—and it would seem that these people got paid $10 per vote. One such person collected $130. At $10 per vote, we can quickly figure that this floater voted 13 times.
As I said, Quebec is recognized world-wide for having the strictest system. Be that as it may, we lost the riding of Anjou. I know that, when Jean-Sébastien Lamoureux rises to vote in the National Assembly, several members of the government party tell him “Jean-Sébastien, you just vote once here. This is a democratic institution”. Even the Liberals are laughing up their sleeve, because they know full well that a number of people in that riding each voted several times.
Speaking of money, which, in my opinion, is the core of the issue, the distinguished Pierre Corbeil and Marcel Massé, the former member from across the river here, had an interesting arrangement. Pierre Corbeil was apparently provided by Marcel Massé, his department or his office, with the list of future recipients of substantial grants from HRDC, a topic which is the subject of much debate these days. Pierre Corbeil received cash amounts of between $5,000 and $25,000.
We do not have the file indicating what became of it, if some did not get lost in the back of his car, hon. members know what I mean by that.
Pierre Corbeil, like CINAR, admitted his guilt. Probably the party footed the bill, including the fine.
This leads me to speak about my riding of Frontenac—Mégantic. The people of Lac Mégantic are proud folk. The people living in the Granit regional municipality are proud folk and they are respectful of laws and regulations. In the last election, on June 2, 1997, the local member of the National Assembly, a regular citizen with several elections under her belt, both provincial and federal, took it upon herself to go around shaking hands with people at the Centre Monseigneur-Bonin as if she were running for election.
She was given several warnings, but the Primeau's, the people in charge of security and of seeing that the voting ran smoothly, had to ask her to leave, after of course the usual solicitation of support for the Liberal candidate.
The Bloc Quebecois organization for Lac Mégantic filed, with the assistance of Pierre Greffard, an official complaint with the office of the chief electoral officer. The outcome was more or less the same as in Anjou, the same as with Pierre Corbeil, in the biggest possible mess.
If an elected member of the provincial legislature can scoff at federal legislation at a poll, how can there be any respect? When we see, for example, that the Parliament of Canada is sending a mission abroad to monitor an election when, here, we are not even capable of ensuring one person, one vote, and limiting the power of money in an election, I think we are patting ourselves on the back unjustifiably.
The opposition raised the question of postal votes when Bill C-2 was considered in committee. Postal voting is one more devious way of getting dozens of votes out of one person. The envelope for a mail-in ballot can be bought, as we have seen in Anjou, with Jean-Sébastien Lamoureux. In some poor neighbourhoods, they can be bought for under $10. It involves taking a busload of people to the office of the chief electoral officer, where everybody gets off one after the other with an envelope, and on the bus, they give it to the organizer, who, naturally, has the money.
The Liberals know full well what I mean, because they are expert at organizing elections. They are so expert that sometimes they get told things in private meetings, how they can proceed, and that is a scandal.
I heard earlier the deputy government whip say that money should not play a determining role in the election of one candidate or another. I can tell her that she spoke out of both sides of her mouth at the same time, since the Liberal Party uses CKAC's slogan “The Power of Words” in conjunction with another one: “The Power of Money”.
The list of generous contributors to the Liberal Party is really scandalous. Bombardier contributed over $75,000 to the Liberal Party in 1998—that is what is in the books—and $30,000 to the Progressive Conservative Party. That makes for good collecting. To collect $30,000 in my riding, I have to work very hard collecting $10 here, $25 there, and $100 somewhere else, while the Liberal Party collects $75,000 and the Progressive Conservative Party, $30,000, from a single contributor. Members will understand that, if Mr. Beaudoin, the CEO of Bombardier, gives $75,000 to the grits, he will reap $7.5 million a month later. It does not take long.
Now, moving to appointments, because I see my time is quickly running out. In 1993, in the riding of Frontenac, Ms. Roy was the returning officer. She was very competent, totally above suspicion and popular with all the political parties. When it came to power in 1993, the Liberal Party turfed her out and appointed my friend André Pomerleau, a man who was very dedicated to the community, but particularly to the Liberal Party.
Ms. Roy was relieved of her duties and replaced by André. He was retired, while for Ms. Roy the job was a means of supplementing her income and being able to afford some of the niceties.
In Quebec, in our nation, we do not fire returning officers after every change of government. In Frontenac, Chantal has been returning officer since 1985, if memory serves, and she will continue in that position as long as she continues to do a good job in the Government of Quebec's elections.
In closing, the Bloc Quebecois will, of course, not support Bill C-2, because there are too many issues that we cannot agree on, particularly with respect to the funding of political parties. I propose a change in the way political parties are funded. Not surprisingly, what I would suggest is that the government give each candidate a certain amount—a bit along the lines of what Quebec does—so that he or she can conduct a truly democratic election campaign, and let the best man, or woman, win.
