Evidence of meeting #58 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was loan.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:25 a.m.
National Chair, Equal Voice
I will be speaking. Ann is attending with me, but it will be just one presentation.
11:25 a.m.
National Chair, Equal Voice
Thank you so much for inviting Equal Voice to appear before the standing committee. For those of you who are not aware of Equal Voice, if you can just indulge me, I'll take a moment to explain who we are.
Equal Voice is a national, multi-partisan, volunteer-based organization dedicated to the promotion of electing more women in Canada. We currently offer such services as a bilingual online campaign school called “Getting to the Gate”, and an informal speakers bureau. We raise awareness of the issue via public events. We compile federal and provincial election-tracking data, and we are midway through a national public awareness campaign called “changing the face of Canadian politics”. Most significantly, this year on the 25th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, all federal political parties committed to nominating and electing more women in the next federal election by accepting Equal Voice's “Canada challenge”.
With over 1,500 members and growing, we will soon have chapters in every Canadian province. Even though women comprise 52% of the population, only 21% of elected representatives are women. Canada is now ranked 48th in the world by the Inter- Parliamentary Union for the percentages of women elected to Parliament. The numbers do not need further elaboration, for they speak for themselves.
The issue of women in politics has been thoroughly studied by the House of Commons, the Senate, royal commissions, and many academics. We all know that women are truly numerically under-represented in Canada, and we have to ask ourselves what we are going to do about it.
Equal Voice is a relatively new and growing organization made up mostly of men and women who volunteer their time for the cause. We still have a lot to accomplish in terms of having the resources to respond rapidly to issues such as Bill C-54. Therefore, today Equal Voice will speak to the historical aspects of proposed financial reforms that would benefit women seeking public office.
Equal Voice has yet to identify any academic data supporting the notion that there have been sufficient financial reforms or sufficient moneys for women entering politics, particularly at the nomination stage. More bluntly stated, the issue of money continues to serve as one of the greatest barriers to women wishing to enter the elite level of the political realm.
You are well aware that there have been two royal commissions, the first one in 1970—otherwise known as the Bird commission—and then the 1990 Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing. The 1990 commission clearly recognized the effects of unequal financing on women's candidacies and made eight recommendations aimed at rectifying the imbalance. I won't go through them all, because I'm sure you're familiar; however, I will mention the top three: the spending limit should be set at approximately $200,000 for party leadership contests; the spending limit should be set at approximately $5,000 for constituency nomination contests; and contribution for nomination contests should be tax-deductible. And there were a few other very good suggestions.
Equal Voice is eager to hear what others have to say on the proposed amendments. Specifically, we are very interested in how Canada's banking community interprets the proposed amendments, because the banks may very well determine women's access to loans for the purposes of election campaigns. We are also curious to know what Elections Canada has to say about the differences in moneys raised by male and female candidates during the election period. These are but a few of the questions that must be addressed before this bill can be adopted.
A May 1995 study from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business stated that “women seeking financing are refused 20 per cent more often than men; and women are regularly charged a higher rate of interest than men”. It would be interesting to know if this is applicable for women seeking loans for nominations in elections.
Finally, Equal Voice asks why more focus has not been given to the findings of the previous royal commissions. Equal Voice supports initiatives that level the playing field for women, and we'll be clarifying specifics over the next year as we have the opportunity to develop formal position papers on a variety of issues relevant to women's political participation and election.
We look forward to sharing these with you, and with all Canadians, and the international political audience. Equal Voice is raising the profile of the issue of the under-representation of women and continues to build a national, not-for-profit organization to offer practical tools to help women before and after making a decision to run for political office.
We wish you well in your deliberations as you make decisions that will affect all Canadians seeking political office. Women are under-represented, and you have an opportunity to help ease the financial burden for women wanting to get elected, for women who are committed to serving their country.
Equal Voice thanks you again for the opportunity to appear before this committee.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
Thank you.
Colleagues, we'll begin with our first round of questions.
Mr. Lukiwski, you have a point of order.
June 14th, 2007 / 11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Yes. I obviously thank all of the witnesses for being here.
I only have, and maybe it's just me, the written submissions from the NDP and Equal Voice. I'm wondering if the representatives from the Liberal Party and the Bloc have written submissions.
11:35 a.m.
National Director, Liberal Party of Canada
Just for clarification, we prepared them this morning and brought copies for translation. I'm sure there will be copies.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
I'll take that, and we will get that to colleagues later today.
