Bill C-24 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act (political financing)

Canada Elections Act

[The Speaker]

Since the vote has been applied in reverse, I declare the motion for second reading of Bill C-24 carried. Accordingly, the bill is referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

(Bill read the second time and referred to a committee)

[Marlene Catterall, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think you would find consent in the House that the vote on the previous motion be applied in reverse to the vote on the main motion on Bill C-24 and to the vote on the motion on Bill C-2, with the addition to the Liberals voting of the member for Eglinton—Lawrence, the member for Scarborough East, the member for Oakville and the member for Scarborough Centre.

[The Speaker]

I declare the amendment lost.

The next question is on the main motion for second reading of Bill C-24.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

It being 5:30 p.m., pursuant to order made on Monday, March 17, it is my duty to put forthwith all questions necessary to dispose of the second reading stage of Bill C-24.

The question is on the amendment. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?

Business of the House

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties, and I believe if you were to seek it you would find unanimous consent for the following motion:

That at 5:30 p.m. this day, when the Speaker puts all necessary questions to dispose of second reading of Bill C-24, the bells to call in the members shall ring for not more than 15 minutes.

Canada Elections Act

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, there have been consultations among House leaders and pursuant to that consultation I would like to move a motion that has received the consent of all House leaders or a representative in the case where the House leader was not available. Following that, I will be making another announcement. I move:

That all questions necessary for the disposal of the second reading of Bill C-24 shall be put without further debate or amendment at the end of the time provided for Government Orders on March 18, 2003.

[The Speaker]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the amendment to the amendment to the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-24.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise to debate Bill C-24 that we support, obviously, in principle. In this bill, there are numerous provisions that are light years away from the current political financing legislation.

Of course, substantial improvements could be made. I will give examples shortly. Nevertheless, I must first tip my hat to the government party for finally seeing the light on the road to Damascus and introducing some amendments to the federal electoral legislation, so that parliamentarians and political parties will no longer come under undue pressure from major contributors or, at least, so that parliamentarians and political parties will no longer appear to come under undue pressure from major contributors.

Nonetheless, I must say that it is easy to make amendments when they do not commit you to anything. I will come back to this later. The Prime Minister was careful to propose this amendment to the existing federal electoral legislation at the very end of his career, ensuring of course that the new provisions would not apply to the current Liberal leadership race that will decide his own successor.

It is interesting that the Prime Minister waited more than 35 years after his political career began to suddenly become the advocate for such an amendment to the Canada Elections Act.

Need I point out that since it was first elected in 1993—if we exclude the by-election in 1990—the Bloc Quebecois has not stopped pushing for the electoral legislation to be amended to include the principles of public financing in effect in Quebec.

Let us remember that public financing has two key components: first, contribution ceilings and second, a formal ban on anyone other than voters contributing financially to political parties.

The government has taken up a few provisions in these two pillars, but has vehemently opposed any kind of amendment that might have come from the pressure, proposals, amendments and motions by the Bloc Quebecois. The government has also been very careful to wait a few years before making these proposals, so that people might forget that these provisions had been moved by an opposition party.

That would be unthinkable. How could the government publicly admit that is way introducing legislation initially suggested by an oppossition party? The government saw to it that people would forget that the idea came from an opposition party and, all of a sudden, it takes it out of our hat and says, “We have just made an extraordinary discovery; we are proposing a legislative change that will be absolutely revolutionary and will ensure that, suddenly, our citizens trust our political institutions more”.

Some discovery. Perhaps it would have been a good idea if the government had discovered it before. I guess that, on the Liberal side, it takes a few years before they finally take action.

Must I remind the House that the Bloc Quebecois made a number of proposals to this effect. In 1994, my colleague from Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, who was then the member for Richelieu, moved a motion to this effect in the House. Of course, it was defeated, thanks to our colleagues in the governing party.

A little later on, in 1997, the present leader of the Bloc Quebecois, the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie, also made a proposal along the same lines. When we debated Bill C-2 in the House and in committee, the Bloc Quebecois came back with a number of proposed amendments, which the government wasted no time rejecting.

Eloquent speeches were made in this House and in committee, in particular by the government House leader, as he was then also. He had a brief stint as Minister of Public Works and Government Services, but was not there long, for reasons known to us all. I will read some excerpts from the very wise comments made by the government House leader at that time.

In the House Procedure and Affairs Committee, the Government House Leader stated:

The Lortie commission has recommended neither that only individuals be allowed to make contributions nor that a maximum be established for contributions. Moreover, where such rules do exist, two individuals sometimes make equivalent contributions right up to the limit in order to get around these constraints.

