause-by-clause?

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Lynn Myers: And are we doing clause-by-clause after Mr. LeDrew is done?

The Chair: No. We would hear Mr. LeDrew, and given the circumstances I've discussed, we would end that meeting there. We would continue clause-by-clause next week.

Mr. Lynn Myers: Thank you.

The Chair: That's what we will be doing, then, and we will so advise Mr. LeDrew at the earliest possible opportunity.

I want to thank the witnesses, because it was short notice. Both of these parties have been well represented here before, I have to say, but we have the president of the New Democratic Party, Adam Giambrone, and Bruck Easton, who is the national president of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, accompanied, I notice, by Paul Lepsoe, who has appeared here before.

If it's okay with you, I will proceed according to the order we have you on the agenda. If you have a presentation to make, Adam, I will start with you, and then I'll go to Bruck.

Mr. Adam Giambrone (President, New Democratic Party): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

The NDP has already made a presentation to this committee, and essentially, our feelings from that presentation remain unchanged. We are in favour of this legislation. We've got some issues, and I want to talk briefly about some of those today. We've some of this legislation in place in Quebec already, it's in play in Manitoba right now. We feel very confident that this legislation is well overdue and is really quite an important shift in how politics would be run in Canada.

I think it's important to note that we have to remain on track here. I know there are a number of amendments coming forward, some of which we feel might actually derail the intention of the original draft legislation. I also want to note that this legislation is supported by our party, our caucus, our leader, the trade union movement, and me as the national president. So when we speak, we speak as a unified voice. I understand that may not be the case in every party. We're a little concerned about some of the agendas for the second round of presentations. You've just spoken about the Liberal Party president. I was able to be here, and that's great. We're just wondering if dissensions in other parties would ever be recognized, if there are any NDP dissenters, whether they would come before the committee as well.

We feel Canadians have lost some faith in how their government's run, whether there's undue influence from corporations and unions. This is why the government has brought forward this legislation. The whole point about Canadian politics is that we're living in a democracy, and it needs to be driven by individuals. I know there have been comments about whether corporations or unions should have their say in the political process. We feel there are means to do that other than through funding. Certainly, these entities have a right to be involved in appearing before committees, stating their views before Parliament, but when it comes to funding, it really needs to be the purview of individuals.

There are a couple of things I want to highlight. First I want to talk a little bit about the $1,000 exemption currently being proposed. This would allow a corporation or a national union to make a $1,000 one-time contribution per year to a political party. Our feeling is that this is really a very small amount and should be struck from the legislation. We have a number of questions in regard to this, whether, for example, a company like Tim Horton's, which has a number of independently owned franchises across the country, would be able to make a $1,000 donation for each franchise. Our question also remains whether, if it is going to pass--and we feel it should be struck from the legislation--union locals from across the country should be included in that designation as well. If you have the Canadian Auto Workers, they have their national union, they're also represented by many locals across the country, and there's the matter of whether they would be able to give $1,000.

There were some concerns as well about whether this would affect how parties are run. I am responsible for making sure we have an office, our phones, our staff, for maintaining our membership lists, and the question is whether, under this legislation, parties would have difficulty running their operations. Well, you run some of the numbers, and you find anywhere from $1.6 million, based on the last election results, for the NDP up to, I believe, $7.8 million for the Liberals. We feel, if we're concerned about the viability of political parties under this legislation, the action here is not to allow corporate donations, not to allow trade union donations, but rather to look at raising the ceiling on the $1.50. We feel quite comfortable with that level at this point, but if there were concerns coming out of other parties and we were looking to address them, the way to move forward on this would be to look at that. We could look to examples in Europe, where there are quite substantially higher donation levels.

¹ (1555)

When we look at this legislation, it's about the average Canadian being involved in the political process. We think the $10,000 limit being proposed under the legislation isn't really speaking to the average Canadian across the country who might want to participate in the political process, make a contribution to a political party. There are very few Canadians who would be able to write a $10,000 cheque. Our feeling, when we originally presented, was that this needed to be down at $3,000. The Canadian Labour Congress has proposed $5,000. Our feeling is that it needs to be kept at a much lower level.

There are two other points that I do just want to raise before I conclude, one of them having to do with trust funds. Right now a number of members have trust funds they will use to fund future elections. I think, if we are going to move forward in the spirit of this legislation, to eliminate corporate and union funding--and I continue to repeat that, because I believe the president of the Liberal Party has continued to try to redirect the focus of this legislation--we really do need to have limits and some regulations in place for the use of those trust funds. Maybe it's a situation where trust funds need to be able to give $1,000 a year, if that provision for corporate and union donations remains in the legislation.

Finally, we also have to look at our third-party funding. Within the last couple of years the Alberta court has struck down part of the regulations on third-party funding and advertising during elections. I realize the federal government is currently appealing that court decision, but I think it's very important that we take some steps in this legislation to address that. Without addressing third-party donations, a lot of the provisions in this bill will become somewhat meaningless. We've all seen examples in the United States of how this works. So we're looking for this committee to consider some changes to take into consideration third-party funding.

We're very happy with the original intention of this legislation. I certainly have some contributions on changes we would like and brought forward before now. We really feel it's a chance for Canadians to be involved more thoroughly in the political process. Political parties are going to have to reach out, asking for more $100 donations, $500 donations. It's going to be more work, there's no question about that, for all of us involved. It's quite easy to accept a $1,000 cheque from a union or a corporation, rather than going out to get ten $100 contributions from supporters, but this is something I think is going to benefit Canadian politics in general.

Finally, it restores confidence in our system. I think the Prime Minister, when he began introducing this legislation, was doing it with a sense that across Canada there's a lot of pessimism, a lot of cynicism in regard to political parties, how they're funded, who controls them, and this legislation is a good step in the direction of reducing some of that cynicism, if we can keep it on track and keep it to its original intention.

Thank you very much.

º (1600)

The Chair: Thank you very much indeed.

Bruck.

Mr. Bruck Easton (National President, Progressive Conservative Party of Canada): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm pleased to be here, albeit rather quickly. I'm glad it was a travel day for me, because I couldn't have been here yesterday and I couldn't have been here tomorrow. I got the call from Rick Borotsik last night. My wife's not too happy, because she's driving with my kids up to the convention today on the 401.

I am glad to hear the committee is going to extend an invitation to my colleague Stephen LeDrew. I spoke with Stephen, and I know he had a prior commitment and he wasn't able to be here, but it was extremely short notice for all of us, and we're here because it's clearly very important legislation for our party.

I have a number of comments to make on this bill. In reviewing the comments of the witnesses who were here--I believe it was April 30--I was struck by the comments from the Canadian Alliance representatives, both of whom I noted were from the Atlantic region. They were very concerned about the effect on volunteers, and I don't think you have to be a rocket scientist to know that's not the strongest region in the country for the Alliance. Quite frankly, I'm very concerned about the challenges this bill imposes on areas where parties are weak.

Let me offer some perspective to you. I know all of you have won your seats. I've run four times and have not won a seat, so I have some perspective on this. I have been a riding president for eight years. I was a regional council chair for 20 or 30 ridings in southwestern Ontario for three years. I've been the treasurer of our party and the president of our party.

Our party has a unique history, as you know. Twenty-five years ago, when I joined, we were in opposition, with 75 to 100 seats. We then went to having the largest majority in the history of this country. We then were reduced to two seats, losing party status. Now we're pleased to see we've fought our way back into fourth place in the last little while. We have certainly gone through the gamut; we know what it's like to be very strong and we know what it's like to be very weak. I think it's very important to keep those weak areas alive. Sometimes you're just glad to have a meeting once a month with four or five volunteers and keep the candle alive. But things change in politics, we all know that, and the place where you're weak, maybe you'll be strong. In Perth—Middlesex, just two weeks ago, the NDP, which for the last two elections, in 1997 and 2000, failed to get their deposit back, were at 6% or 7%, got 15% or 16%, and it had an effect. I'm sure they're glad they were able to keep the flame alive during some difficult years.

So I think it's very important that this committee take a look at how you're affecting parties in their weak regions. The regulatory burden of this act, particularly for the weak areas, though I'm sure it's not going to be a problem for all you members of Parliament, as you have staff to assist you, offices, and all the rest of it, is going to be extremely high. I note there's a stipend for auditors to produce their report. There is no stipend to be a financial agent, and I think in weak areas it's going to be tough to get people to be financial agents The burdens are high, and I think that's something we should consider.

The second thing we need to consider is thresholds. All the parties have riding associations that, I would suggest, will not have $7,500 in assets, will not raise or spend $7,500 in a year. Do they really need to file all those forms? I looked through the regulations that are there, and there is going to be trouble. All kinds of associations from all the parties are going to find they're getting notices from the Chief Electoral Officer that they're deregistered because they haven't filed some form. We have trouble in our party getting them to file their constitutions, their financial statements, the names of their officers, all that sort of stuff. It's going to be very tough, and it's going to put a regulatory burden on the parties themselves to chase after the riding associations and the financial agents to get it done. I know all of you are in a strong position right now, but the shoe may be on the other foot 10 years from now, and you're going to find it very burdensome.

º (1605)

In the last election it was our intention to field 301 candidates in 301 ridings. I think we hit 292 or 294. The election came on rather quickly, faster than perhaps was anticipated, and there was a rush to get candidates in place. We had 301 candidates, but we didn't get all the forms filed, the Ts crossed, the Is dotted, and 6 or 7 of them were not candidates. As a result, the electors in those particular ridings were disenfranchised, in my view. They wanted to support our party. I'm sure that happened in other parties as well, because the regulatory burden was too high. That's a significant concern.

The third item, from a regulatory perspective, I'm very concerned about is the introduction to the bill, which is a nightmare. On January 1, 2004, 301 riding associations for all the parties will have to file their initial material, and then there's a financial report due five months thereafter. If I read the papers correctly, I can expect an election in the spring of 2004. I'm going to have nominations going on in most of those ridings. Each one of those nominations, whether it's an uncontested nomination or not, is going to again have to file forms--301 riding associations times however many candidates are running times however many parties. Then we go into the election campaign. We now have a new regime, where we have the existing chief financial agent for the candidate during the period of the writ. If we have the election in the spring of 2004, in June 2004 we hit redistribution, and we have more new ridings. There is lag time of four or five months on reports for each of these. Whoever agrees to be a financial agent in 2004 should have his head read, because he's going to be filing forms all year long for all sorts of stuff, and it won't be clear. This is a very real problem, particularly with a new system no one understands. Again, the burden on party headquarters trying to get them to understand and to file is going to be extreme.

On the issue that has got everybody's attention, the corporate ban, union ban, I'm not at all sure. I wonder about the constitutionality of putting such limits. This particular legal entity, as I understand the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, has the right to expression, but is not allowed to make a donation of greater than $1,000, is not allowed to make an equal donation. I don't understand why there would be a difference between entities, between individuals and corporations. We don't have a problem in our party with having some kind of limit, but we do think the limit should be the same. We'd suggest $10,000 across the board.

We are very concerned that if you put a limit in place, currently $1,000, you are dreaming in Technicolour if you think you're going to stop corporate money flowing into the electoral process. I don't know how many of you know that in 1907 in the United States corporate donations to political parties weres banned. We all know what effect that has had. Quite frankly, this is not going to go away. You have to regulate it, and if you try to just put it into oblivion, it is not going to happen, it's going to come up in some other way. My friend has mentioned the Alberta court decision on third-party spending. In the United States they have political action committees. I think you're asking for an enormous problem there, and I would strongly urge the committee to put in a reasonable limit, not what is, in effect, an outright prohibition.

The Prime Minister, in his remarks on the bill, said he was interested in transparency, openness, and accountability. What, in my judgment, he left out, which is an absolutely key principle, is fairness. Where the heck is the fairness in the government getting four times the amount of money our party gets? I don't see the fairness in that. I look at other countries. In the United States, if you hit the threshold, the 5%, you get the same amount of money. Why is it that the government gets substantially more? As Irving Gerstein referred to it, this makes it the Incumbents Relief Act. Quite frankly, it is not fair. From our point of view, this is not electoral finance reform, this is a bill designed to assist the government, and we have very real problems with it. Stephen LeDrew has apparently said he can't run a national party on $8 million. What position does that put me in trying to run a national party on $2.3 million? Are we playing on the same playing field or not?

º (1610)

I'm also quite concerned with what I understood from Mr. Boudria when he was here earlier. He intends to exempt funds that are already in the kitty. Well, I can tell you, my kitty's empty. My kitty has been emptied over the last 10 years of everything that's in it just trying to stay alive. I suspect there are other people whose kitty is just fine, and I don't think that is fairness. I challenge the committee on the issue of fairness.

I think the real issue here is transparency. I don't see why, if somebody gives the money in January, we have to wait till the following June for the Chief Electoral Officer to publish the report. I think we could certainly do this a lot quicker with the Internet and have it out quarterly, that kind of thing. I think transparency is the real check, maybe with some reasonable limit on corporate donations, so that people can see who's giving money to whom and can come and make their judgments.

Private trust funds, as I understand it, are not covered by this bill. That goes to my earlier point on fairness.

One last point on this is the way corporate donations work. My understanding is that goods and services in kind are still caught. I think you're going to find that a lot of corporations, with a $1,000 limit, are going to be falling offside almost unintentionally, or unions. How much is that union hall worth when they hold the party? I've gone to a couple of victory parties to congratulate the victor in union halls. They're always in union halls. How much was the rental there? Whether it's throwing pizzas out to help with the volunteers or what have you, I think a lot of corporations are going to easily fall over that line just with donations in kind.

I'd urge you to reconsider the issue of the amount and to consider very carefully the issue of fairness.

Mr. Lepsoe may have some comments. Those are my comments. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Thank you, Bruck.

Paul, relatively briefly, if you would.

Mr. Paul Lepsoe (Legal Counsel, Progressive Conservative Party of Canada): The last time I was here I spoke about the great technical complexity of this bill. I see there's been a brick of amendments tabled yesterday. I'm still trying to thumb through them. I see that perhaps some of the concerns I raised may be addressed by at least some of the members' amendments, which I commend to you.

I was very concerned, as Bruck is, about the technical burden we're placing on small riding associations or very modest nomination contestants.

I wonder if I might conclude, Mr. Chairman, by asking my friend in the NDP for a comment, because we're in similar situations

º (1615)

The Chair: No, you can't. He has no reason to reply. I would sooner you didn't. You have colleagues who can do that. Have you anything else to say?

Mr. Paul Lepsoe: I'll put my question out there and someone can answer it.

The Chair: Put it out there, then, he won't answer it, and then your colleague can use it in his time. What you're doing is stealing time from your member.

