Bill C-24 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act

Trust Funds

[Jacques Saada, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister responsible for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, I believe my colleague is not quite correct when he says that Bill C-24 does not cover trust funds. It does cover the possibility of any moneys being held outside of political riding associations to be transferred to these riding associations before January 1, 2004. Otherwise, these other organizations would be limited in their contributions for political purposes to the $1,000 maximum cap.

Indeed, whatever decision had to be made had to be made within the purview of the law, and it was.

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister.

The Chief Electoral Officer has expressed grave concern that many MPs, like the member for Trinity—Spadina, have trust accounts or trust funds that are in fact secret bank accounts totalling millions of dollars. Bill C-24 election expenses did not cover trust funds.

I ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether it is the intention of the government to introduce legislation requiring MPs to disclose whether they have trust funds, how much money might be in those trust funds and what the source of funding would be if they have a trust fund,

Sponsorship Program

[Jacques Saada, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister responsible for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, we have been very clear in saying that the commission of inquiry that has been established can go absolutely anywhere it wants and question whomever it wishes, in order to get to the bottom of things.

The second thing is that on January 1, 2004, Bill C-24 on political party financing, which we examined during the last session, became law. Before that date any existing trust funds, or the people who managed them, had a choice: they could transfer these funds to ridings so that the money could be used for political purposes, or they could respect the $1,000 contribution ceiling across the county. That is now over.

[Jacques Saada, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister responsible for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Party of Canada has no secret funds.

When Bill C-24 on political party financing was being studied, that party wanted retroactivity. It backed down on that in order to get the bill passed so it could obtain public funding for political parties. Now they want to use another approach to get the retroactivity they did not obtain at the time, and did not want, because they wanted the public funds.

Points of Order

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I too asked a question this afternoon but it was a bit different from the one asked by the member from the Bloc Quebecois. His question came from the angle of the sponsorship funds. Mine came from a statement made by the Chief Electoral Officer about his concern with regard to trust funds.

I would argue that this is relevant because the House passed Bill C-24 a while ago. The bill deals with the funding of election campaigns, the funding of candidate campaigns, and the funding of campaigns for members of Parliament. Trust funds have the same kind of effect in terms of funding campaigns for people who run for political office. I maintain that I was asking something that was in the competence of the Government of Canada.

Also, Revenue Canada issues tax receipts. That too was a relevant part of my question because we do not know whether or not tax receipts are going to be issued for trust funds.

The last point I want to make is very important. I asked the government House leader a similar question about trust funds this morning in the House affairs committee. The very competent and knowledgeable member for Peterborough, who is the chair of the committee, allowed the question. It seems to me that it was the responsibility of the House leader to answer the question and he did answer the question. For those reasons, I would argue that the question I asked today should have been in order.

I specifically said to you, Mr. Speaker, in my second question, in light of the fact that the House had passed Bill C-24, the bill to limit the funding of campaigns by trade unions and corporations and to set limits on national parties and local candidates; I used that in my preamble.

I therefore maintain that my question should have been in order because of those facts.

Trust Funds

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, in light of the fact the House of Commons passed Bill C-24, which deals with contributions, I want to ask the Prime Minister how many members of his caucus have trust funds, where did that money come from and what is the source of donors. That is very relevant in light of Bill C-24.

Sponsorship Program

[Jacques Saada, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister responsible for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, as you are aware, and my colleague as well, we passed Bill C-24 in this House. It is a systematic clarification of the situation as far as political party funding is concerned. Bill C-24, now an integral part of the Canada Elections Act, sets the contribution ceiling for organizations outside of a political party at $1000 a year for all ridings in the country.

The situation has been settled. If my colleague has any documents to table, I invite him to do so.

Canada Elections Act

[Dick Proctor, NDP, Palliser, SK]

Madam Speaker, we are here this afternoon debating the Figueroa decision: that the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the current requirement of a political party to field at least 50 candidates in a general election as a condition of registration.

The court ruled that this 50 candidate rule treated small parties unfairly by denying them three key benefits that are granted to larger parties, namely: the right to issue tax receipts for political contributions; the right to receive unspent election funds from candidates; and the right to have a candidate's party affiliation listed on the ballot.

This treatment was found to be unequal and to infringe upon the right of citizens to participate in a meaningful way in the electoral process, as protected by section 3 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

As was pointed out by the government House leader, the court did suspend its decision, or the effect of its judgment, for one year until this June 27 in order to allow Parliament time to bring forward the necessary changes to the Canada Elections Act.

The government is telling us that it believes the bill before us strikes an appropriate balance between fairness to the parties and the need to preserve the integrity of the electoral system.

The prerequisites are that the party have at least 250 members who have signed statements declaring that they are members of the party and support its registration, and that one of the party's fundamental purposes must be to participate in public affairs by endorsing one or more of its members as candidates and supporting their election, and that the party leader make a declaration to that effect.