Really, now.

He subsequently answer a question by our colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, who had a different political allegiance at the time, and was then in favour of public financing—and still must be—and perhaps may have made a modest contribution to this change in attitude on the government side.

His answer to our colleague for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord was as follows.

Corporations and individuals have virtually identical rights under the law. What a company can do legally as far as contributions are concerned, an individual can do also. The law does not treat them differently. It does not set higher ceilings for individuals than for unions or companies. Limits are the same for everyone. In other words, there is no ceiling in either category in terms of tax deductions. It is the same thing, provided it involves a taxpayer.

He said that there was equality between corporate and individual entities, as far as their ability to contribute to political parties was concerned.

Still in his answer, the government House leader said:

The system is transparent. I think that it is also accountable—

—as for banning contributions do not come from individuals that, this would be of very little benefit. Lortie said that it was so easy circumvent such a provision that it would not make sense. He may not have said it in those terms, but this is more or less what he meant.

We know what is happening today. Instead of the corporation paying $1,000, the president contributes $500, the vice-president $300 and the secretary $200, which means that the end result is the same. The only difference is that the system is less transparent instead of being more transparent. We no longer know from whom the money is really coming. It is coming from obscure individuals, instead of coming from GM, Ford, or some other corporation.

The government House leader went on to say:

Lortie also said that we would quickly use up the funds of political parties if we did that.

What caused this sudden about-face on the part of the government House leader? Why has he suddenly become the promoter of a limit, of a ceiling for corporate contributions? Will, all of a sudden, a corporation that would like to contribute $150,000 to the election fund of the Liberal Party of Canada, give $10,000 to its president, $10,000 to its vice-president, $10,000 to its secretary, and so on until the amount of $150,000 is reached? At least this is the possibility to which the government House leader alluded.

I guess that the government House leader was suddenly hit by the invaluable virtues of public financing, since he spoke so eloquently about it in this House.

My time is running out, but I will have the opportunity to address this issue again at the later stages of the bill, and I will examine more closely its various provisions and explain why these provisions seem satisfactory in some cases, but clearly unsatisfactory in others. In the meantime, we will have the opportunity to move a number of amendments.

[Jocelyne Girard-Bujold, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak today on Bill C-24, the purpose of which is to change political party financing.

From the outset, I want to say that the Liberal government has finally seen the light at the end of the tunnel. Quebec adopted similar legislation over 25 years ago.

So, before I go into the substance of my remarks, I would like to inform the hon. member of the Canadian Alliance who just spoke, as well as the hon. member who preceded him, that we heard the same thing in Quebec in 1976 and 1977 from the opposition parties. They objected to the financing system that Quebec has had in place for over 25 years now.

I would invite the hon. member to come to Quebec. He says that this bill will create paperwork, but this is not true. There is never too high a price to pay for democracy and transparency. Why do people criticize our governments so much these days, be it Liberal or otherwise? The whole sponsorship scandal was an example of a lack of transparency. The government's cronies had contributed to a slush fund.

After 25 years, Mr. Blanchet, the Chief Electoral Officer of Quebec, said that the legislation in Quebec had an extraordinarily positive impact. Looking back on 25 years, he said that although it is wonderful, there is still room for improvement. It is still a work in progress.

It is time for this government to say to Canadian voters, “The time has come to turn the machine off, to stop having secret slush funds and to start being accountable to the Canadian public who finances us”.

In 1997, my colleague, the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie, the current leader of the Bloc Quebecois, introduced a motion in this House saying that the Liberal Party of Canada should establish a public financing system. I will read the wording of the motion introduced on October 9, 1997:

That this House condemns the attitude of the Government, which refuses to introduce in-depth reform of the legislation on the financing of federal political parties even though the existing legislation allows for a wide range of abuses.

In 1994, my colleague from Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour introduced a motion in this House that said:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should bring in legislation limiting solely to individuals the right to donate to a federal political party, and restricting such donations to a maximum of $5,000 a year.

This means that nine years later, the government, through the Prime Minister, finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I give credit to the Prime Minister of Canada, who gave credit to a great visionary, the former Premier of Quebec, the late René Lévesque. He was indeed a visionary. He believed that all political parties should be financed through the sale of $5 membership cards. This way, every taxpayer could say, “No one is more influential than I am”. This is another way of saying, “My hands are not tied”.

