[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Tuesday, September 26, 1995
.1105 
[English]
The Chairman: Order.
The committee is ready to proceed with its business, which is the consideration of Bill C-319.
Mr. Boudria.
Mr. Boudria (Glengarry - Prescott - Russell): I wonder if this is a good time to bring this up, but I will do so very briefly and the chair can rule that it will be dealt with later if that is the case.
Mr. Chairman, have you yet sent that letter to the Senate in regard -
The Chairman: Mr. Boudria, you contacted me and indicated that there is a problem. That letter was not on my desk for signature yesterday and I didn't sign it.
Mr. Boudria: Having said that, at some point today I would like to suggest one or two minor changes to the letter, I think in a couple of places. If it has not already been sent out, then we could strengthen it, because I've discovered an interesting quote from someone that I think strengthens our case. At the same time, there are a couple of other places where we use words that we could alter as well. Anyway, it's a suggestion and if you don't know when you want to deal with that....
Do you want to deal with it afterwards?
The Chairman: What is the wish of the committee? Do you want to deal with that at, say, 12:15 p.m.? Is that agreeable?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chairman: All right, then, we will proceed until 12:15 p.m. with Mr. McClelland and then interrupt the proceedings and deal with that.
There is one other routine matter with which we should deal. The committee passed a resolution establishing subcommittees to deal with electoral boundaries matters. The committee authorized the establishment of subcommittees of three. We have established subcommittees of four, and I wonder, since the whips agreed on four, if the committee is agreeable to increasing the size of the subcommittees from three to four. Is that agreed?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chairman: So ordered. Thank you. The subcommittees have been struck to hear the members on the issue of electoral boundaries and report back to this committee on October 16.
Mr. Ringma.
Mr. Ringma (Nanaimo - Cowichan): I will be raising a follow-on item not on this one, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: Okay.
So it's agreed. Everyone is in agreement that it will be four instead of three.
Mr. McWhinney (Vancouver Quadra): Is it clear, though, that the subcommittees will in essence decide subject only to review on due process and things such as that, or will the full committee be re-examining?
The Chairman: The full committee will have the power to re-examine. We're not planning on hearing witnesses.
Mr. McWhinney: You will not call for witnesses, then?
The Chairman: That's our plan. Agreed?
Mr. Ringma, on another matter.
Mr. Ringma: On the order of the day, I had expected that we would have this discussion on the public accounts committee, the numbers of positions, today. I thought it was agreed on for today.
The Chairman: I thought it was coming back only if there was not agreement among the whips. I hadn't heard anything on that subject.
Mr. Boudria: There is not.
The Chairman: I see. So we'll discuss that at 12:15 p.m., as well?
An hon. member: Shoehorn it in.
Mr. Boudria: Mr. Chairman, can we do it at 12 noon?
Mr. Duceppe (Laurier - Sainte-Marie): Why not right now?
The Chairman: Perhaps we should interrupt at noon.
Mr. Boudria: Yes, at 12 noon. We have a witness, but maybe we could do it at 12 noon and do the whole thing.
The Chairman: At 12 noon.
Mr. Duceppe: We also would like to participate.
The Chairman: You are going to have to move very smartly, Mr. McClelland, so we will move to you right away. I think you might have a presentation.
I call clause 1, and you will be speaking on clause 1 of your bill.
On clause 1
Mr. Ian McClelland, MP (Edmonton Southwest): I believe there is a brief to be passed out in both official languages. In any event, if it's not there, then we can distribute it later.
I will read from a prepared text. There are just a few pages, and in the brief there are supporting statistics and arguments.
I thank members of the committee for providing me with an opportunity to appear as a witness with respect to Bill C-319, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (reimbursement of election expenses), which I first introduced in the House on March 30 of this year.
I hope that by way of this submission the importance of the bill will be recognized by all members of the committee. At the same time, I welcome comments and suggestions to improve the direction this bill will take. I view the bill as being one step in a general direction that to date has met with the approval of various parliamentarians across parties.
There is currently recognition in the Canada Elections Act that frivolous candidates or parties, candidates or parties with marginal public support, should not be the beneficiaries of public reimbursement of election expenses.
At the present time the marginal restriction applies to candidates rather than to parties. Candidates must receive at least 15% of the vote in order to receive a 50% reimbursement of election expenses. The purpose of such a threshold is to discourage frivolous candidates from running for office, or at least to eliminate taxpayer subsidies for campaign contributors to such fringe candidates.
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The purpose of Bill C-319 is to apply an approach to frivolous political parties similar to what is currently applied to frivolous candidates. The registration of an organization as a political party brings with it the right to issue receipts for political contributions - and this is quite important - irrespective of the degree of voter support. We are all aware of the problems with the regulation of charities. Once registered charitable status has been obtained, accompanied by the right to issue tax receipts for donations, it's very difficult to lose such status, irrespective of the significant lack of membership or public support for the activities of the charities. Such a charity may simply be a shell used to shelter income and to issue tax receipts for contributions.
What I've attempted to address as a member of Parliament through the introduction of Bill C-319 is what I regard as an abuse of the status of registered political parties by fringe groups. In this bill I propose that the Canada Elections Act be amended to restrict the reimbursement of election expenses of national parties to those national parties receiving at least 2% of the total votes cast. At present, any registered political party is eligible for a refund of money that the national party spends if it spends over 10% of its eligible expenses. The refund is 22.5%.
It is one matter for a group of concerned citizens to wish to enter into a political process and collectively organize for that purpose. It's quite another for fringe advocacy groups to have their activities funded by taxpayers from two perspectives: first, by way of an entitlement to issue receipts for political donations; and second, by way of reimbursement of expenses in circumstances where such fringe groups command virtually no significant degree of public support.