Mr. Paul Lepsoe: As Mr. Easton said, the governing party is going to get about $8 million a year, but the NDP and we are both trying to run national parties coast to coast to coast in two languages, and we're being told to do it on $2 million a year under this bill, the NDP on about $1.5 million. I don't understand why you'd be in favour of that.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

I think you know, because you've been following it, the way we proceed. We move through the parties on each side of the committee, and each exchange is about five minutes.

I'm going to start with Ted White.

Mr. Ted White: Thank you.

Adam, I'm going to ask you a question about the public funding, but I'd first like to mention something in connection with the third-party advertising, which you brought up at the end of your presentation. We had a witness here from Quebec, from the equivalent of the Federation of Labour, who was arguing in favour of the third-party advertising, because they struck a problem with the Quebec election, where somebody was putting out what they felt was incorrect information about their union and they wanted to be able to place advertisements to counter it. So I would urge you to think carefully about your opposition to that. You may find yourself on the same side as us.

I'd like you to specifically defend the provision in this bill that provides public money to run political parties. Almost every other organization in our society, companies, non-profits, whatever they are, have to deliver some sort of service or sell some sort of product, persuade people to provide them with money. It seems to me that you're asking for taxpayers to have money removed from their pockets without their permission to be given for political parties to run their day-to-day activities. I think that's wrong, and I'd like you to justify it.

Mr. Adam Giambrone: We currently live in a democracy that is based on the British Parliamentary system, has political parties. What this legislation does, from our perspective, is give the right of funding back to the Canadian population. In fact, it works quite well, to answer the question of my colleague in a roundabout way, but our feeling is that we give back to the Canadian people the right to determine where this funding is going. If 40% of Canadians support the New Democratic Party in an election, the New Democratic Party will receive 40% of the funds. If 8% support the NDP, the NDP will receive 8% of the funds. We feel comfortable that this gives the check and balance back to the people. If these parties are not supported by the population, they won't receive any funds.

We do have some concern with minimum floors for funding for some parties not perhaps currently represented in the House of Commons that don't meet a minimum and wouldn't receive a minimum floor. There is some recognition in having a national office. You can only go so small. You have basic costs, phones have to be put in. We may want to consider some minimum funding for political parties. But if I were given a choice between having corporations and unions fund a political party and using what is a relatively small amount of taxpayers' dollars, I believe Canadians would rather see a more transparent system where tax dollars were accounted for. That's what we've talked about in respect of accounting at the riding level as well.

º (1620)

Mr. Ted White: I think you would find, if you went out and did a poll of Canadians, they're almost universally opposed to the idea that taxpayers' money should be used to run political parties. Your party, like my party, has been very successful raising money from individuals. We feel that's the way it should be done. I thank you for your answer anyway.

I'll move on now to Mr. Easton. I and my party agree with you about the corporate funding issue. We believe corporate money will find other avenues and there's a huge risk here of having all sorts of underground activity go on, ways around the rules, certainly problems during election campaigns, with the exact example you gave of providing pizzas to people who are volunteers and doing work in the riding. I know the pizza maker in my riding would have exceeded that last time quite easily.

You talked a fair amount about the complex reporting requirements in this act. The minister takes the position that because this is basically the same legislation as in Ontario, that has been in place since the late 1970s, and nobody has any problem with it there, there's no problem applying it federally. Can you make any observations about that? How come it'll be a problem federally if it works perfectly well at the provincial level in Ontario?

Mr. Bruck Easton: It's an awfully big country, and I've got areas where I'm not very strong. In Saskatchewan an awful lot of provincial MLAs went off to jail, and I have a real problem with strength in that province. I'm not hiding anything from anybody, everyone knows that. That kind of thing happens. There are only three parties in Ontario, it's a much more compact area. I find it long to drive across, but it's nothing--I drove out west to Edmonton, that was really long.

The Chair: Carolyn Parrish.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Thank you.

I want to really make sure I'm clear on your objections. Mr. Giambrone, you have said clearly you like the legislation. Mr. Easton, you've got some objections, but if some of those matters were cleared up, would you have any serious objection to the whole concept?

Mr. Bruck Easton: I don't have a problem with limiting corporate donations to a reasonable number, I think it should be the same number across the board. I don't have a philosophical objection, the way the Alliance does, that there shouldn't be any federal moneys coming to the political parties. I think we have that in a variety of ways in the system already. I don't want to have corporate donations effectively shut out.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: So you're concerned about the share of the donations and the fact that they seem to be balanced so they'll go to the party in power. I would maintain that's not much different from back in 1993, when you probably got the lion's share, as the Tory party, of corporate donations and donations generally. People were betting you were going to be powerful and win again.

Let me just play this out for a second, though. What you're more concerned about also is the regulatory burden and the implementation date. I'm sitting here, thinking, we're going to have the implementation, then I'm going to be in a riding split, I'm going to have all the bookwork that goes with splitting up into two ridings in the middle of this. I'm not suggesting this is an amendment that I'd put in, but if it were considered to delay the implementation till after the riding boundaries were all reshuffled, would that be, in your opinion, easier?

Mr. Bruck Easton: One thing that would be a significant improvement to the bill is to put it off to 2005, just because there's so much activity apparently coming in 2004.

As I said, I think also you need to have some payments to financial agents, because in some areas it's going to be very tough to find people to do that.

The Chair: Carolyn, as this is televised, would you explain very briefly, so people know what you're talking about, about ridings being reorganized?

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: The riding redistribution clicks in one year after it's finalized here, the boundary changes. It probably happens in July 2004. Some ridings, like mine, will become two ridings, and all these volunteers you talk about are going to be running around in little circles. I'm not thinking 2005, I'm thinking we should attach it to the date of implementation of the boundary changes.

Mr. Giambrone, I have an amendment in that looks at taking the $10,000 for individuals down to $5,000, but further splitting it and saying you can't give more than $250 to a particular riding or person. After discussion with some of my colleagues I may be revising that to $1,000. So if we moved it down to $5,000, but said one person can't receive more than $1,000, would you find that reasonable?

º (1625)

Mr. Adam Giambrone: We originally made the suggestion of $3,000, but recognizing that there may need to be a compromise on this. That direction would certainly be favoured by the New Democratic Party. Having a limit towards any one candidate also sounds to me a very reasonable way to go.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Mr. Easton, I'm amazed that you haven't won in four elections. You're very forceful. You must have had one heck of an opponent each of those times.

The Chair: It's Joe Comartin.

Mr. Bruck Easton: You should come to Windsor--St. Clair sometime.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Just don't you come to Mississauga, and we'll get along fine.

I'm concerned about your comments on corporate donations. When this whole process started, I was thinking of moving corporates to $5,000 and moving individuals to $5,000. I've since lost my stomach for that. How would you feel about limiting corporates to $5,000, with no more than $1,000 per candidate?

Mr. Bruck Easton: I think it's an improvement. The real concern I've got, though, is whether it's enough. I think you need to have a corporate limit that people will be comfortable with. People have to recognize that laws are fair and reasonable. We see that problem with all kinds of laws, where people don't agree with them, and then they start breaking them. A donation of $5,000 is not a lot. If you take a major corporation, what does a table at one of your dinners cost? I mean the Liberal Party dinners.

The Chair: A table of eight is $5,000 roughly.

Mr. Bruck Easton: Well, there you go. To get two tables for a big company is $10,000. I don't think that's a lot of money, and if you cut it off, I think it's going to find other ways to flow up. So I would rather you raise it to $10,000. Do I think $5,000 is an improvement? Yes.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Thank you.

The Chair: Okay.

We've been told that this moves us from roughly 60% public money at the moment to about 80%. We've had some trouble with figures, but that's supposed to be the ball park we're in.

Michel Guimond.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond (Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île-d'Orléans, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question is for the two party presidents and it concerns leadership races.

We know that the government wanted the current Liberal Party leadership race not to be subject to the new act; it's voluntary. There's currently a Conservative leadership race, and it will end on the weekend with the election of a new leader. There was an NDP leadership race less than six months ago, I believe. So it's quite recent.

Would it be a good idea to propose an amendment to the bill, since the government doesn't appear to have the political will to ensure that the current Liberal Party leadership race is subject to the proposed act? Would it be a good idea to move an amendment that would force all leadership candidates to make their donors lists public? We could pass a retroactive measure to which both your parties would be subject. Would that be a good idea?

[English]

Mr. Bruck Easton: I don't see the need, sir, for legislation doing that. Our party has already undertaken to do that, it's in the rules, and all our candidates know their donors will be made public. We all look forward to seeing the results from other parties' leadership conventions.

º (1630)

Mr. Adam Giambrone: We just had our leadership contest a couple of months ago. We are in favour. We instituted some very strict internal provisions for our leadership contest and would support amendments towards imposing some restrictions along the same lines as this law, which is bringing back confidence to Canadians. Right now I believe it's probably more applicable to the Liberal Party with the money involved and the leadership than the NDP. But I don't believe--and we had many discussions about this--we would favour legislation that would take a step towards regulating leadership contests.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: In a completely different connection, I'll close with a question on the spending disclosure procedure following a nomination meeting, where the candidate is chosen who will officially represent the party at the next election. This is something new in our electoral habits. In your view, are the provisions governing the financing of nomination meetings a good thing?

[English]

Mr. Bruck Easton: It's probably a good thing in the few instances where there are significant amounts of money at play. I would like to see significant thresholds, though, because I see it as a real burden. If we're talking about somebody spending $7,500 or $10,000, that's fine by me, and I just don't think we ought to get in there with “did you file your forms properly” and all the rest of it. If someone is spending $50,000 or $100,000 to win a nomination, I think the Canadian public wants to know about that. If that's the standard, I think it becomes a bar to some candidates' ability to get into the House of Commons. So I don't think that's right either. The spirit of the legislation is fine, if a significant threshold could be produced to get rid of the unnecessary burden.

Mr. Adam Giambrone: I don't share the same reluctance towards regulation and reporting as my colleague from the Progressive Conservative Party. Having been a riding financial officer for a number of years and having to file in Ontario, I'm not quite as concerned about that. But very specifically on the contest in a particular riding, I also feel that this might be in order. I've been a candidate federally, I've seen this in play, and I really do believe we need some sort of regulation in those regards. We may disagree here between parties on the threshold, I may feel it needs to be a little lower, though we haven't got into discussion on that, but I feel some broad legislation on this would definitely be in order. There are going to be exceptions, but we do need some guidelines when we deal with nominations in some ridings.

The Chair: Thank you.

Jacques Saada.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada (Brossard—La Prairie, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Messrs. Giambrone, Easton and Lepsoe.

My first series of questions is for Mr. Giambrone. Correct me if I misunderstood, but did you in fact say that you would prefer there not be any union contributions at all, but that, if there had to be any, you would prefer they be made by individual trade unions. Is that correct?

[English]

Mr. Adam Giambrone: We would like to see no contributions from any corporation or union. If this legislation is going to keep the $1,000 exemption, which we feel should be struck from the legislation, we feel it should give the right to union locals, just as it would give the right to franchises in a corporation, to give $1,000 each.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: You somewhat humorously referred to the political parties in which not everyone was on the same wavelength. Here I'm reading the brief that was submitted by your NDP colleague, in which there is no hesitation:

The $1,000 limit on donations by major corporations should be completely eliminated.

He never referred to trade unions. So I would like to know whether, in your mind, you can confirm for me that, if there was already a $1,000 limit, you would be prepared to extend it to all union components, to all corporate branches and subsidiaries.

º (1635)

[English]

Mr. Adam Giambrone: Our feeling is that this legislation should strike all corporate and union donations.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: I understood that, but if we have the $1,000 limit, you'd be ready for it to apply to everyone.

[English]

Mr. Adam Giambrone: Exactly.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: All right. So there's already...

Mr. Adam Giambrone: Yes, I know.

Mr. Jacques Saada: Mr. Easton, I have a question to ask you which disturbs me very much because I have the same view as you on the question of corporation donations. Here's my argument: if a corporation's maximum donation is limited to $1,000...

Mr. Chairman, I believe there's a lot of noise in the room and it's impossible to concentrate.

[English]

The Chair: Colleagues, could we have quiet? Please continue.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: If we accept the $1,000 limit for corporate donations and apply the definition of the word “corporation” to all branches and subsidiaries, wouldn't there be a risk of having a $1,000 donation from a branch of one of the Vancouver subsidiaries and another $1,000 from a branch of another subsidiary of the same business in Newfoundland? So the risk of putting the business in an illegal position is very great and, to protect itself, the business simply risks cancelling all political donations. Isn't that a roundabout way of eliminating or virtually eliminating corporate political donations?

[English]

The Chair: May I just interrupt for a moment? Chris Watson, if you would care to come and sit here, we're more than willing. I say that because we have Paul Lepsoe here, and we'd be glad to have you. You could be introduced during the next exchange.

Please continue. I'm sorry.

Mr. Bruck Easton: I hope I understood your question properly. My friend's suggestion that each union local would be able to make a $1,000 donation seems to me to be going around the rules that are there. As I understand it, it's $1,000 for each union, period, and $1,000 for each corporation. I think you're quite right that if we went with my friend's suggestion, with the Royal Bank, which has 1,000 branches across the country or whatever it has, each branch could give $1,000, and we'd have $1 million coming from the Royal Bank, which would be wonderful if it were to my party, but--

Mr. Jacques Saada: The point of my question is not quite that. When you have a definition of a corporation that includes all subsidiaries and branches, to avoid the risk of going over this $1,000, because it's difficult to control what each branch can do, the best way for the corporation might simply be to say, forget about any corporate donation.

[Translation]

Or let's leave them to the head office only, and, if that's the case, aren't we going to create an imbalance between the funding that's going to come from the urban ridings and funding that comes from the rural ridings?

Mr. Paul Lepsoe: Yes, but I'd say that $1,000 is almost nothing. Are you suggesting it's not worth the trouble to put this measure in the bill?

Mr. Jacques Saada: No, I believe on the contrary that there should be a double limit, that is to say that we should keep the $1,000 per riding and have an overall donation maximum for corporations. But I simply want to know whether you share my fear that only $1,000 per corporation might ultimately lead corporations to abandon the very idea of making financial political donations.

Mr. Paul Lepsoe: Yes, but it's virtually inevitable that a corporation with subsidiaries and all that will have a policy prohibiting any political donations, except from head office, because it's too dangerous.

Mr. Jacques Saada: And for the head office, you're saying that $1,000 isn't very much, but, when you consider an electoral district where there are a lot of head offices and you multiply $1,000 by the number of head offices, that makes a big financial difference relative to the rural riding 100 miles away where there are no head offices, but just branches.

