Bill C-54 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (accountability with respect to loans)

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to enact rules concerning loans, guarantees and suretyships with respect to registered parties, registered associations, candidates, leadership contestants and nomination contestants.

Canada Elections Act

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

moved that Bill C-54, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (accountability with respect to loans), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I open the debate today on the accountability with respect to loans bill.

This legislation builds on our groundbreaking Federal Accountability Act in ushering in a modern era of clean politics, an era when it will no longer be acceptable for any political entity, including candidates and leadership contestants, to mortgage themselves to powerful, wealthy individuals. This bill is modern, accountable and realistic and it would strengthen our democracy.

Canada's new government fought the last election campaign on a commitment to eliminate the influence of big money in the political process and, since our very first days in office, we have been delivering on that commitment with an active agenda of meaningful democratic reform.

The Federal Accountability Act brought in tough new campaign finance rules. In it, corporate and union contributions were banned. Anonymous contributions and trust funds were banned. A strict limit on annual donations to a political party of $1,100 was established to put an end to the influence of big money.

With these reforms we have closed the door on those who tried to exert influence by signing large cheques.

It has been said, “Think what you do when you run into debt; you give another power over your liberty”. Unfortunately, last year it became apparent that the Liberal leadership candidates were all too willing to relinquish their liberty by mortgaging themselves to a handful of wealthy individuals.

When Liberal leadership candidates started financing their campaigns with big loans from a few wealthy individuals, Canadians saw that big money had found a back door. It had found a way around the Federal Accountability Act. Big money saw political loans as an opportunity to buy back the influence that the Conservative campaign finance reform had blocked. And they took that opportunity, big money did.

The leader of the official opposition mortgaged himself for almost half a million dollars to rich and powerful people like Rod Bryden and Stephen Bronfman.

Bob Rae accepted a whopping $720,000 from his brother, an executive vice-president and member of the board of directors of Power Corporation. The member for Kings—Hants borrowed big cash to the tune of $200,000 and the member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore borrowed almost $.5 million as well, all of it either from wealthy individuals or guaranteed by a handful of powerful interests.

In total, Liberal leadership candidates are on the record as owing over $3 million, almost all of it to wealthy individuals. To put that figure in context, that debt is six times the total amount raised by the entire Liberal Party in the first three months of 2007.

Big money found an easy way to get around the Federal Accountability Act by giving huge sums of money to their favourite candidates and simply calling them loans. I do not think that arrangement sits well with Canadians. It is inconsistent with the spirit of the new Federal Accountability Act that sought to eliminate the undue influence of big money on politics.

Canadian democracy does not breathe easy when the country's leaders owe millions of dollars to a handful of rich and powerful people.

The accountability with respect to loans bill would ensure that politicians are accountable to the people who elect them, not the rich and powerful people who want to bankroll them. Today we are acting decisively to put an end to that kind of old style, backroom politics. With this legislation, our government will kick down the doors of political back rooms and turn the lights on.

The bill would regulate all loans made to political parties, candidates and associations in Canada. The bill would establish a uniform and transparent reporting regime for all loans to political entities. It would require mandatory disclosure of terms and of the identity of all lenders and loan guarantors.

Total loans, loan guarantees and contributions by individuals would not be able to exceed the annual contribution limit for individuals established in the Federal Accountability Act, which is set at $1,100 for this year, 2007. Only financial institutions and other political entities would be able to make loans beyond that $1,100 limit and then only at commercial rates of interest, the same rates all other Canadians would get from their banks or credit unions.

Under the accountability with respect to loans bill, unions and corporations would be unable to make loans, just as they are now unable to make contributions. This brings our campaign finance rules for loans in line with the rules for political contributions.

Finally, the rules for the treatment of unpaid loans would be tightened by this legislation to ensure candidates could not walk away from unpaid loans. Riding associations would be held responsible for unpaid loans taken out by their candidates.

In short, the accountability with respect to loans bill is modern, realistic and effective. It would strengthen our democracy and public confidence in the integrity of our political system.

The accountability with respect to loans bill builds on the agenda of democratic reform our government has undertaken since being elected. Canada's new government has taken action to modernize Canada's political system by introducing realistic legislation that strengthens accountability, strengthens our democracy and makes the entire political process more accountable.

First we introduced Bill C-4, which implemented a review of the requirements for the registration of political parties.

As I mentioned, the Federal Accountability Act, which included provisions to reduce the influence of big money on politics, was passed before Christmas. Bill C-16, another bill, strengthens our democracy by improving responsibility, transparency and equity. It establishes fixed election dates every four years on the third Monday in October.

Fixed dates take the guesswork out of the electoral process and level the playing field for the chief electoral officer, for political parties and, more important, for voters. It also encourages participation in the democratic process by allowing Canadians to plan to participate in their nation's electoral process.

I am very pleased to report that Bill C-16 finally received royal assent despite becoming the target of unelected Liberal senators to obstruct and delay every aspect of the government's democratic reform agenda, as has been their habit.

As members will recall, Bill C-16 was passed in the House of Commons without amendments. It underwent exhaustive debate in the House of Commons as well as in the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

After being passed in the House of Commons with support on both sides of the House, the fixed dates for elections bill was sent to the Senate where it was examined in detail by the Senate's committee on legal and constitutional affairs.

After a lengthy period of scrutiny and detailed process, that Liberal dominated committee supported the passage of the bill without any amendments.

While neither the House nor the Senate committees found it necessary to amend the term limits bill, at the 11th hour, the very last minute, an amendment was passed by the Liberal Senate, a frivolous amendment that watered down the legislation, which was never subject to any level of scrutiny, and compelled it to come back to the House of Commons, effectively delaying and obstructing the bill further.

Finally the delays and obstructions in the Senate stopped and we will now have fixed date elections.

Our government has also moved to modernize the unelected Senate and to make senators more accountable to the people they serve. We have acted to strengthen accountability in the Senate with legislation that finally seeks to give Canadians a say in who they want representing them in the Senate. The involvement of citizens is fundamental to any democratic institution. Unfortunately, until recently Canadians have had little involvement in the selection of their senators.

The Senate election bill recognizes that it is the citizens of the country, not big money or backroom boys, who are best qualified to advise the Prime Minister on who should speak for them in Ottawa.

We, on this side of the House, are anxious to see the passage of this groundbreaking legislation and that brings us to Bill S-4. The tomfoolery that Bill C-16 was subjected to in the Senate pales in comparison to what has happened to Bill S-4, the legislation that seeks to limit Senate terms to eight years.

Bill S-4 was introduced in the Senate on May 30, 2006, almost a year ago.

Remarkably, even though the Leader of the Opposition says that he supports term limits for senators, Bill S-4 remains mired in procedural limbo thanks to Liberal senators bent on obstructing and delaying any meaningful democratic reform.

Bill S-4 is a simple bill and just 66 words long. According to my calculations, the senators, who are not elected, have spent more than five days on each word in this bill.

As I have already done several times, I am asking members of the official opposition to urge their colleagues in the upper chamber to respond to the wishes of Canadians and pass Bill S-4. I know the Liberal leader has tried to do that. I know the Liberal senators tend to defy him and just simply will not listen to him. I wish he could muster some authority, some strength regardless of his overall weakness, at least the strength to lead his own caucus on this one issue and get them to pass it.

Our government rejects the tactics employed by some senators to delay an agenda on democratic reform that is endorsed by the Canadian people and we are taking action to respond to the wishes of Canadians to make their national institutions stronger, more modern, more accountable and more democratic.

The accountability with respect loans bill is the latest of these reforms and I look forward to introducing more legislation that will strengthen accountability in the days ahead. The accountability with respect to the loans bill delivers on the commitment of Canada's new government to rid our nation's political system of the undue influence of big money. It shows Canadians that their vote is mightier than the big bank accounts of a powerful wealthy few.

With the passage of this bill, Canada's new government will create an airtight system of political financing, a system that will eliminate, once and for all, the influence of the rich and powerful, of big money, on our political process. It will create a system that Canadians can trust.

The accountability with respect to loans bill would ensure that the 2006 Liberal leadership race was the last time the influence of big money and powerful friends played a role in the selection of a leader of a political party in Canada. Most important, the bill is modern, accountable, realistic and will strengthen our democracy and public confidence in the integrity of our political system.

For all these reasons, I am making an urgent appeal to all the members in this House to support the bill on accountability with respect to loans and guarantees.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I commend the government House leader on the range of topics on democratic reform that he has touched on and I look forward to further debate on this bill so we can examine some of those points a little more carefully.

The reason the government House leader was so explicit in being able to attach the amounts and the lenders of loans to the Liberal leadership candidates last year is because they disclosed who lent the money and who the guarantors were. It was all disclosed, in fact beyond the requirements of the current Canada Elections Act.

I would like to observe in passing that the only leader in the House who has not disclosed the contributions for his leadership is of course the Prime Minister. Therefore, I would ask the government House leader if he would comment on when we will know who contributed to the Prime Minister's 2002 leadership contest.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my friend from Vancouver seems to like to change the subject, as the Liberals do on this matter. I can understand why they do not want to talk about the loans and the mortgaging of their leadership candidates to wealthy and powerful individuals.

The reality remains that the Prime Minister, in his leadership campaign for leader of the Conservative Party, disclosed all the contributors. It was all publicly disclosed. It is a matter of public record.

In fact, in researching this the other day, I even read an article in which I saw that all of his contributions were small contributions and he ended up without a debt. Yet there was another competitor for that leadership contest at the time, the member for Newmarket—Aurora, who apparently financed her campaign almost entirely herself, so again, it is the influence of the wealthy and the powerful that we sort of want to get away from in this process. We have done that effectively on contributions now so that the kind of thing that happened with the member for Newmarket—Aurora will not be able to happen again.

We also want to ensure that we do not have wealthy, powerful individuals getting control over leadership candidates by making them loans when they are desperate, at the worst time, during a leadership campaign, and thereby being able to exercise undue influence.

There is a question we have to ask ourselves in this House. What is the situation when we have a political leader who owes half a million dollars to a handful of wealthy, powerful individuals?

I can tell members that the Prime Minister does not owe any money to anybody. Nobody has a claim on him. Nobody has a claim on what he does on policies.

I am not sure we can say that about the Liberal leadership candidates, who gathered up almost $3 million in loans from wealthy private individuals. That includes the Leader of the Opposition, who, according to his public disclosure today, owes half a million dollars.

I want to be clear, though, that none of those things are illegal. Everything they did was entirely legal and proper. What we want to ensure is that it does not happen again and that it will not be legal in the future.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am the first one to say that these political loans were a loophole that had to be plugged. It would have been fundamentally wrong to go into another federal election under the current regime, where big money can still buy undue influence in Canadian politics.

Obviously there is much in this bill that I am pleased to see. In fact, during the Federal Accountability Act discussions, we moved a similar amendment seeking this very type of thing.

There is one thing that I do have a question about. I cannot for the life of me imagine why this implementation will not take effect until six months after royal assent. The House leader for the government can correct me if I am wrong, but that could set up the situation where we are going to conduct one more election campaign under the existing rules. Given that it is now common knowledge that a loan is not a loan when it is not paid back, but a donation, we will have more people than ever doing this if we do not change the rules before another federal election.

The government was adamant that we implement and put into effect Bill C-2 immediately upon royal assent, the very same day. Why does it want to give us a six month grace period in this case?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre, who has indeed been a champion on this issue. I think he deserves due credit for having placed it on the public agenda and kept it in the public eye. We must give him due credit for having ensured in the fashion that he did that it was drawn to the attention of the government for action. He, too, can take some credit in the fact that we have brought forward this legislation at this time to address the very serious problem he is concerned about.

In terms of the question of the bill taking effect, I think he also raises some very good questions. It is a legitimate concern. Of course, we always receive advice from the Chief Electoral Officer and others on the time that they need to implement legislation. On this side, of course, we would like to see it brought into place as quickly as possible. We have to look at the practicalities of how to manage those things.