Another point of order, Mr. Reid, on the same point....
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Obviously it would be of assistance to us. I realize there are some constraints on the capacity of the clerk here, but it would be very helpful to get those as expeditiously as possible, if we are to take them into account for the purpose of making amendments.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
Order, please.
First of all, the information we just received from our witnesses will be in the blues, but we will get them to you as soon as we possibly can. If it would make it easier on colleagues, I suggested five o'clock today for amendments. The clerk has informed me that the work can still be done from her end if they were in by nine o'clock tomorrow morning.
Would that help the colleagues who have raised these points? All right.
For the record, any new amendments, if any, need to be in the clerk's hands by nine o'clock tomorrow morning. We still have the other amendments and they still stand.
As I see no other points of order, we're going to go to our first round of questions.
Colleagues, we will start with a seven-minute round, and we'll begin with Mr. Owen, please.
If we could just keep our questions focused, because of the number of witnesses we have and the time, and if members would pick one of the witnesses or inform the witnesses that you want all of them to respond, that would be very helpful. Thank you.
Mr. Owen.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Stephen Owen Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC
Thank you all for being here at short notice. We realize the complications we're adding to your lives and for your presentations.
I guess the underlying concern that I think all of us have is that we ensure there aren't undue advantages or there aren't ways around contribution limits and practices through the use of loans. That's the general intent of the act, and I think we all support that.
Our concern is the unintended consequence of frustrating a person's ability, compared to another person's ability who may have greater means to actually participate in the process, or of frustrating everybody from effectively taking part in the process by making it too stringent.
Mr. Hébert-Daly, you mentioned that Vancity had mentioned to you—and that's a very helpful transmission—that they would look at situations a little more flexibly than in normal loan transactions. You mentioned particularly that they would look at the rebate potential. Of course, to get a rebate you have to be a candidate and you have to reach a certain threshold. That doesn't help someone in a nomination contest or perhaps in a leadership contest.
I'm wondering, from you and from the others, in a much more focused way than your presentations, which raised some real concerns, both with the misuse of loans but also with the constraints of unintended consequences, potentially, of this, if there is a case to exclude nominations from this process, or is that a sufficient fear? I think one side or the other of it could be that nomination contests don't really cost that much, or shouldn't, compared to leadership processes, for instance.
I'd like you each to just focus, if you have a comment, on the unintended consequence that you most fear from this legislation, perhaps starting with Mr. Hébert-Daly.
11:35 a.m.
Eric Hébert-Daly
First of all, thank you for that. In fact, Vancity's practice in the past has been to rely more heavily on rebates and also on the overall ability, as with any loan, of a particular riding or a particular candidate to raise money themselves. There's a whole bunch of factors, as they put it, that go into play.
When it comes to nomination contestants, we support Equal Voice in terms of saying that nomination contestant limits need to be much lower than they currently are. Internally, we as a party have set a limit of $5,000 on expenses for nomination races. It's a very small increase for geographical needs, if that's a need. In fact, that kind of limit is necessary. I think that levels the playing field a lot more than opening up much wider to bigger loans, because people who are disadvantaged more often than not don't have the ability to borrow relatively large sums of money. In fact, this is a positive thing. One day, I hope the committee and others will consider this in terms of legislation. So I don't see that as much of a concern.
In fact, the business case that's made for any loan is as good a case as any for a person's ability to go out and get the support they need, so I think there's a relationship there.
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
Stephen Owen Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC
Thank you.
Equal Voice has mentioned a $5,000 limit for nominations.
11:40 a.m.
National Chair, Equal Voice
If I may clarify, what we spoke about in terms of spending limits comes directly from the 1990 royal commission.
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
11:40 a.m.
General Director, Bloc Québécois
It is obvious that there are ceilings in the act. However, the culture in some political parties can lead to—and this is the case for the Bloc Québécois—a maximum that is lower than the amount provided for in the act. Party democracy, and what we are proposing, dictates that we can have rules to reduce these limits and provide for a greater equality of opportunity.
I would like to come back to the application of proposed subsection 405.7. A great deal of emphasis is placed on the candidates, but when it comes to nominations or leadership races, apart from a certain number of minimum rules, anyone can be a leadership candidate or run for a nomination in a riding.