[English]

Mr. Bruck Easton: To sort of turn this on its head, $1,000 may be fine for Bill's Meat Packing Limited in my riding. He can come up with $1,000, and that's a substantial contribution, and there are Bill's Meat Packing-type places in every single riding across the country. But the Royal Bank gets $1,000. You tell me, is that fair? The Royal Bank may have a bigger presence in my riding in employment and everything else with its two or three branches than Bill's Meat Packing does, but it'll only be allowed to give $3.33 to me.

º (1640)

The Chair: Chris Watson, would you care to introduce yourself for the record?

Mr. Chris Watson (Federal Secretary, New Democratic Party): Certainly. I'm Chris Watson, the federal secretary of the New Democratic Party. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Rick Borotsik.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much to both of you, or all four of you, for being here on such short notice. Again, I register my disappointment on that short notice, but I think it's important that official parties running in the majority of the seats in this country have an opportunity to put their opinions forward.

Mr. Easton, you've talked on two issues, the financing side and the regulatory side. You spent a lot of time on the regulatory side, knowing full well trying to fill 301 candidacies throughout the country is sometimes difficult. I know the NDP have difficulty in Alberta, I know the Liberals have difficulty in other areas. You talked about thresholds with respect to constituency associations particularly. You talked about reasonable thresholds. If there's a constituency association in the Progressive Conservative Party that has four people and no activity at all financially throughout the year, what is a reasonable threshold of filing or not filing in that case, in your opinion?

Mr. Bruck Easton: I would have said something in the order $5,000 or $7,500. Under the Income Tax Act, I don't have to file a tax return unless I make $7,500. So I don't file tax returns for my kids and that sort of thing. We don't worry about that. The Canada Customs and Revenue Agency does have the power to come and say they want a return from you, as you haven't filed. I think it's appropriate for the Chief Electoral Officer to have the power to say he wants a return.

One of the points I'd make is that we really have an excellent enforcement mechanism out there. You have 301 returning officers who can see what's going on in the riding. Anytime I bring Rick Borotsik, my party leader, or somebody into my area, I'm going to trot him down to the Windsor Star, I'm going to take him to the radio station, we're going to try to do a fundraising event. The other parties know when I'm doing that. I know when the Liberals have got an event in my town. I know when the Alliance is doing stuff. They know when I'm doing stuff. If they file a return and say, geez, we didn't make $5,000 last year, we're going to say, wait a minute, yes, they did.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: You also mentioned political action committees in the States. Let's talk about third-party. We recognize that there is a constitutional challenge to third-party at the present time. If that's upheld and third-party spending is constitutional, can you see the pack organization working its way into the system here?

Mr. Bruck Easton: I think it's almost inevitable. I think you're inviting it as well by trying to shut down corporate donations. I think you're asking for it to happen. The federal government's got a tough case at the Supreme Court on this issue. Who knows how the Supreme Court's going to come out?

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Adam, we have an issue with franchises here. There are different corporate franchises in every community. Do you believe the union local should have the same ability for that $1,000 limit in different constituencies, as opposed to just the franchise organizations?

Mr. Adam Giambrone: Let me first emphasize that we believe this amount of $1,000 is a relatively small amount and should probably not be there, whether for union locals or franchises.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: That wasn't my question.

Mr. Adam Giambrone: I realize that. If we're going to keep it in there, if you're going to allow franchises to have that right, you should also allow union locals. It is effectively the same concept and would be a balancing act.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Mr. Easton, the Prime Minister said they need this legislation because it has to have transparency, it has to build confidence back into the system. With what you've seen right now in the legislation, do you honestly believe political influence will be stopped if this legislation goes through, whether it be corporate political influence or individual political influence on a party?

Mr. Bruck Easton: No, I don't. I think we need to also ask ourselves what politics is about--reflecting what is going on in society. I think the question is regulating it, not trying to stop something. I don't want unions not to be able to have a political voice, to say, this is something we believe in, we want to fund it. I don't think that's appropriate. As soon as you try to stop something like that, I think you're inviting them to find other ways around it.

º (1645)

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Adam, I'll ask you the question that Mr. Lepsoe was trying to. I learned a long time ago in my political experience that we always talk about the level playing field, whether it be business, whether it be unions, whether it be working in a hockey arena. Right now, when we start this, the Liberals will have $8 million, the Conservatives will have $2 million, and the NDP will have $1.5 million to operate. Do you believe that's a level playing field? Do you believe that's the best solution for this kind of legislation?

Mr. Adam Giambrone: Do I believe it's the best solution? No. Realistically, there's not a level playing field today, let's recognize that. This at least gives it to the people to decide. We're still going to be responsible for going out there and getting individual donations. If I'm not happy with $1.9 million, I'm free, under this legislation, to raise another $25 million, if I can, from people, individuals, under $5,000, $3,000, $10,000. That's where we believe it should be going. We'll just have more barbecues, we'll have more fundraising dinners for $100 a place. That's how we should do it.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Do any of these corporations come to your barbecues?

Mr. Adam Giambrone: Not at all.

The Chair: Marlene Catterall.

Ms. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West—Nepean, Lib.): I think there's substantial interest, for a number of reasons, in having the legislation come into effect at a later time. One thing I might be concerned about, however, is that parties would, if it were a year's difference from what's now proposed in the bill, try to circumvent the intentions of the bill. How do you think that could be avoided? Would you have to put in place provisions for that year to make sure parties aren't trying to build up trust funds or corporate or union donations, both at the riding level and nationally or provincially? Do you see that as a problem? What could be done to avoid it?

Mr. Paul Lepsoe: Under the current regime all donations over $200 are fully disclosed, so if it's going on, it's going to be perfectly obvious what contributions are being made. I'm not sure if that's really circumventing the legislation.

Mr. Bruck Easton: One of the concerns I wanted to express was about the trust funds that are out there right now, which this legislation does not cover. Also, as I understand it, it does not deal with the pools of money that are already amassed. That, to me, is a significant gap in the legislation as it's currently written. Presumably, all parties will endeavour to raise money. From our perspective, to the extent that we're raising funds, we're trying to pay off our debt.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: The other question I wanted to ask was about the limit on nomination expenses and whether you had a view on that. It's 50%. There's a proposal to amend that to 25%, and I will probably bring in an amendment to bring it down to 20%.

Mr. Bruck Easton: I think some limit should be there and it should be reasonable. I'm comfortable with something in the order of 25%, $15,000 or $20,000. If it were $30,000, I wouldn't be offended. Once you get up to $50,000, $60,000, $80,000, it's starting to get out of line. I'm content with the 50%, but I wouldn't be upset with 25% either.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: I wanted to ask you about the provision for associations to be formed, to contribute, and to report the individuals, over and above unions and corporations. I have some concerns, in that we are setting up--and I know this has been raised before, but I'd like to hear more of your views on it--pack-like organizations, and I think that would be a deterioration of the political system in Canada. I just wondered if you had some views on that.

º (1650)

Mr. Paul Lepsoe: Are you talking about the provision of the bill to allow $100,000 from associations?

Ms. Marlene Catterall: It's proposed subsection 405.3(2), which says an association can collect money up to $1,000 per association in a riding and contribute to candidates. I'm not sure why that's in the bill and why, if people want to contribute through an association formed for that purpose, they can't just make individual donations. To me, that's just setting up lobby groups.

Mr. Paul Lepsoe: I don't think it's a significant loophole, because it's still restricted to $1,000 and it still must be from permitted contributors. I could make some guesses as to why it's there. For instance, if a law partnership makes a donation on behalf of several partners, it still goes in.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: The provision is not for corporations or unions, it's for people who wish to form an association and could form an association on the same issue under different names in every single riding in this country and become a significant lobby force.

Mr. Paul Lepsoe: But they're still subject to the $1,000 limit. I don't view it as very significant. The PACs are going to have a lot more money than $1,000.

The Chair: Adam.

Mr. Adam Giambrone: I think the trick here is to just get rid of the $1,000 if this is a major concern. It's such a small amount. Can you imagine the administration in having to set up one of these PACs in each riding to give $1,000? It's more trouble than it's worth. Let's just get it out of the legislation, eliminate that bureaucracy, and eliminate any concerns on political action committees, because they just won't be allowed. It's very simple. If that's our concern, it's easy to do.

The Chair: Lorne Nystrom.

Mr. Lorne Nystrom: Welcome, people, to the committee. It's good to see Bruck Easton again. I first met him at a meeting in Windsor a number of years ago on the pension issue, I believe.

I wanted to ask Mr. Easton whether he would agree with what Adam Giambrone just said, that we should eliminate the $1,000 altogether. Would zero be better than $1,000? You said $5,000 is better than $1,000, and $10,000 is better yet than $1,000, but are we better off going right down to zero, because of all the complexities over that $1,000 with the paperwork and administration?

Mr. Bruck Easton: No, I don't think so, Lorne. My view is that $1,000 and zero are very similar, quite frankly, because I think they're so low as to be almost prohibiting it. That money is going to come into the system one way or the other. My view is that when you've got something that's going to happen regardless, you'd better just see if you can regulate it, as opposed to trying to say no.

Mr. Lorne Nystrom: But doesn't going down to zero get rid of some of the paperwork anyway, some of the stuff Paul's been talking about as well, the bureaucracy involved?

Mr. Bruck Easton: The paperwork burden I'm really concerned with is at the riding level for reporting. The chief financial agent at the riding and the chief financial agent for the election campaign both have receipt books. Then we go through the redistribution. I just see that as an awful burden. The receipting is going to be awfully hard, I think, to keep on top of.

Mr. Lorne Nystrom: I'd like to ask both parties a question Mr. Easton raised earlier, on fairness. I think Adam made a point that there should be possible consideration of a certain amount of basic funding you could call core funding, so every party got a certain amount to begin with, and after that there's a sliding scale formula. Would that be a better way of going about it? I think he mentioned that there were examples of this in Europe, with similar funding for each of the parties. If you know of any, could you give that information to the committee. I'd also like to ask Mr. Watson what he thinks of the idea of core funding? Each party gets X number of dollars, and after that you have a formula based on your percentage of the vote in the last campaign. Would that not be more fair and more just?

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Mr. Chris Watson: I think there may be some merit to core funding. As Mr. Easton pointed out earlier, some parties have had some very dramatic ups and downs, the Tory party going from a majority government to two seats and so on. But that being said, I think there is a value in tying public funding to a significant degree to the votes a party gets. In a sense, it becomes voter-directed public financing. If we're going to ask Canadians to accept a system in which some of their tax dollars are put to the purpose of financing political parties, at least this is a way of doing it that directs that money to the parties they support. It may not be a perfect mechanism, but I think it's the best one we can come up with. If parties are going to be awarded public funding, I think Canadians expect them to earn it, if you will, through the support they garner in an election.

Mr. Bruck Easton: That's an interesting concept. The United States has a threshold of financing based on 5% of the vote. I would argue, and I think probably everyone around the table feels, that our political parties are important national institutions through which people participate in politics. They have played important roles in the history of the country, and will over the course of the next 150 years. So core funding makes some sense to me.

I have some difficulty with having my financing all tied, however, to how I did in the last election. You're tying it at the same time as you're removing significant ability to raise funds. When you take away my corporate funding, and that's also a large part of my special events funding, you've taken a substantial amount of my funding away, and then you say, furthermore, you're tied to what you did last time. Those things give me the opportunity to grow. If a year from now or six months from now I'm at 35% in the polls, I can raise a heck of a lot more money than I can raise right now at 18%. With this legislation in place, I can't, I really have the brakes jammed on. I think the Canadian public wants to be able to support me when my party is going up.

Mr. Lorne Nystrom: Would you agree, Mr. Giambrone, that franchises and union locals should be treated the same way?

Mr. Adam Giambrone: I don't think we should have any donations, but if we're going to, franchises and unions should be treated the same way.

Mr. Bruck Easton: A franchise is a separate corporation, a separate entity. If I sign a contract with Dunkin' Donuts or whatever, it's me. I'm not listening to what Dunkin' Donuts is doing, it's my corporation, so I think that franchise should be separate. The unions are all part of the same entity. They're unincorporated associations. If you open that up, you're back to where we are today, with no limits.

The Chair: Ted White.

Mr. Ted White: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Easton, going back to the complex reporting requirements in the bill and keeping in mind that the stated aims of the legislation include transparency and openness, have you thought of any ways that would reduce the reporting burden on riding associations and yet maintain some degree of openness and transparency?

Mr. Bruck Easton: Paul said this last time as well. I think thresholds are the right way, and there are adequate enforcement mechanisms. If my party doesn't report in your riding and you've seen us do a whole lot of things, you're going to ask what is going on. The parties are going to be checking each other, as well as there being the returning officer. We have people who are going to be watching each other, and that's a very effective check. If you set a limit of $5,000, $7,500, $10,000 for either assets or expenses in a year, and you don't have to file if you're below that, I think that would get rid of a significant reporting burden, the parties will be able to enforce it, and the Chief Electoral Officer will be able to enforce it as well. He can always require a return if he wants one.

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Mr. Ted White: During election campaigns there is a certain amount of money people can contribute without it having to be reported through the system. I think it was raised to $200 over the last election. The bill changes the tax rebate system to make it more attractive to make smaller donations. The maximum advantage you can get now if you donate is around $1,275. Would it be helpful, for example, if there were no reporting required of anything less than that $1,275? That amount of money couldn't possibly be seen as tremendously influential, and it would dramatically reduce the reporting requirements for a riding association. Do you think that's too high, do you think it's too low?

Mr. Bruck Easton: It's the right concept. I'd say that's too low. I'd go higher, I'd look at $7,500, which is basically the personal exemption under the Income Tax Act. You're not dealing with a significant accumulation of funds at that point.

Are you talking about a single contribution?

Mr. Ted White: Yes, I am. I think $7,000 could be perceived as being influential. I receive quite a number of donations in the $1,000 range during an election campaign.

Mr. Bruck Easton: Sorry, you and I were talking at cross purposes. I was talking $7,500 total revenue for a riding in a year, I wasn't talking about one particular donation. I agree with you, I think that's a substantial sum.

Mr. Ted White: That would tie it in to the whole tax rebate system, the way that's structured to encourage smaller donations. So picking that threshold would be helpful.

Mr. Bruck Easton: Yes.

Mr. Paul Lepsoe: Mr. White, under the bill as I understand it, the threshold right now is $1 for a riding association.

The Chair: Lynn Myers.

Mr. Lynn Myers: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Easton, I was intrigued by your question with respect to the paying of official agents. I wonder if you have some more advice for us on that and what kind of payment, per diem, remuneration, or whatever you had in mind. As you know, we can under, I think, section 407 of the Elections Act now pay them.