However, it may well be that the member for Winnipeg Centre has raised a very good point. There certainly will be an opportunity after second reading to test the actual practicalities of implementation at committee and potentially an opportunity to call the Chief Electoral Officer, who, I might add, recommended that we bring in this kind of change as well. This has been a recommendation of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada. There will be an opportunity to test whether it is practical to come up with an implementation take-effect date that is sooner. Certainly on this side of the House the government is very open to that possibility if it can be done.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my hon. colleague across the floor. I think we have heard some very valid points. In my opinion, the government should take them into consideration during second reading.

I was part of the legal community for the past 25 years. The Conservatives were in a hurry and wanted Bill C-2 to pass quickly. Another bill is being introduced today in this House, one that amends the first bill, because a few small things were overlooked. I would like to talk about some of those little items that were overlooked. The accountability act provides for whistleblowers to have access to adequate legal counsel, but they are given a limit of $1,500. I hope the government realizes that, with a $1,500 limit, the individual could enjoy the services of a lawyer—and with all due respect for my colleagues of the bar—for only 10 hours of work. Moreover, whistleblowing files are extremely complex and often involve considerable ramifications.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague if we should not think about this now and perhaps add a zero to the $1,500. Personally, I think $15,000 would be a more appropriate figure under the circumstances.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member of the Bloc Québécois for his question. He asked a very interesting question, but I think it needs to be addressed to the President of the Treasury Board, who is the minister responsible for this issue and the accountability act.

I would like to also add, however--and we would be happy to hear from him in question period on it and pursue that matter--that we believe that if we have this structure in place with regard to loans financing for political campaigns, we will have gone some distance to strengthen the provisions of the previous Federal Accountability Act and to deal with some of these problems that were not foreseen in their entirety, foreseen perhaps by the member for Winnipeg Centre, but not foreseen by all. The Liberal leadership campaign of course helped to shine a spotlight on that for the rest of us in terms of the danger of the loophole that existed.

This is the nature of legislation in our country. It is an evolving thing. The best thinkers and the best minds do not always do a perfect job. This is a good example of where government has seen a flaw or a gap and we are moving quickly to correct that gap and take action. That is the nature of our government, particularly on the critically important issue of accountability.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on behalf of the Liberal opposition and address Bill C-54. I must say at the outset that the government House leader was not able or willing to answer my earlier question about the disclosure of the Prime Minister's leadership funders in 2002.

He did not address that topic, but I think this House needs to know that, particularly in relation to the comments that the government House leader made about the open disclosure of all loans, of all lenders and all amounts by the Liberal leadership contenders last year. Clearly they were acting beyond what the Canada Elections Act required, in good faith and with full disclosure. Everybody knows both what is going on there and the rules that apply to it.

As for the Prime Minister bringing forth this legislation, I think the government House leader suggests that he is somehow on the road to Damascus, leading this House in some epiphany in terms of loans and the way they are treated. Perhaps he was waylaid, misled or turned around and is actually on the road to perdition, because this bill of course has a perverse consequence. It is a non-accountability act. Again, it is Orwellian in many of the impacts that it will have. I will take some time to explain exactly why this will make democracy weaker in many ways in our country if it goes ahead as it is written, without amendment.

The Liberal Party is certainly very much in favour of transparency and accountability and will be looking toward a bill that properly and effectively tightens up the application and the use of loans in political financing in this country wherever it might be necessary. However, we certainly will also want to ensure that as the bill goes forward the proper amendments are made so that it does not, whether consciously or unconsciously, create a barrier to entry to the political process for those who do not have access to funds or friends who have access to funds, or to financial institutions that reflect their willingness to give loans because they realize that these people already have money, or they have people who will sign for them and back them up with money. We have to be very careful that this is not a barrier.

Let me go back to January 2004, when the former Liberal government brought in the most dramatic changes to electoral financing in this country's history with Bill C-24, and indeed perhaps the most dramatic change than had happened in any democratic jurisdiction in the world, which of course reduced the union and corporation donation limits per year to a mere $1,000. That is almost meaningless when we are talking about a nation this size. To suggest that a $1,000 donation by a corporation could buy favour across this country in an electoral process is beyond imagination. In any case, we effectively took that out and left the donations at a $5,000 level for individual members of the public, who are of course the basic building block and the basic unit of democracy. That is where it should be. That was an extremely important step. It was a dramatic step in the political history of this country.

Bill C-24 also did some other things. It introduced an aspect of proportional representation. I know that many members in the House in all parties are interested in seeing us proceed with consultations and consideration of that. However, when the private money was taken out to such a dramatic degree, Bill C-24 provided for public funding of electoral processes by providing $1.75 for every vote that any party received in the general election nationwide.

That allowed for a proportionality that corrected some of the difficulties with the first past the post process, where often the number of seats in this House achieved by parties bears very little relation to the proportion of the vote they get. As an example, the Green Party got 600,000 votes in the last election. Under that provision, it received over $1 million, which allows its members to express the views of the people who voted for them through the financing of their political activity, although not yet representation, across the country. That is a first tentative but important step. It was part of that groundbreaking electoral financing legislation.

Let me correct a perception that the government House leader gave, which was incorrect. He suggested there were no rules now covering loans and the disclosure of loans. In fact, the current statutory provisions require the disclosure of all loans. They require the disclosure of the lenders and the guarantors of those loans.

Another misconception is that there are no consequences if these loans can be written off. In fact, there are consequences. Those loans must be repaid within an 18 month period or they fall under the political contribution rules, which are very strict.

It is not a way to have money given. It is money loaned for a period during an electoral process, either a leadership process, as was involved last year with the Liberal leadership, or perhaps a nomination process where someone does not have access to party funds or riding association funds. If people were unable to take a loan, that might well be a barrier to entry into the political process for people who were not of independent means. There are consequences. Those must be converted and that is an important aspect to it.

Who owns the Prime Minister? The government House leader raised the issue of the Liberal leadership candidates and the influence of big money, but we still have not had an answer about who financed the leadership bid of the Prime Minister in 2002.

Why do we want to know that? We want to know that for the very reason the government suggests we need the bill. We already have provisions in the Canada Elections Act that cover both disclosure of loans and repayment of loans and consequence if we do not. In any event, why do we want to know? It is an immensely important question. Is it U.S. gun lobby? Is it big oil? Who made those contributions to the Prime Minister's leadership race in 2002? We will come back to that until we get a proper answer, until the Canadian people get a proper answer. These are important issues.

Let me talk about the name of the act, the accountability with respect to loans act. It could be called the new Conservative bank of Canada act. It is big money that would get more influence because of the way the act is written currently. We will seek amendments to ensure it does not simply limit the influence that can be exerted to those with money or have access to big money. Let me tell members why.

Financial institutions are the only ones that can make big loans to individuals. If people are maybe from a disadvantaged group or an under-represented group who have not been in politics before, who seek a nomination in a riding, those people do not have independent wealth, they do not have a riding association yet to loan them funds, as is allowable under this bill, and they do not have, perhaps, credit worthiness to go to a bank. What does that person do? The individual is left out. They simply cannot, effectively. With the limits under this, there is a barrier to entry into the nomination process.

If we look at the Liberal leadership process that went for nine months of fulsome discussion and debate across the country, presenting 11 candidates for scrutiny by the public in a highly open and democratic process, those were expensive. We cannot do that in a country the size of Canada without having some funds to expend for it.

Those should be under rules, and there are rules. There may be some tightening up that the bill can do, and that is fine. However, to say that people taking out loans so they can exercise their right to take part in the democratic electoral process for leadership, for nomination, is going down the wrong road.

In fact, the bill, as written, does not, as Bill C-24 previously did, take out corporate money and put in public money that was properly and evenly distributed according to the proportion of the vote achieved by each party that ran candidates. This cuts out the public and brings in the big money.

Who can get a loan from a bank, from a financial institution? It is someone with a lot of money or property to put up as collateral, or someone to co-sign or support the loan. Those are people of influence and money. This is letting the money in. It is not keeping the money out. That is what we will have to see. I look forward to working with members of the Bloc, the NDP and the government to see if we can get some amendments so we do not create a barrier to entry for people who have no means and are not yet part of the political process. That transparency is immensely important.

We have an organization called Equal Voice. All members of the House will be well aware of and knowledgeable about it. The organization seeks to encourage women to enter the political process so we can rise above the deplorable disproportion of men to women in the House of Commons, with 20% representation by women.

The leader of the official opposition, the leader of the Liberal Party, has pledged that in the next election one-third of the Liberal candidates will be women. We are well on the way in the nomination process to achieving that. This is a demonstrative move to try to get a proper proportion of gender equity into the House.

If this goes to committee, I am sure Equal Voice, representing all parties and all people across the political spectrum, will be very interested to come to talk the committee and to give evidence, as will many other groups who represent disadvantaged or under-represented sectors of this society. They will want to come and give their evidence on it. I hope we will take instruction from them as to how, perhaps unintentionally, the unavoidable consequence of this will be, to exert more power, not less, in those who have access to large amounts of funds.

This new Conservative bank of Canada act is interesting. It may tighten up the rules a little. It is not so that the Canada Elections Act now does not require loans to be repaid or be converted into contributions under the very restrictive rules. It is not so that contributors, lenders or co-signers do not have to be disclosed for political loans. They do have to be.

I am as anxious as anyone else in the House to see that this process is not abused, and if we can tighten it up, all the better. However, we have to ensure there are no unintended consequences of creating barriers to disadvantaged and under-represented groups.

The government House leader took some time to describe a number of what were called democratic reform bills, or statutes, in the House as brought forward by the Conservative government, and it is worth talking about a few of those.

One is Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act. Members of the House and the committee of the House spent a great deal of time on this as did members of the Senate. In fact, unencumbered by a set deadline that was forced on the House committee in the House, the Senate put forward dozens of amendments through its careful review of that act, even under the constant shrill criticism of the government that it was slowing things down.

Regarding slowing things down, royal assent was given to the Federal Accountability Act on December 15, 2006. Here we are, almost five months later, and one of the central parts of that act was the appointments commission. Amendments by the NDP sharpened that up. We had two choices. The Liberal opposition put forward amendments. The NDP put forward amendments. All of them would have been effective, and will be effective, as it was finally passed, but all these months later, all of these appointments later, dozens of them, and we still do not have the appointments commission. This was one of the key things that was said by the government to be so important about the Federal Accountability Act. We do not even have a commission.

We continue without the proper controls. We had suggested that the Public Service Commission take over this role, that there be amendments to its mandate to apply the same rules, competitive process and objective criteria used in the public service for any order in council appointments, but we still do not have that.

I would be very interested to hear from the government when it is going to proceed with that important part of Bill C-2. There were so many complaints about it being delayed when in fact there were a very large number of responsible, thoughtful and careful amendments suggested by the Senate, and actually passed into law.

Bill C-16 deals with fixed dates. We supported that on this side of the House. There was no delay. There was careful consideration in the Senate. There was a thoughtful amendment put forward. It was brought back to the House with that amendment. We on this side offered the government, before the Easter recess, to pass the bill through all processes in the House, back to the Senate, hopefully, for royal assent in the day before we broke. That was rejected. We would have needed unanimous consent, but we did not get it from the government.

Bill C-43 was mentioned by the government House leader. It is not a Senate elections act; it is a consultation act, with provincial elections. It is being put forward as a great democratic reform. I think all members of the House believe, as do probably all members of the other place, that the Senate needs reform in becoming a fully democratic legislative chamber, and we should all work toward that. This is going at it piecemeal. We get criticisms of trying to block the incremental reform of the Senate, but the fact is it all fits together and it must be dealt with at once.

There are three critical aspects of the Senate that have to be considered together.

One aspect is the selection process, which could include elections or involve terms. The term limit is suggested in Bill S-4.

Another aspect is the mandate. In the future how does the mandate relate to the mandate of the House of Commons? Will it be a mirror legislative body with the same electoral validity that will then lead to gridlock. We have to do to deal with that area of comprehensive reform is to have some kind of dispute resolution mechanism whenever the legislative powers mirror each other in the House and the other place.