The current state of taxpayers' subsidization results in what I and others perceive to be a frivolous party, the Natural Law Party, receiving $8.40 from the taxpayer for each of the 87,000 votes cast in its favour in the 1993 election, a total subsidy amounting to over $700,000. Under the current legislation, the more a party spends, the more the taxpayer subsidizes, irrespective of the degree of electoral support for a party's position. The party spent over $3 million during the 1993 election in conveying its message of transcendental meditation as a supposed political alternative. In my view, the Canadian taxpayer ended up subsidizing the advertising campaign for a contemplative lifestyle associated with fee-based courses in meditation techniques rather than the activities of a political party providing economic and social alternatives.
There are a number of pages of supporting documents. I'd be prepared to answer any questions at this time.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: Mr. Boudria, to lead off.
Mr. Boudria: I'm very interested in this issue, because I also believe there has been some scandalous abuse in the past. The example raised by our colleague is certainly...you couldn't concoct a more dramatic one if you tried. It could be called subsidizing the absurd.
But I see a danger in the bill, or at least a potential one. Perhaps it's addressed. Mr. McClelland could indicate to us if it is addressed, and if it is not, whether he'd be prepared to have a minor amendment to address the issue. I'm concerned about a party that would have a regional base, but because the region is so small, over the space of the country it could dilute to virtually nothing.
I'll give you an example. Let's concoct one for the purpose of the conversation. Say a political party developed in - let's use the smallest province in Canada - P.E.I., and their whole reason for being would be to construct another bridge linking Newfoundland to P.E.I. Let us use the examples that don't work in order at least to understand. They could have maybe 25% or 30% of the support of the electorate within that province, but overall in the country of course that would add up to virtually nothing.
So I'm wondering whether an amendment in the bill that would reflect the 2% rule that you have - or 3%; whatever the rule is - but within a province instead, to make sure a regionally based party with some significance would not be disqualified from getting the voter subsidy because of the fact that the region in which it operates is a small fraction of the whole.... I don't know if that concept makes sense or if I'm expressing it properly.
.1115
Mr. McClelland: Yes, I think your concept makes sense. The reason I came up with the 2% was that in the 1988 election the Reform Party, which was a regional party at that time and had about a year of life and virtually no money, garnered 2.1% of the vote nationally. That was the benchmark that was used.
But I think your point is valid. Others have said perhaps 2% is too high. Perhaps we could change it so it would be 1.5% nationally and a higher threshold within a province. Within any province it could be - and I don't know; I'll just throw it out - certainly less than 10%, but nationally there would be two obstacles...or to lower the threshold nationally.
Mr. Boudria: Just for the purpose of the argument, without stating it as a clear position but again to try to assist us in advancing the debate, say the rule was 5%, but within a province. Again, I am trying to avoid the situation you describe - and let us remember, a week or two after the election many of us were interviewed about the absurdity to which you referred earlier in your conversation. Taxpayers want everyone to participate in the democratic process and to facilitate that as much as possible, but everything has its limits. People bouncing around on a rug or a mattress on television, subsidized by the rest of us, in an effort to recruit members for an organization hardly constitutes enhancing the political process.
On the other hand, there is the other problem to which I referred earlier.
So I was thinking of something like 5% as a way of starting the conversation, recognizing regional parties that have started before. I'm thinking of the United Farmers of Alberta, the Progressives in Manitoba, and the UFO - not the kind we think of in the modern sense but the United Farmers of Ontario, which originally had people such as Mitch Hepburn.... No, I guess Mitch Hepburn wasn't there, but his colleagues all were: John Wintermeyer and Harry Nixon, interestingly enough, who was the grandfather of one of our MPs.
Mr. McClelland: Mr. Chairman, I certainly would have no problem, because that would address a concern that was raised by the Bloc during debate on the bill, that it would make it perhaps more difficult for legitimate.... I too am concerned. We don't want to stifle legitimate political discourse, but we do want to put some additional roadblocks in advance of people who would be demeaning the political process, or just using it.
I certainly would have no problem in amending the bill to accommodate that. So it would be either/or; 2% nationally or 5% in a political province.
Mr. Boudria: Oh, I see. I hadn't even thought of that angle. So providing one of the two criteria is satisfied, it would work.
Mr. McClelland: Yes.
Mr. Boudria: It would be 2% nationally or 5% within a province.
Mr. McClelland: Yes, either/or.
Mr. Boudria: So it covers both sides.
Mr. McClelland: Yes.
Mr. Boudria: All right.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Boudria.
[Translation]
Mr. Langlois, do you have any questions?
Mr. Langlois (Bellechasse): Thank you, Mr. McClelland for your presentation. I had the opportunity to raise some questions with you before the Sub-Committee on Private Members' Business. It may not be necessary to answer my question since Mr. Boudria open the discussion on the same topic. In order to avoid repetitions and so that my colleagues have more time, you could perhaps go back to the question that I asked you at the time.
Let us take Newfoundland. One could imagine, without wishing to build another link similar to the one that will be built between PEI and the continent, that there develops...
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Let's take a more realistic example that's very much mentioned these days. Let us take a party that wants to regain Newfoundland's pre-1949 status, that of an independent dominion within the Commonwealth.
This party could have 52 MLAs filling the 52 seats of the Newfoundland assembly and a federal wing that got seven MPs out of seven elected to the House of Commons with 40% of the votes, which would represent 0.8% of votes nationally. According to the present act, such a party would not only not be entitled to any refund, but would not even be recognized as a party in the House of Commons.
Because of Canadian diversity, I see there a very serious problem. When you look at present day Canada's origins and more particularly to that of the colonies that joined Canada at the outset, the province of Canada, the colonies of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, P.E.I. and British Columbia, who already had their own institutions, and the provinces that appeared later on, that can probably be viewed in the same light, I also see a serious problem.
