Bill C-2 (Historical)

Federal Accountability Act

An Act providing for conflict of interest rules, restrictions on election financing and measures respecting administrative transparency, oversight and accountability

Part 1 enacts the Conflict of Interest Act and makes consequential amendments in furtherance of that Act. That Act sets out substantive prohibitions governing public office holders. Compliance with the Act is a deemed term and condition of a public office holder’s appointment or employment. The Act also sets out a detailed regime of compliance measures to ensure conformity with the substantive prohibitions, certain of which apply to all public office holders and others of which apply to reporting public office holders. The Act also provides for a regime of detailed post-employment rules. Finally, the Act establishes a complaints regime, sets out the powers of investigation of the Commissioner and provides for public reporting as well as a regime of administrative monetary penalties.
Amongst other matters, the consequential amendments to the Parliament of Canada Act provide for the appointment and office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner along with his or her tenure, expenses, duties and other administrative matters.
Part 1 also amends the Canada Elections Act to
(a) reduce to $1,000 the amount that an individual may contribute annually to a registered party, and create a distinct $1,000 annual limit on contributions to the registered associations, the nomination contestants and the candidates of a registered party;
(b) reduce to $1,000 the amount that an individual may contribute to an independent candidate or to a leadership contestant;
(c) reduce to $1,000 the amount that a nomination contestant, a candidate or a leadership contestant may contribute to his or her own campaign in addition to the $1,000 limit on individual contributions;
(d) totally ban contributions by corporations, trade unions and associations by repealing the exception that allows them to make an annual contribution of $1,000 to the registered associations, the candidates and the nomination contestants of a registered party and a contribution of $1,000 to an independent candidate during an election period;
(e) ban cash donations of more than $20, and reduce to $20 the amount that may be contributed before a receipt must be issued or, in the case of anonymous contributions following a general solicitation at a meeting, before certain record-keeping requirements must be met; and
(f) increase to 5 years after the day on which the Commissioner of Canada Elections became aware of the facts giving rise to a prosecution, and to 10 years following the commission of an offence, the period within which a prosecution may be instituted.
Other amendments to the Canada Elections Act prohibit candidates from accepting gifts that could reasonably be seen to have been given to influence the candidate in the performance of his or her duties and functions as a member, if elected. The wilful contravention of this prohibition is considered to be a corrupt practice. A new disclosure requirement is introduced to require candidates to report to the Chief Electoral Officer any gifts received with a total value exceeding $500. Exceptions are provided for gifts received from relatives, as well as gifts of courtesy or of protocol. The amendments also prohibit registered parties and registered associations from transferring money to candidates directly from a trust fund.
The amendments to the Lobbyists Registration Act rename the Act and provide for the appointment by the Governor in Council of a Commissioner of Lobbying after approval by resolution of both Houses of Parliament. They broaden the scope for investigations by the Commissioner, extend to 10 years the period in respect of which contraventions may be investigated and prosecuted, and increase the penalties for an offence under the Act. In addition, they empower the Commissioner to prohibit someone who has committed an offence from lobbying for a period of up to two years, prohibit the acceptance and payment of contingency fees and prohibit certain public office holders from lobbying for a period of five years after leaving office. They require lobbyists to report their lobbying activities involving certain public office holders and permit the Commissioner to request those office holders to confirm or correct the information reported by lobbyists.
Amendments to the Parliament of Canada Act prohibit members of the House of Commons from accepting benefits or income from certain trusts and require them to disclose all trusts to the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. The amendments also authorize the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner to issue orders requiring members to terminate most trusts and prohibiting them from using the proceeds from their termination for political purposes. In cases where the trusts are not required to be terminated, the amendments authorize the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner to make orders prohibiting members from using the trusts for political purposes. An offence is created for members who do not comply with such orders. The amendments also provide that, in the event of a prosecution, a committee of the House of Commons may issue an opinion that is to be provided to the judge before whom the proceedings are held.
Finally, Part 1 amends the Public Service Employment Act to remove the right of employees in ministers’ offices to be appointed without competition to positions in the public service for which the Public Service Commission considers them qualified.
Part 2 harmonizes the appointment and removal provisions relating to certain officers.
Amendments to the Parliament of Canada Act establish within the Library of Parliament a position to be known as the Parliamentary Budget Officer, whose mandate is to provide objective analysis to the Senate and House of Commons about the estimates of the government, the state of the nation’s finances and trends in the national economy, to undertake research into those things when requested to do so by certain Parliamentary committees, and to provide estimates of the costs of proposals contained in Bills introduced by members of Parliament other than in their capacity as ministers of the Crown. The amendments also provide the Parliamentary Budget Officer with a right of access to data that are necessary for the performance of his or her mandate.
Part 3 enacts the Director of Public Prosecutions Act which provides for the appointment of the Director of Public Prosecutions and one or more Deputy Directors. That Act gives the Director the authority to initiate and conduct criminal prosecutions on behalf of the Crown that are under the jurisdiction of the Attorney General of Canada. That Act also provides that the Director has the power to make binding and final decisions as to whether to prosecute, unless the Attorney General of Canada directs otherwise, and that such directives must be in writing and published in the Canada Gazette. The Director holds office for a non-renewable term of seven years during good behaviour and is the Deputy Attorney General of Canada for the purposes of carrying out the work of the office. The Director is given responsibility, in place of the Commissioner of Canada Elections, for prosecutions of offences under the Canada Elections Act.
Part 3 also amends the Access to Information Act to ensure that all parent Crown corporations, and their wholly-owned subsidiaries, within the meaning of section 83 of the Financial Administration Act are encompassed by the definition “government institution” in section 3 of the Access to Information Act and to add five officers, five foundations and the Canadian Wheat Board to Schedule I of that Act. It adjusts some of the exemption provisions accordingly and includes new exemptions or exclusions relating to the added officers and the Crown corporations. It empowers the Governor in Council to prescribe criteria for adding a body or an office to Schedule I and requires Ministers to publish annual reports of all expenses incurred by their offices and paid out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund. It adds any of those same officers and foundations that are not already included in the schedule to the Privacy Act to that schedule, ensures that all of those parent Crown corporations and subsidiaries are encompassed by the definition “government institution” in section 3 of that Act, and makes other consequential amendments to that Act. It amends the Export Development Act to include a provision for the confidentiality of information. It revises certain procedures relating to the processing of requests and handling of complaints and allows for increases to the number of investigators the Information Commissioner may designate to examine records related to defence and national security.
Amendments to the Library and Archives of Canada Act provide for an obligation to send final reports on government public opinion research to the Library and Archives of Canada.
Finally, Part 3 amends the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act to
(a) establish the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Tribunal and empower it to make remedial orders in favour of victims of reprisal and to order disciplinary action against the person or persons who took the reprisal;
(b) provide for the protection of all Canadians, not only public servants, who report government wrongdoings to the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner;
(c) remove the Governor in Council’s ability to delete the name of Crown corporations and other public bodies from the schedule to the Act;
(d) require the prompt public reporting by chief executives and the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner of cases of wrongdoing; and
(e) permit the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner to provide access to legal advice relating to the Act.
Part 4 amends the Financial Administration Act to create a new schedule that identifies and designates certain officials as accounting officers and, within the framework of their appropriate minister’s responsibilities and accountability to Parliament, sets out the matters for which they are accountable before the appropriate committees of Parliament. A regime for the resolution of issues related to the interpretation or application of a policy, directive or standard issued by the Treasury Board is established along with a requirement that the Treasury Board provide a copy of its decision to the Auditor General of Canada.
Part 4 also amends the Financial Administration Act and the Criminal Code to create indictable offences for fraud with respect to public money or money of a Crown corporation, and makes persons convicted of those offences ineligible to be employed by the Crown or the corporation or to otherwise contract with the Crown.
Other amendments to the Financial Administration Act clarify the authority of the Treasury Board to act on behalf of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada on matters related to internal audit in the federal public administration. They also set out the deputy head’s responsibility for ensuring that there is an internal audit capacity appropriate to the needs of the department and requires them, subject to directives of the Treasury Board, to establish an audit committee. The Financial Administration Act, the Farm Credit Canada Act and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board Act are amended to require Crown corporations to establish audit committees composed of members who are not officers or employees of the corporation. Other amendments to the Financial Administration Act require, subject to directions of the Treasury Board, that all grant and contribution programs be reviewed at least every five years to ensure their relevance and effectiveness.
Amendments made to the Financial Administration Act and to the constituent legislation of a number of Crown corporations provide for appointments of directors for up to four years from a current maximum of three years.
Part 4 also amends the Canadian Dairy Commission Act, the Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation Act and the National Capital Act to require different individuals to perform the duties of chair of the Board of Directors and chief executive officer of the corporation.
Part 5 amends the Auditor General Act by expanding the class of recipients of grants, contributions and loans into which the Auditor General of Canada may inquire as to the use of funds, whether received from Her Majesty in right of Canada or a Crown corporation. Other amendments provide certain immunities to the Auditor General.
Amendments to the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act provide for the appointment and mandate of a Procurement Auditor.
Part 5 also amends the Financial Administration Act to provide for a government commitment to fairness, openness and transparency in government contract bidding, and a regulation-making power to deem certain clauses to be set out in government contracts in relation to prohibiting the payment of contingency fees and respecting corruption and collusion in the bidding process for procurement contracts, declarations by bidders in respect of specific criminal offences, and the provision of information to the Auditor General of Canada by recipients under funding agreements.

Opposition Motion—Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-2010

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. We are indeed in a rather fuzzy, if not downright grey area. The government wants to get $3 billion from the House of Commons—one billion equals one thousand million, so three billion equals three thousand million dollars—to spend on the so-called infrastructure programs, which have no criteria and no guidelines. This clearly smacks of patronage. The way the current government is trying to set aside a sum of money, supposedly to help jump-start the economy, is totally inadequate.

The Auditor General of Canada was the one who expressed these opinions. We are not making anything up. Hon. members just need to hearken back to the sponsorship scandal, which is still very clear in the Liberals' memories. Or the long dark period in Quebec under Maurice Duplessis, for example, when not everything about public funds was made public.

When the Conservative Party of Canada came to power in 2006, it introduced bill C-2 concerning government responsibility and accountability. It claimed that it wanted to avoid this situation, and we welcomed that with open arms.

Yet now it is doing exactly the opposite of what it proposed in that bill, by not setting any criteria for that $3 billion. So the whole process is open to suspicion. This is no small matter, when we are well aware of how many Quebeckers and Canadians are desperately in need of money as they face the current economic crisis. On top of that, they have to put up with this totally unacceptable procedure being used by the Conservative government.

We cannot react to this situation in any way other than negatively. I hope that there is at least one Conservative who will be able to wake up the rest of them and let them know that this plan they have in mind to set aside $3 billion with no guidelines is absolutely unacceptable. All the opposition agrees on this. All Quebeckers, all Canadians, all the people represented in this House of Commons support this principle. When the federal government spends money, we have to know where it is going to be spent, and what guidelines and rules have been set out.

This is the exact opposite of an accountability bill. It is the exact opposite of appropriate, honest and democratic government responsibility.

[Marc Mayrand, Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada]

Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

I am accompanied today, as the chair indicated, by Mr. François Bernier, the legal services director at Elections Canada.