Mr. Bruck Easton: I was not aware that the provision is in the act currently to pay them. If you are going ahead with the reporting requirement, particularly right now, where there's a threshold of $1, where you have to file all of this reporting, I know I've got outposts where I'm going to have a tough time getting someone to even do it. Even if they're filing all nil returns, they're not going to want to touch it with a 10-foot pole. They're going to do something wrong, the Chief Electoral Officer's going to be all over them. We all know how tough sometimes it is to get people to serve as official agents during election campaigns.

I thought if I put--I don't know, pick a number--$500, $300 on the table, I could probably talk someone in the outpost into being the official agent in Kicking Horse Pass for me--it's $500, and it's just a bunch of nil returns you're filing anyway. They'll do it. At least I can keep the ship afloat. Right now you're going to have a tough time getting people to agree to do that job.

Mr. Adam Giambrone: One of the things I think we could look at is having the ability for ridings to sign this responsibility over to the central party. We all recognize that there are some regions where this is going to be a reality for every party, perhaps less with the Liberal party than with some other parties. We could look at doing something where the central party has some ability to do the reporting for these ridings under a certain level, or it may be up to the party to decide. I haven't quite thought this through, but we have discussed this a little and thought it might be a way to remove some of the burden from some of these ridings, because in the bigger ridings it won't be as much of a problem.

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Mr. Lynn Myers: Let me quickly ask you, then, Adam, would you be in support of a per diem or a remuneration of some sort?

Mr. Adam Giambrone: Perhaps there should be some provision in the legislation to allow a riding to do that. From our party's perspective, it is unlikely that we would use that provision. But they're party funds, and if they want to do that, that's fine.

Mr. Lynn Myers: Thank you very much.

The Chair: Joe Jordan.

Mr. Joe Jordan (Leeds—Grenville, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On that point, I think, Adam, you're right that if the party can assume the responsibility of the constituency association, that might work.

A point, Mr. Lepsoe, you brought up last time was the nominations. Sometimes you'd like to have a few candidates, to make it look like a race. They didn't spend $50, and we're going to make them fill out forms. Perhaps some sort of statutory document that says they didn't spend more than X might address that, whatever that threshold would be. Maybe it's $1,000, maybe it's $1,500, I don't know what. Is that a reasonable approach for nomination expenses at the riding level?

Mr. Paul Lepsoe: I guess that's one approach. I just thought thresholds were simpler, thresholds for ridings and thresholds for nomination races. As under the Income Tax Act, it's an offence if you fail to report when the threshold is breached. I just think the reality is that with so many ridings and so many nomination contests, you're never going to get near a threshold that has some public purpose.

Mr. Joe Jordan: So under the threshold, there should be nothing. Just accept that it's staples and a couple of paper clips.

One of the concepts that came up with the witnesses speaks to what we're trying to do here. We're spending a lot of time trying to control the money going into the system. Maybe we'd better see if we've got some options in regard to how much money is spent on politics in this country. TV advertising is a major, if not the most significant, piece of what the national campaign spends. Britain allocates air time to parties free, and then bans political advertising. If we look to the south, we probably want to give some serious thought to banning those kinds of attack ads anyway. Is that something worth exploring in trying to reduce the amount of money a party needs to run a national campaign?

Mr. Bruck Easton: Can I give a long-winded response on this? Irving Gerstein, who was here before, has talked to me a number of times about his frustration with what's going on here with this particular bill, how quickly it's going. He has talked about the Lortie commission 10 or 12 years ago, which had representations from all the parties, five parties at the time, just as it is today. All parties bought into the recommendations of the Lortie commission. They did extensive work travelling around the country and to other countries before coming up with their recommendations. We're very much dealing with something that makes us feel we're under some pressure. Do I think your idea has some merit? Yes. Do I want to say to you, yes, I agree? I'm not sure I do. I think it's worthwhile looking at the pluses and minuses. I think this is a very important process we're going through here, and I wish we had more time to play with these things, because I think the concepts are worthwhile and should be explored thoroughly. I think, quite frankly, the Canadian public deserves it.

Mr. Joe Jordan: I think it was actually Ed Broadbent's idea when he came before the committee.

A trust fund is a bank account, it becomes a trust fund. It depends what you use it for. I don't know what we could do to ban them, but I think you could have riding associations declare their assets at a certain point in time. I know you could say maybe they should declare the sources, but that becomes an awful mess: was it the buck from the spaghetti supper or was it the five bucks from the golf tournament? Who knows. So they declare their assets. The defence against trust funds is that they're not going to be able to introduce that money into the political process without saying where they got it from. Somebody may have a bunch of money in a bank account somewhere and they may not have declared that as income, they may have violated the Income Tax Act. This isn't a panacea to control that kind of behaviour. But is it not fair to say that the tracking mechanisms, from a certain point of time forward, will prevent somebody who has $300,000 in the bank from drawing chunks of that and using it for political purposes without having to explain where they got it or make up some place where they got it? Will we not catch it that way? Does that not control it?

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Mr. Paul Lepsoe: I don't think the bill makes any difference in that regard. Under the current legislation, if you bring X thousand dollars into your election campaign, you're supposed to declare the sources of it.

Mr. Joe Jordan: You could pass it to your constituency association.

Mr. Paul Lepsoe: You're still supposed to declare the sources of it, even if it comes from your constituency association. If you bring it into your election campaign, you're supposed to declare the sources of it under the existing act. You can use it outside the electoral period right now, and you're still going to be able to do that under this bill, as long as you don't bring it into your registered riding association. There's nothing in this bill that stops you from having PACs all over the place, call them what you will. We're deluding ourselves if we think that is addressed by this bill. The money is going to go elsewhere.

Mr. Adam Giambrone: I think the question here is not whether we know where it's coming from. Sure, we do want to know where this money is coming from, the public has a right to know. There's nothing to say we couldn't spend the next six months accumulating an additional $3 million, as was brought up earlier. This really thwarts the intention of the legislation, levelling the playing field. I don't care if we know where it comes from. Really, what we need to do is prevent someone accumulating $300,000 or $1 million and using that as a buffer against the intentions of this legislation.

Perhaps one thing you want to do is disband these trust funds, return the money to the people, and have them make the donations subject to the legislation. If they gave $800, they can just turn around and give that back to the candidate. But the fact is that some MPs have accumulated this money, we have six months to accumulate more--let's be honest, we know it's coming--and we have to find some way of dealing with that before the legislation comes in.

The Chair: Rick Borotsik.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: I should say that in some constituencies we don't necessarily have gifts in kind in pizzas, we sometimes have them in perogies and cabbage rolls. I think that's important to recognize.

The serious comment I would like to make is to Adam. You're adamantly opposed to the $1,000. I've heard that time and time again. In Manitoba, actually, there are no corporate or union donations at all. Are you using that as a model in what you're saying?

Mr. Adam Giambrone: I actually think we should institute the Manitoba legislation, if you want my opinion. It's much tighter than this legislation will be. You brought up earlier the fact that union halls can be used. Under Manitoba legislation, if you use a union hall, you have to pay fair market value. Our party instituted this in government, but from a party perspective in administration, this is a headache. We don't use union halls in Manitoba any more, because it's too expensive. You'd have to pay $500 or $600 as full market value.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: You just told me, and it's on the record, you believe we should implement the Manitoba legislation. In the Manitoba legislation there's no public funding. Are you suggesting there should be no public funding?

Mr. Adam Giambrone: I understand right now they don't have that in Manitoba. I don't know whether they'll ultimately consider that. I think we have a chance to build on this legislation. Every projected law is a chance to build on existing legislation.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: But you said, let's use Manitoba--no public funding.

Mr. Adam Giambrone: This is an excellent opportunity to take the examples of Quebec and Manitoba, neither of which is perfect. Some items in Quebec have been subject to a number of years of revision. Let's take it one step further. Let's build on what we've learned and take it into full public funding. I'm not going to hold up Manitoba as the be-all and end-all of election funding. I think it's got some very good points, I like it, but let's take it one step further and have a public funding of elections. That's what this bill proposes to do. I think we could go back to look at it more closely, but it's a project.

» (1715)

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Chris.

Mr. Chris Watson: The question was asked by a number of people earlier, and Mr. Easton spoke to it. We've made the argument that there's an unfairness now in allowing franchises and branches to each contribute $1,000, but not according the same to local trade unions. I think it's important for this committee to understand that by and large in Canada, local trade unions function as entities with their own constitutions, their own bank accounts, they elect their own officers, their spending decisions are made by the members and officers of the local union. With all due respect, I think there is a reasonable parallel to be drawn between local unions and the examples of Tim Horton's and what have you. If fairness is what we want here, and Mr. Easton was asking for fairness earlier today, I think that is a very important consideration. It does relate back to this, because we're probably not going to get that elimination altogether, certainly not if Stephen LeDrew has his way here.

The Chair: Thank you.

Colleagues, on your behalf, I want to thank our witnesses. Thank you, gentlemen, for coming here. We particularly appreciate it given the short notice. This testimony has been very useful to us.

Colleagues, I'm going to explain to you how I think we're going to proceed from this point. In a moment I'm going to suspend for 10 or 15 minutes. Following that we will proceed with clause-by-clause. Tomorrow morning at 11 o'clock, our regular time, we will proceed with clause-by-clause. Tomorrow afternoon at 3:30 we will hear the president of the Liberal Party of Canada as a witness. Next Tuesday at our regular time, 11 o'clock, we will proceed with clause-by-clause. That's my understanding of how we're going to proceed.

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» (1739)

The Chair: Colleagues, we will resume the meeting.

You all have a copy of a report that relates to our subcommittee on riding boundaries. Essentially, this report is a request that the period of 30 sitting days be extended by 5 days.

I now suspend the meeting again for about five minutes.

» (1739)

» (1744)

The Chair: We're going to resume clause-by-clause.

We've agreed that the president of the Liberal Party of Canada will be here tomorrow. My assumption, in fairness to the previous witnesses, is that the meeting will be shorter than usual. Obviously, we're in the hands of the committee when we get to it, but I would have thought we could say 3:30 to 4:30 tomorrow for that one witness. I think the opposition parties should certainly get their share of the questions, but there will be fewer Liberal questions. Colleagues, are you in agreement with that? Thank you very much.

Tonight until 7:30, if that's okay, we'll proceed with clause-by-clause. We will continue for our normal time period tomorrow, beginning at 11 o'clock. Then we'll stop at 12:30 to 1:00 p.m. Next Tuesday we start again at 11 o'clock. My sense is that we may well need extra meetings on Tuesday, but we can face up to that tomorrow.

Also, because we have more than one witness, we're proceeding with this clause-by-clause in good faith. The witnesses to appear before us have agreed to this. It's my understanding that it's not really going to complicate the various clauses and amendments we're going to be dealing with. If someone suspects that it does, we should stand those clauses. It isn't strictly the normal way we would do it, so if there are other things that we need to alter, I'm sure we can do so. Is that okay?

We had got to clause 23. We begin on page 16, PC-2. Rick Borotsik.

» (1745)

Mr. Ted White: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, didn't we decide yesterday that we were leaving clause 23 till later because it had so many amendments in it?

The Chair: My understanding was that we stopped at that point. I've looked at them, and I don't see any reason we should not continue.

Mr. Ted White: That's fine, I don't have a problem with that.

The Chair: If somewhere there is an amendment you feel is affected by the other witness, we should just stand it.

(On clause 23)

The Chair: So I call clause 23 and amendment PC-2.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would move this amendment. We just heard witnesses deal specifically with this. There are a number of associations within all of our parties that don't have substantial contributions or activity. It's like an inactive bank account, if you will, that doesn't have a lot of activity on an annual basis. My amendment is suggesting that anything less than $10,000 shouldn't require registration. I have to admit, after hearing some of the witnesses and some of the comments, perhaps that limit is high and maybe we should be looking at something less, but the concept is sound. I would suggest perhaps even $1,000 or $500. If you're seeing an association with less than $500 activity on an annual basis, you're putting them through a substantial amount of regulatory process for that limited amount.

We heard today that perhaps there should be statutory declarations. Maybe we can talk about that, but I would have the amendment stand, simply from a regulatory aspect, Mr. Chairman, at $10,000, hear some debate, and be prepared to have a Chinese auction to go down to something more realistic.

The Chair: Geoff Regan.

Mr. Geoff Regan (Halifax West, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, the present proposed section 403.01 provides that it be entitled to receive contributions. An electoral district association must register, as you know. This proposal would contradict that requirement, of course, by allowing them to receive contributions without registering. If you are going to have a threshold for reporting, this isn't the place where it should be. The proper place to have it would be in proposed section 403.35. Also, if you have no reporting for under $10,000, for example, it means no verification of limits, of ineligible contributions, or of unauthorized transfers to the party. The other thing is that if they don't register, you don't know who's handing out tax receipts, or if they are.

The Chair: Rick.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: I find the regulatory responsibility here for all of us is going to be inordinate. Again, that threshold simply of $500, if that's where we wanted to go, would not require any specific registration at that time, but I'll leave it at that. I feel strongly about this, and it certainly would require a vote, Mr. Chairman.

» (1750)

The Chair: Thank you, Rick.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

The Chair: We go to G-3, page 17.

Geoff Regan.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

This would amend paragraph 403.02(1)(a) so that the name of the electoral district for which the electoral district association wishes to register will be added to the list of information required on the application for registration of the EDA. The idea of this is to ensure that the information provided in the application for registration includes the name of the electoral district. I think it's pretty obvious that you'd want to do that, because the name of the association does not always indicate the name of the electoral district it represents. Most would, but not always, apparently. So this information is necessary to make it clear which district an association represents, especially in the case of preregistration following a revision of electoral boundaries under the new subsection 403.22(4), as provided for in motion e023-014.20a.

The Chair: Rick Borotsik.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: What we're now saying is the full name is the constituency association of Brandon--Souris in the electoral district of Brandon--Souris. Isn't that a bit redundant?

Mr. Geoff Regan: That was my first reaction, but the point is that there are times when they don't call themselves that, they call themselves something else.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Can you give us an example of what they would call themselves?

Mr. Geoff Regan: I'm told that they call themselves other things sometimes. They could name themselves after somebody else who used to be there and they liked a lot. Apparently this happens.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Can you give me an example?

Mr. Geoff Regan: We don't have any examples of that, but I'm told it happens that not all riding associations go by the name of their riding.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: If you're told this and it happens quite frequently, we should be able to get examples.

Mr. Geoff Regan: I think it's pretty simple on your form, when you apply for registration, to put down what riding you're in.

The Chair: Ted White.

Mr. Ted White: I just hate to be helping Mr. Regan again, but it seems to me--

Mr. Geoff Regan: I'm grateful, though.

Mr. Ted White: --there's an opportunity here, if the amendment is not put in place, for a riding association to name itself in such a way that it confuses people looking at the reporting records. I make that comment completely independently of any support for such reports, but it does seem to me that it's a wise amendment, because it just closes a loophole there.