Your second option is probably more interesting since it allows a party that has gotten a certain percentage locally - In the example I suggested, Newfoundland has a sovereignty party that has gained a majority in the legislative assembly. Would it then be covered by the second part of the option you explained in anwer to Mr. Boudria's question?
[English]
Mr. McClelland: Yes, it would, and I think that would strengthen the bill, because it would satisfy the concerns that you have now and that you raised in debate in the House that we don't want to stifle legitimate birth of new ideas. That's not what's intended in this bill, but it is a check and a balance so that the public purse will not be abused by people who would abuse it.
By amending the bill so it would be 2% federally or 5% in any one province, that would satisfy your concern.
Mr. Ringma: I'd like to speak in favour of Mr. Boudria's thrust, supported by Mr. Langlois. They're going in the right direction.
Having sat with the Natural Law candidates during the election and seen the waste, I'm as horrified as any member of Parliament.
An hon. member: He levitated!
Mr. Ringma: In any event, I would not like to see a diminishment of the 2%.
I wonder if perhaps a solution wouldn't be to have a small group of interested people sit with Ian and craft some sort of an amendment there that would take care of these legitimate concerns representing regions.
Mr. McClelland: In the absence of any testimony to the contrary, I would think that to retain the 2% nationally would be fair, but adding the provision of 5% in any single province. It would be to meet either threshold. You wouldn't have to meet both thresholds. It would be necessary for you to meet only one of the thresholds in order to be reimbursed.
Mrs. Parrish (Mississauga West): I was watching Mr. Boudria's mind work. Can he take one minute of my time, because I'm dying to know what he's thinking about.
The Chairman: As long as you're not unhappy.
Mrs. Parrish: I'm not unhappy. Go.
Mr. Boudria: I was just wondering. You were talking about those two thresholds. A further proposition must be considered, which is the following one. If we are asking ourselves the question of the 2% rule nationally or the 5% rule within a province, would the subsidy then go only for the expenditures within that province or would it go nationally? I guess we would have to say nationally, wouldn't we, because how can you split a radio or television ad?
So I guess if you satisfied either criterion, then the whole could receive the refund. Is that correct?
.1125
Mr. McClelland: That's correct. The hurdle right now would be 10% of the allowable expenditures plus 2% of the national vote or 5% in any one province.
Mr. Boudria: For the totality to qualify.
Mr. McClelland: To qualify for everything.
Mr. Boudria: Thank you.
The Chairman: Mrs. Parrish.
Mrs. Parrish: I'm glad I let him do that.
I think you're moving in the right direction, because there are two issues here. One is the rebate, and it is purely dollars and cents. But the other is credibility. I think what the Natural Law group did was give themselves credibility, but they diminished politicians generally, because they were a laughing-stock in the all-candidates meeting. The people who were there representing those parties admitted frankly they were being paid by the hour to be there, by a man who was trying to build a business right across this country. Particularly in the high schools, the kids sat there and it was a laughing-stock. It diminished all of us. It diminished the seriousness of a federal election.
So I think you're moving in the right direction. I'm a little cautious about the 2% or 5%, because you have to remember that we're a federal government. I believe in the local provinces, if they choose to recognize very local parties within their provinces and do rebates, that's their choice.
I would like to see a threshold maintained such that you have to have a certain amount of popularity right across the country, or at least an overwhelming amount of popularity within your own province, so it's a percentage of the national population. Otherwise it's not a federal issue; it's not a federal party. If you have one party growing quickly in a province, maybe it's up to that province to do rebates. Maybe they should run provincially rather than federally.
I just don't want us to lose track of the fact that we're a federal government and we're supposed to be representing all the people of Canada. If we're giving rebates to an individual province that has an exciting idea to put another bridge in P.E.I., then let P.E.I. fund them. I don't think that should be funded by the federal government through rebates.
I enjoyed your comments.
Mr. McClelland: I think we're either a federal government or we're not. We can't change all the rules.
A threshold of 5% within a specific province - For instance, the Natural Law Party didn't get 5% in any province. The 5% would be a threshold low enough that it would be possible for a party to get started. If a party started up and it was able to get only 5% in a particular province, it wouldn't have been spending very much money anyway. The chances are it would be a legitimate operation; and we don't want to stifle legitimacy.
So my prejudice would be to keep the thresholds as low as possible. But they have to be national. If it's a federal party running in a federal election, it's rebated federally. That has nothing to do with the province. That would just be mixing apples and oranges and it would make it very confusing. If it's a federal election it's federal, period.
Mrs. Parrish: You did say either/or. If they get 5% within a province and they don't hit the 2% threshold across the country, then you'd still fund them.
Mr. McClelland: Yes.
Mrs. Parrish: That's where I have a difficulty. That's where I think Mr. Ringma's suggestion is excellent. You're definitely moving in the right direction, and I don't think we should make a decision right here, but I think you need to get a working committee together to look at all those possibilities. I would be most pleased to join a committee like that, because I really believe we can't lose sight of the fact that we're a federal government and that's what we should be concentrating on. Rather than either/or, there has to be a base minimum right across the country, or a large enough amount across the country that it qualifies.
I can see excepting provinces. I hesitate to use the Bloc as an example, because they're all going to look at me and jump on me, but they have enough numbers.
Mr. McClelland: But the Bloc has 13.7%.
Mrs. Parrish: They would have an overwhelming amount of numbers to qualify if you just did it across the country. So you can't say to them ``you must get Bloc people in every province''.
I really hesitate to say either/or.
Mr. McClelland: I accept your position, and it's something that could be threshed out later. But I think the either/or gives it the flexibility that's necessary in order to accommodate a party starting in a region. It could be the Maritimes. It's very difficult starting a new political party. It's not an easy task.