I was requested by the chair of this committee to assist members in the study of the review and treatment of election financial returns and the key considerations involved in the review of these returns. In discussions prior to my appearance, the chair requested that I provide a detailed explanation of the aspects of the legislative and administrative framework that relate to political financing under the Canada Elections Act and, more specifically, of the treatment of election expenses.

This will be the subject of the first part of the presentation. I hope it will provide the committee with a better understanding of the operating context in which decisions are made regarding reimbursement of electoral expenses. I will then turn to the subject of particular decisions of interest to the committee and explain how they relate to the legislative and administrative framework.

The mandate of Elections Canada is to administer the Canada Elections Act in a fair, consistent, transparent and impartial manner. As an officer of Parliament, my first duty is to serve Parliament and Canadians. While the committee is reviewing the activities of public office holders, I trust it will understand that in my capacity as Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, I can only speak to electoral matters. I will not comment on ongoing investigations of the Commissioner of Elections Canada, or the specifics of the case currently before the Federal Court. As well, I will not deal with any individual cases.

Mr. Chairman, with your concurrence, I will now proceed with the first part of my presentation. The committee has already received a presentation that extends to a number of pages—42 pages, I believe. So I won't read each of those pages, but I will simply make the main comments on the essential aspects of the presentation.

The presentation will contain four parts: first, the objective itself, as well as a part dealing with the key principles underlying the legislation and the administration of that legislation, the key aspects of the legislation, and, lastly, the aspects of the administration of that legislation. I will also provide a brief conclusion.

I think it's fair to say that the first hundred years of federal democracy in Canada have been focused almost exclusively on the conduct of elections and on progressively expanding the franchise--the right to vote--to all Canadian citizens. In fact, the right to vote became a fundamental right protected by the Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982.

This focus continues today, as the agenda of the 39th Parliament attests. For example, Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act, dealt with the appointment of returning officers, who are now the responsibility of the Chief Electoral Officer. It also dealt, under Bill C-31, with the integrity of voting. It also dealt with the issue of proof of residence, under Bill C-18. And it is considering, currently, Bill C-6, which deals with visual ID; Bill C-16, which deals with advanced polling; and Bill C-20, an important piece of legislation that deals with the appointment of senators. This is all to show that there is still a focus on the electoral process and the conduct of elections.

However, over the last 40 years, growing concerns have been expressed with regard to the influence of money in the electoral process. These concerns have led Parliament to incrementally design a regulatory regime to govern the use of money during electoral campaigns. We are now at the point at which Canada is at the forefront among mature democracies in how it regulates the influence of money in election campaigns. This regulatory regime of political financing was initially built in the seventies, and it has since witnessed repeated legislative reform that continues today. Again, this Parliament passed Bill C-2, which deals with contributions and gifts and which banned contributions from corporations and unions. It is also considering another important aspect of the financial regime, under Bill C-29, with regard to loans.

My purpose today will be to deal with a particular and key aspect of our political financing regime, that of election expenses and their treatment by Elections Canada under the Canada Elections Act. More specifically, I will touch on the legislative framework, the administrative framework, and the compliance and enforcement program.

There are certain principles underlying the legislative and administrative framework. First, to maintain public trust, are transparency and fairness. These principles are expressed through various provisions in the act that deal with public disclosure, expense limits, public funding, compliance and enforcement, and, something that is often forgotten, the distinctiveness of political entities. Each has its own regime, with distinct rights and obligations.

Transparency is about disclosure. It's about providing information to electors on candidates, parties, and other entities. It involves, with regard to financial matters, reporting revenues and expenses and the sources of those.

Fairness is the key principle of a healthy democracy. In our democracy, fairness is about allowing political parties' candidates to have an opportunity to present their visions, their policies, and their values to electors. What those are and how they are communicated to electors is the exclusive domain of political parties and candidates. However, legislation seeks to ensure that the competition among political parties and candidates to secure the vote of electors be conducted within certain rules designed to create and maintain a level playing field. One area of legislation, again, over the last 40 years, has been the adoption of rules that will foster this level playing field. These rules deal specifically with how money can be raised and how it can be spent in order for them to present ideas and reach out to electors.

The Canada Elections Act passed it to the CEO to administer these complex rules, with a view to ensuring that key principles are maintained at all times. In doing so, Elections Canada must act fairly and impartially and exercise due diligence at all times. When it finds evidence of non-compliance and possible offences, it must exercise the authorities provided by the legislation in accordance with all the requirements of fairness and due process, within the strict limits of the law. To do otherwise would undermine not only Elections Canada as an institution but also the democratic process itself.

Let me turn now to the key aspect of the legislative framework as it relates to the treatment of election expenses and the role these key principles play in the electoral law.

The relevant aspects of the legislative framework involve key definitions, a brief discussion of duties of official agents, the notion and concept of election expense limits, the concept of transfers among political entities, reporting requirements for those political entities, entitlement to reimbursement, and key differences between parties and candidates. Note that some misunderstand the system and tend to view parties and their candidates as a single entity, yet the law makes clear distinctions and establishes distinct responsibilities, benefits, and obligations for parties and candidates. For the most part, these are treated independently of one another. This is particularly true in disclosure and reporting requirements, which are different for parties and candidates. Access to public funding is different. Spending limits are set differently for candidates and parties. To some extent, rules governing the raising of contributions are different for candidates and parties.

Let's first look at key definitions. Under candidate electoral campaign expenses, there are three key definitions that need to be considered: candidate electoral campaign expenses; candidate election expenses; and candidate personal expenses.

Electoral campaign expenses are expenses reasonably incurred in the election and include election expenses themselves and personal expenses. There are electoral campaign expenses that are neither election expenses nor personal expenses. An example is the audit expense in excess of the subsidy. It is an electoral expense, but it is not an election expense. There is also the rent of an office outside the rent period. For example, when a candidate rents an office before the writ is dropped or carries the office after the polling date, these are electoral campaign expenses, but they are not election expenses.

An election expense includes any cost incurred or non-monetary contribution received to the extent that the property or service for which the cost was incurred or non-money contribution received is used to directly promote or oppose a candidate during an election period. The expression “directly promote” does not refer only to expenses incurred to expressly urge voters to vote for or against a particular candidate. It has a much broader meaning that encompasses all expenses that directly assist in getting a candidate elected. For example, it includes the rental of office space, equipment in that office, the computers, the supplies, and the remuneration of campaign workers during the election period. All such expenses directly promote the candidate and are thus election expenses for the purpose of the act.

The third definition has to do with personal expenses. Personal expenses of a candidate are his or her electoral campaign expenses other than election expenses reasonably incurred in relation to his or her campaign. Personal expenses include travel and living expenses, child care, and similar expenses.

It's important to note that there are three categories of expenses, each with its own definition and standards. Election expenses must generally be disclosed. They are subject to a reimbursement, and they are subject to spending limits. Personal expenses must be disclosed, and they are subject to a reimbursement. Residual expenses that are neither personal nor for an election must be disclosed, but they are not subject to a reimbursement. Again, I mentioned previously the subsidy for audit.

Another key concept in looking at election expenses is the notion of transfer. The act allows specific political entities of the same political affiliation to move resources amongst themselves without being subject to the restriction on the source and amounts of contributions set out in the act. A contribution is the amount of money received that is not repayable; otherwise it would be a loan. It is the amount of money received that is not repayable, or the commercial value of a service or a property, or the use of property or money to the extent that it is provided without charge or at less than commercial value.

Again, this is a new, essential concept--commercial value. How is commercial value defined? It's the lowest amount charged for a property or service by the person who is in the business of providing that good or service. Alternatively, it's what another commercial provider charges for the property or service who is not in that business.

At the end of the electoral campaign, candidates must file an electoral campaign return. That return is an account of all financial transactions for an election. It consists of a form that has 15 pages and is divided into four parts. It's a bit longer than even a tax return, so there's a level of complexity attached to filing those returns.

Let me give you an example of how these concepts can come together. Let's assume that a party pools the purchase of lawn signs for its candidates and offers those lawn signs to candidates. They have the option of accepting the package or turning it down. Let's say one candidate agrees to purchase 1,000 signs for his campaign and that those signs have a value of $10,000; however, the candidate can only afford $2,000. Provided the signs are used during the campaign to promote the candidate, the return will have to show the transaction as follows. First of all, the election expense will be $10,000 for the candidate, because he received those 1,000 signs and used them during the campaign. That's the amount shown as the expense. Within that he will show the paid expense as $2,000. He will show a non-monetary transfer of $8,000, which is the commercial value of the signs that were transferred from the party to the candidate. The amount shown as the expense will be counted against the spending limit and it will be eligible for reimbursement. The amount shown as non-monetary will count against the spending limit, but it will not be reimbursed since nothing was paid for that amount.

This is a very simple example of how those transactions have to be reflected in the return.

To emphasize the critical role of money and the need to rigorously control inflows and outflows and ensure that financial activities are strictly within the constraints of the legislation, the legislation provides or requires that each candidate appoint an official agent. In fact, a candidate cannot officially run as a candidate without having appointed an official agent. This is a must under the legislation.

An official agent is much more than a bookkeeper. In fact, if we can do an analogy, he or she could be seen as a treasurer or a financial comptroller. You have on slide 9 the key duties of an official agent.

Generally, the official agent is responsible for controlling all electoral campaign expenses; that is, for a candidate's campaign, only the official agent or the candidate or someone authorized in writing can incur an electoral campaign expense. So you will understand that to fulfill his or her duties, the official agent must of course be familiar with all the concepts and the definitions I mentioned earlier and must develop a good understanding of the underlying principles of the legislation.

Let me talk briefly about expense limits. The first point to note is that there are separate limits for parties and candidates and that those limits apply to election expenses, whether paid or unpaid, and include the commercial value of non-monetary contributions or transfers.

Elections Canada calculates those limits for each in accordance with a formula set out in the act. I will not go through the specifics of the formula, except to say that, for candidates, that formula takes account of the number of electors, the population density in the riding, and the geography of the riding, and provides an adjustment for inflation.

Spending limits for parties are a little bit simpler to calculate. It's the number of electors in the ridings for which candidates are presented by the party.

For the 39th election—that's slide 13—the average expense limit for candidates per electoral district was a bit over $81,000, and for a registered party that endorsed a candidate in all 308 ridings, the limit was set at a bit over $18 million. What does that mean? One may be tempted to say that in total a party having 308 candidates could spend altogether up to $18 million for the party and up to $24 million, almost $25 million, given the limits of each and every candidate, for a total of $43 million. However, to look at it in this manner would be mistaken, as the law does not consider the political family as one entity but rather, in this case and this example, as 308 distinct, separate entities with their own rights and obligations.

Let me talk briefly about transfers. The Canada Elections Act recognizes the organic link that exists in the family of political entities, allowing them to move funds, goods, and services among themselves without treating those movements of resources as contributions. The provision of resources from one political party to another, which is not specifically provided for under the act, constitutes a contribution and is subject to the eligibility and limits set out in the act.

Transfer of expenses is not permitted, as this would render the distinct limit of parties and candidates meaningless. As you can see, it is absolutely essential to keep all those definitions and concepts as we look through various returns provided at the end of electoral campaigns.

You will find on slide 15 a table showing the transfers, what is allowed and what is not allowed. Clearly, you will see that transfers between parties and candidates are perfectly allowed by the Canada Elections Act. It has some standards, but they can move resources freely between entities.