That is the background to why we are debating this today. Of course with the prorogation of the House last November, the bill had to come back to be dealt with in order to meet the Supreme Court's requirement. It will require the amendment of the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act.

I agree with the Supreme Court decision that fifty is too high a threshold, but I also wonder at the same time whether the number one is not too low. I will raise some of that as I go through the remaining moments that I have available.

As I said before, the fifty rule was struck down because small parties were treated unfairly and that did infringe on the rights of citizens to participate in a meaningful way, but if fifty is too high, is one too low? Let me delve into the example of the member for Saskatoon—Humboldt. It may be instructive for members of the House to consider it in that light.

Here is a member who appears to be a total political misfit in the House. He was elected as a member of the Reform Party in 1997. He was not welcome in the Reform Party, he was not welcome in the Progressive Conservative Party, and he appears, so far as we can tell, to be unwelcome in the newly formed Conservative Party. One assumes, because we are all trying to maximize the number of members we have here, that his views are simply too extreme for any political entity, for any political party in the House. That is the background.

Under the proposed bill as it has been laid out, there is nothing that would prevent this individual from continuing to raise money, to retain any unspent election funds and to continue on in his way, a way that is more destructive than instructive. It is fair to say that it is difficult for independents to win re-election, and the odds of this oddball member returning to Parliament Hill after the next general election are probably not very high.

Let me just stop here and say that I am one who very much favours freedom of speech. I basically agree with the notion that I may disagree with everything the member says but I will go to my grave in order to give him the right to say it. However, I am not sure that in giving him the right to say it we should necessarily be funding it. I do not think I would necessarily go that far in my libertarian view of the world.

My concern is that the bill is going to give more oddballs an opportunity to gain notoriety and have the right to raise and keep money. It certainly does not mean that they are likely to win political office, but it will do little to enhance the idea that more good people will want to seek office because of them.

The member from the Bloc Québécois who spoke before me referred to the Supreme Court decision as a unanimous decision, or at least that is the way it came across in the translation; perhaps it was an error. It is my understanding that it was not a unanimous decision of the Supreme Court. It was a five to three decision on the idea of this business of reducing it to one.

I am saying that fifty is too high, but I am clearly not arguing in favour of one. I like the arguments by the members of the Supreme Court who stated that it would be possible to enhance democratic values without so large a threshold, without reducing it all the way down to one member.

I think that perhaps twelve is too high a test, as the member from the Bloc Québécois said. Perhaps four or six members would meet the test, but I am not sure why we went to the lowest common denominator of just one. I agree with the court that this rule can be over- or under-inclusive and is potentially subject to manipulation. Fifty is obviously under-inclusive, but one may very well be over-inclusive.

Fifty, as pointed out in Bill C-24, has a disparate impact in that registration of a single political party at the federal level can occur only currently in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. If we had a political rights party, for example in Saskatchewan or Manitoba where there are only fourteen seats available in each of those provinces, the fifty rule is obviously too high a threshold and would not apply. Obviously we need something that is considerably lower than fifty, but one, to my mind, is too low. In fact, it reminds me of the Groucho Marx line: “I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member”.

I also recall Churchill, who said:

It may be that vengeance...is sweet, and that the gods forbade vengeance to men because they reserve for themselves so delicious and intoxicating drink. But no-one should drain the cup to the bottom. The dregs are often filthy-tasting.

I think reducing the number to one means that there will be far more dregs and drudges in the political system, and that is not going to encourage informed debate and make more informed political discussion.

In conclusion, let me say that we support the bill, but we have serious concerns about the reduction to one. We are glad that it is going to committee where these arguments can be made in an endeavour to improve the overall content of the bill.

Supply

[Pierre Pettigrew, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Madam Speaker, I too wish to congratulate you on your new position as Chair of our House. This is an important position, which obviously commands great respect.

I want to thank you for allowing me to rise today to speak on this motion, whose wording is certainly excessive, but which gives us an opportunity to take a good look at how a Liberal government handles public funds.

I listened to the presentation of the hon. member for Edmonton—Strathcona earlier. He said our government had no respect for public funds, for the taxpayers' hard-earned money.

My constituents, in Papineau—Saint-Denis, are fully aware of the fact that no other government in the history of this country has done more to look to the future in terms of public spending, instead of allowing the absolutely staggering debt load to continue to grow, which is what used to happen.

I am very happy that the member for Edmonton—Strathcona said that we have disrespect for taxpayers' dollars. It will get the public thinking, and it will remember that our government is the one that eliminated the $42 billion deficit inherited from the Conservative government. Note that the Alliance Party is now the Conservative Party, therefore inheriting the Conservatives' legacy.

This legacy was a $42 billion deficit. In those days, governments kept on borrowing, knowing full well that the day would come when it would have to be paid back using the taxes paid by Canadians.