Then we have the distribution. We cannot do anything else with the Senate until we work out the distribution. It is amazing that the Prime Minister, and all members of the government, would consider doing something to give a greater validity, greater power to the Senate without fixing the very unfair, inequitable distribution of seats to western Canada, particularly to British Columbia and Alberta.

For all of us from British Columbia and Alberta, it is extraordinary that we might think of increasing the power of that body without fixing the horrible lack of fair distribution to western Canada.

Bert Brown has been mentioned in the House by the Prime Minister as being the senator in waiting, to be appointed sometime this summer. He has played a very important role in the political life of Canada. He did not play that role by plowing one E into his barley field or a wheat field. He plowed three E's into it. To try to deal with just one E at once in a piecemeal incremental way, as the Prime Minister says, is not in the favour of Alberta, from where that fine gentleman comes. Nor is it responsible reform in the comprehensive way to properly bring the Senate into the modern age of a democratic legislative chamber. We have to work together to do that.

We often hear about the ghosts of Meech Lake and the ghosts of Charlottetown. We also hear that we cannot go near the Constitution because, my goodness, we might all get distracted and not be able to do anything else in this country and we will never get anywhere. Thank goodness the Fathers of Confederation were not so shy about dealing with the Constitution. We should take on that responsibility ourselves.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have nothing but the greatest of respect for the hon. member. I understand the member will not be running in the next election which will be a great loss for this House.

Does the member not see the purpose of the bill? I will use an example without mentioning names. One of the runners in the past Liberal leadership convention actually raised almost $800,000 from one individual and he received that money through a loan. The rules suggest that a candidate can raise a maximum of $1,000. If that individual had 800 donors giving him $1,000 that would represent a much greater amount of people and hence, in my view, democracy would have played out.

What we are trying to avoid with this bill is an individual going to the bank and asking for $800,000 which would be guaranteed by another individual. Now whether the individual won or lost, what we are trying to avoid is that individual declining to pay the bank back and the bank then going to the individual who guaranteed the loan and calling it in. We see that clearly as one individual paying $800,000 to a bank, which is skirting around the contribution limits by Elections Canada. I wish that kind of creative intelligence was used to solve the problems in Canada, not used to skirt the law. Does the member not see that singular advantage of simply saying that the rules are $1,000? We need to play catch-up and make these laws.

Does the member not agree that it would be much more advantageous to just play by the rules? The full intent of the law is that a person can only contribute $1,000. Simply borrowing through the bank and paying the bank and not the person is just creative thinking and it skirts the law.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-54 would allow for exactly what the member has described. If an individual had his own property and resources and went to a bank to borrow $800,000 against his assets, Bill C-54 would allow that.

All of the Liberal leadership candidates, to one extent or the other, took out loans because this is a big country and the process is long, which requires financing. Those loans need to be converted within 18 months into contributions under the current limit, which, under the Federal Accountability Act, is $1,100. Every one of those leadership candidates has the responsibility now of raising money under the rules of the Federal Accountability Act to convert their loan. We know they are out doing this. The member makes a very good point because that is exactly what those people are committed to and required to do at this stage.

If we can identify areas of abuse that might happen, then we should work together to fix them and plug them. However, those leadership candidates are under that requirement now.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to what my Conservative colleague said, and to my Liberal colleague's response. I must admit that I had some trouble with the member's response, not the Conservative's for once, even if his question, after taking a few detours, was difficult.

I have a question for my colleague. Does he not think that this is a misappropriation of the law? The person who discovered this is brilliant. Since I am a lawyer, I like to dig around sometimes. So I think it was pretty brilliant.

Someone borrows $100,000 from one of his friends who has a business. He runs in the leadership race and either gets elected or not. Let us say that he is elected leader. He borrowed $100,000 here, $200,000 there and $300,000 from someone else. He owes about $800,000 or $900,000, and he decides that he will not pay them back. They go back to those who had loaned him the money.

Do you not think this seems a little like a conflict of interest? When he is potentially elected prime minister, he will owe money to his creditors. Do you not think the Conservative amendment is opportune, and that they came up with this proposal to avoid this appearance of a conflict of interest?

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a confusing area and we need to manoeuvre through it quite carefully.

The point is that under Bill C-54 if there is a guarantor for a loan of $100,000 from a financial institution to a leadership contestant and that money is not repaid and the bank goes to the guarantor, that does not absolve the leadership contestant from having to obey the election contribution laws.

In my understanding of it, and I would like this to be part of the debate, there would still be the obligation on the political contestant to convert the money that he or she spent during the leadership or nomination process or whatever within 18 months to something that fits within the Federal Accountability Act, in this case individual contributions of $1,100.

I would be very concerned if I am wrong but I do not think I am wrong in saying that the political contestant would not be absolved from responsibility to convert that loan into contributions within the set limits. I think that is true now, let alone under this new bill.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's speech, in which he talked about a number of issues, and I appreciate the questions from the hon. member from the Bloc on this particular topic, but I am still not absolutely clear.

The member said that some of the things in the bill are in the right direction, that it might take some amendments and so on and so forth. I like to be clear and I think Canadians like to be clear. The hon. member has read the bill and knows what we are trying to do. I cannot figure out whether the Liberals are interested in supporting this in principle and sending it to committee for further amendments or not. I would like an answer to that question.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the answer to that question will come during the vote at second reading. I am sure the hon. member would not be suggesting that we forgo the debate, that debates are irrelevant and that none of us would change our minds or accept new information during the debate.

Liberals take debate very seriously. We will all listen very carefully to each other in the House and make our decision known once we have more information through debate.

However, I can say that the official opposition is very supportive of accountability and transparency in the election loan aspect of political financing, as well as every other aspect of political financing. I am sure that if this bill can be improved, then it will be approved.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to Bill C-54, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act, which specifically addresses accountability with respect to loans. The Bloc Québécois supports this bill, which seeks to prevent individuals from bypassing campaign financing rules.

As we all know, this bill seeks to correct and clarify a few things that Bill C-2 left out. Members may recall that Bill C-2, which the government touted as its key piece of legislation, as the foundation for cleaning up campaign financing and governance, had a number of shortcomings that had to be rectified. Among other things, Bill C-2 introduced new restrictions on campaign contributions, limiting any individual's annual contribution to a registered party or candidate to $1,100 and prohibiting contributions from unions and businesses.

As unbelievable as it might seem, individuals could still get around these restrictions by taking personal loans. For example, several candidates in the recent Liberal Party of Canada leadership race took out big loans from individuals and financial institutions. Bob Rae, who was defeated by the current leader of the official opposition, owes $580,000 to John Rae, the vice-president of Power Corporation. The current leader of the opposition borrowed $430,000. The current deputy leader of the Liberal Party borrowed $170,000, and Gerard Kennedy borrowed $201,000. The cunning, discreet use of loans gave candidates access to enormous sums of money.

Some may be tempted to question the figures I just mentioned, so I will reveal my source, which was a table printed in La Presse on November 18, 2006.

This bill will also rectify another problem with Bill C-2 on government accountability. During the study of Bill C-2, it became clear that the Conservative government was much more interested in passing the bill quickly than in correcting the kind of ethical problems that have plagued both this government and its predecessors.

I would remind the House that, at the time, the opposition parties, the media and the Democracy Watch group raised the issue and the government refused to act. This bill corrects the problem of loans that circumvent limits on political contributions. I will probably not have enough time to cover both points in great detail, but I would like to emphasize that we are not satisfied with what the Conservatives have done about protecting whistleblowers and in terms of reforming the Access to Information Act.

As for protecting whistleblowers, as we all know, during the last election in January 2006, the Conservatives made a number of election promises dealing with this issue.

These aspects were not included in the accountability act. Allan Cutler, one of the whistleblowers originally involved in the disclosure of the sponsorship scandal and a former candidate for the Conservative Party during the election, was somewhat critical of Bill C-2. Yet, Allan Cutler was an ally of the Conservatives. 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.

Bill C-2 has another flaw that has to do with the Access to Information Act. I would remind the House that, on April 5, 2005, the Liberal government presented a discussion paper on access to information reform. That paper was criticized by all observers, including the Conservative Party. In addition to doubling the minimum administrative fees required of the public, the bill introduced by the former Prime Minister, the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard, maintained all the exceptions included in the act. The Liberal Party never managed to bring about a viable reform of access to information, despite its 13 years in power.

The Conservative government promised during the last election campaign—we remember the holier than thou promises of this government—to reform the Access to Information Act. This is what was said at the time:

A Conservative government will:

Implement the Information Commissioner’s recommendations for reform of the Access to Information Act.

We are still waiting for this reform. The truth is—in this case and so many others—that once in power, the Liberals and the Conservatives are one and the same. When they are in the opposition, the Conservatives criticize the Liberals and make a big fuss about ethics and governance. Once in power, the Conservatives use pork barrel politics and put both hands in the cookie jar, as my grandmother used to say.

The information commissioner recently observed that this is a common trait in all governments. He also said that the reason we need to take action instead of conducting more studies is that governments continue to distrust and resist the Access to Information Act and the oversight of the Information Commissioner.

The proposed changes are fourfold. First, the bill would establish a uniform and transparent reporting regime for all loans to political parties, including mandatory disclosure of terms and the identity of all lenders and loan guarantors.

The second change proposed by this bill is that unions and corporations would now be banned not just from making contributions as set out in the Federal Accountability Act, but also from making loans.

Third, total loan guarantees and contributions by individuals could not exceed the annual contribution limit for individuals established in the Federal Accountability Act, namely $1,100 in 2007.

Only financial institutions, at commercial rates of interest, and other political entities could make loans beyond that amount. Rules for the treatment of unpaid loans would be tightened to ensure candidates cannot walk away from unpaid loans: riding associations will be held responsible for unpaid loans taken out by their candidates.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I have to say that the Conservative Party is not a bastion of transparency, even though it is the party you belong to. You sit in that chair as the guardian of democracy and the person who makes sure debates are conducted properly. I look in your eyes, and I know that you cannot corroborate what I am saying and that, as deputy speaker, you cannot openly support what I am saying. But since you are a responsible member, I am certain that you would agree with me that the Conservative Party is not a bastion of transparency.

In a few short months, this party has built up a track record that shows a lack of political will to obey the rules and put an end to what Mr. Justice Gomery called the culture of entitlement. Besotted and obsessed with power, we come to believe that the money entrusted to us belongs to us personally. It is as though we were running our own business.

I am sorry, but that money is entrusted to us as managers, custodians of the taxes Canadians pay, and it belongs to the taxpayers, who are sick and tired of paying taxes.

In Quebec, we had to file our federal and provincial income tax returns by May 1. I am sure that most of the people who are watching are tired of paying taxes and feel that they pay far too much for the services they get in return.

Public money, taxpayers' money, must be managed openly and transparently. Denouncing the sponsorship scandal that involved the Liberal Party, Mr. Justice Gomery said that it was time to do away with the mentality behind the culture of entitlement and the attitude people in government have that they can do anything they want and they do not care about the people. This is not the way things should be.

There is a proverb that says that he who lives in a glass house should not throw stones. I would like to point out that the current Prime Minister, leader of the Conservative Party, admitted, in December 2006, that he omitted to disclose to the Chief Electoral Officer the collection of hundreds of thousands of dollars because he believed they represented registration fees paid by Conservative delegates attending the party convention in May 2005. The party was forced to record the registration fees for the convention as donations. The report states that the party then discovered that three delegates, including the Prime Minister, had exceeded their annual limit of $5,400 in contributions to the party. Consequently, the Conservative Party was forced to return $456 to the Prime Minister and two other delegates.

There is something else. This government denounced the lobbyist culture associated with the running of the Liberal Party. In and of itself that is a good thing. However, we must recognize that when the Conservative Party was in opposition with us, it denounced this culture that sought to enrich lobbies and the fact that the Liberal Party paid more attention to lobbies than to citizens. We agreed with our colleagues from the Conservative Party when they were in opposition.