.1130
Mrs. Parrish: May I suggest that the fellow who started the Natural Law Party could have concentrated all of his money in one province and hit that threshold. He put quite a bit of money into that. So what's going to happen is he's going to say, okay, I'm going to concentrate on the smallest, most vulnerable province with the lowest population. I'm going to pour all of my money in there, and then I'm going to work province by province and have an amazing campaign going right across this country - for foolishness.
So I like what you're doing and I think we need to do it, but I don't particularly think we can make a decision quickly, on the spot, with the percentages.
Mr. McWhinney: We should be very clear as to what the purpose is. I missed or have forgotten the debate in the House, but I worry about one phrase. You referred to ``legitimate parties''. There is a tendency to think the new ones are illegitimate because sometimes they start with a lunatic-fringe aspect. For example, the Green Party in Germany, and now in much of western Europe, originally was a one-issue party with large numbers of lunatics, but it's now part of coalition governments in certain länder, provinces, of Germany and it has stabilized and has broadened its appeal.
I remember the Social Credit Party when it first emerged. It was a funny-money, lunatic-fringe party, but it governed two provinces, one for 40 years and another for 30 years.
There's a sifting-out process.
The thrust of this legislation - Most of it is derivative. It's eclectic. I always ask people why they insist on studying Australia and the easy countries. Most of the new ideas come from Germany, because they are a reaction to the problems of the Weimar Republic, the pathological breakdown, and the new American ideas, which the American military occupation authorities introduced in the 1940s. The proposals there are designed simply to prevent a proliferation of minor parties, on the basis that a proliferation is damaging to a free democratic system. Clearly, on the experience of Weimar and other European countries between the two world wars, that's so.
I think you're on the right track when you get into the percentages. If you looked at the German rules, you'd probably find that they codify the general thinking in this area. The figure of 5% sticks in my mind.
I would suggest, though, that if you think of 5% as a regional figure, then you base it on regions. The notion of five regions in Canada is very well accepted now in political parlance. It would avoid the notion, of which Ms Parrish rightly reminded us, of any one province, tiny provinces, being targeted. If you say 5% over the Atlantic region, the western region, Ontario and Quebec as separate regions, and probably British Columbia as a separate region, then you've at least got something that's accepted in general federal-provincial parlance.
So go for your figures and stick to that. Two percent seems to me to be too low nationally. I'd have liked 5% nationally and perhaps 7.5% regionally.
I think the figures are the answer, and I would avoid presenting this as a basis of eliminating lunatic parties. The lunatic parties have a habit of stabilizing and becoming rather dull in governing, since dullness seems to be equated with responsibility in many parts of Canada, and perhaps nationally.
So it's an excellent idea and you've got a very affirmative response from all the speakers this morning, but have a look at the Bonn rules. They might give you the magic yardstick that seems to be common parlance in most countries.
[Translation]
Mr. Duceppe: I clarified, at the very beginning of this committee's business, that the Bloc québécois did not consider itself as a regional party, but as a national party in the sense of Quebec and of the nation of Quebec. This is why the Parliament of Quebec is called the National Assembly, and, indeed, Daniel Johnson recognizes it. It is his father and its successors who gave the name of National Assembly to the Parliament of Quebec. In some countries, there are two nations, but as far as we're concerned, it is not working here. Therefore, we consider ourselves as a national party.
This being said, I make the calculations based on the 2% rule. If it were applied nationally, it would mean that a party in Quebec, to get 2% nationally, would have to get 8% in Quebec whereas a party in English Canada, to get 2% nationally, should get 3% in all the provinces except Quebec.
.1135
So, to start with that rationale is unfair.
I think that it would be fairer that the 2% rule be applied, but within a province. If it were to get 2% in Quebec, a party would be refunded the same way a party in Newfoundland would be if it were to get 2%. This rule would apply provincially. Let us apply it where the party would run.
On the other hand, a party might run in several provinces but not in all the ridings of the same province. In such a case, why not simply request that this party get 2% in the ridings where it is running? It seems to me that such a rule would be fairer and would eliminate that distinction between province and region. It is a question on which we will never agree, we know it. It would be on the basis of party candidates irrelevant of the province where they run.
[English]
Mr. McClelland: I believe the rebate has to do with the money spent by the federal party, so it's separate from the candidate. In the returns from the chief electoral officer there are very detailed returns based on the candidate per constituency. The return nationally is handled entirely separately. Without a major revision to the electoral act, I don't know that it could be achieved. It could be achieved fairly simply by adjusting and having a provincial threshold which is already delineated within the electoral act, so exactly the concern you have made would be addressed.
In my view, 2% would be far too low within a province. There has to be some yardstick. For a candidate to get a return requires 15% of the votes cast in the constituency. Keeping that same attitude would require a somewhat higher threshold within a province.
The Chairman: I wonder if I could interject,
[Translation]
Mr. Duceppe. One of the problems you raised in your first question has already been studied by the Royal Inquiry Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing.
[English]
One of the suggestions the commission made was that returns to parties be based on the number of votes received - rather than to have these artificial thresholds, which create the problems members are describing here today.
I wonder, Mr. McClelland, if in your work in preparation of this bill you had an opportunity to review the royal commission's recommendation, and what you think of the possibility of paying parties a fixed amount per vote. The level could obviously be adjusted. I think there was a suggestion that whatever the amount, it should not exceed 50%, or some percentage, of the party's expenses. By fixing it at an amount per vote you avoid a threshold and a party gets recompensed based on the success it achieves, not on the basis of what it spends.
The current process encourages parties to spend as much as they can, because they know they're going to get basically 25¢ on every dollar back as long as they meet your threshold. If they're under no such obligation to spend - they're going to get back only as much as they get per vote - obviously they will not spend as much if they think they're going to do badly in the election.