We have eliminated this $42 billion deficit, out of respect for the taxes paid by Canadians.

The Prime Minister, who was finance minister at the time, did a tremendous job, in respecting public funds. We have carried out very painful program reviews, in which program upon program was reviewed to ensure that we were respecting the taxpayers' money.

Is this program still relevant to the Canadian economy or society? Would that one better meet our needs? Very painful program reviews were conducted out of respect for taxpayers' money.

Therefore, we are the only country in the world, the only country in the G-7, one of the rare countries in the OECD now, that has a budget surplus, and is no longer in a deficit situation. We are the only country in the G-7 to have a surplus and not a deficit because of our government's prudent management of public funds.

It was our Liberal government that modernized employment insurance benefits. We were the ones who got the employment insurance fund out of its deficit position, where it had been year after year, with the government putting in the taxpayers' money. We were the ones who turned this deficit into a surplus, and now we are taken to task for having an EI fund surplus because they say it is excessive.

In any case, at least, the taxpayers' money is no longer going to prop up the employment insurance fund that was running at a deficit. It is precisely because we respect the taxpayers' contributions that the EI fund has finally done this.

In all the world, our country has become a model for its respect for the taxpayers' money. It is clear now that there were some mistakes made in the sponsorship file. Some very disturbing facts have been brought to our attention by the Auditor General.

Furthermore, I would like to point out one thing. The word “corruption” does not appear in the Auditor General's report. She pointed out some worrisome facts to us—serious facts we have been considering for several years. We are being asked, “Where was the Prime Minister all those years?”

We are the ones who called for an internal audit in the Department of Public Works and Government Services when the allegations were first heard. The Deputy Minister, Mr. Quail, came and told us, in mid-2002, that, despite the fact that the three Groupaction reports were not included in the internal audit, there was no evidence of corruption or dishonesty at that time. That is what the internal audit report said.

Unfortunately, later on, some facts came to light that were sufficiently serious to be brought to the attention of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The RCMP is now carrying out criminal investigations based on the facts that the Auditor General's activities had uncovered over a two-year period. It cannot be said that we have done nothing.

The new government led by the current Prime Minister shut down the program the day after the new government was formed, that is, December 13, 2003.

As a government, we have made some extremely radical decisions. We have created a commission to carry out an independent, public judicial inquiry. Now the opposition is asking us to tell that inquiry to produce its report quickly, and to impose upon it a deadline and other restrictions on this and that. We will not set a time limit. We trust it will work expeditiously, but also that it will go into the matter thoroughly, so that we will have recommendations to prevent this kind of thing from ever happening again.

We set up the Standing Committee on Public Accounts very quickly. It is the only House committee already in place. Its chair is an opposition member. We made sure it would be the first parliamentary committee prepared to start work, and we have already assured it of this government's full cooperation.

We have given a special mandate to a legal counsel specialized in the recovery of funds, in order to trace any funds that may have been misdirected. This specialist, who is not involved in criminal cases, will also be able to recover these funds in civil proceedings.

We have undertaken management reforms. Legislation protecting whistleblowers will ensure that public servants who get wind of certain crooked dealings are protected by a statute under which they can report these facts to the appropriate authority. We are enforcing the Financial Administration Act.

This government has acted, will act and intends to do everything in its power to prevent any future repetition of troubling events such as those now being brought to light.

I want to take the few minutes I have remaining to defend Quebec's reputation, which has taken quite a beating throughout the country. It is unfortunate that people want to associate all of Quebec with certain crooked dealings by a limited number of individuals who will have to answer for their actions.

However, I must say one thing. There have been difficult political situations in provinces other than Quebec, such as British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. They have happened everywhere and under other governments too.

Quebec is even the first society to get its fiscal house and political party financing in order. The Lesage government, a Liberal government in the early 1960s, initiated this initiative to clean up political campaign funds to free political parties from the sometimes, but not always, unhealthy influence of money.

This reform, begun under the Lesage government, was continued by René Lévesque and the Parti Quebecois, in Quebec City, to the extent that this society influenced the Liberal government to adopt Bill C-24, last year, to improve political party financing.

This was an indepth reform, which the Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives opposed. They were against reforming contributions to campaign funds, preferring to leave things in the dark.

Now, I want to come back to what we said about Quebec.

Now I would like to say it in English, if no one minds, so that my English speaking friends around the country know that there have been political difficulties and political corruption in all Canadian provinces and societies. I find it extremely sad when I hear anything close to the Quebec bashing that I have been hearing in the last few days.

I would like to say how much Quebec in the last 40 years has been a society that has contributed to the progress of cleaner electoral and managerial health in our public finances. It is the first society that has brought forward legislation to free up political parties with respect to election funds.

The progress that has been made in Quebec in the last few years is very important. I am very proud that it is the Quebec society that has influenced the Liberal government to free up political parties from any influence from big business by making sure that party funds will now be public. I think it is great progress for democracy.