However, once in power, they did the same thing. I will provide two small examples. With regard to the current Minister of National Defence, I do not know what happened but, after the opposition asked questions about Afghanistan and the mistreated and tortured Taliban prisoners, he lost his voice. We know that a good dose of laryngitis lasts a few days.

There are great medications for this, and eventually the laryngitis goes away. The Minister of National Defence lost his voice three weeks ago. This is worrisome. What is going on with the Minister of National Defence? Why does he not want to answer our questions? If he is no longer able to do his job, the Prime Minister should seriously consider replacing him. He is a completely useless minister. We have to wonder about the wisdom of the Prime Minister's decision to appoint a former lobbyist as head of the Department of National Defence.

Let us remember that when he was a lobbyist with Hill and Knowlton, he spent a decade working for the largest military equipment, arms and weapons dealers. His clients included BAE systems, Raytheon Canada and General Dynamics. He is now responsible for awarding military contracts worth about $20 billion. Let us remember the tour taken last year when Parliament was not in session. They went to Fredericton and announced the purchase of aircraft. They went to Valcartier and announced the purchase of jeeps. They went to Ontario to make other announcements. They went to Alberta or Manitoba, I cannot remember which, and made even more announcements.

They did all of their shopping without engaging the House of Commons in debate. It just so happened that they waited until the House adjourned for the summer to go on a big tour making military spending announcements. The chief lobbyist is also the Minister of National Defence, who awarded over $20 billion in military contracts.

Can we be sure that the Minister of National Defence, who has remained silent on the subject, is working in the best interest of taxpayers rather than in the best interest of his former clients? The question is a good one, and the answer is obvious.

What is more, the current Prime Minister made Sandra Buckler his director of communications. The auditor general produced a devastating report about the Royal Lepage relocation services saga. Apparently, in 2005, Ms. Buckler, a lobbyist, met with members of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, who had serious doubts about how Royal Lepage was using public funds. As a reward, the Prime Minister made her his director of communications. One might well wonder whose interests were being served in the Royal Lepage relocation services file: Ms. Buckler's or those of taxpayers?

One might also question contracts awarded to political friends. The Conservative government awarded a communications contract to Marie-Josée Lapointe, who was part of the current Prime Minister's transition team. One might also wonder about partisan appointments and appointing judges and immigration commissioners on the basis of their political beliefs. Much could be said on the topic.

Unfortunately, I have only about a minute left. I will have to wrap things up unless I have the unanimous consent of the House to speak until it is time to vote. I would be happy to do so, but I believe it is my NDP colleague's turn to address the House.

In conclusion, the Bloc Québécois supports this bill. I think that the government should seriously consider doing something about certain major loopholes that are still around despite Bill C-2.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Don Valley East, Afghanistan; the hon. member for Gatineau, Official Languages.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Burlington.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the intervention by the member opposite on the topic we are discussing, accountability with respect to loans, but if people had tuned in to listen to the member half-way through his 20 minute speech, they would not have had a clue about the bill we are debating. The member went off onto other tangents, which he, like any other member, is entitled to do, but I would like to bring us back to the debate on the bill.

The bill we are debating today deals with loans for those running for office and its principles are fourfold. It establishes a uniform and more transparent reporting regime for all loans to political parties, associations and candidates. Unions and corporations will now be banned from making loans to political parties, associations and candidates, consistent with the Federal Accountability Act. Total loans, loan guarantees and contributions by individuals cannot exceed the annual limit, which in 2007 is $1,100. Only financial institutions can give loans at commercial interest rates to political parties. The rules for the treatment of unpaid loans will be tightened to ensure that candidates cannot walk away from unpaid loans. The actual riding associations will be responsible.

That is really what we are debating today. I know that my colleague from the Bloc started by talking about that. I just want to be on the record to make sure that people watching or listening at home will understand what we are talking about today. I also want to confirm that the Bloc is supportive of those four principles or changes. Is there anything in the bill that it is not supporting?

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I began, I stated that the Bloc Québécois is in favour of the principle of this bill. However, I would like to tell my hon. colleague that this government's approach to ethics and transparency is like an unfinished symphony. They can pat themselves on the back and say that they got this, that and the other thing done, and that they made some corrections thanks to Bill C-2. They can say such things, but I would like to enlighten my colleague. I say it is an unfinished symphony because it still has some major shortcomings, particularly concerning whistleblower protection. Allan Cutler said so himself. He was a candidate for the Conservative Party. He was a whistleblower. He was the first to see the problem and stand up. We would expect this government to include provisions for whistleblower protection as well as real reforms to access to information, as called for by the Information Commissioner.

I can repeat it again for the member. Yes, the Bloc Québécois is in favour of the principle of Bill C-54 concerning loans. Yes, we agree that there were some improprieties during the last Liberal Party leadership race. Yes, we agree, but we think the Conservatives must also take a closer look at themselves. Perhaps things have happened in the past on their side.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord for his speech on C-54. I would like to hear his comments on what the House Leader told the newspapers, when he said that his government did not intend to table a retroactive bill.

Is there not some justification for making retroactive legislation regarding these contributions?

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this question is being asked by a member who is serious, a member who works hard. In our case, unlike the questions posed to a minister by a member of the party in power, it is not a question that I had anticipated. My colleague, even though he belongs to the same party, did not send me his question in advance.

Those listening in the galleries or elsewhere and who are observing question period should understand that when a Conservative member poses a question to a Conservative minister, the minister knows he will be asked a question and he often reads the answer. That is what we call a softball question, which is not the case for my colleague's question and I will take the time to answer.

There should be a retroactive review of what happened because that confirms that the past will never be sanctioned and that wrongdoing may have been committed. Given that there was not an applicable law, we just keep going and the situation is not corrected. It is something that we should seriously consider. My colleague from Brossard—La Prairie, who is an excellent MP and very active in his riding—I have heard what people say about him—was right to raise this question.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Burlington

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Is it a prepared question?

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

No, Mr. Speaker, it is not a prepared question. It is interesting that the Bloc member brought up the prepared question in question period, something those members will never experience, because as we know the Bloc will never form the government of this country. That party is not interested in being part of this country. I am not sure exactly why those members are here.

There is another part of this that I would like to comment on. I happen to be on the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. Since my colleague brought it up, when we tabled the Federal Accountability Act in this House we also tabled the open government proposal, which was proposed by the former information commissioner, and a response paper that went with it. That was referred to our committee.

It was the Bloc members who said to our minister that they did not want to deal with that. The issue was that they wanted the minister to go away and do something, even though this House had committed a piece of potential legislation, or at least a framework for it, to that committee for its review. It was the Bloc members who led the charge not to deal with it at that time.

Based on his response earlier today, does the member feel that the members of his party on the ethics committee should change their position and move to review the open government proposal that had been provided to us?

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will give the standard answer. The leader of the government often says that committees are masters of their own procedure. If the members of that committee want to change their position, they are free to do so.

A member asked why the Bloc is represented in this House. My answer is that the Bloc is represented in this House because people in Quebec asked us to represent them and decided that the Bloc Québécois is the only party that can truly defend the interests of Quebec.

The member should pay attention. I am not questioning the democratic choice made by the people of Burlington, in his riding. He won election democratically, and so did the 51 Bloc Québécois members in this House. The member has nothing to teach anyone about democracy. There are Bloc Québécois members in this House because Quebeckers recognized that it is important to have members who can truly defend their interests.

You say that we will never be in power, but you are in power, and people tell us that it is a good thing the Conservatives are in a minority situation. If the Conservatives had a majority, what would they do about the war in Afghanistan and the environment, with all their pro-oil positions and biases? We do not need to take any lessons from anyone on the Conservative side.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I should begin my comments on Bill C-54 by recognizing and paying tribute to the former leader of the New Democratic Party who most recently sat in the riding of Ottawa Centre, because it was he who blew the whistle on the fact that the political donation regime in this country left a loophole that was so outrageous it was bound to be exploited and abused.

Mr. Broadbent had the sense to recognize that even though the amounts of money that can be donated to a political campaign or to a political party had been reduced, by allowing these huge loans, which never really have to be paid back, it was obvious that somebody with a lack of ethical standards would take advantage of that loophole and would begin to act as if there were no financial limitations. I recognize Mr. Broadbent for raising this issue for us in his ethics package.

I am gratified that today we are dealing with a bill in the House of Commons that will close this last remaining loophole, one of the most serious loopholes in our election financing laws, because we start with the basic premise that nobody should be able to buy an election in this country, or a politician, for that matter. When we are dealing with such massive amounts of money, the point that was made by the House leader of the government was that a politician or a political party is going to owe somebody a great deal. They are going to owe somebody an obligation, a debt, and it is not healthy for the interests of democracy to have some corporate sponsor pulling the strings of politicians through this enormous debt of gratitude that is owed. That is the fundamental principle here. That is the direction in which we believed we needed to go.

These loans were a loophole that simply had to be plugged. The most egregious example, I suppose, and what really caught the public's imagination, was during the Liberal leadership campaign. Even though businesses and unions were not allowed to donate a single dollar, they could loan tens of thousands of dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars, and individuals could loan far in excess of what they were allowed to donate.

Then, through the very loosey-goosey standards and rules that exist in terms of the repayment of those loans, if the loan was not paid back within 18 months it was deemed to be a donation, albeit an illegal donation. We allowed this contradiction to exist in our election finance regime. Some would say it was by design that the rules put in place by the previous government to put limits on election financing left this convenient loophole there, with it knowing full well their people would stumble upon it, seize on it and use it.

The other example that turned people's heads and simply sounded the alarm that this had to be addressed was the member for Mississauga—Streetsville. Even though a business is not allowed to donate anything and a union is not allowed to donate anything, his business loaned the Mississauga--Streetsville riding association $176,000 in one loan, I believe it was, and another $60,000 in another loan.

How can that be? It is a contradiction that we have allowed to evolve, because if that loan is not paid back within the 18 months, it is deemed to be a donation, and then we will have allowed a business to make a donation, which it is not allowed to at all, and a donation in the amount of a quarter of a million dollars, which is clearly in excess of anything contemplated when we set the donation limits for individuals at $1,100 per year.

This had to be done. I do take some recognition of the fact that we played a role in bringing this about. It was the NDP that moved this as an amendment during the Federal Accountability Act debates, but I also caution that we perhaps have not gone as far as we could. There are two things in the bill that worry me somewhat.

Even though we cannot pass legislation retroactively to give us some satisfaction on the debacle of the Liberal leadership loans or the loan of the member for Mississauga—Streetsville, we can have legislation that is retrospective in nature. We can look at ways to address these loans that drew the public's attention to this issue to make sure there is some compliance with at least the existing regime.

The second thing that we find fault with regarding this legislation is we cannot understand for the life of us why the date of implementation will be six months after the bill receives royal assent. My colleague, the government House leader, suggested that perhaps there is a way we could speak to the Chief Electoral Officer and garner support for the idea of a more rapid implementation date. I would urge the government to do so, because as the bill is currently drafted, it is possible we could have another federal election under the current set of rules which allow these political loans.

Now that it is common knowledge that there is no law against lending someone $100,000, even though the donation limit is only $1,100, a lot more people will be doing it if it is allowed. It would be morally and ethically wrong to allow another federal election to take place under the current set of rules. Therefore, I would urge members when the bill gets to committee, to look favourably on the idea of an amendment, which we would be happy to put forward, that the date of implementation should be when the bill receives royal assent.

This is much in the same spirit that we looked at the Federal Accountability Act. We did not see any reason to delay the implementation of the election financing rules associated with the accountability act, even though the Liberal Party urged us strenuously to delay and delay and delay because the Liberals wanted to get their leadership convention out of the way. That is certainly one of the things we would like to see.

I heard my colleague from the Liberal Party try to make arguments against this bill. Even though I do not take this remark seriously, I do give him credit for at least having the courage to try to be creative to find some reason why this bill is a bad idea.