You will note that for candidates, these movements of resources can start only after they've been officially declared candidates, meaning that their candidacy has been registered with the returning officer. You will also note that transfers to candidates after polling day are allowed only to pay for unpaid claims and for nothing else.

You will find again at slide 16 another way of looking at it. There is a triangle on that slide that shows the relationship between the party, the candidates, and the EDAs, and the respective rights and obligations for each. You will see clearly that the transfer of money, goods, and services among all three entities is allowed. You will also note that the transfer of expenses is not allowed, and you will see that Elections Canada is overseeing, through various programs, how the money flows among entities.

I should point out that for the 39th election, Elections Canada dealt with 15 registered parties that had over 1,200 electoral district associations, and with over 1,600 candidates, each with their respective agents.

On page 17 you will find a table of the transfers reported in Canada through returns for the 39th election. You will see that all parties represented in the House have transferred resources with their affiliated entities. These have taken place between candidates and parties, between candidates and EDAs, and between parties and EDAs.

Canada Elections Act

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-29, which seeks to close loopholes in campaign financing, is a good bill in and of itself, with the exception of the matter that was rejected by the government at report stage, with the support of the NDP, allowing a candidate to incur expenses without necessarily obtaining the party's authorization. The party would then be responsible for those expenses. That seems to be an aberration. However, we still believe that there are enough positive changes in the bill as a whole to support it.

We believe that the legislation should cover loans in order to close loopholes pertaining to financing limits. We would like to remind members that these limits were established as a result of a fight led by the Bloc Québécois in the past requiring that corporate contributions be prohibited and that individual contributions be limited, as has been the case in Quebec for 30 years.

I have been a member of this House for 15 years and I remember an epic debate that took place under the former Liberal government. As Mr. Chrétien's term of office was winding down, the situation was significantly improved by allowing only individuals to make contributions. With this bill, we have gone even further, and that is a very positive aspect of democracy.

Often, when people in other countries have governance difficulties, one of the sources of their problems is actually linked to electoral practices that do not measure up to the requirements of democracy. They deserve better support. So the actions taken today are part of a development we are familiar with, which deserves to be supported.

The Bloc Québécois and Quebec as a whole have really made an interesting contribution in this regard. In Quebec, the Election Act, which was amended during the time of René Lévesque in the 1970s, now serves somewhat as a rule at the federal level, and that is good. It makes for a healthier democracy. It also requires us to seek money from a multitude of people, and thus reduces the excessive impact some contributors have on political parties. In this regard, we are headed in the right direction.

This bill corrects another problem in the Federal Tort Claims Act. During consideration of Bill C-2, the Conservative government was more interested in getting its bill passed in a hurry than in dealing with problems of ethics. In the present context, we realized that some things needed to be added. At that time, the opposition parties, the media and Democracy Watch had raised the problem, and the government refused to act. In the current context, we are correcting some of these situations.

For example, the bill corrects the problem of loans that made it possible to get around the limits on political contributions. In this connection, there are some important points concerning the poor protection of whistleblowers and the lack of reform of the Access to Information Act. However, as far as the problem of loans is concerned, we realized in the past that these loans served as crutches to compensate for the fact that a candidate or a party had not raised enough money. This situation was particularly prevalent in leadership races. We realized that something the new Canada Elections Act did not permit was happening through the back door, that is, raising very large amounts of money from one or two individuals who were providing loans. The aim is to correct this situation.

When this bill was introduced, it was pointed out that during the last leadership race several Liberal candidates took out large loans in order to get around the financing limits in the way I have just described. While it is true that quite a few have acted in this way, it should not be forgotten that the Prime Minister himself did not reveal all his contributions during the leadership race in 2002. So the Conservative Party was not really in a position to lecture anyone. We have also seen it in the past seven years, given the scandals we now know about.

It is necessary to prevent the law from being circumvented by introducing new limits for political contributions. For example, an individual can contribute $1,100 annually to a registered party or to a candidate. The amount a union can contribute annually to a registered party has been reduced to $0. That shows a significant shift in terms of the respect owed to the people who give us our mandates—the voters. It is still possible to circumvent the limits by using personal loans. That will no longer be the case. The example was given of the candidates for the Liberal leadership.

We have corrected many other issues in Bill C-2 that were not adequately addressed in the Federal Accountability Act.

Other ethical problems persist. Even though Bill C-29 corrects the problem of loans that allow candidates to circumvent political contribution limits, there are still many ethical problems that were not fixed by Bill C-2.

For example, many Conservative campaign promises in terms of whistleblower protection did not make it into the Federal Accountability Act. Notably, the Conservatives said that they wanted to “ensure that whistleblowers have access to...legal counsel”. Yet the Conservative bill allows for only $1,500 in legal fees. They also wanted to “give the Public Service Integrity Commissioner the power to enforce compliance with the [whistleblower act]”. Finally, the Conservatives promised to “ensure that all Canadians who report government wrongdoing are protected, not just public servants”.

We understand that Bill C-29, as a whole, will improve the situation. We would have liked it to clarify the situation of candidates who incur expenses for their party, unbeknownst to the party, which would then be liable for them. However, because of the overall improvements it proposes, the Bloc Québécois believes that this bill should be supported.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak to Bill C-29, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (accountability with respect to loans), especially since the Bloc Québécois is in favour of nearly the entire bill. We would have liked to make certain amendments, but they were not approved. I will mention them in my speech.

It is important to keep in mind that, ever since it arrived in this House, the Bloc Québécois has been fighting to put an end to corporate funding and limit individual contributions, as Quebec did 30 years ago.

Earlier, I listened as the Liberal member for Toronto Centre talked about his leadership race, the difficulty of getting funding, and so on. Quebec has had legislation in place for 30 years. In Quebec, political parties successfully hold leadership races, raise funds and run election campaigns, all without corporate funding or huge contributions from individuals

That is where the problem lies. With Bill C-2, An Act providing for conflict of interest rules, restrictions on election financing and measures respecting administrative transparency, oversight and accountability, the Conservative Party tried to correct the situation. The Conservatives were in a hurry. They had just been elected and had promised transparency and accountability legislation. We remember this bill.

We warned them at the time about their Bill C-2. And we were not alone. Democracy Watch, an organization made up of democracy experts, also pointed to problems in the bill. Obviously, among the problems are the famous loans. Even if individual contributions are limited to $1,100 a year, this is not an improvement if individuals can make loans to get around the law. That is very worrisome.

I will say it again. Earlier, I was listening to the speech by the Liberal member for Toronto Centre, a candidate in his party's leadership race, who told us it was unfair. Before it was reduced to $1,100 per individual, the contribution limit stood at $5,400 per individual and corporations were allowed a separate amount. He finds the bill to be unfair. However, he is one of the members who received a loan from an individual. His brother, among others, lent him $400,000. This is just as unfair as individuals being able to contribute $5,400 or $1,100 to a leadership or other campaign and getting around the limit by saying that the limit does not apply if the money is given as a loan.

That is what Bill C-29 seeks to remedy. In law, there is a principle that ignorance of the law is no excuse. However, there is also a principle that you cannot do indirectly what cannot be done directly. That is an argument we raised with the Conservative government with respect to its Bill C-2.

It is a good thing to adopt a limit of $1,100 for individuals and to prohibit corporations from contributing to election campaigns. That is perfect. It is similar to Quebec's law. However, we should not allow loans that would permit individuals to do indirectly what cannot be done directly. If the contribution limit is $1,100 per individual, tomorrow morning we cannot say to an individual that the limit does not apply, that he can lend hundreds of thousand of dollars and that it is not a problem if he makes it a loan. He could declare that it is a loan and that the means will be found to repay it.

Today, it is understandable that the Leader of the Opposition—the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville—and the member for Toronto Centre have not been able to repay the debts incurred to participate in the leadership race. Nor should Canadians be fooled. I know that the Chief Electoral Officer did not make public the agreement he had with the leadership candidates; however they have not yet repaid their debts.

I repeat, the hon. member for Toronto Centre said earlier that he has run in several provincial election campaigns and that he was a party leader in Ontario. He also said that anyone who runs in a leadership race will have funding problems.

Perhaps he had a problem. He was in the NDP and became a Liberal. I understand why many Liberal supporters might not have wanted to contribute to his election campaign. Perhaps he chose the wrong party. Only time will tell, but, during a leadership race and an election, the individuals involved must be reliable and obey the law. In other words, candidates must be able to raise enough money from enough supporters to campaign responsibly in an election, and the same goes for a leadership race.

It forces the people who want to become party leaders to expand their circle of supporters. If they are unable to bring in more supporters, they might as well stay at home. It is not complicated. It is as simple as that. If a leadership candidate estimates that it will cost $500,000, he or she needs 500 people to contribute $1,000 each. And any candidate who cannot do so does not deserve to run in the leadership race. That is it.

In my view, it only makes sense and shows respect for individuals, and it prevents one individual or group of individuals from being able to control a candidate in a leadership race or an election. It is only logical, simple and honest, and it also means that anyone can hope to enter politics one day. They must understand that, in order to run an election campaign, candidates must have people who trust them and they must be able to raise between $80,000 and $100,000. Thus, one must be able to raise funds, like I do and like all Bloc members do.

Indeed, we use public financing—spaghetti dinners and suppers, sugar shacks and so on—and some 100, 200 or 300 people come out and generously give us $20. That is how, over the years, we are able to raise funds. That is why Bloc Québécois members, like the Conservatives, are probably among those with the best backing. We also probably receive the most money from individual contributors, men and women who are thrilled to come to a Bloc Québécois fundraising activity and give $20, knowing that $7 or $8 will go towards funding, depending on the cost of the meal.

With these small amounts of money, we can raise funds for an election campaign. It is simple. I can understand that the Liberals and Conservatives are not used to that, since for them, it is clearly the “establishment”, only a few individuals, that has run the party. These people were able to make some very large contributions.

So I am not surprised. What surprises me most, is that the member for Toronto Centre, a former member of the Ontario NDP, was also collecting money from some individuals. He was not used to grassroots fundraising, which surprises me about a former NDP member.

In this House, surprises are not uncommon. Every day, the Conservatives bring us revelation after revelation. It is clear that the way the Conservatives wanted to govern is looking more and more like the way the Liberals were running things. I can see that the NDP had a way of running things that is similar to the Liberals' and the Conservatives' way. Regardless, that is the problem of the federalist parties in this House. It is not the problem of the Bloc Québécois, which is used to grassroots financing.

The members of the Bloc Québécois worked very hard to get Bill C-29 passed. Why? Because in Quebec, for 30 years, grassroots fundraising has dominated, since René Lévesque, the leader of the Parti Québécois, implemented election legislation that prevents lobbyists from controlling politics. This legislation completely changed politics in Quebec. It ensures that politics must be supported by fundraising among the public.

If an individual is not able to get funding to run a campaign from the largest possible number of individual men and women, he or she does not deserve to be in power. That is what I would tell the Liberals, in particular the member for Toronto Centre, who was offended that the amount for individual contributions was reduced in the middle of the race. Except that, thanks to the $400,000 loan he received from his brother, he did not need funding.

He needs it now, because he had 18 months to repay his debt. He was counting on the $5,400 per person that he was allowed to collect. But along the way, the $5,400 became $1,100.