Mr. McClelland: Mr. Chairman, as it stands today, I believe if you added all the money that was rebated to the political parties it works out to something like 50¢ per vote cast. If you divide that amount by the number of votes each party got, that would dramatically change the pay-out in the last election. For the party I represent it would have been an absolute bonanza. For other parties it would have been an absolute disaster, and they may have gone to the well and borrowed the money to spend the money.
So that approach would be a significant check and balance. It would certainly reflect public opinion. My purpose in bringing this forward is that I wanted as easily as possible to improve the situation as it stands now without radically changing the method by which we operate.
Mr. McWhinney: Why not?
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Mr. McClelland: Because I didn't think it was going to be possible to change it if the change was too much.
Mr. McWhinney: The chairman suggested the German and continental European system. It's based on votes cast. I think it's more rational than money spent.
Mr. McClelland: I wanted to bring this to the table to debate it, to bring it to the fore. If the decision, the collective wisdom, is that it would be better for the electoral process to proceed in that way, then certainly I'd be happy to amend the bill to do that. But I think that so much changes it that we would have to withdraw this bill and start all over again.
Mr. McWhinney: I thought you were a radical, though, in thinking. We all are.
Mr. McClelland: I'm a moderate radical. I'm a pragmatic radical.
[Translation]
The Chairman: I interrupted your questions. The floor is yours, Mr. Duceppe.
Mr. Duceppe: It was less a question than a statement. As for us, in the Bloc québécois, there are two alternatives: either we maintain the status quo, or we are ready to accept 2% within a province, to the extent where, maybe naively, we are coming back to the thesis of two founding people, 128 years ago.
If it is 2% nationally, it means that a party in Quebec will have to get more votes in Quebec than a party in English Canada will have to get in English Canada. There should not be a double standard. We will be ready to accept 2% in Quebec and 2% in the rest of English Canada. That would not bother us, but I am under the impression that it would bother my friends. Therefore, it is better to maintain 2% within a province.
The Chairman: Mr. McClelland, a further comment?
[English]
Mr. McClelland: No, I think 2% is low in a province. I think 5% in a province is reasonable, and 2% nationally - or 2% nationally.
Don't get hung up on the 2%. If a political party is started in a particular province - respecting Mrs. Parrish's intervention, but let's just for the moment now stay within a province rather than a region. A 5% threshold is a reasonable threshold. I think we need to draw the line somewhere.
Mr. Ringma: Mr. Chairman, I certainly sense that there is general support for this bill in this room, but we have all sorts of detail now coming out that seems to be almost watering away that support. We are talking about percentages, numbers of votes, the expenditures themselves, provinces versus regions. I wonder if maybe the thing to do here is to express approval in principle, if we have that here in the room, and ask Mr. McClelland to go away with a subcommittee representing all parties to thresh out some of these details.
Even if we were to put it to the House now, Ian, you'd get some hesitation because of tripping over the details. So it would be in your interests too to have a forum to thresh it out and come up with answers.
The Chairman: Is it worth hearing from the chief electoral officer first? Does the committee wish to do that? Does he have anything in particular to say on the issue? I'm in the committee's hands. If the desire is to have a subcommittee deal with the matter, of course we can do that.
Mr. Boudria: I just had an informal conversation with Mr. Duceppe. Perhaps the following could assist.
[Translation]
If the notion of the criterion, at the level of the country, is considered as being offending, let us eliminate it entirely. Let us only establish a criterion within a province. Why not? Why do we have to have 2% at the national level? Let us suppose that we go for 5% within a province and that we say that to get the rebate, you must receive at least 5% of the votes within a province. I think that Mr. Duceppe would agree to such a proposal.
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If that threshold is satisfactory, it is already better than what we have. At present, there is no threshold. If it was 5% within a province, that would be better than what we have now and we would have something to agree on. In time, we would adjust and, at least, this would put an end, hopefully, to the type of abuse we have seen the last time around, which bordered on the absurd. In fact, to say ``bordered'' would be an understatement!
The Chairman: Mr. Frazer.
[English]
Mr. Frazer (Saanich - Gulf Islands): I found Mr. Duceppe's intervention instructive in that he equated the 2% nationally to 8% for Quebec in this particular instance. If 2% is valid nationally, then surely 8% is valid provincially.
I lean to your suggestion, Mr. Chairman, of perhaps a payment per vote. In other words, the basis of representation that was accepted by the population is the basis upon which compensation for a national election could come. Remember, we're reimbursing this from the national purse, not from a provincial purse. Therefore, if a party garners 45,000 votes, then that's what they should be paid on.
Ms Catterall: I have a bit of concern about the idea that some movements that are really not political parties might well be able to garner a certain number of votes, in the thousands. I think Mr. McClelland's purpose and ours here is to see if in fact we can't amend the act so that it's providing an equalizing factor to the groups that are providing a legitimate political alternative.
My biggest concern is that if we're going to go beyond the simple formula that Mr. McClelland suggested, then we probably are still ignoring the most flagrant and costly abuses of the system, which are I presume that some movements that have now registered as political parties continue to issue and receive tax credits on tax contributions. That is probably far more costly than the small portion of public support for political activity that we're discussing here this morning.
If this committee is going to go beyond a simple formula fix, then that's the area we really should be looking into. It leaves it free for any organization in this country to call itself a political party and to allow people to contribute and get a tax credit and get an immediate cheque back from the organization so that they're not out of pocket but they have a tax credit. To me, that's a major loophole in this legislation. If we're going to be reporting back to Parliament, then probably we should be reporting back on that as well.
The Chairman: Our obligation at the moment, Ms Catterall, is to deal with this bill, and I think that amendments to this bill - of course subject to advice I may receive - that deal with tax credits might be out of order. The principle of the bill has been approved in the House at second reading, so we're dealing with the bill before us, which doesn't involve the tax credit. It's a separate issue and isn't part of the reimbursement regime per se.