I do have to counter one of the arguments he made which was completely spurious. He suggested that by banning these loans or putting severe limits on these loans, it would actually act as a barrier to those who do not have access to friends with money from entering into politics. It is like arguing night is day, because that is absolutely 180 degrees the polar opposite of what any cursory reading of the bill would tell us. In actual fact, the idea is to take big money out of politics and to take away the unfair competitive advantage that people who are well connected currently enjoy. The idea is to level the playing field.

That was the purpose of Bill C-24, which the Liberals introduced when they first put limits on donations. The idea was to get big money out of politics so that nobody could buy influence. That was certainly the argument put forward under Bill C-2 when we further reduced the donation limits to $1,100.

It is courageous to argue that this is actually the inverse. It takes a lot of guts to stand there and try to make that argument, but we cannot let that go unchallenged. If anything, this is an enabling measure that does level the playing field so that all of us, if we need to borrow money to get our campaign started, have to go to a recognized lending institution. No single person would be able to underwrite or co-sign a loan to an extent greater than the person would be allowed to donate in that year. It is eminently sensible because if there is a default on that loan and the loan becomes deemed to be a donation later on, then the donation would not be in excess of what the person would have been allowed to donate. It seems common sense to me.

A further innovation and protection here is that we do not want the precedent set by Paul Hellyer and the Canadian Action Party to set the tone. In that case, he simply wrote off the $800,000 debt to the Canadian Action Party. We do not want to see John Rae writing off the debt to Bob Rae. We do not want to see Mr. Mamdouh Stephanos writing off the $200,000 debt which was loaned to the leader of the official opposition. That would be fundamentally wrong because then those guys would have made a $200,000 loan which became a donation which they then forgave. Talk about buying influence in a campaign. What about the $100,000 that Marc de la Bruyere loaned to the leader of the official opposition?

We have every reason to believe that the leader of the official opposition will probably pay back those debts because he will have the ability to fundraise within the $1,000 limit and because he is in a fishbowl and everybody is watching what he is going to do with his campaign debts.

What about the losers in that race? For instance, I used the example of John Rae, a senior executive with Power Corporation, being able to simply write off and forgive the $840,000 that he loaned to his brother, Bob, to run in that campaign. That would be a travesty. That would be an absolute abuse of the election financing laws as we know them today.

With this bill, it is deemed that if the loan is not paid back in an acceptable period of time, or the time frame negotiated between the lender, a bank, and the borrower, or 18 months, whichever comes first, it would be the riding association and the political party of the riding association that would have to assume that debt. That would make sense. In fact it would help from an equity point of view for the person borrowing the money, because the person is actually borrowing the money with the guarantor of the political party that the person belongs to. The financial institution would have some comfort. The person would not have to find a financial backer to co-sign that loan; in fact, the person would not be allowed to.

If, as I have done, one needed to borrow $20,000 to get the campaign started, one would need to find 20 guarantors at $1,000 each. No one person could co-sign the loan. That is the way it should be. If the person cannot find 20 people to sponsor his or her entry into politics, perhaps that person should rethink whether he or she should be going into politics or not because the person is not going to get very far anyway.

I think this is eminently fair. It has covered the three conditions that the NDP raised during the debate on the Federal Accountability Act. I completely reject the Liberals' argument that there could be perverse consequences which would limit entry into politics.

Again my colleague from Vancouver Quadra very cleverly planted the idea that perhaps Equal Voice would be disappointed with this initiative, as if this would somehow be a barrier for more women to enter politics. I would argue that the absolute inverse would be true, because this will level the playing field so that well-connected people with corporate sponsorship, like we saw in the Liberal leadership race, will not have a competitive advantage over a woman without those connections. Again it levels the playing field. We have not had any indication how Equal Voice would react to this bill, but from what I know of the people in that organization, I think they would support this idea.

I wish we would not reform the election financing regime in such a piecemeal fashion. There are a number of other things that the NDP has been calling for. One I will speak to briefly is that now that Bill C-16 has passed very quietly and without fanfare over in the other place, it is now law and we have fixed election dates, I believe we should have year-round spending limits. Now that we know elections will be held every four years on a fixed date in the month of October, there should be some regulation on the amount parties can spend on advertising not just during the writ period but outside the writ period as well. That is a necessary natural consequence of having fixed election dates. I would look forward to some movement from the government in that regard.

I also wish we had done something about the age of political donors. I am very critical of the idea that we can actually launder money through our children's bank accounts in a way to exceed the donation limits allowed by law. That seems to be acceptable in that when it happened in the Liberal leadership race and we filed complaints with the elections commissioner, nothing came of it.

I guess if an 11 year old wants to donate $5,000 to a political candidate, nobody thinks twice. When it is twins and they both decide to donate $5,400 each to the same candidate, nobody thinks twice. Throughout the whole country Canadians shook their heads when they saw that. I would like to see us have the courage to move forward and say that this is simply wrong.

It is wrong to launder money through anybody's bank account if the purpose is to defraud the system and exceed the donation limits allowed by law, whether it is one's mother-in-law or brother. A person is not allowed to donate the maximum himself or herself and then sneak a cheque under the table to his or her buddy and say, “Send this along to the Liberal Party for me too”. It is against the law to conspire to defraud the system. We are silent on that and even when we file complaints on that, the elections commissioner seems to be silent on it.

The NDP tried to move an amendment to Bill C-2 which said that underage people could donate money, but if they did, it would be deducted from the total amount their legal guardian was allowed to donate. In other words, if a 14 year old felt strongly enough about politics and wanted to donate $100 of the money he or she earned at the burger joint, more power to him or her, but that meant the child's parents or legal guardians would donate $100 less that year. If people get a tax advantage from being children's legal guardians, they have to be legal guardians in this era of politics unless and until the children reach legal age as well. That would have been a courageous move and would have cleaned up one of those embarrassing situations that we allow in our system currently.

Let me speak briefly about the outstanding issue that we are all worried about, which is the issue of the member for Mississauga—Streetsville, who is not a Liberal any more, but when the loans took place he was. Now he is a Tory.

I do not know how we are going to address this, but we should remind everybody, and maybe through this speech we will serve notice, that no one's sweetheart can bail out somebody like that. If someone borrows $50,000, as many of the people did in the Liberal leadership campaign, and it is not paid back quickly, the candidate cannot pay it off because he or she would be exceeding the limit. The candidate cannot have a guardian angel donor show up out of nowhere and bail him or her out. The money has to be paid back within the donation limits.

The money was raised within the donation limits of the act, which is $1,100 per year. I do not see how some of these candidates are going to do so. The burden of proof is on them to pay it back in compliance with the law. Some of these failed leadership candidates are now raising money for the next federal election and they are still asking people for money to pay off the debt they incurred.

As I say, it is not that tough for the winner to pay off the debt. It is a lot tougher for the losers, the ones who did not win. It has to be the $1,000 limit. We are watching. These people are in a fishbowl and we will be filing complaints. If they do not pay it back at all and it is deemed to be a donation, then what? I will tell the House what.

Under the current election laws, and this should be fixed too, they can take out another loan to pay off the first loan and buy themselves another 18 months. Then the debt gets lost in the sands of time and we will have been complicit with somebody conspiring to defraud the election system. Those are the people on this list that I have right here.

Some of the people in the Liberal leadership campaign might find themselves in that situation. It would be wrong, but they may be leaning that way and our Elections Act is not tough enough to stop that from happening. I was disappointed, in fact I was shocked to learn that would be allowed, that they could take out a second loan to pay off the first loan and buy themselves another 18 months. Who is going to be around to police whether the second loan gets paid off three or five years down the road? This is really not satisfactory.

If we are serious about levelling the playing field, about taking big money out of politics and about making sure that nobody can buy an election in this country, we have to go all the way. We should put together an election financing regime that we can all be proud of. We could be an international centre of excellence. That would make me proud.

I take some pride, as I said at the beginning of my remarks, that it was the former leader of our party, the hon. Ed Broadbent, who brought this issue to light and said, more or less, that no further federal elections should take place until we clean up the election financing regime in this country. The NDP tried to do it during the debate on the Federal Accountability Act. It seemed to take a little longer than we thought to resonate with the ruling party, but it seemed to have at least accepted the need for this now.

We are critical that there will be a six month wait after the bill receives royal assent. We expect this to get a rough ride from the Liberal Party. I am not trying to state the obvious, but if one cannot raise or borrow money, one is not going to be in any hurry to pass this bill.

We hope the Liberals do not stall it unnecessarily, but I think the government should act quickly to take that six month proviso out of the way, implement it as soon as we can, and get it through the House, so that the next federal election can be run with equal opportunity for everybody and that no unfair competitive advantage go to those who might enjoy a corporate sponsor or guardian angel donor.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was actually trying not to smile because this is serious business, but I do remember when we put in place the rule that one could only contribute $5,400 to a candidate. Of course, then there were those creative thinkers who decided they would shovel the money to their children's trust funds and get little kids to donate their money.

Then we had this issue. Does the member know how to get an $800,000 donation to his campaign? I thought this was extremely creative. How one would do it is to get a friend to co-sign a loan at the bank. The bank would give me the $800,000 as a loan and then I would renege on the loan. The bank would go back to my friend who would pay the bank. Ultimately, my friend never gave me any money. I think that is creative. That is how we skirt the law.

I do not see the bill as piecemeal. I actually see this as continually chasing those creative folks who are intent on bending and violating the rules. I would agree. We have a lot of work to do on this stuff, but I suspect we are going to be doing it again in two years. I just want to get confirmation from the member that he is going to support the bill wholeheartedly and continue to work with us to make sure that we are ahead of these creative thinkers who want to skirt the law and not abide by the law.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it would be morally and ethically wrong to deliberately take steps to circumvent the law, but there are those who unfortunately appear willing, at least in the case of the way that we phrase it, of shaking down children for their lunch money in the last Liberal leadership race. We were all offended by that. The whole country was taken aback.

Canadians did not think that politics had descended to that, but whether one launders money through the bank accounts of one's children or the bank accounts of brother-in-laws or grandmothers, if one is taking steps to circumvent the law so that one can donate more than is allowed by law, that should be dealt with. I think we should swoop down on it and make an example of somebody. I am disappointed how toothless the Elections Act really is.

The Elections Commissioner is supposed to look into these things, but when we file complaints of that nature, those officials seem unable to bring charges or to really bring anybody to task.

In the other context, when is a loan not a loan? If it is never paid back, I guess it is a donation. Businesses and trade unions are not allowed to give a single dollar. We are glad about that, even though the NDP used to get about 18% of our total contributions from labour organizations. When the law came in we said, absolutely, we are in support of that. Let us make it that only individuals can donate money in the election process.

Businesses and unions cannot give a single penny, but the way the law was left by the Liberal government, they can lend $100,000. They cannot donate $1, but they can lend $100,000 or $1 million with a wink, wink and nudge, nudge indicating it really does not have to be paid back. That would be wrong, but I have a good feeling that it is exactly what we are seeing in some situations.

Now that the word is out, that this is in fact legal and I am not saying anybody did anything illegal, that this can take place I am afraid that if we allow another election to take place without plugging this loophole, that many people will take advantage of it. Why would one not if one was that ethically challenged?

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the comments by the member for Winnipeg Centre. I recognize him as being genuinely interested in these issues. I know he wants to ensure that our democratic process is properly financed within strict rules, that those rules are not broken, and that they work toward the public good rather than toward some selected interests.

The member did toss off quite lightly my earlier comment and concern that an unintended consequence of this legislation, if it is not amended and we have to think carefully together how it might be, may be that disadvantaged or otherwise under-represented groups or individuals might be foreclosed from entering initially the political process. They would not have a riding association because they were not elected. They would not be a candidate because they have not won a nomination. They may be going for a nomination or going for leadership, but they do not have sufficient means to be seen as credit-worthy to a financial institution.

While the expressed intention of the bill is to get big money out of politics, I am afraid that there will be some circumstances where only people with big money will get the loans at commercial rates. It will be people with a lot of assets that could be pledged against any loans. It is fine to get $20,000 from 20 individual people for a nomination contest, and that may be sufficient, but it is not sufficient if someone is going into a nine month country-wide leadership event, which is very good for democracy in terms of a constant debate over that period of time, but with 11 different candidates involved.