I can understand that it is hard for him to find Liberal supporters to pay off his campaign debt, because he is not a real Liberal.

In some ways, it is disappointing that not everyone in this House realizes that politics should be open to every man and woman, to every citizen. It is not a matter of money, friends or anything like that. It takes someone who is able to express their ideas and defend them, someone that many people around them or in their party are able to trust.

That is how we should run elections and that is how the Bloc Québécois does it. We convince hundreds and thousands of people to become members of our organization and to make donations to enable us to run election campaigns based on defending the values and interests of Quebec. That is why, once again, as in election to election since 1993, our party has the most representatives from Quebec in this House. It is precisely because we are always in contact with the public, with the people we represent. We call on them for financing and it takes a great number of supporters, people who can trust us, to build up the money for our election campaigns.

The other parties will probably have to follow our example. Quebec is often a model of innovation for the rest of Canada, as hon. members know. One such innovation came from René Lévesque and was included in the electoral legislation that he was responsible for over 30 years ago. It bans corporate donations and limits individual donations.

This bill is the logical next step to what we sovereignists in Quebec defend. In politics, we have to be able to convince as many people as possible. The best way to do so is to limit individual contributions. We cannot allow a dozen or so people to give us $10,000 each to enable us to run an election campaign. We have to broaden our network.

When the Conservatives passed Bill C-2, we told them that, if individuals may not invest more than $1,100 in an election campaign annually, we absolutely cannot allow them to do so indirectly by handing out loans. That is why the Conservatives have amended that in Bill C-29. We cannot prohibit people from making donations greater than $1,100, while allowing them to lend as much money as they want and saying this is just fine. This bill corrects that.

We demanded—and we obtained this amendment at second reading of Bill C-29—that political parties not be liable for their candidates' debts. Obviously, be it an election campaign, a leadership race or a personal election campaign, it is not right that a political party be held responsible for debts that a candidate may have contracted with banks or otherwise and not from individuals.

The Conservatives decided to reverse course, with the NDP's support. That is why I find it difficult to understand the NDP. It sees itself as a grassroots party but has, I believe, a hard time fundraising. This party now has the Conservatives' support to withdraw the amendment that we presented. That means that henceforth a political party would be responsible for its candidates' debts to financial institutions, if ever they were not paid back.

Once again, when people run as candidates, they must be able to prove that they can find sufficient support. Therefore, it is normal that if a candidate borrows from a financial institution to fund an election campaign, that candidate is responsible because it is their election campaign. Under this bill, parties would be required to cover any unpaid debts.

This means that the people who run as candidates might not necessarily be the best. They would not need popular support. They would not need to fundraise to reimburse their debts. Inevitably, they would only have to run as candidates, knowing full well that if they do not raise enough money, the party will pay off their debt.

I will say it again: the Bloc Québécois was against this position. That is why we proposed amendments. It is difficult to understand why the Conservatives did not agree to them. Perhaps they also have trouble with grassroots fundraising in individual ridings. They are better at collecting money as the party in power. We see it with the Couillard affair in Quebec, the Kevlar situation concerning land in Quebec City that Ms. Couillard apparently pushed for. Basically, we can understand that much of the money going into the coffers comes from the way in which the Conservatives engage in politics, which means that they probably have difficulty with grassroots fundraising.

Of course, that is not the Bloc Québécois' case. We are proud to say that every day, we rise in this House to defend the interests and values of Quebeckers. We do not need to be in power to do that. Citizens are the ones who give us real power. The only power we should be able to accept is the power entrusted to us by the people. The people can take it away whenever they want because it does not belong to us. The people lend us power, and we are here every day to stand up for the people.

I have a hard time every time I see a Quebec Conservative rise and say something that is not in line with the interests and values of Quebeckers. That is what has been happening with the EDC file. The Minister of Labour and Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec, the minister responsible for the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean region, typically takes a stance that opposes what was passed unanimously. It gets even worse. Quebec's minister of regional development, Mr. Bachand, is engaged in an open war with the Minister of Labour because at some point, the latter decided that he no longer respected the Quebec consensus on economic development.

Quebec's non-profit organizations are our way of diversifying our economy and giving certain responsibilities to non-political organizations that exist not to engage in politics, but to work on community development, to make decisions about what kinds of businesses and economic interventions are needed in each region. The Minister of Labour and Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec decided that the government would no longer fund these organizations, would no longer help them. He decided that he would make direct payments instead.

That is very hard to accept. I can see how he might have trouble getting grassroots funding from the people after taking such a position in the House. All of the other Conservative members from Quebec support him. This kind of policy is contrary to the values and interests of Quebeckers. I can see that they are getting more and more out of touch. Raising funds is getting harder and harder for them. Nevertheless, the law must not permit impunity.

Once again, we had hoped that the Conservatives would understand that it is not up to the party to repay a debt incurred by a candidate. Especially since the party now receives $2 per voter, which means that the candidate's debt will be paid by our citizens because that $2 contribution to the political party comes from the government. It would be taxpayers' money repaying candidates' debts.

The Bloc Québécois would never have accepted such a situation. We would never have allowed taxpayers' money to repay an election debt. That is what the Conservative Party has done with the help of the NDP. I have a great deal of difficulty with this, especially coming from the NDP, which calls itself the champion of the people and of the people's interests.

I have a great deal of difficulty with the idea of allowing taxes—through a $2 per taxpayer contribution to political parties—to be used to repay a candidate's debt. The candidate would no longer have to fundraise because he or she would think, “If I ever go into debt, then the party will automatically pay it back out of the money provided by the government.” I have a great deal of difficulty understanding that. But, once again, it is typical of the NDP to signal that they are turning left and then turn right. They always do that. I see that they decided to turn right with the Conservatives. They will have to suffer the consequences and live with that decision in the next election.

Obviously, we will support Bill C-29. We wanted our amendment—that would not permit a candidate's debt to be repaid by the party, given that the contribution of $2 per voter is paid by the government—to be adopted. We would have liked that amendment to pass. However, once again, the Conservatives and the NDP decided to oppose it. As for the Bloc Québécois, we will always respect the interests of Quebeckers.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in the House today to Bill C-29, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act, accountability with respect to loans. I think the title, “accountability with respect to loans”, is something that is important to remind the House.

New Democrats will be supporting this legislation. I want to acknowledge the very good work that has been done by the member for Winnipeg Centre who, back in the early days of 2006 when the Conservative government introduced Bill C-2, the accountability act, attempted to have what we see in this bill as well as some other accountability measures introduced into that particular piece of legislation. At the time, however, the Conservative government did not see fit to include it.

However, some things have happened in the House over the last two years and the Conservatives now realize how important it is to talk about accountability with respect to political loans.

I want to put this a little bit into context. The former member from Ottawa Centre, Ed Broadbent, had put together a package back in 2005 called, “Cleaning Up Politics: Demanding Changes in Ethics and Accountability”. In a preamble to the document, he said:

When they find themselves in the midst of wrongdoing those with a vivid sense of right and wrong have feelings of remorse. On the other hand the defining characteristic of corruption is that feelings of remorse have been replaced by the impulse to deny, perpetuate and cover-up. The Liberal party is losing its sense of remorse.

That was in the context of 2005 when we were in the midst of the ad scandal and the Gomery inquiry. The context has changed somewhat in that the Liberals are now in opposition.

He went on in the preliminary introduction on this under the heading, “Demanding Changes in Ethics and Accountability”, to say:

Canadians are demanding changes in ethics and in accountability. They want a strong Canada resting on strong, ethically based institutions. They want honesty, fairness and transparency to be the rule, not the exception in political life.

In the context of the legislation before us, the legislation attempts, whether the attempt is real or unintended, to stop efforts to circumvent the very good rules that are currently in place in the Canada Elections Act to limit the amount of money that individuals can donate to a particular candidate.

Bill C-29 attempts to stop that circumvention of those rules by closing the loopholes that allowed businesses to loan money to political candidates and sometimes after a period of time those loans were forgiven.

I have heard members in the House talk about the fact that this legislation would damage women's opportunities to run for electoral office. I would argue that most women and men in this country want to ensure we are all playing by the same rules and part of those rules state that we do not get to circumvent the Canada Elections Act just because we happen to have a bunch of wealthy business people in our backyard, not that there is anything wrong with wealthy business people but we do not all have access to that kind of capital.

I would argue that Bill C-29 would level the playing field so that all candidates who run for either a nomination, leadership or political office, are all guided by the exact same rules. By closing this loophole to prevent candidates from either loaning themselves money or having businesses loan them money is a very good loophole to close.

We have had many instances in the House. I want to reference one example, in particular, by the member for Mississauga—Streetsville when he was a Liberal and his business donated nearly $240,000 to his riding association.

By any measure, any of us who could actually loan ourselves $240,000 or have a business friend loan our campaign $240,000 and not have to account for it in the normal process just does not seem fair, reasonable, transparent or ethical.

I applaud the Conservative government for bringing forward this legislation, again, based on the very good work that the member for Winnipeg Centre did in the past.

There are a couple of problems with the bill. The member for Winnipeg Centre has already talked about them, but it is important to highlight them.

One is that the bill is not retroactive and does not deal with the problems from previous loans that were made, like the Mississauga—Streetsville case that I talked about. Also, the bill would not be implemented until six months after it receives royal assent. In our current minority situation we could have an election at any time, so we would like to see that gap closed far more quickly.

One of the other problems we have talked about is with respect to accountability and ethics. I want to quote from a press release from July 5, 2006, issued by the member for Winnipeg Centre. He was talking about the fact that there was no age limitation. He was “urging senators to ignore Liberal appeals to amend the Federal Accountability Act by raising the age requirement for political donations to 18 years”.

In his release, he said:

This is not only a bad idea. It is a transparent attempt to divert attention away from the more serious problem with our election financing rules. We have seen Liberal leadership loans that look more like donations and the continued corporate sponsorship of leadership candidates.

The problem is not the age of donors so much as the source of the dough. It's already against the law to circumvent the donation limits by laundering money through someone else's bank account, whether that person is your grandson or your grandmother. The age issue is a red herring.

He went on to talk about the fact that he attempted to severely restrict political loans under the Federal Accountability Act. He said that “the current legislation is so vague it is evolving with every interpretation”. As only the member for Winnipeg Centre can say it, he said:

Those leadership loans are the equivalent of big money hijacking democracy. There's no collateral required, no repayment schedule registered, and the whole thing can be forgiven. How is that any different from a massive donation or corporate sponsorship?

The member for Winnipeg Centre clearly laid out some of the problems with the existing legislation and the attempts made in Bill C-29 to close those loopholes.

I also want to talk a bit more about changes in ethics and accountability. Again, because the bill is premised on the language around accountability with respect to loans, I think there are broader issues around accountability and ethics. We would welcome further changes to make sure that political candidates and political parties are all operating on the same level playing field that Canadians say is so important.

Ed Broadbent, the previous member for Ottawa Centre, made a number of suggestions in 2005. At that time, we thought we had agreement from the Liberal Party to move forward with some of those suggestions. However, as we were going into a process that would have had some broad public input across the country, the Liberal government of the day backed out of that agreement. I still think some of those proposals are relevant today.