I agree that the effect might be the same, but it is not part of this bill.
Ms Catterall: We're talking about national politics. Let me put in a position that says that if a new emerging political party is going to have primarily a regional appeal, then the threshold should be set relatively high. I don't think 5% is enough.
Mr. McClelland: I concur completely with Ms Catterall's comments. As a matter of fact, if it had been drawn, phase two addresses exactly that issue, because that is a huge issue and it's plainly wrong. However, we're restraining ourselves to this now.
.1150
First of all, as the sponsor of this bill, if it accomplishes the end I was originally addressing, I would be very happy to go to a provincial threshold rather than a national threshold, because it accomplishes the same thing. If a 2% threshold federally equates, as it does, to an 8% threshold in Quebec or in any one province, that would seem to me to be a logical extension of the 2%, which was logical for a national party based on the experience we had.
Mr. Frazer: That would make it 15% in B.C.
Mr. McClelland: No, it would make it the same in any province.
Mr. Frazer: No, it wouldn't, because his 8% is 8% of the population of Quebec.
Mr. McClelland: Yes, that's right.
Mr. Frazer: So there would be twice as many in B.C., because B.C. has roughly half the population of Quebec. So it would be 15% in -
Mr. McClelland: It would be of the votes cast -
Mr. Frazer: Yes.
Mr. McClelland: - but it would be of the total votes cast in any area. It would be relatively the same. It doesn't matter how many people live in an area, they would be the same.
Mr. Frazer: Not if you do it provincially.
Mr. McClelland: No, it would be the same.
[Translation]
Mr. Duceppe: It's all relative to the population. If you need 8% in Quebec to get 2% at the national level it means that in Newfoundland you might need 40% to get 2% at the national level. I haven't done the math.
[English]
Mr. McClelland: No, there is no relation whatsoever to the national vote. It has to do only with the number of votes cast in the province.
[Translation]
Mr. Duceppe: If you're talking about 5%... Mr. Boudria, and I totally agree with him on this, said that we'd refund the party in any province if it obtained 5% at the provincial level; you'd get rid of the national requirement. I totally agree with that. That way you're respecting the population and the size of the populations in each of the provinces whereas otherwise the 2% would mean different things depending on the number of individuals in the given province.
Mr. Boudria: We could use 5% per province and 2% nationally. It could be one or the other. In other words, one wouldn't exclude the other but it would give a second chance to a party failing the first test.
I said before that if it presented any problems for some of our colleagues it was better to get rid of it. It would be a mistake to believe that the objective of the bill is to prevent regional parties from getting up and running but if we were to get rid of that element no one could hold that view. Personally, I don't like regional parties but the goal of the bill is not to deny them existence. So let's just not talk about it.
If we were to agree on this amendment, it would be clear that the object of the exercise is simply to avoid a situation that could be called marginal and that we witnessed the last time around when groups wanted to raise funds for themselves or a sect, or goodness knows what, and grab hold of the political levers to broadcast their propaganda. That is in fact what happened.
I think a criterion like the one we've just described would help us settle that. At least, we could try that once keeping in mind we might later on decrease or prevent any abuse that might arise at some point. I think that we agree on the nature of the abuse. It's these groups I've just described.
We could get into a philosophical debate at some point as to whether or not it would be amusing to have regional parties, but we'll keep that for another time. There have been some in this country's history. I'm a history buff. I don't consider myself a historian, but I am a history buff. There were some in Nova Scotia, in Ontario and in all the Western provinces, I think. We could get a good debate going on that, but some other time.
Today's question is this: How can we improve the process through this bill so that extremely marginal groups can't get their hands on political levers like they did the last time around? That's what we have to try and settle. Let's just leave the rest alone!
The Chairman: It's 12 noon, right now. We have to put an end to this discussion and have a look at the other two items on today's agenda.
Mr. McClelland, do you want to wrap this up? If we examine this bill next Tuesday with someone from the Chief Electoral Officer's Office, could you come back here with us to pursue the discussion?
.1155
[English]
Mr. McClelland: Could we not make it next Tuesday? I ask this because I'll be out of town.
If people look at the bill, given the information that came to me today, to summarize, I would change it to read ``the registered party has obtained not less than 5% of the total number of votes cast in any one province in the election''. That would answer. We would take the national threshold out entirely and make the threshold 5% in any one province. Later, if it was the desire of this committee to look at it further - because I think it merits it, certainly - we could change it again. This would at least get us started.
With that, Mr. Chairman, through you and to the committee, I want to thank you all for your thoughtful interventions. We'll work on it.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Mr. Boudria.
Mr. Boudria: Mr. Chairman, are we now on the item of that letter?
The Chairman: Shall we deal first with the letter or with the question of memberships on committees? Let's deal with the membership in committees, because I think you want to do that.
Mr. Ringma.
Mr. Ringma: On membership on committees, we are specifically looking for proportional representation, proportional membership on the public accounts committee and, by extension, to the scrutiny of regulations committee, per Beauchesne, citation 765(3).
The case has been made by Mr. Boudria and Mr. Duceppe that there shouldn't be equality there because the chair goes to the opposition. I cannot accept that, because first I make the argument that with 53 members and 52 members - rounding it gives us each 18% - we should have equal membership.
Also, the thrust out of Beauchesne is not that the chair goes to the official opposition; it's simply to the opposition. If you try to take an extra member for the chair, then you are presupposing the result of the vote. That's the thing I'm fighting against here. As I've said, there is, to me, a perception of collusion between the government and the official opposition to say, fine, we will ensure that all the deputy chairs go to the other committees and that the chair of the public accounts committee will go to the Bloc Québécois.