I know the member for Winnipeg Centre said that he does not take this seriously, but I think it is serious, and we are going to hear about it at committee from some expert witnesses from disadvantaged or otherwise under-represented groups.

I wonder if he can think of some way that we might amend this legislation to prevent that situation from occurring, even if he thinks it is unlikely. I think we will hear it is possible. I wonder if he has any ideas on how to make sure that this barrier to entry does not take place as a result of this legislation.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Vancouver Quadra said that some individuals may be disadvantaged if they are not deemed credit-worthy to a lending institution et cetera. Under this bill, seeing as the ultimate accountability is the political party, if the loan is not paid back, the riding association would then be responsible and then ultimately the political party that the individual belongs to would be responsible after 18 months. That actually creates a more level playing field and perhaps makes the person more credit-worthy.

In the current situation, that same individual, without a great deal of assets who wants to get into politics, would be blown out of the water by a competitor with a corporate sponsor who may be able to make a loan of $100,000. That would not be allowed any more.

Both individuals would have to appeal to the bank on equal footing. I do not think the bank would lend one of them $100,000 and one of them only $5,000. It would probably be interested in looking at them both equally because ultimately the political party would end up paying that back if either of them defaults.

I am not concerned, but I certainly have an open mind. If witnesses come before committee and make that case, perhaps there are things we can do. We are genuinely interested in seeing this bill pass because I believe that in the broader context it would address the need that we identified in terms of leveling the playing field.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on the question of personal loans from individuals, the member brought up an important point. If the lender was to allow the person who had borrowed the money to not repay the loan, it occurs to me that might set up a situation where the lender might be able to declare that bad debt as a loss. Would there be any way that individuals could somehow use that to reduce their own income tax payable to the government? I wonder if the hon. member could possibly imagine such a scenario.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good point in that we may have another perverse consequence that someone would be getting a tax break by taking part in this whole charade which undermines the integrity of the Elections Act.

An even further perverse consequence is if one did not pay back the loan should one have to put it down as income the next time one files taxes. Perhaps Bob Rae would have to declare another $800,000 worth of income if he does not pay back the $800,000 to his brother. It is loaded with problems.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I believe my time is quite limited, but I will try to summarize my views on Bill C-54 in which I am very pleased to participate today.

I guess I come at this particular issue from the point of view of transparency. I think as members of Parliament we should disclose the sources of any funding, the sources of any loans, but I am not particularly excited about the limits.

We introduced in our mandate Bill C-24, the elections financing act. In fact, I was the only member of the Liberal caucus at the time that voted against the bill at report stage. I felt that it was wrong-footed. I understood that the time the need to restrict corporate donations and in fact a group of us tried to work out a compromise and limit corporate donations to $10,000, but that was not to be.

I have in my riding companies that have branch plants and operations across the country. Under the previous regime of Bill C-24, they could donate $1,000 and now they cannot even do that. If they have branch plants they might want to support the political process and give $250 to the MP or the candidate in a certain riding. I think it is unfortunate that we have brought in these limits for unions and business. I do not think it is appropriate.

In 1998 the Canadian banks wanted to merge. They were very anxious to do that. The banks, it is well known, used to provide huge donations to all the political parties and what good did it do them?

I think the idea that corporate donations buy influence is vastly overstated. I totally believe in transparency, but my problem with this particular bill is that it tends to have some unintended consequences in the sense that it might preclude people who do not have access to cash to get involved in the political process and take out a loan.

The current provisions of the legislation already call for them to repay the loans and they have to do it within the context of the loan limits, of the donation limits, so they cannot avoid the donation rules through loans. Therefore, I am not sure what this new bill is all about, other than restating what is already on the books.

The member for Winnipeg Centre talked about the laundering of money. I think that is a pretty strong statement. I know our country has brought in one of the strongest anti-money laundering regimes in the world. If this was a money laundering operation, I would certainly object to it, but I know my colleague from Vancouver Quadra is the expert on this. I know he will be trying to improve the bill at committee.

I certainly hope, when the bill comes back to the House, it will be new and improved and then I will be happy to have a look at it.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. I think I will end the member's speech there. Of course, he will have more time remaining. When the House returns to this particular bill, he will have 16 minutes left to give us the benefit of his views.

The House resumed from May 9 consideration of the motion that Bill C-54, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (accountability with respect to loans), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to complete my remarks this morning on Bill C-54.

I should also say at the outset that I will be sharing my time with the member for Churchill.

Members of Parliament are honest people. Unfortunately, we have been tarred, I think unjustly at times, by the public. Most people in the chamber would agree that everything should be transparent with respect to where we raise our money or what loans we have backing us. I for one believe that anything I do can be posted on a website, I will be accountable for it, and people can hold me accountable for it because they can elect me or not.

It is unfortunate that the Prime Minister has not been forthcoming. In his 2002 leadership campaign he failed to disclose the sources of the people who donated to his leadership bid. I would like to know that and I think many Canadians would like to know who supported the Prime Minister in his leadership bid in 2002. Was it the coalition for guns? Was it Canadian big business? Who was it? Right now we can only speculate and I think the Prime Minister would do himself a service if he came clean.

I should contrast that to the Liberal Party's last leadership campaign and conference in which the leadership candidates went above and beyond everything that was required by Elections Canada.

We need rules and regulations, but I believe that full transparency is a much more powerful tool.

I recall one incident that had to do with the Ethics Commissioner. I was invited to go to the Grey Cup in Ottawa a few years ago by some big company that I knew about. Everyone knew the name. I do not recall having any dealings with it. I told my staff to phone the Ethics Commissioner's office to find out if this was appropriate and get its blessing.

A member of my staff spoke to someone at the Ethics Commissioner's office and the person said that because the Grey Cup was such a big event I would be sitting with corporate people from that company and there would be no time to talk business. The individual thought it was inappropriate. To me it seemed totally counterintuitive. I would have thought the opposite would have been the case. I did not go to the Grey Cup.

That is the problem when one tries to regulate and micromanage things at that level. Let us be accountable and transparent. We have a very good transparent and accountable system in the Parliament of Canada. People vote frequently, sometimes far too frequently as they see it and certainly as many of us see it, but they have a vote. They can kick us out if they see that we took a donation from a company or individual who they feel is inappropriate.

I recall being the treasurer of the riding association of the former member for Etobicoke North who received a large donation, I would say in the thousands of dollars. That conjures up thoughts of $40,000 or $50,000, but it was not even $10,000. I talked to the member at the time. I was the treasurer, a part time volunteer. We discussed it and decided that it was inappropriate to accept a donation of what I will say was $5,000 at the time because there was clearly an agenda, at least in our judgment, by the company making the donation. We sent back a letter, thanked it profusely, and said we felt it was inappropriate.

I have had donations of $200, $250 from corporations and those are basically the size of any corporate donations. I have had some slightly larger over the years. Is a $250 donation going to buy my position in the House of Commons where I am representing the people of Canada? Of course it would not. If that were the case, I would send the cheque back. No amount is going to change my mind about a position I am going to take. I am going to take a position that is, in my judgment, in the best interests of all Canadians. That can be a judgment call and people would agree to disagree.

However, I think we get so hung up with these rules and regulations. I for one voted against our government's bill, Bill C-24, election financing, and tried to work a compromise out with the then Prime Minister to limit corporate donations but not to the extent that they were then or are today.

I do not think the bill accomplishes that much. It sort of reinforces what is already on the books. We cannot use loans to circumvent the donation limits. That is already there and we have to disclose these loans.

Certainly, I support transparency, accountability, and I am going to ask our critic for his best advice once the bill goes to committee, but at this point I am not sure it adds any value.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, some members of Parliament, especially Liberal members, and some former members had trust funds. No one knew who donated to these trust funds and many of those trust funds got transferred to the riding associations.

I heard the Liberal member talk about transparency and accountability. On behalf of his party, will he pledge to bring forward all the names of people who have donated to past trust funds that are now transferred to riding associations, so that even today we can get some clarity as to who are some of these past donors?

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am quite aware of the trust fund situation of my former colleague from Trinity—Spadina. In fact, I think those trust funds have all been wound down.

There are different motivations for setting up a trust fund. I have a trust fund. I have a trust fund because when I receive donations, I want to put it on deposit and I want to have it there. It is all receipted through the party, so the party gets its commission or whatever. I put it in a trust fund so that I can put it on deposit, it can earn money, and it is earmarked for an election campaign.

We need to understand that when we raise money, it is to run elections. There is a tendency certainly in many associations if we have the money there in an association's bank account to suddenly, if there is a great idea to support people who go to this convention or that convention, have a big picnic, to do this and that which are all good things, but we have to have the money there to fight an election campaign.

Therefore, I have a trust fund. It is all fully disclosed. There are no donations going directing to my trust fund. It all comes from the association. It is all receipted. It is all publicly available. Once it goes through that process, I put it into a trust fund. It is a legal trust fund sanctioned by the party and sanctioned by Elections Canada.

One of the things that some people were annoyed about is when they collected money, it had to go through the party and the party collected a commission. That was fair enough. It has to run the party apparatus as well, but some people were quite upset about that. I do not think it is driven by the need to hide donations, but right now the trust funds are all wrapped up, the way that one was and I am sure that it is appropriate.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure it did not escape your notice that the hon. member did not answer the question he had been asked about what the source was for monies in all these trust funds.

It is interesting that on the one hand that is a question not worth answering in his mind, whereas it is desperately important that the Prime Minister explain where he got funds from for a leadership race that occurred not under the current law, not under the proposed law, but under the current law which was enacted a year ago, and not under the law that Jean Chrétien enacted in 2004, but under a previous law. Therefore, we are going back now to 2002.

The argument I guess he is presenting is that somehow, and I will not say I guess because he essentially made an assertion, extremists and so on must have been at the root of any money that was received at that time. That is just indecorous and inappropriate.

However, I think we can probably guess that the same people who supported the Prime Minister when he ran for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance in 2002 would also have supported him in 2004 when he ran for the leadership of the new Conservative Party in a much better financed campaign.

We all remember that in 2002 the Canadian Alliance was in disarray and the leadership was not quite the prize that the leadership of the Conservative Party in 2004 was. He was not running against a billionaire either who had an infinite amount of money to spend financing her own campaign.

Therefore, if we were to take a look at the 2004 numbers which are public, we would get an idea of the kind of structure we can expect. What we see is very few large donations and we would also see the number one donor in that campaign. Number one was me. I gave the largest donation. I think we have a pretty good idea that we are not talking about vast amounts of money from corporations.

By contrast to that, if we were to look at the numbers for the Liberal leadership campaign, we would see--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order. I do have to give the hon. member some time to respond. The hon. member for Etobicoke North.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, I think the member for Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington has it wrong because we cannot look at the donations that were made today to the Prime Minister's campaign and then conclude that they must have been the same people back in 2002. That is just not good enough. The member opposite knows that.

There could have been a whole group of different people in 2002, different corporations. It was then the Alliance Party. If I were to stand in the House and say I did not disclose my donations in the election campaign in 1997, but in the election campaign in 2000 we could see the list of people who donated to my campaign and we could infer that it was the same group. It is not good enough. The member opposite should know that.

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-54, which focuses on creating further restrictions on the use of loans for political entities.

I understand the bill, if passed, will amend the pre-existing rules of the Canada Elections Act. This is legislation that touches on the national discussion of democratic reform, a discussion that has always been of great interest for all members of this House and, indeed, for many constituents across my riding of Churchill.

As some members in the House may know, the Churchill riding is a very northern riding in Manitoba and it covers more than half of the province of Manitoba. It reflects rural Canada and aboriginal Canadians, including first nations and the Métis nation.

Canadians expect their members of Parliament to be continuously working to find ways to enhance our nation's democracy. As parliamentarians, we must work together to foster a nation that values both civic responsibility and empowerment. These virtues are the centre of any debate on democratic reform.