Ethics and accountability cover every action of an elected representative. We are elected to this place as either an independent member or a member of a particular political party. We have a responsibility to our voters to fulfill our obligations. We run under a particular political banner. Should members choose to cross the floor, we feel strongly that any such members should resign and run for their new political party.

Under “Democratic Accountability for MPs”, Ed Broadbent said:

Democratic accountability should mean no MP can ignore his/her voters and wheel and deal for personal gain: MPs should not be permitted to ignore their voters' wishes, change parties, cross the floor, and become a member of another party without first resigning their seats and running in a by-election.

Wherever we can, we must put an end to backroom opportunism in politics.

In the context of political loans, I would say that many people would view them as backroom opportunism in politics. Bill C-29 would provide us with an opportunity to close that backroom door so that all Canadians who choose to run for office play by the same rules.

Comments have been made back and forth on the floor about transparent leadership contests. Under “Transparent Leadership Contests”, Mr. Broadbent said that we should:

Set spending limits and transparency conditions on leadership contests within political parties: Parties are largely financed by the taxpayer and the same principles pertinent to the public good should apply to the internal affairs of parties as they do to electoral competition between parties.

Canada has laws and regulations regulating the financing of general elections. There are limits and there is transparency.

Canadians want to see limits and transparency. They want to know where candidates get their money. They want to know that the same rules apply to all candidates. That should include leadership contests.

With regard to electoral reform, we are one of the few western democracies left with a first past the post system. Many members have spoken about this in the House.

I heard a member on the opposite side talk about increasing the ability of women to participate in the electoral process. There have been many studies done on systems of proportional representation. They consistently have found that in a system of proportional representation the participation of women in the electoral process increases.

Again, we have a minority Parliament. There is a government in place that talks about accountability. If we want to be accountable to Canadian citizens, we need to ensure that the representation in the House reflects the population. Therefore, we need to increase the participation of women in the House.

I am very proud to be a New Democrat. When we were elected in 2006, 41% of our party was women. New Democrats are very proud to run on that record. If each and every party in the House brought that same philosophy forward, we would make far better policy decisions.

Under “Electoral Reform”, Mr. Broadbent said:

--A major source of needed democratic reform is our outmoded first-past-the-post electoral system. There is a serious imbalance in the House of Commons in gender, ethnic, ideological, and regional voting preferences. Our present system does not reflect Canadian voters' intentions. Fairness means we need a mixed electoral system that combines individual constituency-based MPs with proportional representation. Most other commonwealth countries have already moved in that direction.

A major source of needed democratic reform is our outmoded first-past-the-post electoral system. In Canada every vote should matter. Ninety percent of the world's democracies, including Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Ireland and Wales have abandoned or significantly modified the pre-democratic British system that still prevails in Ottawa.

As we amend the Canada Elections Act and closely examine some of the other factors that influence how candidates become members of Parliament, I would urge the House to consider reviewing a system of proportional representation as well, to make the system more open, transparent and accountable.

As for “Ending Unregulated Lobbying”, as Mr. Broadbent said, in talking about accountability and transparency, unregulated lobbying is one factor that many Canadians feel very uncomfortable with. Unregulated lobbying is an elitist kind of approach to getting in the back door of government. Mr. Broadbent, the former member for Ottawa Centre, said:

Unregulated lobbying and political cronyism must end: We need tougher laws requiring disclosure of fees and expenditures of lobbyists. We also need to make illegal the acceptance of contingency or profit-based fees. The government must initiate reforms with tough sanctions applicable to wrongdoing in the public sector.

Of course, he wrote this paper in 2005 when there was a different government.

With regard to ethical appointments, again we want openness and transparency. There has been a lot of controversy in the House over some of the appointments, but Mr. Broadbent called for ethical government appointments. He said:

--Unfair and unethical patronage practice must stop in the appointment of thousands of officials to federal agencies, boards, commissions and Crown Corporations. The New Democratic Party proposes that the government develop skills and competence-related criteria for all government appointments, that these criteria be publicly released and that committees scrutinize appointments.

Again, in the name of openness, transparency and accountability, I am sure Canadians would welcome a less patronage-driven appointment process so that Canadians would truly feel that they were getting the best possible person in each and every one of those jobs.

In reference to access to information, in the last two years we have seen even less access to information than we saw under the previous Liberal government. If Canadians do not have the right to know how decisions are being made and what kinds of factors influence them, it puts into question the government's claim of wanting a transparent, open and accountable government.

With regard to access to information, again, I know that the member for Winnipeg Centre has pushed for more open access to information. I know that many members of Parliament have had difficulties in getting information. We have had to complain to the Information Commissioner because information has been unreasonably delayed and denied. We have had to take that further step.

If members of Parliament have so much trouble getting information out of the government, can we imagine what it is like for the general public?

Mr. Broadbent spoke about access to information. Again, in his case he was referring to the previous Liberal government, but we have only seen it getting worse. He said:

The government is backtracking on reforms leading to greater public access to information.

He then listed a number of ways to open up access to information, which included: extending the act to crown corporations and agencies previously excluded; making ministers of the Crown, their exempt staffers and officers of Parliament subject to the act; bringing cabinet confidences under the act; improving public access to government records pertaining to third party contracts and public opinion polling; requiring government records that are more than 30 years old to be automatically opened; and so on. There are a number of other elements that he outlined in his paper.

Although we welcome Bill C-29 and it moves forward toward making sure that we do have a level playing field, the New Democratic Party and I look forward to legislation that continues on that path of accountability around the Canada Elections Act.

I would like to close by saying that in recent years we have seen a drop in voter turnout. One of the things that turns voters off, that turns Canadian citizens off from participating in the democratic process, is that they do not feel their government or their elected representatives are truly representing them here. Every effort we can make to say to Canadians that we are engaged in an open, transparent and accountable process must be applauded.

In conclusion, New Democrats will be supporting Bill C-29. We welcome this as a step forward in that accountable process so we can assure Canadian citizens that all people who are engaged in the electoral process are on a level playing field. We look forward to further legislation that supports this end.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

At this point, a subamendment is being tabled which distorts the motion. This motion before the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics—Ethics, I repeat—calls for an investigation of a troubling situation related to the process for electing candidates who represent the citizens of Canada and of Quebec.

There is an agency which is recognized by all, internationally as well as within Quebec and Canada. Elections Canada has done its work pointing out that there was something unusual going on, that there were problems, that something abnormal had occurred during the most recent federal election. This situation occurred within the party born of the merger between Alliance-Reformists and the Progressive Conservatives, this party is now called the Conservative Party of Canada. There was election overspending of some $1.2 million. It is absolutely unacceptable for such a situation to have occurred. An investigation must take place.

The Conservative Party, which introduced Bill C-2, The Federal Accountability Act, wanted to be purer than the driven snow. It is incumbent upon the party to be transparent in all regards, in all situations regarding the Canadian federal government, and particularly so when it comes to election campaigns whose purpose is to allow voters the chance to make an enlightened choice about candidates, regardless of the party.

It so happens that some Conservative candidates won by a very small margin. Would illegal fund transfers have enabled the Conservative Party to spend more, leading to some of these wins? No one will ever know. However, one thing is for sure: among the 15 or so Canadian political parties to have had candidates during the most recent federal elections, only one is now being chastised for having, apparently, breached a fundamental rule. There may even have, and we would have to look into this, falsified invoices to justify what cannot be justified.

I have before me a Globe and Mail article. Unfortunately, I cannot table it today because it is only in English. I will not table it, but I will mention its content, in French. Staff members, advisors and even candidates for the Conservative Party of Canada had strong reservations regarding the party's way of doing things. You have, no doubt, seen the outcome of it all, Mr. Chairman. This party won a minority government on January 23, 2006. I was there, I saw the news. I am flabbergasted to hear today that unusual things occurred. It is our responsibility, as elected representatives, and as citizens, to do our work within the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics—and I'll repeat it again, Ethics—to ensure that, if this did indeed occur, it does not happen again.

That said, we should be upright, rather than try to beat around the bush in an attempt to hide something. In this case, we must prove that certain things did indeed occur. This issue should be dealt with in a responsible manner.

Mr. Chairman, I'm going to name certain people we know: Maxime Bernier, Josée Verner, Lawrence Cannon, Sylvie Boucher, Daniel Petit, Steven Blaney, Jacques Gourdes, Luc Harvey, Christian Paradis, Suzanne Courville, Yves Laberge, Gary Caldwell, Jean-Marie Pineault, Patrick Robert, Gilles Poirier...

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today to speak about the bill before us, Bill C-29.

First of all, I would like to say that the Bloc Québécois supports this bill, which seeks to prevent individuals from bypassing campaign financing rules. We believe that it is necessary to regulate loans in order to prevent people from getting around the financing limits. Remember that these limits were established after a long fight by the Bloc Québécois to put an end to corporate funding and to limit individual contributions, as Quebec did 30 years ago.

This bill corrects another problem in the Federal Accountability Act—formerly Bill C-2. As we were studying this bill, the Conservative government was more interested in quickly passing the bill than putting an end to ethical problems. The opposition parties, the media, and Democracy Watch pointed out the problem at that time, but the government refused to take action.

The current bill solves the problem of loans that made it possible to circumvent limits to political contributions. It must be said that several ethical difficulties were not addressed by Bill C-2, for instance, poor protection for whistleblowers and the failure to reform the Access to Information Act.

Bill C-29 incorporates the only change proposed by the Bloc Québécois when Bill C-54 was studied in committee. Remember that the Bloc Québécois was strongly against political parties being held responsible for debts incurred by their candidates, even though the political party is not named on the contract between the candidate and the bank. Remember also that the government listened to reason and reintroduced the Bloc Québécois amendment in Bill C-54.

The Conservatives introduced this bill, claiming that a number of Liberal candidates in the last leadership race took out large loans in order to circumvent the contribution limits. It may be true that some Liberal candidates did this, but let us not forget that the Prime Minister himself has not yet disclosed all the contributions he received during the 2002 leadership race.

The Conservative Party is not a bastion of transparency and ethics. Consider, for example, all the back and forth between political offices and lobbying firms, the contracts awarded to political friends, the use of public funds for partisan purposes, the many partisan appointments, the ideology-based appointments of judges and immigration commissioners, and the publication of a guide for Conservative committee chairs describing how to obstruct the work of committees.

Of course, we must prevent the law from being circumvented. The Bloc Québécois is in favour of this bill that, as I said, would prevent people from bypassing campaign financing rules.

At the time, Bill C-2 introduced new restrictions on campaign contributions, limiting any individual's annual contribution to a registered party or candidate to $1,100. Furthermore, the amount a union or business could contribute annually to a registered party or candidate was reduced to $0.

Unfortunately, it was still possible to circumvent these restrictions by taking out personal loans. We saw this when several candidates in the recent Liberal Party of Canada leadership race took out sizeable loans from individuals and financial institutions. The hon. member for Toronto Centre comes to mind, for example, who took out loans totaling $705,000.

The Leader of the Opposition took out loans to the tune of $655,000. Bill C-29 corrects other shortcomings that were in Bill C-2 at the time.

The bill before us is intended to correct another problem; that of government accountability. As I was saying earlier, during the study of Bill C-2, the Conservative government was more interested in passing the bill than in correcting ethical problems. At the time, organizations like Democracy Watch, the opposition parties and the media raised the issue of circumventing contribution ceilings and the government refused to do anything about it.