Mr. Geoff Regan: I look forward to Mr. White's ongoing support and help.

The Chair: I put G-3 to the vote.

(Amendment agreed to)

The Chair: We proceed to NDP-5, page 19. Lorne Nystrom.

Mr. Lorne Nystrom: NDP-5 is that Bill C-24, in clause 23, be amended by replacing lines 8 to 13 on page 9 with the following:

An electoral district association of a registered party may accept contributions during an election period.

I say to the parliamentary secretary that right now the electoral association is unable to accept campaign funds, and this will allow the association to do so. I think it's totally in line with the spirit, the intent, and the whole thrust of the bill before us today. I don't think it will cause any complications for the administration of the act.

The Chair: Jacques Saada.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: Mr. Chairman, my question is this: isn't it logical that all political contributions be paid directly to candidates and not to associations during the election period? Isn't that already what happens now?

[English]

The Chair: Geoff Regan.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Mr. Chairman, I wonder whether Rick would be prepared to change this so that it says “be amended by replacing lines 8 to 10”, instead of “lines 8 to 13”, because the impact of this would be no spending limits at all during the election period.

» (1755)

Mr. Lorne Nystrom: I don't know what Rick thinks, but since I moved the motion--

Mr. Geoff Regan: Oh, it's yours. I'm sorry, Lorne.

Mr. Lorne Nystrom: I know Rick has great sway around this place.

Mr. Geoff Regan: I thought he'd switched parties for a second.

Mr. Lorne Nystrom: Well, he's a red Tory, he's almost with us.

The Chair: Can we go back to the question? Geoff or some staff member, can you comment on what Jacques asked?

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: The question I asked was this: can riding associations currently receive more donations during an election campaign, or are they automatically paid to the candidates?

Ms. Michèle René de Cotret (Senior Privy Council Officer/Counsel, Legislation and House Planning/Counsel, Privy Council Office): For the moment, there's no rule. Candidates and associations may receive donations.

M. Jacques Saada: All right. In addition, are tax receipts issued locally?

Ms. Michèle René de Cotret: That's currently the case. During an election campaign, tax receipts can only be issued by the candidate.

M. Jacques Saada: All right. If I understand correctly, right now, during an election period, I can make a financial donation either to the riding association or to the candidate. The riding has no official agent. It's the candidate that has an official agent. So the official agent will issue a tax receipt. If the riding association receives an amount, it must ask the official agent to issue a tax receipt.

[English]

Mr. Geoff Regan: I guess you could get your tax receipt from either one. In either case the amounts are going to be reported. If the riding association spends money on the election, it has to do so by transferring the money to the official agent and having it spent as part of the election expenses.

Mr. Jacques Saada: I understand that, Geoff. That's not my problem. I just want to establish some coherence within what we're going to do with this motion. The coherence I'm trying to establish is as to who is actually issuing tax receipts for contributions made during campaigns. If during an election campaign the tax receipt is issued by the official agent of the candidate, it will be coherent to maintain it at this level only. At the present time the riding associations do not have the capacity to issue that receipt, no matter what, whether during the campaign or outside the campaign. In other words, when they receive a contribution during an election campaign, they have to refer it to the authority issuing tax receipts, they cannot issue a tax receipt themselves. I'm trying to find a way to simplify that. Is it a simplification if we vote for this motion or against this motion?

Mr. Geoff Regan: I think the simplest way is to vote for the motion, with “13” changed to “10”. You still say the riding association cannot incur expenses for election advertising, for obvious reasons, but it can receive contributions. In that case the association can still issue tax receipts, but for example, if you plan an event for May 10, the day before the election is called, the riding association has planned it, and they're receiving the money for that event, you have a problem if suddenly an official agent has to be issuing a receipt. So this is one way to avoid that. But also, why shouldn't it be possible for the riding association to receive money during the campaign, as long as any money that's going to be spent on the campaign goes through the usual process of official agent etc.? It's simpler with this.

The Chair: Marlene Catterall.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: I have a problem with this, and I haven't heard a compelling argument why we need to change the current system. The reason I have a problem with it is that it's not unknown for someone to become a candidate who is not the favoured person of the executive of an association. I don't think the association should be able to go out fundraising during a campaign in competition with the candidate who has to run for election. It's quite simple: if an event is planned and it occurs after the election is called, it's an election event, it's an election fundraising event. All that changes is who has to issue the receipt and who receives the money from it. Unless I hear something more compelling, I'm not prepared to support this motion.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Mr. Chairman, I would argue that it is an internal issue the parties can deal with themselves as to who can raise money and so forth or the fact that if you raise money during the campaign, the riding association has to transfer it. Those are things the parties can deal with internally.

Further, I'm going to ask Lorne for another change to this. It says, “An electoral district association.” We're looking for it to say, “A registered electoral district association.” Perhaps you'd agree to that amendment also.

¼ (1800)

Mr. Lorne Nystrom: There is no problem. They are both friendly amendments, and I certainly accept them.

The Chair: So they are friendly subamendments, to read “lines 8 to 10” and “A registered electoral association”.

Ted White.

Mr. Ted White: Mr. Chairman, I don't think it's quite as simple as changing “13” to “10”. The way I read it, that would be very confusing wording there. I think it requires a little bit of work to make it make sense, because if you just have “lines 8 to 10”, you'll still be left with proposed paragraphs 403.04(a) and (b), and it's going to be very messy. If we accept the general direction this is going, it needs a little work on the wording to make it fit.

Mr. Geoff Regan: You'd need to have another paragraph that says, “No association of a registered party shall during an election period in that electoral district incur expenses for election advertising, as defined in section 319”, I guess. Just suppressing proposed paragraph 403.04 (a) is the answer.

The Chair: Whatever the answer is, it has to be very clear on the record, Geoff.

Mr. Ted White: It still doesn't make sense if you read the amendment as proposed and just add the words in (b). It requires a little work.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Instead of doing this, if you delete proposed paragraph 403.04(a) from the clause, what does that do for you?

Mr. Ted White: It still doesn't quite make sense, because then it would read, “A registered electoral district association of a registered party may accept contributions during an election period--”

Mr. Geoff Regan: No, that's not what I mean. If you look at the bill itself for a moment--

Mr. Ted White: Yes, I am.

Mr. Geoff Regan: If you look at proposed section 403.04, it would read: “No electoral district association of a registered party shall during an election period in that electoral district incur expenses for election advertising, as defined in section 319.”

Mr. Ted White: So by default, it allows them to collect money. I get it now. Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Jacques Saada.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: Mr. Chairman, the more I read clause 403.04, the more I wonder why we're asking ourselves questions. It seems to me utterly legitimate to consider that, when a candidate is in an election campaign and officially represents a given party, there's no reason why the riding association needs to raise funds. All expenses incurred will be recorded as expenses which the candidate will report to the Chief Electoral Officer. I think it's utterly pointless to amend that, and I move that clause 403.04 be allowed to stand. I think it's consistent with standard practice. I don't see any problem.

[English]

The Chair: Rick Borotsik.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: I agree with the amendment. There are extraordinary circumstances where during an election campaign a riding association may well want to accept a donation or a contribution, not a contribution to go the candidate, not a contribution to go to the election, just a contribution made to the riding association. This allows that to happen. If at that point the riding association wants to make a contribution to the candidate, it has to be recorded, it has to be transparent, it has to be declared. We had an example here. Some riding associations have different names. For example, there may be a bequest from an individual who dies during an election campaign, wants to donate to a riding association, and has left it in the will, but under this legislation, you could not have that contribution accepted by the riding association.

The Chair: Lorne Nystrom.

Mr. Lorne Nystrom: If I can add another argument for Marlene, one of the motivators here is that sometimes people, in good faith, send a contribution to the riding association, for example, to Ottawa West Liberals. It is intended to go to Marlene Catterall, but it goes to the riding association, and then you have to chase down the person, get the cheque rewritten, and things of that sort. This would expedite it, and the intent is clear, the faith is clear. This would just make it a smoother operation. That happens to all of us.

The Chair: Geoff Regan.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Mr. Chairman, if there is majority support for what I proposed a few minutes ago, which would be to have the same clause, but deleting--

The Chair: Geoff, what we're considering at the moment is a revised version of this, which has “10 instead of “13”, includes “registered”, and changes “an” to “a”.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Yes. I guess what I'm saying is that to do what I was proposing a moment ago, we'd need a new amendment.

¼ (1805)

The Chair: I don't think so. If it's going to replace this, you have to ask Lorne if he's going to replace it, or we vote on this.

Mr. Geoff Regan: My inclination is to defeat this motion, but ask that we stand the clause, so that we can come back with an amendment. I'm assuming the minister is willing to take this amendment, and I think the intent of it he's okay with.

Mr. Lorne Nystrom: My preference would be just to accept the amendment, obviously, but the fallback would be to stand the clause and come back with this same intent, but with the proper wording.

The Chair: I need advice here, I must say. If we stand this clause and come back to it when everybody's thought about it, Lorne, are you comfortable with that?

Mr. Lorne Nystrom: That way we don't defeat the amendment, we just stand the clause.

The Chair: No, it can't be the clause, we stand the amendment.

Mr. Lorne Nystrom: Okay.

The Chair: When we get to the clause, it obviously will be subject to that.

(Amendment allowed to stand)

The Chair: Thank you. The parties will get back to us later on.

We move to G-4, page 20. Geoff Regan.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Mr. Chairman, I take it that we're standing that amendment, we aren't standing the whole clause 23, because this is also on clause 23.

The Chair: I did clarify that. You just weren't listening.

Mr. Geoff Regan: That makes sense, that's helpful. I think you said that, but I just wanted to be clear.

This would amend section 403.05 and would remove the requirement on electoral district associations that register for the first time to provide audited financial statements. Why? The existing electoral district associations will register on the coming into force of Bill C-24. They won't be required to disclose the sources of their current assets, but only the global amount. New associations that register afterwards will either have no or few assets or assets transferred from other associations, for which accounting is already provided. Therefore, there's no need to require audited financial statements. There are various motions regarding false declarations that we have. We feel this would work.

The Chair: Is there discussion?

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

The Chair: We proceed to G-5, page 22. Geoff Regan.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Mr. Chairman, this motion would add a new section 403.051. It would prohibit a financial agent from registering an electoral district association and from making a declaration he knows or ought to have known is incomplete or inaccurate. As there is no longer an obligation to file audited financial statements when an electoral district association registers, it's necessary to ensure that the financial agent can be found liable for making false statements about the assets and liabilities of the newly registered association.

The Chair: Ted White.

Mr. Ted White: I have a bit of a problem with the wording “or ought to have known”. Would that mean, if he had been to a training course, it could be interpreted that he ought to have known even if he had forgotten, because he's a volunteer and he only does this part-time? If so, what would the penalty be?

Mr. Geoff Regan: I think it has more to do with knowing it's incomplete or inaccurate, in other words, if there's information he ought to know should be in there. You're saying, how would he know it ought to be in there?

Mr. Ted White: How does he know what he ought to have known?

Mr. Geoff Regan: What we've seen is that the courts require reasonable efforts when you have something that says “you ought to have known”. So if he's made reasonable efforts, he can't be convicted. You're not going to find the mens rea, as they say, for the offence.

The Chair: If he'd done badly in the course, he's less likely to know.

Rick Borotsik.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: That's a very good question. Sometimes we aren't as smart as we think we are. Is this to try to catch a situation that's deliberately misinterpreted, or better yet, deliberately not complete and accurate?

¼ (1810)

Mr. Geoff Regan: I think you can see that if someone weren't deliberately being misleading, they could claim they didn't realize they were doing this, but if someone clearly ought to have realized what they were doing if they were acting on a reasonable basis, that person should be caught.

The Chair: Jacques Saada.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: Mr. Chairman, I think the solution is in the French version. It states: “qu'il sait ou devrait normalement savoir”, whereas that notion doesn't exist in the English version. In English, it states: “ought reasonably to have known”, whereas, in French, it states, “qu'il sait ou devrait normalement savoir”. That's much more reasonable.

[English]

The Chair: I understand that point.

While we're thinking about that, Ted, would you make your point?

Mr. Ted White: I think maybe we should talk about wording more along the lines of what was just discussed, deliberately making errors, and maybe the wording should be changed to something like, “No financial agent of a registered association shall deliberately make a declaration which he or she knows is not complete and accurate.” Maybe it needs a little work. Keep in mind that we are dealing with volunteers. It has to clearly state that it's a deliberate mistake, as opposed to something a person ought to know, which is really vague.

The Chair: Geoff Regan.

Mr. Geoff Regan: I've seen lots of clauses over the years in different legislation where it says the person either knows or ought to have known. The point is it that catches the case where the person is trying to deny it, but it's obvious that they ought to have known this. If reasonable steps have been taken, the person is not going to be caught by this. That's the key element.

The Chair: Joe.

Mr. Joe Jordan: In the Election Act, let's say with official agents, there must be accepted wording that gets at this concept. Is that the wording? Have you just taken it and duplicated it? It just sounds rather ambiguous.

The Chair: Can I just follow up on that? I'm sorry, Joe, to interrupt. In this expression “ought to have known” is the translation of the French “normally”, which doesn't sound the same. If “normalement” means the same as “normally” in English, they aren't the same, they just aren't.

Mr. Geoff Regan: The French would say “ou devrait normalement savoir”, “would normally know”.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: The French text is clear, and we'd be quite content if we could find wording as clear in English.

[English]

The Chair: I have often said that French is an old-fashioned form of English. Is this the normal way, if I can use the word, of expressing due diligence? That is what it means. If it's the normal way of doing it, somebody like Geoff reads it and that's what he hears. It doesn't read like that when we read it.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Mr. Chairman, I think you'll find, if you look at the section in the Elections Act that refers to the official agent, this is exactly the same wording.

The Chair: But you just said “would normally”.

Mr. Geoff Regan: I'm sorry. In both languages I think you'd find--

The Chair: No, but you said “would normally” in English.

Mr. Geoff Regan: I was translating from the French to English.

The Chair: You were translating, excuse me.

Mr. Geoff Regan: I should leave it to the translators.

The Chair: Ted White.

Mr. Ted White: Notwithstanding the fact that this type of legal language exists in other parts of the Elections Act referring to more important positions that are not volunteer-based and year round, where it refers to people like official agents and so on, they are people who are appointed for specific periods of time who go to severe training courses and learn exactly what they're supposed to do over a short period of time. What I'm concerned about is that this type of legal language may be excessive for the type of crime we're identifying here. I'm very familiar with this type of language from my corporate background with positions that hold much greater responsibility than a volunteer position with a riding association. I'm just a little concerned that it's too severe.