It is regrettable that the legislation will not apply to the Liberal leadership race. Imagine the amount of money that must be pouring into the Liberal coffers right now. This legislation should have been made retroactive to January 1, 2003. That is the amendment I would like to see made to the bill, to show that the Prime Minister wants to be transparent to the very end. I commend his political courage.

Over the holiday season, people in Jonquière were asking me, “Jocelyne, what will you say about the bill the Prime Minister will be introducing?” I told them that I would congratulate him, because it was high time that similar legislation was introduced. He may have looked at the bigger picture because he is about to leave and wants to leave a positive legacy. It is never too late to do a good thing. He may have acted late, but he acted, and that is worth pointing out.

I think we can never raises objections about what this might cost. And there is democracy to think about. There has been a lot of talk about democracy, lately. Reference has been made to the popularity of politicians. I have heard that we politicians are less popular than car salesmen. Imagine that.

If this bill enhances our credibility with our voters, that is great; I applaud that. I would like the Alliance members to visit Quebec—I will gladly go with them—to see how we have been doing things for the past 26 years, and how great and transparent our democratic system is.

Our system is not perfect, you know. The other day, I met the government House leader in the elevator, and he told me, “I have checked in Quebec. We have drawn great inspiration from the Quebec legislation”. I say way to go.

We are not all bad, we have some good points as well. But there are some irritants in this bill, for instance the appointment of returning officers. I have always found the way this is done very disturbing. In Quebec they are selected by competition. This is all part of a democratic election.

On the federal level, returning officers for a riding have a political affiliation. I find that reprehensible. I hope that this government will accept these amendments relating to partisan appointments. If the Election Act is revised, it must be done thoroughly so that the credibility of returning officers is improved.

I have always been active in Quebec elections and have always been very close to the returning officers because I knew they were apolitical. They could of course vote as their conscience dictated, but at least I knew they had been appointed by a democratic process.

I feel that this part of the bill is serious and that the government House leader must, if he wishes to show good faith, revise the part relating to these appointments.

Then there are the contribution ceilings. We in the Bloc Quebecois, like the Parti Quebecois, feel these should not exceed $3,000 per individual.

This is a great victory. Today we can say it is a victory for a sovereignist party serving in Ottawa, which has told the federal government and federal politicians that it is high time political parties got their funding from individuals and were not held hostage by large corporations.

I congratulate the government once again. The Bloc Quebecois will be there to help improve this bill. I do, however, feel this is an excellent step forward. I congratulate the Bloc Quebecois members who were part of it.

[Ted White, Canadian Alliance, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to say a few words about Bill C-24. Incidentally it is a very thick bill, about half an inch thick, and I know you are a busy man, Mr. Speaker, so you probably have not had the time to glance through it yet, but I have read it from cover to cover. Whilst it is half an inch thick, a lot of it is repetitive, repeating the same clauses over and over for nomination meetings, for registration of electoral district associations or for leadership races. Much of it is repeated.

In speaking to Bill C-24, I would like to reference Bill C-2, which was the bill on the major changes to the Canada Elections Act, which took place a couple of years ago, a bill for which I was critic and moved it through the House over about a three month period.

When Bill C-2 was going through the House, I proposed on behalf of the Canadian Alliance that we put an end to the patronage appointments of Elections Canada whereby the government appoints all of the returning officers and most of the field staff for Elections Canada. The Chief Electoral Officer had begged us to allow him to select and appoint his own staff, because it is completely inappropriate for the governing party to be appointing key personnel in what is supposed to be an independent body. The minister at the time argued that this was a ridiculous suggestion because it would cost too much and increase the bureaucracy at Elections Canada, and therefore we should not waste our money on it.

However, when we look at Bill C-24, what do we find? An enormous bureaucracy being set up to register and track the reports of electoral district associations. I have already spoken with the Ontario chief electoral officer because Ontario does have exactly this type of system, and it is very intensely administrative in nature. It requires enormous amounts of paperwork. It requires elections people to follow up constantly with riding associations or electoral districts to get the paperwork done. This is going to cost much more and be much more complicated than anything that was proposed to get rid of patronage in Bill C-2, so I really think the minister was playing politics at the time.

In Bill C-24, the government is also setting up a very complicated process for nominations. The government has argued that what it is trying to do is level the playing field to make it easier for disadvantaged people to take advantage of the possibility of becoming candidates for political parties.