And yet, other ethical problems persist. Bill C-29 corrects the problem of loans that circumvent limits on political contributions. However, a number of ethical problems, such as protecting whistleblowers, were not resolved by Bill C-2. A number of Conservative election promises to protect whistleblowers did not make it all the way to the Federal Accountability Act.

The Conservatives said they wanted to “ensure that whistleblowers ... are provided with adequate legal counsel”. The Conservatives' bill provides just $1,500 to cover legal fees, which is totally ridiculous. It is also worth mentioning that the Conservatives said that we need to “give the Public Service Integrity Commissioner the power to enforce compliance with the [whistleblower] act”. They said they also wanted to “ensure that all Canadians who report government wrongdoing are protected, not just public servants”. Finally, they planned to “remove the government’s ability to exempt crown corporations and other bodies from the [whistleblower] act”.

Allan Cutler, one of the original whistleblowers in the disclosure of the sponsorship scandal and a former candidate for the Conservative Party during the 2005 election, was somewhat critical of Bill C-2 at the time. He maintained that Bill C-2 was far from perfect and had some problems that needed fixing, especially with respect to the provisions for protecting whistleblowers. The government could have used Bill C-29 as an opportunity to fix the shortcomings of Bill C-2 with respect to whistleblowers. However, the government did not decide to make such amendments to the legislation.

Bill C-29 could have done something about reforming the Access to Information Act, an important aspect that Bill C-2 ignored.

On April 5, 2005, the Liberal government released a discussion paper on reforming access to information. This document met with general criticism. In addition to doubling the minimum administrative fees charged to the public, the Martin government's plan would have maintained all the exceptions provided for in the legislation. In fact, in 13 years, the Liberal Party never managed to introduce one valid reform of the Access to Information Act, which severely penalizes the opposition parties as well as citizens and media who use the system to get more information. Bill C-29 should have included significant amendments. Bill C-29 should have included reforms to the Access to Information Act.

We are still waiting for the Access to Information Act to be reformed. As it turns out, once in power, neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals are especially eager to reform the legislation. The Information Commissioner recently pointed out that all governments share this reluctance.

This is how he put it:

The reason that action, not more study, is required is that governments continue to distrust and resist the Access to Information Act and the oversight of the Information Commissioner.

That is what the Information Commissioner said in an earlier report.

With respect to election financing transparency, both the Liberals and the Conservatives are vying for the title. When the Conservatives introduced Bill C-29, they claimed that several Liberal candidates took out significant loans to bypass funding limits during the last leadership race. As I said just now, in December 2006, the Conservative Party and the Prime Minister admitted that they had failed to disclose receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Chief Electoral Officer. The money was collected in the form of “registration fees” paid by Conservative delegates to attend the Conservative Party of Canada's May 2005 convention.

Clearly, there is a lack of transparency. The government refuses to enforce the ethics and transparency rules. A few months into its mandate, the Conservative Party released a road map that demonstrates its lack of political will to follow the rules and to put an end to the political culture of entitlement.

This government reprimanded the Liberals for the comings and goings between political offices and lobbying firms. Yet, since taking power, the Prime Minister has appointed former lobbyist and current Minister of National Revenue as the head of National Defence, and he made lobbyist Sandra Buckler his director of communications.

This government also awards contracts to Conservative friends. The Prime Minister's government awarded a communications contract to Marie-Josée Lapointe, a former member of the Prime Minister's transition team. This contract goes against the spirit of the Federal Accountability Act, since political staff are not allowed to receive contracts from the government for 12 months after they have left. Believe it or not, the contract was cancelled halfway through.

This government also uses public funds for partisan purposes. In March 2006, the Conservative government awarded an $85,000 contract to gauge public support for the Conservative Party's five electoral priorities. In July 2006, the Conservative government awarded a contract to Strategic Counsel in order to poll public opinion on various political issues. The very partisan report identified the environment as a very important issue for the government's re-election. It should be noted that Strategic Counsel is run by Allan Gregg, who was the Conservative Party's official pollster under Brian Mulroney and Kim Campbell.

To sum up, the bill would establish a uniform and transparent reporting regime for all loans to political entities, including mandatory disclosure of loan terms and the identity of all lenders and guarantors. The bill would prohibit all unions and corporations not only from making contributions, in accordance with the Federal Accountability Act, but also from lending money.

Moreover, loans, loan guarantees and contributions from individuals could not exceed the limit set out in the Federal Accountability Act, which was $1,100 for 2007.

Additionally, only financial institutions or other political entities would be able to lend money—at market interest rates— exceeding that amount. The rules for unpaid loans would be tightened so that candidates could not default on their obligations.

Loans not repaid within 18 months would be considered a political contribution. Riding associations, or where there are none, the parties themselves, would be held responsible for their candidates unpaid loans.

I would like to take this opportunity to make a small correction. Unfortunately, the government did not listen to reason and did not reintroduce the amendments proposed by the Bloc Québécois. Sadly, that Bloc Québécois amendment was defeated at the report stage, by the NDP and the Conservatives, among others.

I just had to make that correction. Overall, however, I must say we are in favour of a bill that prevents individuals from circumventing the campaign financing rules.

[Robert Marleau]

That's right, use a little bit of the emergency care room. You walk in the room and it says “Waiting time is six hours”. The first thing they do is assess life or death when you walk in the door, or do you need to go to radiology because you're having an X-ray, or you need pain management. You can look at these issues in a triage manner. We have to be fair and balanced.

I'm taking a risk here--I'll admit that to the committee--and you'll probably hear complaints in the context though for the next year. So that's one approach, and we have a strategy for that.

The other aspect of why it has grown is that Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act, has reduced the complaint period to 60 days. Before, a requester had up to a year to file his or her complaint; now it's 60 days. So I think they're coming in earlier.

I think also Bill C-2 heightened the interest. There's a renewal of requests. If we got an 80% increase in our workload, I suspect that next year's statistics or the end of this year's statistics when produced by Treasury Board will show a comparable workload increase.

I'm not alarmed by it. I think it's manageable. I'm not even addressing at this point that we need more resources for this. We're doing an A-based review. I think with a different approach in terms of managing complaints we can provide better service than we're providing now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

To be fair, before I let anybody else continue, there was a piece of legislation that had passed under the Liberals, Bill C-11. Bill C-2, their accountability bill, amended some provisions of that and added to that, but they didn't invent the whole thing.

I just thought I'd square the circle.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

I speak personally, and I believe I speak on behalf of the Government of Canada and a broad section of parliamentarians, when I say we certainly appreciate the fine work that you, the entire committee, and your counsel completed in uncovering the enormous Liberal scandal. Without being partisan, this obviously served an important role in not only seeing what the problem was, but in your recommendations. I and many people have been exposed to your recommendations, and Canadians have been well served by them.

You made reference to the Federal Accountability Act as if it had been done in advance of your recommendations, but I can assure you, from a number of opposition members and government members sitting here who worked on the accountability campaign and the accountability issue--Bill C-2--that your recommendations and thoughts were totally well received with a great deal of diligence and concern. Either by word or in principle, eight of your 19 recommendations have been readily accepted, for the most part. That's a recognition of the fine work you did along with your group.

I served on the public accounts committee prior to this committee, and I notice you made a number of recommendations directly with reference to the work, capacity, and responsibility of the public accounts committee. But I might suggest that four of the recommendations you made regarding the public accounts responsibilities and course of action cannot be implemented by government. They have to be implemented through the parliamentary process, and not by unilateral action of the government--by the public accounts committee and the recommendations they make to Parliament. So we're working our way through your 19, but that committee will have to deal with those four recommendations. We've seen some advancement in that case as well.

On the other six recommendations that have remained admittedly unaddressed, some concerns and reservations have been expressed by a broad section of eminent Canadians. You would be familiar with the Ehrenworth letter. It was a letter that was sent to the Prime Minister, and made public to Parliament, from a large group of eminent Canadians. It was distributed to the chairs of all the committees with the suggestion that these eminent Canadians had some differences of opinion about your interpretation of Parliament versus government responsibilities.

I would like to mention a few of these people, because I think their credibility speaks for itself. Though they're certainly not questioning your assessment of these issues, they also bring a broad scope and range of experience that we as a government, and most importantly Parliament, have to recognize. You weigh your decisions as a justice based not on one testimony or one witness; you want to get the whole broad text of any issue. So it's incumbent upon you to gain as much input as you can, and we as a Parliament--whether in government or opposition--have that same responsibility.

A number of recommendations were forwarded from that group of eminent Canadians. I'll give three or four that you may wish to comment on. They talk about the proposal that the public service should assert a constitutional identity independent of elected governments; a new system for the appointment of deputy ministers; and a change in the role of the Clerk of the Privy Council. These are pretty heady, major changes. But they state:

We are opposed to increasing the powers of unelected officials at the expense of Ministers. In addition, for this proposal to be workable, it would be necessary to effect a clear separation between the roles of Ministers and officials.

In the public accounts committee we went through a lengthy study regarding the responsibilities of ministers and deputy ministers. So this has been a long evolutionary process, not only for this government, but for many governments in the past.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my great pleasure today to speak to Bill C-29, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (accountability with respect to loans).

First, I would like, as my colleagues have done, to remind the House that our party supports Bill C-29, which will partially fill some of the gaps in Bill C-2, which we considered earlier. While Bill C-29 fills some of those gaps, it does not fix all of the problems. There are things that we thought it was very important to fix some time ago and that we would have liked to see in Bill C-29 that are unfortunately not there. However, this bill does fill one important gap by providing better rules governing loans, to ensure that the ceilings are not deliberately circumvented.

As I said earlier, Bill C-29 fills some of the gaps in Bill C-2, but it does not fix everything. One of the things we would have liked to see incorporated in this bill is stronger provisions relating to protection for whistleblowers. Second, we would have liked to see reform of the Access to Information Act, because as we know the Information Commissioner has repeatedly pointed out that various measures were completely unacceptable and prevented members of the public from obtaining documents even though they should be available to the general public.

Unfortunately, we have seen this government, and not just this government but also the previous government, bring in a reform of the Access to Information Act in 2005 that essentially had two consequences. The reform proposed by the Liberals meant that administrative charges doubled for requests by the public and by groups and journalists, generally for information from various departments. Second, we realized, and we continue to realize, that when we, as elected members, make access to information requests, we run into certain exceptions. Very often, those exceptions are used by the government to make sure that documents that should be made public are unfortunately not accessible. In my opinion, that demonstrates once again that this government is completely lacking in transparency with respect to government decision-making and with respect to documents that are available to them and that could be used to inform the public about major issues.

We will recall that the government and the Conservative Party promised in the last election campaign to overhaul the Access to Information Act. On that point, I will quote a passage from the Conservative platform in the last election campaign.

The Conservative government had promised to reform the Access to Information Act. Here is what it said at that time: “A Conservative government will implement the Information Commissioner's recommendations for reform of the Access to Information Act.”

We must recall what the Information Commissioner said. He replied that the reason we need action and not further studies is because governments continue to distrust and resist the Access to Information Act and the oversight of the Information Commissioner.