To make the point very clearly, we maintain that, because of near parity of membership in the House, we should have parity of three and three members on that committee.
Then we make the point, of course, on who is the national opposition. I know who the official opposition - I hear Mr. Duceppe's words, even in the discussion of the last bill, that there is an element of national concern in the Bloc Québécois, which I understand; but we feel that indeed we, the Reform Party, in all of the committees - and it might just be highlighted in the public accounts committee - represent the rest of Canada.
I even see evidence within the subcommittees of this committee, the ones we've struck, the four subcommittees to hear about the redistribution of electoral boundaries. The Bloc Québécois has opted to put two members on the Quebec subcommittee and no members on any of the other subcommittees.
.1200
Conversely, Reform has opted - Because there was no space for us to be on the Quebec committee, we said, fine, we'll have membership on each of the others, the Atlantic, Ontario,and the west.
So it's further proof, if that is needed, that the Bloc's principal interest is in Quebec, to protect the interests of Quebec. The Reform's interest is the rest of Canada, including Quebec.
With that, I rest my case. I would like to see this committee rule that we, the Reform Party, are entitled to three seats in the public accounts committee, equal to the Bloc Québécois.
[Translation]
Mr. Duceppe: First of all, let's point out there were negociations two years ago between the Reform and the Bloc. I would quite humbly tell you that to find any kind of collusion between the Liberals and the Bloc you need a lot of imagination. We simply agreed to disagree and respect this Parliament's tradition.
I repeat: when we first got here, it was said the Bloc Québécois wouldn't respect parliamentary traditions and would try to obstruct Parliament; well, we're not the ones doing that.
Two years ago, there were negotiations on office space, house procedure, the right to be recognized during Question Period, statements, parliamentary debates and committees.
For the first time in the history of this country - and I stand to be corrected - the Official Opposition made an offer to the Reform Party - five vice-chairs - to settle everything with a package deal. The Reform Party refused that because of course they did want to have five vice-chairs - they agreed with the number - but, if memory serves, they also wanted them to be the vice-chairs of Finance, Foreign Affairs, Defense, International Trade and Agriculture. And our answer was: And apple pie with that? It didn't make any sense and the Reform Party didn't make any other proposal.
Today the whole question has been settled. As far as we're concerned, we're simply respecting parliamentary tradition which says that the Official Opposition - This doesn't rest on wishful thinking and good intent, because the NDP has been a national party for quite a while and in all its history never had more than two members elected in Quebec and one of them was actually elected as a Conservative.
Of course the Reform Party is a national party, but they didn't run anyone in Quebec.
The Progressive Conservative party was the Official Opposition in Ottawa for ages with only one elected member in Quebec; it was even the government party with only one or two members elected in Quebec. So you have wishful thinking and you have reality.
Parliamentary rules don't rest on wishful thinking but on reality. And reality doesn't even rest on percentages. What counts is who finishes first, who finishes second, who finishes third and who finishes fourth. If we had finished third we wouldn't have been going on about this for the last two years. We would have accepted the situation. We would have said that's how it works and that's what we accept. There are three representatives of the Official Opposition and there are two from the other parties. So your party gets two representatives.
Finally, I would like to point out that for the subcommittees on electoral boundaries readjustments for the next federal elections, the Reform Party did not ask for any representation on the Quebec subcommittee. Reform Party could have said that, as a national party, they wanted one seat of the four. They made no demands. Reform thus acted according to its own interest which were in the rest of Canada just as we acted according to our own interests.
Let's remember that the subcommittees all have to table the reports here, where the number of members from each party is already provided for. A subcommittee is never a decision-making body. There are subcommittees on Internal Economy where there's no one from the Bloc and others where the Reform is absent. It's only one or two committees. Subcommittees are working tools that answer to the whole committee, whether it's Internal Economy or this House committee.
The Chair of a committee must show the greatest neutrality possible. If the Official Opposition has one member more, it's simply so that the committee will work well and that there are as many voices from the Official Opposition as there are from a third party. There are two for the Bloc and two for you. As it happens, it goes to the Official Opposition because those bodies scrutinize what the government has done, like regulations. That's why the chairs go to the Official Opposition.
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This is merely in keeping with the age - old traditions pleonastically speaking - of the British parliamentary system to which the Bloc québécois is deeply attached.
[English]
The Chairman: Mr. Boudria.
[Translation]
Mr. Boudria: We must have a debate on principle before dealing with the issue of the Public Accounts Committee. According to the Reform Party, this debate in principle has to do with determining to which party the committee vice-chairmanships ``belong''.
In the last Parliament, as far as I know, all vice-chairmanships, with one exception, were held by members of the Official Opposition. At that time the opposition, of its own accord I believe, had agreed to let the third party hold one vice-chairmanship, because that was thought to be the right thing to do.
I was not privy to the negotiations held between the Bloc québécois and the Reform Party. I am just about fed up with this whole idea of collusion, Mr. Chairman. I was not even there at the time. I was not the whip, only Mr. Duceppe was around at the time.
[English]
What we hear today is that there were negotiations and one party asked for something that the other one judged to be unreasonable and said that if they couldn't get what they wanted, then they would prefer to have nothing. I don't know whether having nothing was better or not. I wasn't party to the negotiations.
With respect, it is not a debate for the government. If there is a disagreement between the two opposition parties, then my position is that they can damn well fix it. I don't see why it should be the role of the government to choose in any way which opposition it prefers.
Imagine for a minute the concept of the government having some sort of role in legitimizing an opposition over another. Could a government then, by extension, choose an opposition party to be its so-called official opposition, de facto or otherwise, because it likes its ideology? If you say that's okay, then what about the next step? What about a government that would choose its opposition because it's less offensive than another opposition? If you say, ``This opposition surely is going nowhere, so why not have it as our official opposition? They will damage us far less than another one that might be more aggressive'', what does that do to parliamentary democracy - once you put the government on that slippery slope of being able in some way to choose its opposition based on whether or not it has more ideology of one particular nature versus another?