I am convinced that most of the government members have not bothered to read the bill. They probably took a look at the half inch thickness and decide not to attempt it. However, if we really read the bill we will see that there are at least 15 pages of requirements for people getting involved in a nomination meeting. Now if we are talking about people who are traditionally disadvantaged, for example, as they would argue, women in the community who may not have the business contacts to help them get big donations to start a nomination meeting, those same people will not have the contacts who have the accounting skills or the management skills to run the sort of paperwork that is required for a nomination race.

So I would argue that the government is very misguided in what it has done in this bill and I think again it is playing politics. What it is actually trying to do, while it pretends to be arguing in favour of the disadvantaged, is creating a situation whereby those people will be excluded. It will be restricted to people who have the business contacts, the skills and the ability to manage a very complicated nomination race procedure.

The bill also perpetuates the unfair 50 candidate rule, which requires parties, in order to be registered and to have registered riding associations, to run 50 candidates in an election. The courts have struck down that provision. They have said that it is unfair and that it is inappropriate. In discussions in this House and in committee, all of the parties except the Liberal Party agreed that number 12 would be appropriate, which is the number that is recognized in the House as being appropriate for recognition of party status. So again the government is perpetuating unfair, anti-democratic practices while it still argues out of the other side of its mouth that the bill is an improvement.

It has also continued to maintain the gag law in the bill. That is the part of the Canada Elections Act that prevents third parties from arguing their perspective during election campaigns. The gag law has been struck down three times in the courts, yet the minister, even as late as yesterday, was still arguing that it was appropriate to keep that gag law in the Elections Act.

He has wasted tens of millions of dollars fighting it in the courts. It gets struck down every time. He argues that the basis for putting the gag law back into the Elections Act is that there was a court ruling in Quebec which justified the use of a gag law and restrictions on spending of third parties.

What he fails to say every time he quotes that Quebec court judgment is that the judgment was about referenda, not elections. Referenda, Mr. Speaker, as I am sure you know, are about either a yes or a no answer. They are about one issue and the answer is either yes or no. It seems perfectly reasonable that we might put limits on who can argue for a yes and who can argue for a no in order to have a level playing field with both groups having access to the same amount of resources and money, but an election is a multi-faceted event with numerous issues, some of which are local and some of which are national, and there are literally hundreds of thousands of different issues that need to be argued.

To try to transpose a court ruling in Quebec to do with referenda into a general election status in this bill is completely inappropriate. The minister knows it. I have begged him to stop wasting taxpayers' money on these court cases and he continues to do it. In fact, he is a disgrace because he has wasted money on the gag law and he is now going to waste enormous amounts of money on a complicated process for nomination meetings. During all of that time he accuses us of trying to waste money by putting real democracy into the act, by getting rid of the patronage appointments that the Prime Minister does for Elections Canada.

Incidentally, there are returning officers who do not turn up to work at Elections Canada and the Chief Electoral Officer is unable to do anything about it. Unless he can convince the governor in council, which means the Prime Minister, to cancel the appointment of one of his cronies to the returning officer position, there is nothing that can be done. The end result is that incompetent party hacks get appointed to the positions in Elections Canada that should be filled by skilled people who are non-partisan.

I would like to urge the government to be open to considering changes in the bill. Perhaps I am being a little naive, because the bill is going to be rammed through and we all know that. We are going get this public funding whether we agree with it or not. But I would hope that the government might be open to taking a look at a fairer way of allocating the public funding. The way that it is set up at the moment, the funding is given on the basis of the number of votes that were achieved by a party in the past election. Really, that rewards past electoral success and not necessarily the popularity of the party as it stands at the present time.

I heard a very creative suggestion, for example, and I am not putting this forward as CA policy at this time, it is just a creative suggestion that I heard, which was that maybe it would be fairer to base the funding on the number of registered electoral districts that a party has.

For example, for every registered electoral district that a party could maintain across the country, it would receive a certain allocation of funds. That would make it fair because it would reward parties that were trying to become national in scope. It certainly would not be a disadvantage to the ruling Liberal Party because it maintains riding associations, or electoral districts, in every riding in the country so its allocation would be exactly the same. Parties like the Canadian Alliance, which is gradually establishing riding associations across the country, would also gain benefits as it established these, and it would really make a judgment about how serious a party was at being a national player. For parties like the Bloc that tend to be restricted to one region, it would not penalize them either, because it would be running electoral districts or associations in every riding in that province and so it would still get its allocation.

That seems to me, just on the surface of it, perhaps a fairer way of doing it. If we really must have public money put into this, I would hope the government might be open to suggestions like that from outside interests.