Thus, a reform of the Access to Information Act is what was needed, and what is still needed. This reform needs to go even further than what the Liberal government proposed in 2005. Unfortunately, the current government is not fulfilling its obligations and not respecting the commitments it made to the people of Quebec and Canada during the last election campaign.

Let us not forget that Bill C-29 could have been an opportunity for this government to begin this overhaul of the Access to Information Act, thereby allowing the public to obtain essential documents in order to better understand the government decision-making process.

We also would have liked to see this bill protect whistleblowers. When there is a legal challenge, these whistleblowers cannot act and cannot defend themselves on an equal footing with other citizens or organizations that have ample means with which to defend themselves. Unfortunately, these whistelblowers will only be reimbursed for up to $1,500 in legal fees, which is a ridiculous amount for such coverage.

This demonstrates that, despite the sponsorship scandal, this government did not listen to the wishes of either the public or Justice Gomery, who called for greater transparency and greater reform. A few weeks ago, I heard Justice Gomery again say that too much power is concentrated and centralized in the Prime Minister's Office and that it was not healthy for a democracy. We would have therefore liked to see greater access and better coverage of legal fees for whistleblowers when the time comes to seek legal counsel.

We would have liked more guarantees to protect all Canadians who report wrongdoing within the government, not just public servants. Currently public servants enjoy some protection, but I think anyone who witnesses wrongdoing should benefit from the same protection under the current legislation as public servants.

Finally, and it is unfortunate, this bill fails to prevent the government from excluding crown corporations and other entities from the application of the Public Service Disclosure Protection Act. Quite often these crown corporations give out contracts or sometimes appoint cronies as CEOs at the behest of the government. We must make sure the government cannot exclude these crown corporations from the Public Service Disclosure Protection Act.

Bill C-2 is good, but it could be better. Bill C-29 is not good enough either. However, we agree that we need to have as many legislative guarantees as possible in order to prevent political parties, and leadership candidates in particular, from circumventing the ceilings. Furthermore, I must say it is totally unacceptable that these ceilings can be circumvented by taking out personal loans. Just look at the last leadership race when Bob Rae received loans totalling $705,000 and the creditors were John Rae and Bob Rae himself, who gave $125,000 to his own campaign. We must not be able to do indirectly what we are not allowed to do directly.

In closing, we support Bill C-29, but we would like to see better protection for whistleblowers and also a reform of the Access to Information Act.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleagues in speaking to this bill in the House.

The Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of Bill C-29. The Bloc is in favour of a bill that would prevent people from bypassing campaign financing rules. Our position has not changed, unlike what the government is trying to do by introducing its three motions that are on the order paper.

Last session, this bill was called Bill C-54. I say that for the benefit of those listening and watching at home. The government simply introduced a new version containing the amendments made in committee, amendments that were adopted, by the way.

This bill is necessary to close some loopholes in the Federal Accountability Act, Bill C-2, which the government wanted to rush through. We believe that it is necessary to regulate loans in order to prevent financing limits from being circumvented. Contributions to political parties from individuals are limited to $1,100, and contributions from unions or businesses are no longer allowed. These contributions are close to zero. So, an individual can contribute up to $1,100 to a political party, and businesses and unions are not allowed to finance a political party. Examples were given in the May 9, 2007 Ottawa Citizen. This is one of the sources that reported on this problem. It provided examples of expenses and looked at whether or not they were permitted under the Federal Accountability Act.

The Liberal Party of Canada allowed candidates, including Bob Rae and the current Leader of the Opposition to take out loans of around $705,000 and $655,000, respectively. We also saw that creditors made loans of $25,000, $50,000, $100,000 or $150,000.

It was clear that the candidates for leadership of the Liberal Party had found a way to fund their campaigns without relying on grassroots funding. We want this ceiling. These contribution limits are the result of a battle the Bloc Québécois has fought since it has been here. These limits were set several years ago, and we will do everything in our power in this House to make sure no one circumvents the law. We will not support regulations that would amount to backsliding. We want grassroots funding and limits on individual contributions, as we have had in Quebec for 30 years.

The content of the bill is fairly simple. The bill would establish a uniform, transparent disclosure system for all loans to political entities, including mandatory disclosure of terms. People would therefore have the right to know the identity of all lenders and loan guarantors. The bill provides that only financial institutions, at a commercial interest rate, or political entities would be authorized to make loans of more than $1,100.

The rules that apply to unpaid loans would be tightened so that candidates could not shirk their obligations.

Riding associations—or the party itself, when there are no associations—would become liable for loans candidates did not repay.

We are currently examining a request by the government concerning how candidates' unpaid loans would be treated.

In its current form, the bill provides that loans that were not repaid after 18 months would be considered political contributions.

This brings me to the three motions on the order paper, and I will explain the position of the Bloc Québécois on each one. The three motions are amendments to the bill. We have problems with two of them. The third does not present a problem because it makes clarifications that are in line with the amendment tabled in committee.

The problem with the first motion is that the government wants to limit contributions to a given candidate to $1,000 for the entire leadership race. We would prefer that each $1,000 donation from an individual be made according to existing rules governing political contributions, that is, on the basis of a fiscal year. That way, if a leadership race were to take place over two fiscal years, a total of $2,000 could be donated. We are therefore against the government's amendment.

We think that the amendment proposed in committee is logical because the contribution limits in the Elections Act are annual. This would provide for a contribution system identical to that for individuals. We do not want two different kinds of funding for two different kinds of elections, whether for a leadership race or a general election.

The second amendment, the one we agree with based on our analysis, is the one about deadlines. Earlier, I said that the bill proposed an 18-month deadline for paying back a loan. Here, the government is proposing much more precise wording, and we have no problem with that. For a nomination contestant, the three-year period would apply as of the selection date; for a leadership candidate, it would be three years after the end of the race; and for a political party, it would be three years after the end of the fiscal year. What the government is asking for here is quite reasonable.

We do have a problem with the motion that proposes rejecting all of the Bloc Québécois amendments. This is very straightforward. The government wants to make political parties responsible for debts contracted by their candidates. We oppose that proposal. We think it is illogical to try to force a political party to take on its candidates' debts when the political party has no way to limit a candidate's expenditures. The example given was a simple one. A political party cannot currently do anything to prevent a candidate from taking out a $60,000 loan. In a case like that, the government's motion would be unreasonable.

The government motion allows an individual to borrow an unlimited amount in the name of a separate entity. To illustrate this, it is as though I were to borrow a large sum of money and when it came time to pay it back and I was unable to do so, I said it was up to my neighbour to pay it back, even though he knew nothing about the loan. We think this is nonsense and we would like to keep the bill the way it is concerning that particular clause.

I see I have one minute left. In conclusion, here is our problem with the last motion. In committee, the government introduced the Bloc Québécois' amendment. It was in favour of doing things the way we had proposed. Now, though, after reviewing the bill in committee, it has changed its position. That is another reason why we will oppose this amendment, although we are in favour of the bill.

The Conservative Party has had many problems these last few days. This whole issue of transparency and ethics has to go beyond mere slogans.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, although I am usually quite happy to rise in this House to debate various bills dealing with social problems, I find it difficult to debate this bill because, for me, anything that has to do with money and math is esoteric. It is all Greek to me. It is a language that I do not understand at all. In that regard, the chair of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women could corroborate. I have to work very hard to understand anything concerning money.

What I do understand, however, is that the government was too anxious to put through Bill C-2 and that the bill has several shortcomings. That does not surprise me, but what I do find surprising is that the government now wants to address some of those shortcomings. Indeed, over the past two years, none of the objectives of Bill C-2 has been met in its original form. The purpose of the bill was to guarantee a responsible, transparent government that would never commit any wrongdoings as serious as those we had seen in the past. We now see that that is not the case and we must quickly put forward another bill to correct the shortcomings. Let us hope that Bill C-29 will correct these deficiencies, not only in words or in the text of the legislation, but also in action.

Contrary to what my colleague just said, if a young woman from Rimouski went to a bank to get a loan so that she could run in a federal election, I do not think she would have the problems he was describing. In Quebec, the caisses populaires have a social duty and must lend 60% of the amount that a person is entitled to receive from the Chief Electoral Officer for federal elections. So we have something here that is probably already better than what exists in the ROC, the rest of Canada. We have created financial institutions for ourselves in Quebec and passed laws that prevent the kind of abuses they are trying to prevent today with Bill C-29.

At the same time, though, as they try to prevent abuses, they are handicapping the political parties a bit by removing their ability to decide—along with the— whether he or she can borrow money. According to the bill, the parties would be responsible for the money their candidates borrowed. That is totally absurd. I wonder whether the party of which I am a proud member would have been able to meet my needs when I decided to enter politics. I made my own decisions about how much money I needed, an amount that was very personal. It is not up to the parties to foot the bill for people who decide to run for them in elections.

A candidate is chosen and talks with his party. He determines his strategy together and in collaboration with his party, but ultimately, it is the candidate who decides how much he wants to spend on his election campaign. If the political party were made responsible for the money that a candidate spends, we would be opening the door to major abuses.

It is the same as if I decided to buy a new house and told the bank it could have confidence in me because the Speaker of the House of Commons likes it and supports my getting a loan. Since you are a solid citizen, the bank would give me the money. That would be a bit ridiculous.

Once again, we see the party in power, the Conservatives, trying to put more restrictive rules in place when they do not follow their own rules. It is rather paradoxical. When we adopt rules, we should start by following them ourselves before insisting that other people should follow them or thinking that a new rule should be invented to prevent one party or another from making progress.

That is the impression given by this bill.

Bill C-54, which was introduced in the last session, was very similar to this bill. It was examined in committee and debated on several occasions. In fact, an amendment from the Bloc Québécois had been incorporated into the bill. As a result, it was a better bill that provided a great deal more latitude to political parties, to individuals and to companies. We know that we must act responsibly.

Now, the government has tabled other amendments, which are unacceptable, to prevent us from acting in a way that any political party should have to right to act.

In Quebec, we have had regulations governing political funding for more than 30 years. René Lévesque was very conscious of the difficulties and temptations that political parties, individuals and legislature members must deal with. Some members or ministers think they have a great deal more power because their party is in office. That is not how we are supposed to think. We are supposed to take our responsibilities very seriously. Unfortunately, too many people do not do that.

Therefore, we have created a very strict framework that requires parties, members of the legislature and individuals to follow the rules. Those rules have been followed for more than 30 years and that works very well in Quebec, contrary to what some government members here have said. If there is electoral fraud in Quebec it does not happen often. When there is fraud it is discovered immediately, and not two, three or four years later, because we have provided the tools to do that.

The government seems to forget that in the past two years it introduced Bill C-2 to deal with some of the difficulties that parliamentarians might encounter. But they have not even respected the spirit of Bill C-2.

We have heard of influence-peddling in recent weeks. We have also seen appointments that are clearly favouritism. In the past few weeks, we have seen contracts awarded to third parties in ways that do not comply with the regulations. Those contracts were for just under $25,000, which made it possible to award more contracts, to more people, without following the usual procedures.

In my opinion, when we create legislation it is because we recognize that we have a responsibility toward our fellow citizens. If we only do it to look good, would it not be better to think seriously before trying to put through a bill? Would it not be better, as a political body—I am speaking of the government—to look deeply into its conscience to ensure that Bill C-2 is respected?