We object to having the association become a guarantor for all of the candidates, with the loans to candidates being limited to the maximum amounts that are set by the parties. It makes no sense for the association, which has no control over the amount that the candidate spends, or what the candidate does with the money, or any efforts made to secure funding for members, becomes, after 18 or 36 months, the guarantor of these loans.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
11:40 a.m.
Legal Counsel, Liberal Party of Canada
I have two brief points on it.
On one side of the coin there is a distinction between nomination candidates and election candidates, in that the problems of waiting for your nomination papers to be filed don't exist for the nomination candidates.
As a counterpoint, the other distinction for the nomination candidates is that the candidate in the nomination race who is successful may well go almost immediately into the election campaign already carrying some nomination debt and having the people who might lend them money, or support their borrowing money, with their credit tied up in guarantees that are still capped at the $1,100 level for all purposes. At the same time, it would prevent those same supporters from giving them contributions, because the way that subsection 405.5(4) is worded, if you look at the sum total of loans, guarantees, and contributions, when applying to the contribution limit of $1,100 as it presently stands, gets to be very difficult, if you include the nomination contestants, for them to then turn around and go through the same exercise a second time in terms of accumulating credit.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
Ms. Lang-Dion, did you want to comment on this issue. No? You're comfortable.
We're actually 30 seconds over time, so we'll move to our second questioner.
Mr. Reid, seven minutes, please.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't think I'll be using all seven minutes.
I want to start by asking Monsieur Hébert-Daly a quick question.
Did I understand you to say that you're not worried about setting a maximum interest rate for anybody, but you'd want to make sure that the minimum...? I'm trying to figure out what you said. I see you shaking your head, which means I think I may have misinterpreted you. Your concern is that no one be allowed to find an interest rate below prime plus one.
11:45 a.m.
Eric Hébert-Daly
The concern I'm raising is primarily around finding a very advantageous interest rate so an individual isn't essentially creating loans or other things that are significantly below the average ability of an individual to be able to get an interest rate. I'm proposing a minimum, but I would also be quite open to seeing a maximum. I'm not sure we can do that, but I think most political parties would be very happy to see a maximum as well.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
The minimum is the main thing you're driving at. Okay.
The obvious thought that occurs on the maximums, just as a practical matter, is that institutions always have the option of saying they're not going to give a loan. That may be a greater imposition on an individual.
The other series of questions I have to our representatives from Equal Voice are all related. I'm very glad that, unlike other witnesses, you submitted a written presentation. It's very helpful. As we try to take notes, we often can't keep up.
You had a series of bullet points here, and I want to ask you a bit about them.
Bullet number three says that contributions for nomination contests should be tax-deductible. It's an interesting thought. As a practical matter, deductibility tends to mean that those who have a higher average income get a greater benefit. Since I imagine you're saying--I'm not sure--that on average women in Canada have lower incomes than men and therefore what advantages those with higher incomes will not necessarily benefit women, I'm wondering whether you wouldn't agree that some kind of refundable tax credit would actually be preferable.
11:45 a.m.
National Chair, Equal Voice
Since Equal Voice is still in its embryonic period of developing policy, I wish I could get into a more substantial discussion in terms of what's presented here. This is something that Equal Voice will be able to do in the near future. What we presented here was from the 1990 commission. As a board, we haven't had an opportunity to go through it to clarify specifics of our position, but we have enough confidence in what the royal commission has developed to at least present this as a base.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Okay.
In going through the bullets you have here—and I recognize the reticence you have about perhaps going into great detail—I noticed, as well, the idea that “childcare and housekeeping should be included as legitimate campaign expenses for both nomination contests and general elections”.
The thought that occurred to me there—and I see your point very clearly—is if you do something like setting the ceiling on spending for a nomination contest at $5,000, and nominations could be reasonably lengthy occurrences in some cases—I wonder if it would make sense to alter that recommendation to something along the lines of “child care and housekeeping expenses should be regarded as additional to other expenses outside the limit”. This is done in elections for the purposes of paying scrutineers. You can pay scrutineers and it's considered outside the limit. Travel expenses, to some degree, are considered outside the limit.
Although you might allow women to write off their child care expenses, in the end I think you can see how you'd be lowering the ceiling they have. If you take the total amount, say $14,000 or $15,000, and it's now down to $5,000, a large proportion of what's available would get eaten up in these expenses. That wouldn't actually level the playing field in the way you're suggesting. I think the overall idea is a good one; I'm just worried about the practical implications of it.
Sorry, I just put words in your mouth, but I was just wondering—