Bill C-54 purports to establish 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.

Strangely enough, the government's proposed provisions already exist in the current law.

The legislation is also designed to tighten rules of treatment of unpaid loans to ensure candidates cannot walk away from unpaid loans. This does not represent a substantive change to the law as, once again, there are already provisions in place to ensure that loans cannot be written off without consequence. Political riding associations would ultimately be held responsible for unpaid loans taken out by their candidates.

This would allow only financial institutions and other political entities to make loans beyond the annual contribution limit for individuals, and only at commercial rates of interest, although the current law already requires all loans to be made at commercial rates of interest. Under the proposed legislation, unions and corporations would now be unable to make loans and financial institutions could not lend money at rates of interest other than the market norm.

While it seems that the government intended to increase transparency with this bill, the shortcomings of the bill, as it is currently laid out, are such that it would do nothing to increase accountability. Instead, Bill C-54 would build new roadblocks that would restrict the access Canadians have to the democratic process.

If passed as is, the legislation would give financial institutions the full say on who gets to run for political office in Canada rather than Canadians.

In line with the Conservatives' trends of discriminatory policies, the bill would negatively impact many Canadians, especially people in my riding, including first nations, minority candidates and, I believe, women for nomination. Canada is at the point in our history where the government should be continuing the Liberal legacies of encouraging greater participation in the democratic process. The government must celebrate our diversity through political empowerment rather than design laws that would hinder one's ability to run for public office.

The proposed changes would make it very difficult for Canadians, especially those of limited means and those with limited contact to potential wealthy contributors to even seek nomination in Canada because of the challenge of securing loans from banking institutions. I am curious as to whether the members opposite were intentionally doing this or perhaps it is an aspect of the bill that they merely overlooked. Either case, I think it is a question worthy of further exploration.

I also want to add that under Liberal leadership in this country, the government passed legislation that limited the roles of corporations and unions in electoral financing and introduced the most dramatic lowering of contribution limits in Canadian history.

The key difference between limiting the role of corporate and union contributions in political campaigns and limiting loans in the manner that the government has introduced is a matter of equity. I feel that their proposed approach would be regressive. Given this opportunity to advance this debate, we should seize the opportunity to democratize our institutions where available.

For some, the window of opportunity to influence policy may only come once every four year. Since the passing of Bill C-16, the next scheduled time Canadians will have the ability to voice their opinion for policy change will be in October 2009. This is not to say that the federal election will occur on that date but rather that it is theoretically conceivable.

Our democracy is an institution of the people and in order for such an institution to be truly meaningful it must be truly accessible, regardless of gender, race and social status. With this in mind, we need legislation that will address these demands for all Canadians.

I look forward to hearing other members' perspectives on this debate and observing how it unfolds in the near future.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member's comments about election financing reform. Of course, her party is opposed to any kind of reform in that area and it is no secret why that is.

If we go back to the Liberal leadership race we can see what the various candidates borrowed from private individuals. For example, for the opposition leader it was almost half a million dollars. For the member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore it was $470,000. For Bob Rae it was $845,000 in loans. It goes on and on, $200,000, $300,000 for a total of $3 million that was borrowed from private individuals to run those campaigns.

The problem is that nobody knows the terms of the repayment. Nobody in the public knows what the interest rates were. Are those loans being forgiven? Is this a back door to actually do donations? Nobody knows.

Why does the member not support the demand of taxpayers, voters and Canadians in general that there be accountability in election financing?

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin with what Canadians do not know. He is right. They do not know who the funders were for Prime Minister Harper's race in 2002.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. I do not know how many times I have to tell members that they are not to refer to the Prime Minister or anybody else by their first or last names.

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize. As a new member I am sometimes shaky on the rules of the House.

I would like to add that it was the Liberal Party that brought in Bill C-24, the most sweeping changes on electoral reform. In fact, when we talk about this particular bill, Bill C-54, the core of the issue for many Canadians is access and participation in the democratic process.

Many members seem to use Bill C-54 to focus on the Liberal leadership race. I think there is a desperate attempt to make an issue of something that was not an issue. It is about access to the democratic process and we as parliamentarians have a duty to ensure that all Canadians can access this process.

I represent a large riding with a population that is not as large as many small urban ridings but 65% of my riding are aboriginal people. However, because of systemic policies and some of the laws in this country, the aboriginal people have been marginalized. For instance, in one centre in my riding where mining is booming and the price of minerals is going through the roof, the first nations have not had access to resource benefit sharing. There is inequity and it is through the history and the policies of this country that have created inequity. As parliamentarians it is our job to ensure that we have a process in place where we have equal access.

I represent many people in my riding who do not have the ability to access this type of loan from a bank because they do not have the capital. However, that is not due to not wanting it or not working hard enough. People did work hard but we come from a whole different cultural background where our industry was the land. We did not have financial institutions in the same tradition as western Canadians, or western civilization as we might want to call it. We had our own civilization. Our industry and our economy was based on the land. We did not have these types of institutions so we do not have a history of participating in these types of institutions. We did not have a framework where we built up capital and equity.

Therefore, this whole framework, which is at the core of this bill, is actually alien to people, but not out of choice. Many new Canadians who have come here are working hard and paying their bills but they are living cheque to cheque. We all know people who reflect that reality for many Canadians and in fact we know that probably the majority of Canadians live in a lifestyle where they may not have access--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. I am sorry but the time for questions and comments has expired. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Drummond.

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

It is my pleasure to speak on behalf of the Bloc Québécois about Bill C-54, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (accountability with respect to loans). Basically, this bill seeks to prevent individuals from bypassing campaign financing rules. Naturally, the Bloc Québécois will support it.

The bill would also correct another problem with the government accountability act, also known as Bill C-2. Why another problem? Because unfortunately, during the study of Bill C-2, it became clear that the Conservative government was more interested in passing the bill quickly than in really fixing ethical problems, even though it presented the bill as its key piece of legislation to clean up campaign financing and governance. Sadly, the hasty treatment made for a very incomplete key piece of legislation.

At the time, the opposition parties, the media and Democracy Watch pointed the problem out, but the government refused to act. As a result, there were huge gaps in terms of ethics, and now we have to fill those gaps. For example, it provides little protection for whistleblowers and does nothing to improve the Access to Information Act. I will come back to that later on.

Bill C-54 will fix the problem of loans that allowed individuals to bypass political contribution restrictions. When the Conservatives introduced the bill, they pointed out that during the most recent Liberal leadership race, several candidates had taken out big loans to bypass financing restrictions. It may be that several Liberal candidates did this, but let us not forget that the Prime Minister himself has not disclosed all of the contributions he received during the 2002 leadership race.

By way of explanation, I would like to remind the members that Bill C-2, which addresses government accountability, introduced new restrictions on campaign contributions, limiting any individual's annual contribution to a registered party or candidate to $1,100. Furthermore, Bill C-2 reduced the amount a union or business could contribute annually to a registered party or candidate to $0. Basically, contributions from unions and businesses are no longer allowed.

Unfortunately, it was still possible to circumvent these restrictions by taking out personal loans. As I have already mentioned, we saw this when several candidates in the recent Liberal Party of Canada leadership race took out sizeable loans from individuals and financial institutions. La Presse even reported the amounts of the loans, which totalled hundreds of thousands of dollars, obtained by the current leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, the current deputy leader of the party, and by Bob Rae and Gerard Kennedy. I would like to remind the House of those amounts. Bob Rae, who was defeated by the current leader of the official opposition, owes $580,000 to John Rae, the vice-president of Power Corporation. The current leader of the opposition borrowed $430,000. The current deputy leader of the Liberal Party borrowed $170,000, and Gerard Kennedy borrowed $201,000.

The subterfuge of using loans gave candidates access to enormous sums of money. This bill would correct such issues. As I was saying earlier, however, the accountability act fails to address a number of ethical problems. For example, the whistleblower protection issue has not been resolved. Several Conservative election promises concerning whistleblower protection did not make their way into the Accountability Act. As we all know, during the January 2006 election, the Conservatives made a number of election promises regarding this issue.

First of all, they wanted to ensure that whistleblowers would have access to adequate legal counsel. However, former Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act, imposes a $1,500 limit on legal costs, which is incredibly low. Thus, under the Conservative government, whistleblowers must be able to pay for their own legal counsel if they want to disclose wrongdoing.

Second, they wanted to give the public sector integrity commissioner the power to enforce the whistleblower legislation. This was not in the bill.

They wanted to guarantee protection to anyone who reports wrongdoing within the government, not just to public servants. This is not in the Federal Accountability Act.

They wanted to take away the government's ability to exempt crown corporations and other entities from the application of the whistleblower legislation. This is not in the accountability act either.

Another problem that the Federal Accountability Act has not solved is the reform of the Access to Information Act.

On April 5, 2005, the Liberal government released a discussion paper on reforming access to information. This document met with general criticism, even from the Conservatives. In addition to doubling the minimum administrative fees charged to the public, the proposal by the former Liberal Prime Minister, the member for LaSalle—Émard, maintained all the exceptions provided for in the legislation.

In fact, in 13 years, the Liberal Party never managed to introduce a valid reform of the Access to Information Act. For its part, the Conservative Party promised during the election campaign to reform the Access to Information Act. To quote the Conservatives' election platform, “A Conservative government will implement the Information Commissioner's recommendations for reform of the Access to Information Act”.

We are still waiting for this reform. When will the government decide to carry out this reform, as promised?

The truth is that now that they are in power, the Conservatives, like the Liberals before them, are in less of a hurry to reform this legislation. Moreover, the Information Commissioner recently noted that this is a general trend. He said, “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”.

Despite the shortcomings of former Bill C-2 on accountability, Bill C-54, which is before us today, proposes four types of changes.

First, the bill establishes a system of uniform, transparent reports on all loans to political entities and provides for mandatory disclosure of the terms of those loans and the identity of the lenders and guarantors.

Second, the bill would prohibit 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 is $1,100 for 2007.

Lastly, only financial institutions, at market interest rates, or other political entities would be able to lend money exceeding that amount. The rules for unpaid loans would be tightened so that candidates could not default on their obligations. Riding associations would be held responsible for their candidate's unpaid loan.

Despite this bill, which we are in favour of, in a few short months the Conservative party has built up a track record that shows a lack of political will to obey the rules and put an end to the culture of entitlement.

Denouncing the sponsorship scandal that took place when the Liberal Party was in power, Mr. Justice Gomery said that it was time to do away with the mentality behind the culture of entitlement and the attitude people in government have that they can do anything they want and are accountable to no one. This is not how things should be. This is certainly not what Quebeckers and Canadians want. To avoid this attitude, there must be open and transparent management of public funds and taxpayers' money. The Conservatives have unfortunately not set a good example.

In December 2006, the Conservative Party admitted that it had failed to disclose the receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Chief Electoral Officer. The money was registration fees collected from Conservative delegates attending the Conservative Party's May 2005 convention. The report said that in being forced to treat convention registration fees as donations, the Conservative Party discovered that three delegates, including the Prime Minister, had exceeded their annual contribution limits of $5,400. The Conservative Party was forced to reimburse $456 to the Prime Minister and to two other delegates.

Here is another example: a closer look makes it clear that this government is being influenced. The Prime Minister, when in opposition, reprimanded the Liberals for the comings and goings between political offices and lobbying firms. Yet, since taking power he has appointed a former lobbyist as the head of National Defence. This party denounced the lobbyist culture associated with the running of the Liberal Party. At that time we agreed with our Conservative colleagues. You could say that power changes political parties and makes anything possible.

We can see what the appointment of a lobbyist has done to National Defence. We can see that the Prime Minister now has a serious credibility problem with regard to his lobbyist minister. It is true that this appointment has paid off for companies that sell military equipment. We believe that the Minister of National Defence should have considered the taxpayers, who clearly want more humanitarian action than war.