In closing, I will say that I think the bill is pretty badly flawed. There has not been much chance in 10 minutes to get into the real meat of it, but I will repeat my hope that the government would be open to some further suggestions in committee as to how we might improve the bill.

[Gary Lunn, Canadian Alliance, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-24 on behalf of all my constituents of Saanich--Gulf Islands.

I have to admit that I am absolutely puzzled and greatly amazed at how the Prime Minister, after spending close to 40 years in this place, all of a sudden has decided that he wants the taxpayers to fund political parties, although I agree that there were problems with how political parties received contributions in the past.

It absolutely boggles the mind when we get into the details of what the government, the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party is promoting in the bill. I will get into some of those details. After being here for almost six years, I am actually stunned that the government would even present a bill such as this.

I will go over a few of the details of exactly what Bill C-24 proposes. First, the Prime Minister has stated that the government is trying to limit union and political donations to political parties. This is something that I do not think is all that bad of an idea. It is something I could actually go along with.

However the Prime Minister tries to hide behind that veil, that this is about restricting corporate and union donations. That is the furthest thing from the truth in the bill as far as I read it. This is about taking $100 million of taxpayer money and forcing taxpayers to give that to political parties. I will get into some of the details of exactly how that is done.

Right now there is a tax credit of up to 75% for political donations to political candidates. The government would be doubling that limit to $400 from $200 for individuals. I will get into the impact of that in a minute.

Election expenses for political parties during an election now receive a 22.5% rebate on allowable expenses, which I say is questionable. If the government actually wanted to fix that it could have talked about eliminating all these rebates. What is worse, the government has now more than doubled that rebate up to 50%.

What would happen if someone in my riding wanted to donate $400 to any candidate in a political election? Let us say that the person wanted to donate $400 to my campaign. At the end of that campaign it would cost the taxpayer $300 immediately because that person would get a 75% cash rebate on his or her income tax.

When I spend that $400 during the election, I get a 50% rebate, another $200 when I spend that $400. What would that cost the taxpayer? When someone donates $400 to my campaign it would cost the taxpayer $500 right off the top, not to mention all the bureaucracy and all the cost of processing it which would add more.

That is unconscionable and wrong. Political parties would be in much the same boat. People would receive receipts and then receive a tax credit on their income tax when they donated to political parties. Those political parties would have their election expenses increased to 50% when they were at 22.5%, which would be more than double.

The other thing is that in order to be eligible for those rebates, which again would go mostly to major political parties, the parties would need to receive at least 15% of the vote. The government decided that was not enough so it has lowered that to 10%.

This is the frustrating part of the bill. The government is hiding behind the veil that it is about limiting or regulating corporate and union donations. We have heard a number of ministers say that they have undue influence and put pressure on the government. They place pressure on the government and obviously the cabinet, the executive branch of the government. We cannot legislate integrity. We cannot legislate honesty.

It is mind boggling what the Prime Minister has come up with after 40 years in this place. I do not know if he has a scorched earth policy. He knows he is leaving in a year. Perhaps he is trying to blow up everything behind him as he leaves this place and make it the most miserable place he can as he expects the member for LaSalle—Émard will be his successor. I have no idea what his motives are.

When we follow his rationale, it boggles the mind. The Prime Minister, the member from Shawinigan, would argue that it is unfair to have the money of shareholders and unionized workers contributed without their consent. There is a rationale that it is not right if unions donate money to political parties without their members' consent. Imagine, it is not right if corporations donate money to political parties without their shareholders' consent.

Who in heck does he think the taxpayers are? They are the shareholders of the public purse. Is it okay to donate their money, to give their money, $100 million in an electoral cycle, to political parties without their consent?

It is ridiculous that this bill is even before the House. We wonder why there is so much cynicism politics. The government spends $400 million to $450 million a day. That is the amount of the federal budget. There is $164.5 billion for this year. Divide that by 365. I have not done the math but it is around $450 million a day.

And this is how the government chooses to spend it after we have witnessed a billion dollar fiasco in the gun registry, after we have witnessed the Groupaction advertising contracts, after we have witnessed the Department of Human Resources Development Canada billion dollar boondoggle. The members across the way laugh and make jokes. It is not a laughing matter when they fritter away billions and billions of dollars in one department after another, from the justice department to HRDC to public works with the advertising contracts. Of course, all of the departments are trying to funnel money into the Prime Minister's riding.

It is wrong. It is absolutely unconscionable that the government even has the courage to bring this bill forward and have its members stand up in the House and suggest that it is okay.