Mr. Geoff Regan: I think it'd be very hard to get a conviction without it. Sometimes it's awfully hard to prove the person actually knew.

¼ (1815)

The Chair: Geoff, the concern is that it might put off a volunteer.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Here is the provision in paragraph 463(1)(a) of the Canada Elections Act. In relation to the official agent it says:

the candidate or the official agent, as the case may be, knows or ought reasonably to know contains a material statement that is false or misleading

The Chair: Hey--“ought reasonably”.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Well, there you go. How do you like that wording?

The Chair: “Ought reasonably to have known”--does that work? We have a friendly amendment here. It's the first time I've seen prose written by a committee that is better than the other. “Ought reasonably to have known” is the amendment we're discussing. Is there further discussion?

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

The Chair: We proceed to G-6, page 24. Geoff Regan.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Mr. Chairman, this amendment would add under proposed subsection 403.09(1) that electoral district agents can pay expenses as well as incur expenses, which would be fairly obvious, I suppose. There are two references to the role of these agents in the bill, and they don't say the same thing. This amendment will ensure that they match and will allow these agents to not only incur, but also pay expenses on behalf of the association. In practice, the financial agent is a volunteer who's only there part-time, so it's imperative to ensure that electoral district agents can also pay expenses.

The Chair: Ted White.

Mr. Ted White: I'm just wondering whether this particular change could allow a financial agent to make expenditures that weren't approved by the riding association. Within my riding association, for example, we have a rule that the president can incur expense up to $100 without asking for a vote of the board. If there were federal legislation that said he could incur expenses, would we still have the power to tell him he can only incur $100 worth of expenses?

Mr. Geoff Regan: I would argue that the law of agency says you would have that power. The agent can only act as agent for the association under the direction of the association. He has fiduciary responsibilities in that regard. I'll see if there's any other advice I could get from the officials here.

The Chair: Is there further discussion?

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

The Chair: We proceed to PC-3, page 26. Rick Borotsik. Rick, I understand you'll speak to the consequential nature of this as well. Can you do that?

Mr. Rick Borotsik: I can, but I'm going to withdraw this amendment. I was going to speak to the consequential matters, but unfortunately, I would rather withdraw.

The Chair: Okay, PC-3 is withdrawn.

PC-4, page 27. Rick Borotsik.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It adds after line 38 on page 10 a subsection (3):

A person may be appointed as an official agent or auditor for a leadership contestant notwithstanding that the person is a member of a partnership that has been appointed as an auditor in accordance with this act for the registered party.

I'm thinking more of large accounting firms, such as Deloitte & Touche. As I understand it right now, it not be allowed under this, whereas we're now looking at these individuals being still allowed.

The Chair: Ted White.

Mr. Ted White: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm having a little trouble understanding the relevance of this. When I read proposed subsection (2), it doesn't really imply anywhere I can see that there are any restrictions that would require this amendment. In proposed subsection 403.1(2) there are certain restrictions on who's eligible to be a financial agent or an electoral district agent. In other words, I think it's redundant.

¼ (1820)

Mr. Rick Borotsik: I've just been informed that the Elections Act subsection 85(1) doesn't allow this accounting practice for leadership contests, and that's what this amendment is speaking to.

The Chair: Thank you for that.

Michel Guimond.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like Ms. René de Cotret to tell me whether the French version is truly consistent with the English version, whether it contains the notion implied by the term “notwithstanding”. I haven't seen it, but I may not be bilingual enough. Don't we need the word “nonobstant”?

[English]

Mr. Geoff Regan: It's phrased quite differently.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: Is Ms. René de Cotret entitled to answer?

The Chairman: Yes.

Mr. Michel Guimond: I don't just want to hear Mr. Regan, although I know Mr. Regan is perfectly bilingual.

Ms. Michèle René de Cotret: I'm sorry, Mr. Guimond. Yes, we checked the French version, and, in our view, it means the same thing. It's probably even better written in French than in English.

[English]

The Chair: So it implies “notwithstanding” in French. Thank you very much.

Geoff Regan.

Mr. Geoff Regan: This is about leadership contestants, but within a section dealing with electoral district associations. I'm not sure it really belongs here. You can argue that it mistakenly refers to a leadership contestant instead of a registered association. And also the words “may be appointed official agent or auditor” should be replaced by “may be appointed as agent”. Nothing in the bill or act prohibits an auditor for a party from being an auditor for another entity.

The Chair: If you're making a friendly amendment, you should say so. Rick should comment on that, and then we'll know what we're discussing.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: If it is a friendly amendment, “agent” is fine.

Mr. Geoff Regan: As long as it's properly drafted, we're not opposed to this.

The Chair: So you give us the drafting. Do you want to stand it while your colleague is thinking?

Mr. Geoff Regan: It could say:

A person may be appointed as agent or auditor for a registered association notwithstanding that the person is a member of a partnership that has been appointed as an auditor...

The Chair: The point is that in this section we're dealing with associations, therefore the leadership contestant is inappropriate, so you're suggesting that it be changed accordingly,

Mr. Geoff Regan: And we just say “appointed as agent”, not official agent.

The Chair: Rick.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: I would let this stand, certainly, and have it redrafted.

The Chair: So it reads “as official agent for a registered association”.

Mr. Geoff Regan: No, it will read, “A person may be appointed as agent for a registered association notwithstanding that the person is a member of a partnership” etc.

The Chair: We've got that.

Mr. Geoff Regan: We would leave out the auditor and just say “agent”. That's our position. The French is going to be corrected accordingly.

The Chair: Jacques Saada.

¼ (1825)

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: I may be slow this evening, but I didn't understand what we're trying to do. What's the problem we're trying to solve?

[English]

The Chair: I'm not sure about the auditor part, that hasn't been explained, but the other part is that the reference to leadership contestant is inappropriate in this section of the bill, but reference to a registered association and the agent thereof is okay.

Mr. Geoff Regan: This would be the wrong place to put it in relation to the leadership contestant.

The Chair: Jacques Saada.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: If I understand correctly, a riding association, for example, can and must have an auditor. So the term “auditor” has to be retained. Am I mistaken?

[English]

Mr. Geoff Regan: There's no prohibition on the auditor in this regard, only on the agent. You don't need to have this clause in relation to auditors.

The Chair: So the vote is on PC-4 as amended in this friendly fashion.

(Amendment agreed to)

The Chair: We proceed to PC-4a

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to withdraw PC-4a.

The Chair: PC-4a is withdrawn.

We go now to CA-3 on page 28, on the same line as NDP-6. Ted White.

Mr. Ted White: Mr. Chairman, the original intent of this amendment was to require the Chief Electoral Officer to notify riding associations one month ahead of the May 31 due date of the report each year, but unfortunately, there was a miscommunication with drafting, and they drafted this incorrectly. So I'm going to have to withdraw it, unfortunately. It's not a critical amendment, so I probably won't get into trying to reintroduce it.

The Chair: So CA-3 is withdrawn.

Mr. Joe Jordan: What don't you just amend it?

Mr. Ted White: It's complicated, because we'll have to create a new section. We can try it, if you're willing.

Mr. Joe Jordan: What is the issue?

Mr. Ted White: The issue is that on or before--

The Chair: You've looked at the next amendment, though, have you, the NDP one?

Mr. Ted White: That's a different amendment.

My intent was that on or before April 30 of each year the Chief Electoral Officer notify every registered association of the requirements set out in this section. So the riding associations have a month's notice that they have to produce all these reports and get them in to the Chief Electoral Officer. The trouble is it's not as simple amendment to make it work, because you have to include these things about being notified by courier or by registered mail and the whole thing, that other amendment we did. So I think it's a little complicated just to put it together right here on the floor.

The Chair: I'm assuming we're moving along through this clause-by-clause in good faith, and I have no objection to standing this amendment.

Mr. Ted White: If there's an indication from Mr. Regan that they're willing to discuss this, I'm certainly willing to stand it and discuss it.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Can I give you an indication of what the government's response to this would be, and then we'll see what the reaction is? Currently, proposed section 403.17 provides that on or before May 31 of every year a registered association must provide the Chief Electoral Officer with confirmation of registration information. This date was chosen because it is same as the one on which the association must make its return on financial transactions in any event.

Mr. Ted White: It's done. We'll take it off the table.

The Chair: CA-3 is withdrawn.

We proceed to NDP-6, page 29. Lorne Nystrom.

Mr. Lorne Nystrom: This is an amendment to line 19 of clause 23 on page 12 to read:

On or before May 31 of every year, unless an election campaign is in process on that date, in which case the date shall be July 31,

The purpose of this amendment, Mr. Chair, is that the registered association must file an annual statement with the Chief Electoral Officer by May 31, and that's perfectly reasonable, but if there's an election campaign in progress, it might make it difficult, because so many volunteers are involved doing other things in the campaign. So if an election campaign is going on, the date of reporting goes from May 31 to July 31, if the committee accepts this amendment.

¼ (1830)

The Chair: Jacques Saada.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: Why was July 31 chosen instead of August 31 or July 15?

Mr. Lorne Nystrom: It's a two-month time period.

Mr. Jacques Saada: I'll tell you why I asked the question. It seems to me that, since the same persons must prepare the riding association reports and the election campaign reports, that represents an enormous amount of work to be done at the same time. I would have been inclined to allow a little more time and to grant a 90-day period so they have the time to finish both.

[English]

The Chair: Two months covers off an election campaign completely, I would have thought.

Michel Guimond.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: That's what I was going to say. An election campaign usually lasts 33 to 37 days. That means that, two months after the election call, the campaign is long over. In response to Mr. Saada, they have six months after the election to report. If everything is postponed one month, we're getting close to the election deadline. It's probably better to complete everything in a brief space of time.

[English]

Mr. Geoff Regan: Mr. Chairman, we've been reminded by Elections Canada that if the association is honestly unable to get it to Elections Canada on time, the deregistration process requires that notice automatically be given them with an extension of 30 days in any event, under the law as drafted. We're suggesting that this provision is not necessary, for that reason.

The Chair: Ted White.

Mr. Ted White: There's a big difference between not being able to make it on time because it just became too overwhelming and being allowed to defer it for two months because of all the other work that's going on. So I don't accept the explanation as satisfactory in this case. I think this is a wise amendment, because we often have elections where election day is almost exactly on this May 31 target.

The Chair: Carolyn Parrish.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: We're getting along so well here, it's scary. Could there not be some wording in there that says an extension can be applied for in an election year up to 30 days or 60 days?

Mr. Geoff Regan: I think we can agree on this actually. We could have a friendly amendment, if you agree to it, Lorne, that would say, “On or before May 31 of every year, unless an election campaign is in process in that electoral district, in which case the date would be July 31”.

Mr. Lorne Nystrom: That applies to a byelection as well.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Yes.

The Chair: It's a good point. So we vote on NDP-6 as amended.

(Amendment agreed to)

The Chair: We now go to PC-5.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: PC-5, 6, 7, and 8 are consequential to PC-4a, so I would withdraw them.

The Chair: So PC-5, 6, 7, and 8 are withdrawn.

We're now at G-7, page 34. Geoff Regan.

¼ (1835)

Mr. Geoff Regan: This fairly detailed motion would amend proposed section 403.22 and do several things. It would allow existing registered associations to continue their existence in a new district with the dissolution of their old district by the operation of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act by sending a notice to the Chief Electoral Officer. In other words, if the Halifax West boundaries are changed and the association wants to register under the new boundaries, it would allow it to do that, because most of the riding is the same, but you've lost some parts of it, and you're still called Halifax West. Second, it would allow the new electoral district associations to preregister as soon as a proclamation is issued regarding their representation order. It would ensure that a deregistered association may transfer its funds to more than one electoral district association, something I've pressing for for a while. Originally it said you could transfer it to “an” association, but often, when you have a change of boundaries, you end up having to share your funds in different directions.

The way the bill is drafted currently, all registered associations affected by a revision of electoral district boundaries would have to be deregistered. This amendment proposes to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy. To simplify the regime for most EDAs, riding associations, the amendment would allow existing EDAs to be continued as new EDAs. It would also allow associations to preregister before the coming into effect of the representation order. With respect to continuation, the association and the party leader would simply provide notice to the CEO. Their assets and liabilities would all simply move with the association. The preregistration process allows other associations to preregister, so they come into existence when the representation order comes into force. Deregistration of an old association would become the exception, as opposed to the rule, since deregistration would only occur if the old association failed to give notice to the CEO of its continued existence in a new district.

The Chair: Jacques Saada.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

If I understand this provision correctly, its purpose is to limit the problems that could be caused by the fact that an act is in effect at the time when the new electoral map becomes official in June. This provision is important if the act's effective date precedes this date in June 2004.

A number of factors must be considered in this regard. I move that we postpone consideration of this clause until a bit later.

[English]

The Chair: Ted White.

Mr. Ted White: By way of background, I had a discussion earlier with Carolyn Parrish about this particular aspect of the coming into force of the bill. This was a clause I brought up with the minister. Heaven knows, I'm agreeing with Mr. Regan again. I had almost the same discussion with the minister, starting last summer, and that's why this grandfathering was put in the bill. I guess, between the two of us, we got that in there.

The timing of the coming into force of the bill is critical here. I agree with Mr. Saada that we need to stand this one until we know what's happening elsewhere in the bill.

The Chair: I'm going to go back to Jacques. Did you mean we should stand the amendment?

Mr. Jacques Saada: Yes.

The Chair: Is there any other discussion of this?

(Amendment allowed to stand)

The Chair: We come to PC-8a, page 37.1.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: This is on page 14, line 36. This is a fairly easy amendment, I would suggest, on notice of a deregistration. What we're saying is the notification should be in writing, whereas all it says now is “notify”, and we don't whether it's by smoke signal, by telephone call. We would like to have written notice. There is written notice required with a lot of notices in typical leases, written notice delivered by registered mail.

¼ (1840)

The Chair: Ted White.

Mr. Ted White: I'm embarrassed that I missed this one. I just wonder if we could make a friendly amendment to this consistent with the amendment that was accepted yesterday, one of my amendments, which required notification by registered mail or by traceable courier. It's just proof of delivery when you're deregistering.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

The Chair: We go, then, to PC-9, page 38. Rick Borotsik.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: It's the same notice, Mr. Chairman. We've just agreed that it should be in writing and should be registered. Our suggestion here is to extend the timeline from 15 days to 60 days, but I'm certainly flexible on that. Fifteen days doesn't seem sufficient. There are a lot of riding associations that are somewhat isolated. I prefer 60 days, but I think 30 days would be sufficient.

The Chair: Jacques Saada.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: Mr. Chairman, would you refresh my memory? Didn't we debate a similar clause yesterday, and didn't we decide on a 15-day period so as not to allow too much time and so as not to allow anyone to continue taking advantage of the situation?