In fact, that's what we're doing.
[Translation]
Mr. Duceppe: Jean Charest -
[English]
Mr. Boudria: I suppose that if you carry the thing to its extreme, the government could then choose the party with the fewest seats to be its opposition, because that would suit the government quite well. That whole principle is wrong.
What happens if at some point in the future the roles of the two opposition parties were to be reversed? Would we hear the same argument again? I hope not.
It's not for me to choose who's in the opposition. I didn't elect people in any riding other than my own, because I voted for me in my own riding. That's probably not a surprising concept.
An hon. member: How did your wife vote?
Mr. Boudria: As far as I know, she too voted for me.
The point is that I don't see how we can allow ourselves to get on that slippery slope. We'll be on very dangerous ground if we do, in terms of what we shall do to parliamentary democracy once we start going away from that concept.
Getting to the issue of the chairmanship of committees in relation to the total number of members on those committees -
The Chairman: I hope you are getting to the issue of the number of members on committees, which is the issue we are discussing today.
Mr. Boudria: That's what I just said.
The Chairman: We're running out of time on this issue, and I want to focus on that point. The committee members, from my perspective and that of the others who are here today, might like to hear about the precedents in relation to committee membership.
.1210
Mr. Boudria: Let's take just two or three minutes on that.
When in the past we have had governments and oppositions that had almost the same number of members, or even otherwise, the committees were structured in such a way as to reflect the fact that, if there are only a few votes' difference between the governing party and the official opposition, once you extract the chair, the recognition of one party being in government is larger than the one in opposition. Well, the same principle also applies across the way. So if you have the opposition chairing a committee, then you extract from the number the seat, if you will, or the member or the party whose job will ``likely be'' to chair that committee. Then you create after that the balance of seats that is required to operate the committee.
Therefore, if the official opposition and the third party - and this was established at the beginning of the Parliament, and I wasn't even there - are judged to have a similar number of seats, and if it's the opposition's role to chair the public accounts committee in a Westminster style of parliamentary system, you therefore have to put an extra member there in order to have a chair and still end up with the balance of seats afterwards.
As I say, I wasn't even there when it was done. But I have a sheet in front of me on the proportions of members from various political parties on the public accounts committee. The official opposition in the 33rd Parliament and the 34th Parliament, in which cases the Liberals were in opposition - and in the 35th Parliament was always such that it always had a greater number of seats on the committee than its proportion of members, usually in order to recognize that one of its members had to chair the committee.
It's here. I have it. All three whips were given a copy of this. There was an informal meeting of the Striking Committee, and every one of us had those numbers. So I don't see how we can possibly change it today.
Mr. Ringma: I'm going to come to the point about the three and three positions after two quick interventions.
First, to address Mr. Duceppe's point about Reform not coming forward and saying, we want a seat on the subcommittee on Quebec, it was presented to me that the two Bloc positions on that subcommittee were a fait accompli. There was no discussion of it. I said, yes, well, that sounds reasonable; that's the way they're going.
Vice-chairs are really a digression, but because Mr. Boudria brought it up, I still have to address it. If we look at the Parliament from 1991 to 1993, then we see - and I understand it was because the NDP said they were going to kick up a fuss here - that they wound up with vice-chairs on the subcommittee on poverty, an acting chair on a women's subcommittee, an acting chair on justice and the solicitor general, the first deputy chair on the Committee of the Whole House, an acting chair of national defence and veterans affairs, a chair of subcommittee - It goes on and on. There is a whole list of vice-chairs, and in some cases chairs, that the NDP got because they went after them. So don't tell me about parliamentary traditions.
Now let's get right down to the facts of what is here.
Mr. Boudria, it is a red herring to say that the chair must be taken into account, because by doing that you're assuming that the chair goes to the Bloc Québécois in this case. You should go according to Beauchesne and simply say that the members on the public accounts committee must be proportional. If it is proportional, then you do not take account of the chair; the proportion has to be three-three.
Very simply, Mr. Chairman, we demand three seats. Let the election take care of the other parts of it.
The Chairman: Are you moving a motion that three seats be allocated to the Reform Party on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and the Standing Joint Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations?
Mr. Ringma: Correct.
The Chairman: Is the committee ready to make a decision on this issue?
Mr. Frazer: Could we have a recorded vote?
The Chairman: Certainly.
.1215
Motion negatived: nays 10; yeas 2
The Chairman: Mr. Boudria, you have another matter to raise.
Mr. Boudria: Yes. Mr. Chairman, it's a matter of that letter. I asked this last time. Should this be done in camera until it's finished? Next meeting?
[Translation]
Mr. Langlois: I have no objection to going in camera. Procedurally speaking, does that require rescinding the previous vote that was held on this letter, because the final text was approved and it does show in the minutes of this committee?
Mr. Boudria: It was only a suggestion. If you don't want -
[English]
Mr. McWhinney: I also raised a point of order. Can this not be encompassed within the normal powers of editorial revision without a vote; in other words, you as the drafter of the letter, Mr. Chairman?
The Chairman: Since the committee had seen a draft before and Mr. Boudria has some changes, I didn't want to take it on myself to engage in change.
Now, perhaps the trick here is simply to circulate the new draft, if members are agreeable, or if you want to defer it another week - But I don't know; it's up to the committee.
Mrs. Parrish: I think we should get it out.
The Chairman: Okay. Why don't we go into closed session? This is like a report of a committee and I think it might be worth having a closed session discussion, if members are agreeable.
So we'll go in camera.