The frustrating part is that the government is trying to hide behind the veil that it does not want to have undue influence from unions and corporations. That is a joke. If we look at the money and follow some of the donations to the Liberal Party and then look at the contracts that are awarded and the grants that are given out, of course the public is cynical about what is going on.

I am absolutely appalled by this legislation. I think it is wrong even though the biggest beneficiary would be the Canadian Alliance.

I will conclude by saying this is about $100 million of taxpayers' money. The government has forced it on the political parties and increased the rebate and it is dead wrong. The government should be looking at eliminating the rebates.

Again I am at a loss for words on how bad this is. It is nothing short of stealing money, taking it from the pockets of Canadian taxpayers. It is wrong. I am opposed to it. I urge every member not to follow in the Prime Minister's wake.

Business of the House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I will not interfere in the correspondence between those who have and those who have not been working over recent weeks.

This afternoon we will return to the second reading of Bill C-24, the elections finance bill. We would then call Bill C-20, the child protection bill. We would then move to Bill C-23 respecting a registry for certain offenders. I understand that there would be an interest on the part of some hon. members that after the initial speech by the parliamentary secretary we would adjourn the debate for the convenience of some members.

Tomorrow we will deal with Bill C-13 respecting reproductive technologies. I am still uncertain about one additional item, mainly that of the Senate amendments to Bill C-12, the sports bill. I will get back to hon. members later to see if we can deal with this item tomorrow, but that is still uncertain at this time.

Monday shall be an allotted day. On Tuesday and Wednesday we shall resume the budget debate.

Thursday and Friday of next week will be on legislation that we have before us. I will be speaking with House leaders early in the week to adjust that in view of the tremendous progress made on legislation this day to which the hon. House leader of the opposition in the House referred to earlier.

I wish to conclude by thanking all hon. members for the progress on legislation so far this day.

Canada Elections Act

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise today to speak on Bill C-24, which I could perhaps describe as plagiarizing the provincial legislation in effect in Quebec. I will not, however, since the bill before me today is not a carbon copy of the Quebec electoral law, which has been in effect for 26 years.

All week, I have been pleasantly surprised to hear my colleagues opposite speak highly of the late René Lévesque. To hear people across the way speak of René Lévesque like that warms the heart of a sovereignist, very much so.

Twenty six years ago, René Lévesque had a vision of the democratic political process. He had a vision of how to ensure that political parties are not bought, through contributions. Lévesque had a vision indeed.

The problem I have with this bill we are debating concerns the amount an individual may contribute, namely $10,000. That is a huge amount. I believe it is still a substantial enough amount to enable lobbyists to influence certain decisions.

I will give an example. Take the Minister of National Defence, a former vice-president of the Royal Bank in Toronto. He can very easily call up 20 of his friends and ask them to each write him a cheque for $10,000. Twenty times $10,000 is $200,000 that the Royal Bank would have contributed through the back door, or the side door.

Similarly, the Prime Minister of Canada can very easily pick up the phone and call Paul Desmarais at Power Corporation, asking him for $10,000. His friend Paul and his gang would come up with the $10,000.

The hon. member for LaSalle--Émard can very easily call up his buddies in shipping companies and say he needs $10,000. These are buddies from the shipping industry. Once again, only people in a certain category will be able to afford this kind of contribution. This $10,000 will allow them to continue influencing government decisions.

This is unacceptable. We are proposing that the limit be $3,000, the same as in the Quebec electoral law.

The other problem is also a serious one.

I would like to, if I may, come back on the issue of individual contributions. We in the Bloc Quebecois do not support corporate contributions. However, this is the 21st century, and contributions of $1,000, $2,000 or $3,000 as proposed in the bill could be considered acceptable. However, we recommend instead that there be no corporate donations at all.

The other problem I see, and that I am compelled to talk about, is the famous issue of the appointment of returning officers in each riding. The current practice will be continued, namely that the governor in council will appoint all returning officers. Currently, with the Liberal Party in power, it will appoint its Liberal cronies, former MPs, former corporate directors.

As a result, when I have to discuss anything with my riding's returning officer, or if I have a complaint to file, I am dealing with a political opponent.

As is the case in baseball, I am starting out with two strikes against me. The system should be as it is in Quebec. Allow me to explain how things are done in Quebec.

The appointments of returning officers are done in several stages. First, the position is advertised in newspapers. Anyone who reads newspapers in Quebec can learn about the position. Candidates for the job undergo a written and oral exam. Afterward, a selection committee makes a decision. There are no representatives of political parties on the selection committee. As a result, returning officers in Quebec are apolitical. They do not talk about politics, just about how to apply the Act Respecting Electoral Lists during the election. That is what they do.