They tell us all day long that they brought forward Bill C-2, but for the past two years that bill has been laughed at and ignored by the government in power. For two years they have twisted that bill in all kinds of ways. Now, they want to make amendments to Bill C-29 in order to make life difficult for the political parties that are not in power. It is ridiculous.

Part of this bill is certainly important. We will vote in favour of that important part; but the majority of the amendments that have been added are not acceptable to us because they simply do not make sense. We want nothing to do with those.

We do not want those.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not need to tell you how pleased I am to be taking part in the debate on Bill C-29.

When you are a member of Parliament, there is not much that is more important than the quality of democratic life.

The members of the Bloc Québécois, who are all Quebeckers, because we field candidates only in Quebec, are obviously thinking of the legacy of René Lévesque. I am certain that the mention of his name is extremely inspiring to all the members, because René Lévesque made a huge contribution to cleaning up election practices by putting an end to secret funding. The older among us, including my colleague from Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, will remember that the 1976 Parti Québécois leadership campaign centred around this issue. There was one slogan that went: “For a clean, clean, clean fund”.

Today, it seems funny to refer to that time, because practices in Quebec have changed so much, in a non-partisan way. No one in the National Assembly of Quebec would want to go back to a system where corporations and individuals could make unreported contributions.

Still, the idea of establishing limits is quite new in our federal legislation. There has been a federal Elections Act for a very long time, but it did not have any control over contributions until the final years of the Chrétien government. We have to acknowledge in a non-partisan way that that was an interesting way to ensure democracy.

One might ask why, in a democracy, we have to know the rules of the game and limit contributions to a political party to $1,100 per individual, for example. This needs to be done because we would not want to live in a democracy where members of Parliament become spokespersons for lobby groups, as in the United States. I remember meeting a U.S. senator. It takes millions and millions of dollars to get elected in the United States. Because candidates receive contributions, they are required to become declared lobbyists for a specific lobby group.

The beauty of our electoral system, which is not perfect and could use some amendments, is that someone like me, the son of a labourer with no personal wealth, got elected last time by spending $25,000. For the most part, my contributions came from public fundraising. We can get elected without having any ties whatsoever to lobby groups. I am not saying that those groups cannot make contributions to have their point of view represented. However, it is possible to get elected in a political system without any ties to lobby groups. That is the best guarantee the public has. When we rise in the House to take a position on an issue, we do so without any ulterior motive and only with the interests of our constituents in mind. The more responsibility we have and the closer we get to the top, the more important it is for these examples of integrity to be absolutely respected.

That is why the Bloc Québécois has repeatedly called on the present Prime Minister to disclose all the sources of funding for his Canadian Alliance leadership campaign in 2002. This would be a sign of democratic respect that we recognize and that demonstrates transparency. As the Gomery report put it, we believe it would be a sign of democracy, transparency and sound responsibility to know who financed the present Prime Minister in his leadership bid in 2002.

The bill that is before us, and that the Bloc Québécois supports, is a bill that goes farther still.

Jean Chrétien introduced one bill, and after that there was Bill C-2 which went a little farther. I would note, as an aside, that it was a source of some disappointment. We would have hoped that the Access to Information Act would be modernized. After all, we have been talking about that for two decades.

We are well aware that journalists, and some members of the public, are concerned about the way this government is restricting the dissemination of information. We are well aware that people expect the Access to Information Act to be modernized. The Liberals did not do it and the Conservatives are dragging their feet on it, but it would be a good thing if this were done very quickly.

Even though the Access to Information Act has not been modernized, Bill C-2 still put transparency mechanisms in place that the Bloc Québécois supported at the time. I am thinking, for example, of whistleblowing in the public service and the budget oversight mechanisms under the responsibility of the Library of Parliament. So it seemed to us to be moving in the right direction.

Today we are going farther. We are calling for an end to a practice that can also generate controversy, that can also be ambiguous and that can also be questionable in terms of transparency. We want to prevent party leaders and people who have responsibilities and who want to be elected in political parties from being able to circumvent the rules and get access to funding beyond what is permitted or otherwise than through public funding, by accepting personal loans.

Today's bill will, first, limit the personal loans that can be taken out to the extremely precise figure of $1,100, the same as for personal contributions. Obviously there is a disclosure mechanism and mandatory registration. More importantly, repayment will be monitored. If I understand correctly, if a personal loan taken out by an elected member is not repaid within 18 months, it will have to be considered to be a contribution to the party, and an entire process will be set in motion.

It seems that the government has begun by imitating what was done in Quebec, finally putting an end to funding by corporations, unions and businesses, and accepting contributions from individuals only. The cap has been set at $1,100 to minimize the potential for influence peddling. Today, we are going even further by ensuring that personal loans—access to funding—will not be possible.

I hasten to add that this mechanism is a good one for purposes of transparency. It is good because it will allow us to become elected representatives who owe nothing to lobby groups. But this reform would not have been viable without public funding for political parties. Democracy does indeed have a price.

If we want people to get involved in public life, we have to talk about balancing work and family. Some members of my party have studied this issue. We want women to hold public office, but we know that they do not have equal opportunity. Even though there have been significant changes, women often have responsibilities that men have not fully taken on. Truly equal opportunity demands public funding so that political parties can benefit from a kind of war chest provided by public coffers as a starting point.

We are always on the lookout for improvements and concerned about cleaning up electoral practices. I think that the bill before us would contribute to that goal.

Mr. Speaker, given the frank camaraderie that has characterized our work over the past few days, and given that I have worked so hard on my speech, would you be so kind as to find out whether there is consent for me to go on for another 10 minutes?

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to Bill C-29.

Under the wavering light of this corner of the House, I hope my comments are clear and constant in suggesting that the bill, as it came through committee, was the proper bill. What the government is trying to do now is ignore the good democratic conditions and precedents of good committee work.

The bill in review aims to establish a system of improved accountability. It certainly did that as it came out of committee. Its key elements include creating a uniform and transparent reporting regime for all loans to political entities, including mandatory disclosure of terms and the identity of all lenders and loan guarantors.

That much makes a lot of sense. It would also ensure that total loans, loan guarantees and contributions by individuals could not exceed the annual contribution limit for individuals established in the Canada Elections Act.

It would also allow only financial institutions and political entities the capacity to make loans beyond the annual contribution limit for individuals and only at commercial or market rates of interest.

Tightening the rules for the treatment of unpaid loans to ensure candidates cannot walk away from unpaid loans was also an aim of this bill as it came back from committee. It would ultimately, as in its original sense, hold riding associations responsible for unpaid loans taken out by candidates. This is one of the cruxes of the problem, and I will get to the democratic deficit and the lack of participation that we have by good candidates in the electoral process if the government's designs are to be carried through.

The bill, by way of history, was first presented to the House during the first session of this Parliament as Bill C-54 and reintroduced in November of the past year with essentially the same content as Bill C-54.

The bill was very seriously examined during meetings of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The members worked very hard and came to agree upon different elements. There was a great deal, I say in a spirit of non-partisanship, of unanimity with respect to some of the time limit terms and some of the technical aspects. It was thought, certainly by opposition members, that there was a good deal of consensus and agreement on a few other outstanding matters that were embodied in amendments to the bill.

On this side we thought the bill as amended, as it comes back from committee, is something that we, in the great traditions of the Liberal Party, in the great traditions of democratic reform and keeping the balance that allows people to participate in the democratic process, could support.

At those committee meetings, improvements were made, not the least of which, as a significant improvement, was now to have unpaid amounts of a loan to be considered contributions after three years from the date the loan was made. The original proposal was 18 months.

Now the government House leader, the minister responsible for undemocratic reform, is presenting motions that will completely disregard the other amendments that were passed at committee.

Government Motion No. 1 would delete the Liberal amendment to allow for annual contributions to a leadership candidate. Under this amendment, for example, person A would be allowed to donate $1,000, or $1,100 as the case may be, to leadership candidate B in each calendar year until leadership candidate B paid his or her campaign debt and formally and finally closed his or her leadership campaign.

Government Motion No. 2 would make it necessary for loans to be repaid annually rather than at the point when the loan becomes due. This effectively would prevent candidates from taking extended repayment loans. It acts as a foreclosure on the normal commercial manner in which loans are undertaken and paid back. It says that the way the market works with respect to loaning a person money to fund a campaign shall not be respected. It makes no sense to set up an artificial limit on repayment when the market will deal with that issue.

After all, the movement is from a loan from a friend to a loan from a commercial lender at a commercial rate. I do not know if there was enough evidence from the banking community on this but it would seem to me that the banks are not in the business of giving loans that are high risk. They are not in the business of giving loans to people who cannot repay them.

Why is it that Parliament shall say to the bankers of this country that they do not know how to underwrite risk and that Parliament will make it shorter in duration for the banks and different than the market conditions. It is clearly against the forces of the market, which I thought the party on the other side favoured, and it is clearly undemocratic because it will put a chill on candidates presenting themselves for election.

Considering the fact that elections are not something that somebody can plan for, I think we are living that right now, but often, in the normal course of events, we can plan when we want to buy a house, a car, start a family or put our kids through college, as the case may be. Those are events we can plan and save for and, from time to time, we can make loans from commercial lenders at commercial rates. However, it is very difficult for someone who is not in the House right now and who wants to stand as a candidate to predict when he or she may need to get a loan for a campaign or, as the case may be, a leadership race.

Because the election may be called at any time, January, April or October, it is unreasonable for someone to be asked to pay off a loan before the time limit established by the loan contract itself. We on this side stand for the principles of the market. The free market shall dictate when a loan is given and how it is prepaid. Why is the government interloping and saying to the free market, the lenders in this country, that the government knows best?

Here we see the Conservative government is pushing hard on its perception and not its reality of accountability.

The Accountability Act, Bill C-2, which was presented and passed, was really the window dressing for the government's new regime and for its patina, if one likes, of sincerity. I say patina because it is a very thin layer that can be pierced very easily and beneath the patina we can see the substance. Without proper regulations backing up Bill C-2, the Accountability Act, it is a very hollow instrument. It does not have any of the reality backing up the rhetoric with which it was introduced.

It would be an absolute hindrance, in terms of accountability, for us to say that these government amendments help the democratic process. It would be an absolute hindrance for anyone presenting themselves to have to focus on repaying the loan by the end of the fiscal year if that is not the date that was agreed upon by the lender.

Moving to government Motion No. 3, it would delete the Bloc Québécois amendment that would remove liability from registered political parties for loans taken out by candidates.

We can imagine that we are 308 members in the House, not all filled at the time, but all of us have different constituencies and all of us have been successful in getting here, some by a wide margin and some by a very large margin.

If one is contesting a riding that one does not hold, the spectre of the political association being responsible for one's debt, if one is unsuccessful, is again very undemocratic because it would pit the association against the candidate. In a riding where it is impossible to win, or does not look very likely that one could win, we can see very clearly that the bill and the government Motion No. 3 puts a chill on democratic involvement and is in fact very undemocratic. One would wonder why it is included.

Why would the Conservative government, which does not hold all the seats in Parliament and, in fact, will never hold many of the seats in Parliament, wants to put a chill on its own candidates in pitting their Conservative associations against their candidates? One wonders why because it does not do anything to help the participation of new candidates in ridings.

In short, we are not in support of these amendments that the government has reintroduced at report stage. We think t the committee worked very well and that its wishes and its motions should be respected.