[English]

The Chair: I do recall something like that.

Geoff Regan.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Mr. Saada is correct, yesterday we had a clause that was somewhat similar. What was pointed out then was that when a riding association's deregistered, you want to wind it up fairly quickly, so that they aren't able to issue tax receipts and things like that. They do have 60 days to deal with their finances and so forth and wind things up. That's provided in the act. Yesterday the motion was withdrawn, if I recall correctly, because of that.

The Chair: Rick, do you want to speak to that?

Mr. Rick Borotsik: I still think 15 days is not sufficient time. It simply says “the effective date of the deregulation, which shall be at least 15 days after the day on which the notice is sent”. If the notice is sent on day one and it takes 11 days for the notice to reach someone, you've got four days to wind it up.

Mr. Geoff Regan: It's six months, pardon me, in proposed section 403.26.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Six months, but it's saying here “the effective date of the deregistration, which shall be at least 15 days after the day on which the notice is sent”.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Then in proposed section 403.26, “The financial agent of a deregistered electoral district association shall, within six months after the day of its deregistration, provide the Chief Electoral Officer with the documents referred to...”. That's how long they have to wind up, six months, not 60 days.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: This is notice, though, 15 days notice.

Mr. Geoff Regan: There were other notices before that. When they actually get to the point of deregistration, we warn them and so forth, and finally deregister it in 15 days.

The Chair: Ted White.

Mr. Ted White: This is the same ground we went over yesterday, it's exactly the same principle. We're notifying by registered mail or courier. Frankly, if it takes 11 days to get there, the CEO is using the wrong courier company. Then the riding association knows that in 15 days time all its privileges are cut off, but it has six months to wind up and do all the paperwork. So the logic is that we have to get this deregistration process done very quickly, but give ample time for the winding up.

Mr. Geoff Regan: The other thing, of course, is that during that six-month period it has an opportunity to get itself back in order and re-register. That's important to think about.

The Chair: Okay.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

The Chair: We now have PC-10, page 39.

¼ (1845)

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Mr. Chairman, this is pretty much a simple extension again of a timeline. This is with respect to payments. It is said the payment must be made within six months, and we're suggesting that 6 months may well be extended to 18 months on payments being made. Sometimes one cannot make payments within a six-month timeframe, not necessarily personally, Mr. Chairman, but perhaps from a party's perspective.

The Chair: Geoff Regan.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Mr. Chairman, the government's view would be that the six-month delay for payment of claims is consistent with the rule for the parties and appropriate. Six months is plenty of time.

The Chair: Rick Borotsik.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: It may be appropriate for some parties, it may not be for others, Mr. Chairman. It doesn't matter whether it's six months, 12 months, or 18 months, I can't understand why arbitrarily a six-month period has been chosen on this. Perhaps the parliamentary secretary could explain to me why it's arbitrarily at six months.

The Chair: Ted White.

Mr. Ted White: I just had the observation, Mr. Chairman, that I wouldn't want a party running the country that couldn't work out how to pay its bills within six months.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: It's not that it can't, it's just meant to have flexibility built into it. I'm sure Mr. White would have flexibility.

The Chair: Geoff Regan.

Mr. Geoff Regan: I think six months to pay your bills is a lot of time, Mr. Chairman. Any longer than that and you get into stale-dated cheques, but that's not the issue.

The Chair: Okay.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

The Chair: We go to BQ-4, page 40. Michel, this has a number of consequential implications. Perhaps you're going to speak to those.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Amendments BQ-4, BQ-5, BQ-6 and BQ-7 are nothing more or less than concordant amendments relating to the more significant amendment which we are introducing to clause 24 through amendment BQ-8, in which we simply request that corporate financing be eliminated.

I'm convinced that many of my colleagues around the table will subscribe to that amendment to put an end to corporate financing for certain reasons. I'm also convinced that my Liberal Party colleagues, if they rely on the speech Prime Minister Chrétien made in the House to introduce this bill, in which he praised the system which has been in effect in Quebec since 1977 and which was introduced by René Lévesque...

We know that it wasn't a natural and easy effort for Mr. Chrétien to make to praise René Lévesque. I'm sure he had to take a few tablets to control his stomach acidity after praising René Lévesque. And yet Mr. Chrétien is a Quebecker. I'm sure he's proud of what René Lévesque did for Quebec.

Let's not forget that the electoral financing provisions in force in Quebec simply prohibit corporate financing. So, if we are consistent with ourselves, we should agree to eliminate all references to corporate financing in this bill.

I also want to make a comment to Mr. White, my colleague from the Canadian Alliance. I'm sure he will vote in favour of this amendment to eliminate corporate financing, particularly since on a number of occasions, he has mentioned—it was he who made the majority of those comments—that the vast majority of donations to the Canadian Alliance came from individuals. If my memory serves me, it was more than 82 percent. So I'm convinced my Canadian Alliance colleagues are in favour of eliminating all references to corporate financing.

As to my NDP colleagues, yesterday we heard testimony from the party president, who acknowledged that the Quebec system is very effective. I'm sure my NDP colleague, Mr. Nystrom, won't see any problem in supporting my amendment.

As to the Conservative Party, I appeal to the common sense and good judgment of my colleague Mr. Borotsik to vote in favour of this amendment.

That's what I wanted to say, Mr. Chairman. That completes my presentation.

¼ (1850)

[English]

The Chair: Merci, Michel.

Guy St-Julien.

[Translation]

Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, Mr. Guimond referred at length to Mr. Chrétien and René Lévesque. We know he doesn't need pills to respect Mr. Lévesque.

For my information, I would like Mr. Guimond to tell me whether the Bloc québécois has changed positions in recent years and whether it has accepted corporate donations in recent election campaigns. That's just for my information.

Mr. Michel Guimond: At the 1997 conference, the members of the Bloc québécois democratically requested an amendment to the by-laws to accept corporate donations simply so they could fight the other parties represented here in this House on equal terms. But we would agree to amend our by-laws again if that financing... It's because it was provided for in the bill. We had wanted to operate on a purer and cleaner basis. Despite the fact we were operating federally, we wanted to regulate the electoral financing rules in Quebec. But the members of our party told us democratically at a conference that we would have to go to war with the same weapons as those we were facing. So the party members decided democratically to amend the by-laws. It's simply for that reason that we took up the cudgels. But if the act were amended in that way, we would have to ensure at a future conference that our by-laws are consistent with the Federal Elections Act as amended, which would prohibit corporate financing.

Mr. Guy St-Julien: Vice versa...

[English]

The Chair: Guy St-Julien.

[Translation]

Mr. Guy St-Julien: I would like to conclude. Currently, under our by-laws, it's not prohibited, which means that, if we keep it, you're going to keep it as well.

Mr. Michel Guimond: I'm pleased to see that Mr. St-Julien is inquiring into the internal rules of operation. Between Bloc québécois conferences, which are held every two years, the general council meetings are the decision-making authority. One is scheduled for September. We will have the time to amend our by-laws in order to comply with the act.

In view of the interest you show, I'm sure you'll vote in favour of my amendment. I'm convinced that, if the act is amended, we'll have to conduct ourselves in such a way as to comply with it.

[English]

The Chair: Before we go to Jacques Saada, I have been told to point out--so you can think about it while Jacques is talking-- that whatever we do with this amendment applies to BQ-15, 17, 21, and 23.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: I'd have to check that. Didn't the legislative clerk say that in handwritten footnotes. Who just decided that?

[English]

The Chair: She's just told me.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: She just decided that. All right. I'd like to take the time to see that. That's a surprise. I'm surprised.

[English]

The Chair: You certainly should have the time. They are BQ-15, 17, 21, and 23.

Jacques Saada.

¼ (1855)

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: Mr. Chairman, my remarks are neither for nor against what my colleague just said, but I find it hard to understand what we're doing. We're on amendment BQ-4, aren't we?

[English]

The Chair: We're dealing with BQ-4, page 40.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: All right. If I go to amendment BQ-4, I don't really see the link between the proposed amendment and the principle of financing by corporations or unions. Would you be kind enough to enlighten me on that because I don't understand what we're doing?

Mr. Michel Guimond: It's because it proposes to delete, to replace lines 1 to 7. So we no longer need paragraph 403.35(1)(d).

Mr. Jacques Saada: Wait a second. Paragraph 403.35(1)(d) concerns paragraph 405.3(2)(c) and subsection 405.3(4).

[English]

Mr. Geoff Regan: These concern unincorporated associations.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: Paragraph 405.3(2)(c) doesn't concern corporations at all.

[English]

The Chair: Geoff Regan, can you shed some light on this?

Mr. Geoff Regan: Mr. Chairman, this motion would remove proposed paragraph 403.351(d) regarding returns of EDAs as a consequence of motion BQ-15 on page 101. BQ-15 would suppress contributions from associations of individuals, as well as corporations, thereby making it unnecessary to report the names of individuals who contribute through associations, which is what these provisions are all about that he wants to remove. So it's connected with BQ-15, but it has to do not with corporations here, but with donations from unincorporated associations, which are permitted up to $1,000 by the bill. He wants to change that. That's what it's all about.

The Chair: Okay.

Michel.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: The real amendment is BQ-8, which provides for the prohibition of corporate donations by deleting lines 1 to 20 on page 25. That's the real amendment, but I had to say so at that point because these are three concordance amendments.

Does Ms. René de Cotret agree on that? You're entitled to speak, Madam; you shouldn't just speak to Mr. Regan. When I start attacking a witness, I'm a pitbull.

Ms. Michèle René de Cotret: The Bloc Québecois is moving two main amendments: BQ-8 and BQ-15. Amendment BQ-8 is designed to eliminate the right of corporations and unions to make donations, and BQ-15 is designed to eliminate the right of associations of individuals to make donations. What this is here is correlative with BQ-15.

[English]

The Chair: Jacques Saada.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: Wouldn't it be more logical to determine what we're going to do with BQ-8 and BQ-15 first and deal with BQ-4 accordingly, since it is the consequence of the others?

Mr. Michel Guimond: That's not a problem for me.

[English]

The Chair: An appropriate way, once Michel has had time to look at BQ-15, 17, 21, and 23, would be to consider them all together, if they're linked. I'm quite willing to do that, Michel, if you want to take the time to look at them.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: Yes.

[English]

The Chair: Let's all look at them.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: May I make a suggestion?

[English]

The Chair: By all means.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: If we defer consideration of this amendment, defer BQ-8 and BQ-15 until the end of this whole series and consider them all at the same time at the end, we won't need to refer endlessly from one to the other. We would first address the substance, then the consequences.

Mr. Michel Guimond: No.

½ (1900)

[English]

The Chair: I think they are very tightly related, so we're not really moving back and forth. It's just the order they are in the book.

Geoff Regan.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that if someone doesn't agree with the government's position that we should allow $1,000 contributions from corporations and unincorporated associations with individuals to riding associations, they might want this, but as long as you agree with the government's position that we should have that $1,000 limit on contributions to electoral district associations, you can defeat this motion, because you aren't going to want to vote the other ones later.

The Chair: What I'm suggesting, though, is that we look at the others about the same time. Jacques is saying we should stand this and wait until we get to the others. I don't see the difference, because we're going to be coming back. I would sooner, if it's humanly possible--and Michel is looking at them now--look at these five together.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: We need page numbers.

[English]

The Chair: Yes, certainly. I was doing that. BQ-15 is on page 101, BQ-17 is on page 155, BQ-21 is on page 180, and BQ-23 is on page 199.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Why don't we stand BQ-4, because there are many other things we're going to come up with.

The Chair: What happens when we get to these others?

Mr. Geoff Regan: Then we'll have a major discussion, I guess, about these key issues.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Can I make a suggestion, because I have a hard time following maps, I always have to turn them and go from the bottom? Could we not ask that all these be clustered together in the binder for tomorrow morning at 11 o'clock, when we're fresh and can go after your whole concept as a package? This bouncing around is not good for me at this time of night. I'm getting old.

The Chair: We're in Michel's hands here, because they're his amendments. The suggestion, Michel, is that tomorrow we circulate a separate package with them all in and you can speak to it again.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: We had agreed to stop at 7:30. I don't want to extend the meeting unduly, but we still have time. If you want to deal with all the rest of the amendments until 7:30, that doesn't bother me, but we're on them. I hope that no one thinks I'm taking dilatory measures; that's not the case. I've just learned that the legislative clerk's view is that amendments BQ-15, BQ-17, BQ-21 and BQ-23 are related to this. If I had known sooner, if there had been a footnote like there is for the others—I'm not blaming you, Madam—I would have done my homework and wouldn't have questioned the matter.

We have to stop deferring things. We're in the middle of it; we haven't finished the half-hour period. Give me the time to examine this decently.

[English]

The Chair: I'm going to suspend in a moment for a short time, but go ahead.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: Through your intermediary, I would like to ask Michel a question. Does ruling on the principle itself...? Regardless of the wording of each of the amendments, if we rule in favour of the very principle of eliminating associations and corporations, we'll examine the exact wording of those amendments. If we are opposed to the very principle, we can rule against the principle and automatically reject these four or five amendments at the same time.

Mr. Michel Guimond: I'm going to suggest something to advance the proceedings. We're going to vote on amendment BQ-8 to clause 24, on page 25 of the French version. If Ms. René de Cotret agrees, it's really the amendment that provides for the elimination of corporate financing. If everyone agrees on that... I don't want to repeat the speech from earlier. That's what we vote on.

Do we advance arguments here in an attempt to convince colleagues or are we talking to the walls, wallpaper and the hall? I tried to advance arguments. Debate my arguments and then, based on the results of the vote, we'll consider the other amendments. For tomorrow, I promise to be able to respond to the interpretation of BQ-4 and to tell you whether I agree on the correlation made by the legislative clerk.

½ (1905)

[English]

The Chair: Jacques, are you comfortable with that? Let's follow what Michel and Jacques have suggested. So we're on BQ-8, page 59.

Michel.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: For the same reasons I stated in an attempt to convince the same persons here present, this amendment provides for the elimination of corporate financing. It thus provides for strict acceptance of individual financing.

[English]

The Chair: Jacques.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: We've heard a lot of witnesses. Some advocated this solution, others other solutions. I've raised an argument which I think is important.

It is too often considered that politics is something that should be hidden, which isn't healthy, which isn't transparent, which isn't good, and people want a corporation to be prevented from making donations, whereas corporations have a community role to play and play a financing or financial assistance role, just as they do with cultural, artistic, athletic, recreational and other organizations.