The Bloc Quebecois supports the bill before us in principle. However, the Bloc Quebecois would like to see the changes I have just mentioned.

[Wendy Lill, NDP, Dartmouth, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure speak today to Bill C-24, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act regarding political financing.

The NDP has long been calling for the removal of big money from politics and supports this legislation in principle. However, the devil is in the details in every piece of legislation and we will be combing over the details of the bill to make sure that it is really moving us toward fairness and a more democratic system of political financing.

I would like to review in brief some of the contents of Bill C-24 and talk about the concerns we have with it, which we will continue to raise. First is the issue of individual donations. The legislation allows individuals to donate $10,000 a year to any party, candidate or riding association. All contributions will be indexed for inflation. Individuals can donate in multiples of $10,000, for example, to the Liberals, to the Alliance, et cetera.

Our concern about this is that the amount is too high. We believe that this kind of money can still buy influence and the whole idea of this bill is to eliminate buying influence in our political system. The level should be set much lower. We would suggest something like $3,000, as it is in Quebec and Manitoba. The Canadian Labour Congress, the CLC, calls for $5,000. In addition, we would seek this amount as a limit for individual donations to a maximum amount for all parties, not to each party.

On the issue of corporate and union donations, the bill prohibits contributions to political parties from corporations, unions or other associations. As an exception, it does allow those organizations to contribute $1,000 annually to the aggregate of candidates, local associations and nomination contestants of a registered party. All contributions are combined under the limit of $1,000.

Again the NDP has a concern with this. Unions like the CAW, for example, would be considered as one unit no matter how many locals there are, but franchises of corporations, let us say Ford car dealerships, may be considered to be separate entities, each able to make a $1,000 donation. This is an inequity that we do not believe is fair. We must argue that all contributions be banned or that unions be given equal treatment.

On the issue of public funding for elections and between elections, the bill provides for an annual public subsidy to parties of $1.50 for every vote they received in the previous election. Based on the 2000 general election, the Liberals would receive $7.8 million annually, the Alliance $4.9 million annually, the PCs $2.4 million, the Bloc $2.1 million and the NDP $1.6 million. Had the $1.50 per vote been in place for the 1997 and 2000 elections, the NDP would have received more money than it received from union contributions, including the federal and provincial share of affiliation fees lost.

The bill extends the candidate rebates to those receiving 10% of the vote rather than the old 15% limit. It also increases the national rebate to 50% of allowable expenses for political parties from 22.5% and includes the cost of public opinion polling for the first time. Our concern is that the provision is not indexed and so will decrease in value over time. Contributions from individuals, corporations and unions are indexed. We must push for further indexing.

In terms of trust funds, several Liberal MPs, and perhaps others, have amassed large trust funds and we are not sure how the new legislation will treat trust funds. One interpretation is that they will continue to exist but could not be used for political purposes beyond the $1,000 annually that an association can donate to the candidates or riding associations. The NDP remains concerned that there will be an enormous temptation for some MPs to find ways to slip trust fund money into their political work and campaigns.

On the issue of third parties, if the government truly wants to remove the perception that big money rules politics, then it is even more imperative to limit the amount of money that third parties can spend during elections and on politics generally.

The amendments do not deal with third party expenditures. The existing elections act does limit expenditures of third parties but the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the National Citizens' Coalition challenge. The federal government is appealing that ruling.

Our concern is that the intent to get big money out of politics is severely undercut if third parties are free to spend what they want. Once the political parties have restricted themselves to accept only individual donations, it would follow that judges would find it harder to rule against legislation limiting the involvement of third parties.

In conclusion, the NDP offers its support in principle to Bill C-24, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act. We will be working to make sure that it in fact is meeting the spirit of its intent. We will be working for specific amendments that will bring this legislation into line to benefit all Canadians.

[John O'Reilly, Liberal, Haliburton—Victoria—Brock, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-24 seeks to make fundamental changes to the way we fund political participants in the country.

I think all of us would agree that Canada's electoral system is one of the best in the world in terms of fairness and honesty. But as we know, democracy is a work in progress, which means we need to revisit our political and government systems from time to time to make sure they are doing the best possible job of serving Canadians.

