Procedure and House Affairs committee  On documentation for protecting against fraud, I agree something needs to happen that's a bit better than just saying who you are. I agree with that; I just don't want it to become so onerous that we're actually disenfranchising people. I'm sure we can find ways amongst us to figure it out, but I think we have to be very careful.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Of course, as you might imagine, we agree with our brief.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In terms of its debts, just to be clear, a riding can of course embark upon the debt to begin with. But at the end of the day, the expenses—not necessarily a loan of that nature—must all be paid by the candidate, who can have unpaid claims up to 18 months after an election. All of these sorts of provisions exist, which means that at the end of the day we're stuck with a situation where an account has to be left open because it has to be paid from the campaign account.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Definitely. It would be useful to have proof of identity. I'm not sure about the kind of proof that should be requested or the scope that should be attached to this requirement. Some people don't have the necessary pieces of identification. In some cases, they may provide only a Hydro-Quebec bill or something similar.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  With respect to the role of deputy returning officers, it isn't just a matter of bingo cards. All the parties admit that we have to be able to verify voters' identities and to ensure that those voters indeed have to vote at that place. We don't want to eliminate deputy returning officers, but we're absolutely not opposed to the idea of having this kind of system.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you very much. The NDP agrees on a number of the views previously expressed. In our view, if we could implement Mr. Kingsley's recommendations on the advance registration of candidates, we would solve half a dozen problems. I don't see why we couldn't do it, if we all agreed.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  My name is Éric Hébert, and I'm from the New Democratic Party.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  We do actually keep a percentage, because when you process a credit card donation there's a percentage and those sorts of things. Would I consider that to be part of the contribution? Well, that's a very good question, one that I hadn't fully considered. But I would say given the fact that the contribution has been made by the donor, we would have to consider it a contribution to us as part of our administrative work.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  On the issue of loans, particularly, one of the big problems that I think exists right now in the Elections Act is that a loan that is given by somebody outside of a financial institution and goes into default after 18 months is then deemed a contribution. You can get extensions to this, you can do that sort of thing, but if we're going to be deeming it a contribution at some point in the act, then certainly that loan or that guarantee should be limited to the amount of money that person or business can give.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  I entirely agree: ways will have to be found to ensure that funds come from the people who say they are contributing. Furthermore, the passage of Bill C-24 added a section to the Elections Act providing that it is an offence to attempt to circumvent an aspect of the act. That section gives us enough latitude to establish that money has come from another source, that that isn't right and that it hasn't been properly done.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  I would like to come to the question around conventions. To me, a political party has a responsibility to its membership to have a democratic process, and that democratic process does not have to be, as far as I'm concerned, completely offloaded onto the people who participate there.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Sure. I will simply end the presentation on two final items. The last thing we would particularly like to see in this legislation is something along the lines of a limit on leadership spending in leadership campaigns. We believe this is something of a bit of a problem in our system.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Thank you very much. In our view, this bill is really a step in the right direction. We see once again the extent of participation by unions and businesses in the political system. That's the reason why, in discussions on Bill C-24, we proposed that the $1,000 amount be completely eliminated, because we thought it posed a problem at the technical level and with regard to perception.