I think that going straight off on the tangent of completely eliminating corporate donations is a bit like acknowledging that it's unhealthy for corporations to contribute. I don't agree with that argument. I don't think it's unhealthy. I think that what is important is to eliminate the perception of undue influence and, to eliminate that perception, I think that limits will play that role. So I would be opposed to the idea of completely eliminating financing by corporations and associations.

[English]

The Chair: Rick Borotsik.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: I agree, unfortunately, that the legislation as it's written now deals with corporate contributions simply to a candidate, not to a party. I think we all recognize that there are small and medium-sized enterprises within our constituencies that contribute not just dollars up to $1,000, but gifts in kind when we're dealing with our fundraisers, golf tournaments, barbecues, fundraising events. We're talking a whole different avenue here if we take away the small corporate giving, from the Canadian Tire that is going to donate a television set for a function to the fellow next door to my constituency office with an automotive repair business who writes a cheque for $150 to $200 for a campaign. He has a right to do that, Canadian Tire has a right to do it. To stop that really speaks against, I think, the flavour of the legislation. I'm not in favour of the $1,000, but we can talk about that at a later time when we come to a different amendment. Corporate giving in a constituency to a candidate I think is inherent in our political system and should remain, at this level particularly.

The Chair: Geoff Regan, on BQ-8.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Rick has certainly chosen a good location for his office, because clearly he can drive to work, leave the car next door at the shop to get it fixed, and work all day. It's marvellous, Mr. Chairman.

Clearly, the government is opposed to this amendment. The decision to allow limited contributions at the local level from corporations, unions, and associations is integral to the bill. I would agree with what I've heard from Mr. Borotsik. We do have mom and pop operations, small businesses, and so forth, corporations do play a role in our society, and that nothing is wrong with that, provided there are limits. This bill does provide limits the government feels are reasonable, and we feel this amendment should be defeated.

The Chair: Lorne Nystrom.

Mr. Lorne Nystrom: I support the Bloc amendment. I don't think there should be any union or corporate donations whatsoever. We've heard a lot of complaints before this committee and other places that the $1,000 isn't very much anyway, it's going to be more of a problem than help, with all the bureaucracy, the bookwork, the accounting, and so on.

As to what Rick is saying about the small mom and pop operation or the small business person, the small business person who writes up a $150 cheque is probably better off to do it anyway as an individual, because then you get the tax credit, you don't get it as a small business person.

For those kinds of reasons, I would certainly support the amendment by the Bloc Québécois, so we get rid of all union and corporate donations and have it strictly financed by individuals and by the federal government. It simplifies things.

½ (1910)

The Chair: Carolyn Parrish.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Lorne has brought up an interesting point. When this donation is so small now, is it not more of an advantage for the little store owner to give it as an individual? I need an answer.

Ms. Michèle René de Cotret: May I answer?

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Yes.

Ms. Michèle René de Cotret: The tax credit applies to any taxpayer, and it's the same tax credit.

Mr. Geoff Regan: I think a lot of times you would find, as far as mom and pop operations and small businesses are concerned, it's simpler for them to just have their company write the cheque. They're at the office, they want to do it, they write the cheque.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: It's not clear to me.

Mr. Geoff Regan: The answer is that they can get a tax credit as a corporation.

The Chair: There's no advantage to doing it one way or the other from a tax credit point of view.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: They can't double-dip, they can't write it off as an expense.

Mr. Geoff Regan: No.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Second, I've heard that there's some sort of constitutional challenge being provided if you don't allow businesses to give some small amount. True or false?

The Chair: Geoff.

Mr. Geoff Regan: We're not aware of one.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Is there a possibility of one?

Mr. Stéphane Perrault (Senior Counsel, Privy Council Office): There is always the possibility. The most significant issue is to allow groups of individuals to put their money together as a group. It does not have to be as a corporation necessarily, but it is important to have groups of individuals. Some of them may be incorporated, but that's not really a constitutional issue.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: I am leaning towards voting for this. Given that I know at least one of my colleagues is going to vote for this, is it not totally blowing Mr. LeDrew's presentation for tomorrow if this passes tonight?

The Chair: We'll think about that while Marlene Catterall is speaking.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: We heard Mr. Jordan say at an earlier meeting and it's my suspicion that in the next Parliament, or at the following at the latest, we will get to the point where there are no corporate or union donations. I'm just not sure there's general acceptance among those involved in politics right now to go that far. The smaller operations in our own ridings I think should be able to contribute as corporations if they wish for now. So I'm not prepared to support this amendment and take out that whole section.

What I would like a more thorough discussion on is the idea of associations. I have substantial problems with that. As I mentioned earlier, the potential for lobby organizations to get together to form 20, 30, or 40 groups in a riding and in every riding across the country under different names with different groups of people I believe is substantial. I think that introduces an element into the political system we don't have right now. So as we're drawing back from group donations, I'm not sure why we should now introduce a new element we haven't had before.

I'm not prepared to vote for this as regards the union and corporation small donations at the riding level, and I think there may be some other amendments coming forward on this, but I really do have a problem with the whole association thing. I don't understand why it's in here, I don't understand why it's necessary. The associations, as I've read it, if they're unincorporated, have to identify every contributor anyway, so why do we need to say to individuals who are prepared to contribute individually, to be identified individually, you may form yourself into an association to do that, except very specifically for the purposes of lobbying? I have real problems with that, and I wonder perhaps if the parliamentary secretary to the minister could explain why it's in there. There's no protection, no anonymity for the individual donors in that association, they have to be identified. I just see a potential for abuse.

½ (1915)

The Chair: Geoff, you can respond to that immediately, but I have two other speakers. Do you want to wait?

Mr. Geoff Regan: I'll just say one of the things this provides for is small parties, parties with less than 50 candidates that can't register. This allows these small parties, if they so choose, to give assistance to their candidates. You may have cases where some candidates are better off than others, and the party can then take some money and put it over here with another candidate who doesn't have any money for their campaign at all. You can imagine, with a really small party trying to get started, sometimes it's very hard to get money for some of their candidates, and they want to be able to give money to them. Without this, they couldn't do that.

The Chair: Joe Jordan.

Mr. Joe Jordan: If that's what's it for, why don't we narrow it to that? There is a legal definition of a non-registered political party, between 12 and 50 candidates, so why don't we narrow it? Marlene's point is right: let's not leave the door open for ambiguous associations.

You said that's one of the reasons. Is there another reason? Is there another group you're trying to catch with this, or is that the only one? If that's the only one, then just name it as that.

The Chair: Jacques.

[Translation]

M. Jacques Saada: Amendment BQ-8 concerns corporations, unions and associations. It concerns all three at the same time. However, we may very well disagree amongst yourselves and think it's one and not the other. In other words, we may very well agree that associations should be eliminated, if we come to that, but not unions and corporations, or the contrary. So I don't know how we can proceed technically, but I would like us to draw a distinction between the two so that we do not vote as a block on one side or the other.

I'm referring specifically to the proposed paragraph 404.1(1)(a). It refers to corporations and trade unions. That's on page 24 of the bill, line 33. However, reference is made to associations at lines 34, 35 and 36. I only wanted to draw your attention to that so that we don't reject everything together, if we want to draw a distinction between the two. That's what I wanted to say.

[English]

The Chair: Geoff, do you or your colleagues want to speak to that? I heard the concern about associations, which is simply a part of this section that Michel's amendment deals with. Does somebody want to think aloud about that?

Mr. Perrault.

Mr. Stéphane Perrault: I'm not here to argue for any position, I just want to bring this to the committee's attention. Why would the legislation treat unions as a special type of association, differently from other types? Why should an association that is incorporated be getting the benefit of the contribution, whereas the one that is not incorporated is not be getting the same benefit? There is the issue of the small, non-registered parties. These parties, if we were to remove associations from the exception, would not be individuals and, under section 404, could not provide money to their candidates. With this clause, they can raise funds, and if they have a candidate who comes up, they can say, here's at least some money to help you get started. Without that, they could not do this.

½ (1920)

The Chair: I can accept as one definition of association one of these unregistered parties, but some of my colleagues are suggesting that there are other types of association, some of which might be more dubious.

Mr. Stéphane Perrault: The bill provides that the names of individuals who raise money and give money through these associations and the amounts of their contributions would be identified. The money would count as part of their $10,000 limit. This would not allow a person, therefore, to multiply a contribution in excess of the limit or to hide their identity.

The Chair: Rick Borotsik.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Part of my question was answered. Even if there's an association contribution to a candidate in a small party, that association contribution must, under the legislation, be identified and declared as individuals. But now I'm coming to a really difficult question. Would you define a service organization as an association?

Mr. Stéphane Perrault: I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: A service group, the Lions, the Rotary Club, the Kinsmen clubs, would they be defined as associations?

Mr. Stéphane Perrault: The bill, as currently drafted, is very loose. Any incorporated organization is an association. They would provide only money from individuals, with the name and the amount.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: A lot of those associations can't really identify where their money comes from and they can't declare, so they can't give to that particular candidate.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Mr. Chairman, I think the reason for that is obvious: you don't want people to do things through the back door if they can't do them through the front door.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: I'm talking about legitimate organizations and associations.

Mr. Geoff Regan: I know. I agree, those are very legitimate ones. But you can have associations that can receive donations from unknown donors, you don't know what the amounts were of the donations, and they may be able to give a donation to the party. While the vast majority of times it may be fine, you can also see real problems with abuses, and that's what we're trying to avoid. If, in fact, it's a question of the association collecting from a bunch of individuals and giving on behalf of those individuals, the individuals can do it directly, but also, through this mechanism, the association can give it as long as they can report where it comes from.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Here's the thing. These may well not be individual donations. It could be fundraising from a car wash, for heaven's sake, or bingo or sale of a raffle ticket. If they have those dollars in their association, unless they can identify and declare, they can't give a donation under this. Is that what you're telling me?

The Chair: Let's say a group gets together solely for the purpose of fundraising and giving money to the political process, they've got a name, and they do it all through car washes. Now what happens?

Mr. Geoff Regan: They're raising money to give to a candidate.

The Chair: This is the purple association, and we, the purple association, are fundraising, so it says “Purple Association's Car Wash”. They collect all the money, then they give it to the political process. You say back to me what's happened there.

Mr. Geoff Regan: They clearly can't give it to the party, that's not allowed. As for giving it to a candidate, if you're going to be raising money for political purposes, you have to follow the rules in the law, which provides that you outline where it came from.

The Chair: But it came from car washes.

Mr. Geoff Regan: The point is that if we want to know what the names of donors are and the amounts, we must have some kind of system for doing that. Otherwise, you leave it wide open. Where is your transparency? If you want to have transparency, you must have these kinds of rules. Frankly, with the Lions and groups like that, I'm not aware of their giving money to political parties, though they do lots of good things.

½ (1925)

The Chair: Ted White.

Mr. Ted White: The bill says any donation over $10 must have a receipt, so if the car wash is more than $10, they'll have to give receipts.

The Chair: I'm wondering who gives the receipt.

Mr. Ted White: The person who has the car wash.

The Chair: But there are 20 people formed together to run car washes to raise money for a candidate.

Mr. Ted White: Then they've got to give receipts to the people who come in for a car wash if it's more than $10.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Geoff Regan: By the way, Ted has already raised it. We had a discussion the other day about the limits, whether you can pass the hat and receive $20 bills, and so forth. We're looking at that, and we want to look at whether it should be a $25 limit or what it should be. From my perspective, in receiving $20 bills, we shouldn't have to write receipts and worry about it. I think we're heading somewhere in that direction.

The Chair: Lorne.

Mr. Lorne Nystrom: I share all the concerns Marlene was raising about associations, how they would spring up, and whether people can get around this through the back door. Suppose you have a big national organization, the National Citizens' Coalition, for example. They have all kinds of members across the country and they can set up associations in all kinds of ridings across the country, Citizens for Free Speech, Citizens for the Protection of a Wonderful Canada, or whatever, and it goes on and on and on. That's the kind of thing that really concerns me.

I think, Mr. Chair, this amendment we're dealing with now really goes to the heart in many ways. I would suggest that we consider standing this amendment until tomorrow to give us a chance to do a bit more thinking about it overnight, consulting with colleagues, and so on. It's almost 7:30.

The Chair: I don't even need to stand it. Let's get what discussion we can.

Jacques Saada.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: Mr. Chairman, we're currently talking about associations. Apart from Mr. Nystrom, Mr. Guimond and a third person, I haven't heard anyone speak to the question of corporations and trade unions. I think that, if we vote against this amendment, that won't preclude the possibility of amending the clause in question, which we can do tomorrow, to shape it on the basis of the information we've obtained on the associations. In other words, voting against the amendment does not prevent us from making other amendments affecting the same clause. Do you understand what I mean?

[English]

The Chair: I understand completely. You realize that five or six or more amendments depend on this one that are in here already.

Joe Jordan.

Mr. Joe Jordan: I have the identical amendment, so we get two kicks at the can

On the car wash thing, let's be clear. If the car wash I get is worth 10 bucks, I have to receipt the people who are washing the cars, and if they're actually professional car washers, it's different. This is getting to be quite a mess. So when we're going through this, I hope we understand and get the answers we need. Otherwise, we're going to create such a nightmare for people, with the best of intentions--we're trying to make the system better, let's keep that in mind. We have to get better answers on some of this stuff if we're going to move at this pace. That's my own view.

The Chair: Geoff.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Mr. Chairman, in relation to the unincorporated assocations, we've heard concerns, for example, expressed about the National Citizens' Coalition. Well, under this bill the National Citizens' Coalition could give $1000.

The Chair: He didn't say that, he said groups set up by their members.

Mr. Geoff Regan: You have to look what relationship there is between different groups, but any group giving up to $1000 has to list who it's coming from, and the limits on individual donations apply to donations through that party. In other words, if one person wants to give $100,000 through associations, he can, because their name is going to be indicated on the list. If the National Citizens' Coalition wants to be involved in the political process, right now we don't know where the money comes from. With this, if it wanted to set up an organization or whatever, the money has to be detailed, you have to see where it's coming from, and that's different from the case today.

½ (1930)

The Chair: Before I adjourn the meeting, I want to answer Carolyn Parrish's point about Stephen LeDrew. I don't believe it would. Although he has interests here, he has other interests when he comes. Also, we've agreed to deal with this in a fairly open fashion, so if we did do something that affected his.... I don't think it affects Stephen LeDrew.

My suggestion is that we simply stop. We will start at exactly the same place, page 59, tomorrow. We will have a small package of the amendments we think are consequential and will circulate those so people can look at them at the same time. Geoff, it is my serious assumption that you and your colleagues are going to look at this. When we start tomorrow, Michel will begin, but we'll go straight to you and you'll take us through it in some reasonable fashion.

The meeting is adjourned until 11 o'clock tomorrow in room 112 North.