One area requiring a second look, of course, involves the rules governing political financing. Let us look at requirements for financial disclosure. At present, the Canada Elections Act requires only registered parties and candidates to disclose contributions and expenditures to the Chief Electoral Officer. This effectively exempts other important players in the political process, such as electoral district associations and leadership and nomination contestants, from having to reveal where their money came from and how they spend it. In turn, this has reduced the transparency of the system and public confidence in it and has created what the Chief Electoral Officer refers to as the “black hole” of political financing.

We need to open up the system and give the public more and better information on what is going on behind the scenes. For example, we must address leadership contests. There are many going on in the House of Commons right now, all over the place. This is an area of great interest to Canadians. Little is known about how they are financed, which is strange given how important they are to the political landscape in this country. We need to know more about leadership contestants and who their supporters are. After all, one of them will eventually become the Prime Minister, the leader of the country, but of course that would be on this side.

The bill would make this possible by extending disclosure requirements for leadership campaigns as well as a number of other important activities. For example, once a party launches its campaign officially, leadership contestants would be required to register with Elections Canada. At that time, they would have to disclose all contributions received from their campaign up to that point.

They would also have to disclose contributions to their campaigns in each of the last four weeks prior to the date of the leadership convention. This responds to the criticism that filing a report six months after the contest is too late to be effective. Of course, contestants would still be required, six months after the end of the campaign, to disclose all contributions received and expenses incurred.

Once in place, these new measures would make important new information available to Canadians and open up this area to full public scrutiny, which would go a long way toward enhancing public confidence in the honesty and fairness of leadership campaigns.

Greater disclosure cannot by itself buttress public confidence and reassure Canadians that our approach to funding leadership campaigns is fair and above board, so the bill would ensure that only individuals would be able to make financial contributions to registered parties and leadership and nomination contestants. This is important since a recent Environics poll found that many Canadians feel that wealthy Canadians, large corporations and unions have too much influence on governments. In the same poll, almost two-thirds of respondents felt the government should stop campaign contributions from having too much influence on the government and two-thirds supported the idea of allowing just individuals to contribute to political participants.

The bill responds to this call for action by proposing a ban on corporate and union contributions except at the local level. Limits would be placed on individual contributions to remove any suggestion that well-to-do individuals could use large contributions to hijack government deliberations later on once the election is over. An annual ceiling of $10,000 would be placed on individual contributions to a registered party, its local associations, candidates and nomination contestants. Individuals would be allowed to contribute no more than $10,000 in total to the leadership contestants of a particular party.

These measures are tough, but they are not unusual nor do they represent a break with established Canadian practice, for such a prohibition has been in place since 1977 in Quebec and was recently implemented in Manitoba. They are in force in other countries around the world as well.

I want to reassure members that these measures would in no way interfere with leadership contests already under way. The bill would not apply to those contests that start prior to its coming into force, which would be either January 2004 or six months after the bill is passed by Parliament, whichever is later. This should provide enough time to put the necessary system in place while at the same time ensuring that both parties and contestants are able to adjust to the new measures.

Canadians have told us they want new approaches to funding our political system which would remove once and for all concerns that large donations by corporations, unions and well-off individuals give them undue influence over government. They want regulations to cover not only election campaigns, as is currently the case, but also nomination and leadership campaigns, which they see as equally important.

That is what the bill before us does today. It would provide greater disclosure and extend it to the new areas such as leadership campaigns. It would ban corporate and union contributions in a number of areas, including leadership campaigns, and limit what well-to-do individuals can contribute. This goes a long way to enhancing public confidence in the way we fund political activity in this country and that is why I support the bill.

As a former returning officer for a party and having filed audited papers in the city of Toronto for the Haliburton—Victoria—Brock area for a candidate who had won, when I took our audited statement in and was quite confident that it was well done, comprehensive and accurate, I was told by the person at the desk that it would be audited because it looked too good to be true. That person wanted to make sure that they would look at it in this light and go through every bit of it. I asked the person at the desk why they would audit one that they could read. The person turned around, showing me a bunch of shoeboxes full of returns that other people, losing candidates, had brought in and tied up with old shoelaces and said, “We're not going to audit those”. So I know that proper financial contributions listed in a such a manner that they are legible and which the Canadian public can read are the ones that hold the most weight.

I think we can enhance our electoral system. My riding is the second largest riding in southern Ontario. In my riding and the one next to it, we have one-third of the land in southern Ontario. We take up a large area. Contrary to what my friends in the Alliance would say, we do have the same Toronto influence on us. I do not cheer for the Toronto Maple Leafs, as I am more of a Montreal Canadiens fan, but when one lives 80 miles north of Toronto in a totally rural municipality--