The Prime Minister did not stop there with his partisan appointments. He also appointed Sandra Buckler as his director of communications. We should remember that the Conservative government decided to maintain the contract with Royal Lepage relocation services, in spite of a devastating report by the Auditor General. In 2005, this company hired Ms. Buckler to meet with the members of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, which had serious doubts about the spending of public money by Royal LePage and which was examining the possibility of referring this matter to the Auditor General. It is likely that Ms. Buckler was not paid by Royal LePage to convince the members to refer the matter to the Auditor General. In this case, whose interests came first, Ms. Buckler's or the taxpayers'? To compensate her, the Prime Minister appointed her director of communications of his cabinet.

In April 2006, the Prime Minister tried to appoint Gwyn Morgan, a Conservative Party fundraiser, to the position of chairman of the new public appointments commission. This appointment was blocked by a parliamentary committee dominated by opposition members.

I have another example of how this government is maintaining the culture of entitlement. It awards contracts to Conservative friends. This 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 accountability act, former Bill C-2, since political staff are not allowed to receive contracts from the government in place for 12 months after they have left. The contract was cancelled half way 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 Party 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.

What is more, the Prime Minister has made dozens of partisan appointments within the machinery of government. When the Conservatives were in opposition they denounced such practices. Now that they are in power, why are they doing the exact same thing? Do they believe it is their turn to do whatever they want? The Conservative Party should be accountable to the public for its actions.

In closing, I want to reiterate that the Bloc Québécois is in favour of Bill C-54, but it finds it regrettable that the other problems I have just mentioned have not been resolved by the Conservative government.

Taxpayers deserve to have a government that is above reproach. Neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives have lived up to these expectations. That is why most people in Quebec vote for the Bloc Québécois. Our party is the only one that is not negatively influenced by power. Our only goal is to defend the interests of Quebeckers and they realize that. They can be assured of our full commitment to that goal.

When all the parties represented in this House understand the importance of integrity and transparency, our democracy will only get better. Quebec and Canadian taxpayers deserve that; let us govern accordingly.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, while I thank the hon. member for her comments, she unfortunately spent 90% of her time talking about unrelated issues and only 10% on Bill C-54.

However, in the time she did spend on Bill C-54, election financing reform, I was glad that she referred to the Liberal leadership convention and the fact that horrific amounts of money were borrowed from private individuals. In fact, among the 11 candidates for the Liberal leadership, a whopping total of $3 million was borrowed from private individuals. None of us know what the interest rates were, what the repayment plan was, or whether there was any repayment plan.

Canadians then have a right to ask this question: what are these wealthy lenders getting in return? Is it love and affection? I think not. Canadians are not that naive. What else are they getting in return? In Bob Rae's case, he was a Liberal leadership contender and borrowed $500,000 from his brother. What does he get in return? Influence? We do not know.

I would ask the member to comment on whether she knows if all of these loans given to the Liberal leadership contenders are going to be repaid? Does she know?

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I talked about Bill C-54. I said that the Bloc was in favour of this bill, which is designed to correct the problem of loans.

As for the Conservative member's question—it is always the same question, written in advance—I cannot answer. But I can give a few examples of partisan appointments. In accusing the Liberals of not being transparent, the Conservatives seem to be taking a “My dad is stronger than your dad” stance.

In my opinion, the Conservatives have not proven that they are as pure as the driven snow, as they claim to be. On April 12, 2006, it was announced that a friend of the government, former Conservative member Jim Gouk, had been named to the board of NAV CANADA. The government controls three seats on that board. On April 21, 2006, Gwyn Morgan, a Conservative backer, was appointed chair of the new Public Appointments Commission. The appointment was blocked by a parliamentary committee dominated by the opposition. On June 27, 2006, Kevin Gaudet, a Conservative organizer who had worked on the Prime Minister's leadership bid in 2004, was appointed to a part-time job at the Canada Pension Plan Review Tribunal that would have paid him $250 per sitting day. The Conservative government eventually backed down on this. On June 27, 2006, Brian Richard Bell, a Conservative organizer from New Brunswick, was appointed to the Court of Queen's Bench of New Brunswick. On September 18, 2006, Jacques Léger, interim president of the Progressive Conservative Party, was given a judgeship in the Superior Court of Quebec for the district of Montreal. On October 31, 2006, Raminder Gill, a former Conservative candidate who was defeated in Mississauga, was appointed as a citizenship judge. He was a former Progressive Conservative Party member in Ontario. His appointment made room for the floor crosser, the member for Mississauga—Streetsville. On November 1, 2006, Howard Bruce, the Conservative candidate in Portneuf in 2004 and—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please.

I am sorry, but we need time for other questions and comments.

The hon. member for Pickering—Scarborough East.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the hon. member who just spoke.

I heard the hon. member for Abbotsford make a few statements on certain candidates who ran in our party's leadership race.

Perhaps I could ask the hon. member if she would want to ask, in regard to the 2005 convention which the Conservative Party refused to declare, or in regard to the leadership supporters of the Prime Minister, whether or not she believes this bill should be expanded and indeed made retroactive. We would then catch what happened with the Conservative Party when it in fact used $2 million that should have been declared and should have been considered an election expense.

Does the hon. member believe that? In terms of making this a situation that the member for Abbotsford would like as a trap for the Liberal Party, maybe she would want to ask for full disclosure from the governing party for who in fact contributed to them and, more importantly, whether or not the 2005 convention should in fact be part of that retroactive net that we want to put in place.

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in response to the question by the hon. member from the Liberal Party, I would say I agree that this should be made retroactive. I have denounced the fact that the governments, whether Liberal or Conservative, try to be squeaky clean during the election campaign, but once in power the same thing always happens.

The Bloc Québécois is in favour of Bill C-54 because it will put an end to certain practices, which will allow greater transparency. What I have denounced are the flaws in the accountability act, Bill C-2. There are major shortcomings that need to be corrected.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to give a few opinions on and discuss further some of the implications with respect to the legislation.

I will preface my comments. Coming from York South—Weston, I come from a riding that is very working class. It is an immigrants' turnstile type of riding. According to usual indicators, it is one of the less wealthy ridings in Ontario. In fact, it is second last in terms of those indicators. Most of the housing stock was built before 1950. Most of the people, about 60%, live in multiple occupancy high-rise buildings. There are a lot of issues that come along with this in terms of people coming here with hopes of being part of the mainstream of life in Canada.

One of those hopes is to be a fully empowered member of Canadian society, with the right to vote equally and equitably. I think this House stands for those values and works toward that objective so that we do not let down past, present and future generations with respect to their ability to become part of the mainstream of Canadian life, which is what they come to this country for.

Against that background, when I am looking at equity I think that we should not place one class of citizens aside and stereotype them with respect to having less rights. It always bothers me when I see a preamble to legislation couched in these kinds of terms: we will create “an airtight system of political financing that will eliminate, once and for all, the influence of rich, wealthy individuals from the political process”.

I never knew that one of the standard values of this country was that we should stereotype wealthy people and make them scapegoats for other inequities that may exist in society. In fact, our Income Tax Act makes it very clear that in order to be equitable we will take that wealth from those wealthy people and redistribute it to those who are less fortunate. We hope there will be many wealthy people and we will take that wealth and redistribute it. That is the objective of our Income Tax Act.

Nobody has ever said that this is a very tenuous and unclear objective or mechanism. It is like what we say about equalization in this country, which is that we disagree in terms of how we go about it and we disagree from time to time about those who are being advantaged or not, but we stand for equity. We stand for redistribution wealth on a federal level also.

When we come to an Elections Act, I hope that we are driven by that same objective, which is to be fair and even-handed with respect to making the Elections Act accountable. Accountability is the key. If this legislation does that, then there will not be and should not be one person in the House who would oppose it.

I know there is not an elected member in this House who would deny how very exhaustive the processes under the Elections Act are, to the extent that it is very difficult to even find lay people in our ridings who are up to the tremendous pressure and up to participating to the extent to which they want, to be agents and to be involved in our campaigns at the financial level. The checks and balances on accountability are now so weighted that it is getting to the point where one has to be a professional, such as an auditor or an accountant or whatever, to be able to carry on that role.

In my riding, if I did not have someone like my friend, Gunter Kujat, who has been loyal to being partisan, I do not know what I would do. I trust him. I have faith in him. I am sure there are similar examples in ridings throughout our country .

When legislation is layered on top of existing legislation and it has some inherent inequities in terms of treatment, it behooves us to understand whether what we are doing is counterproductive to the objective of bringing more people into the elections process. I am going to speak about three parts of this legislation that do that. The first that I believe is overly heavy-handed beyond the terms of the Canada Elections Act--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order. I am sorry, but the hon. member will have to make those three points later on because we have come to the time for statements by members. The member will have 13 minutes and 45 seconds left in his time.

The House resumed from May 11 consideration of the motion that Bill C-54, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (accountability with respect to loans), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-54, which deals with electoral democracy, one of three such bills introduced by the government.

Electoral democracy is an extremely important issue. However, I must remind members, with sadness, that this is a corrective measure. In fact, had the government listened to the opposition parties, it would not have adopted Bill C-2 with the kind of haste that shows a certain lack of professionalism. During consideration of Bill C-2, representations were made regarding various shortcomings in that bill. One of them dealt with this possible loophole whereby people were using loans to circumvent the $1,100 ceiling on political contributions by individuals and the ban on contributions to political parties or leadership candidates by corporate entities. Candidates to elected office would take out personal loans from friends, from their entourage, which was a form of indirect financing.

Bill C-54 would close that loophole by proposing four objectives that I will share with the House. The bill would put in place a uniform and transparent disclosure system for all loans to political entities, including the compulsory disclosure of loans terms and conditions, and of lenders' and guarantors' names.

Bill C-54 would prevent unions and corporate bodies, with a few exceptions, not only from making political donations according to the Accountability Act, but also from loaning money to individuals.

Third, guaranteed loans for contributions coming from an individual could not exceed $1,000, which is the limit set in the Accountability Act. There is harmonization between what can be donated to a registered political party and the amount individuals can lend to candidates and registered parties.

Fourth, only financial institutions, at commercial interest rates, and other political entities may lend more than $1,000. Rules concerning outstanding loans would be reinforced to avoid candidates escaping their obligations. Loans still outstanding after 18 months would be considered political donations. Riding associations or, where there are none, political parties themselves, would have to reimburse loans not repaid by their candidates.

The bill would correct a loophole, an omission, found in the Accountability Act. The bill on accountability gave us the opportunity to reflect on the whole question of democracy. There can be no real level playing field if there is no control over donations from political parties.

My father was a labourer and I do not have any personal wealth. I must be able to run for office and be elected without any political wealth. No one would like to live with the American model where senators, to be elected to the Congress, must invest several millions of dollars. When, for campaigning, one must have personal wealth or invest several millions of dollars, what does this mean for democracy? It means that one becomes a spokesperson for registered lobbies. Thus, lobbies fund politicians.

The House of Commons, as well as the National Assembly, must be a place where arbitration occurs. Parliamentarians, no matter their political affiliation, must never become prisoners of lobby groups. Oil companies, banks or any other lobby group cannot fund parliamentarians, because, when we have to assess a bill, we must be able to do so without any strings attached. When the price to pay in a democracy requires investing millions of dollars to ensure that we get re-elected, we are not without any strings attached. This is a nice legacy that was given to us by the former prime minister, Jean Chrétien, who followed the model established by Mr. René Lévesque. We will remember René Lévesque—what a great Quebec premier—who was strong, who inspired Jean Chrétien, at least on this issue, of course. Jean Chrétien got his inspiration from René Lévesque, who, very early in his political career, had decided to put an end to slush funds and to regulate and provide a framework for funding from corporations, lobby groups and individuals, to really stick to the notion that, in a democracy, the primary value that must guide us is equal opportunity. That is the first legislation that the Parti Québécois passed in 1976.

Of course, there are great moments in democracy, but there are also painful moments. As I was travelling from Montreal to Ottawa by train yesterday—and I am sure that my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue will agree with me—I was re-reading the proceedings from a symposium which took place at the Université du Québec à Montréal in 1992 about the democratic referendum process. We know very well that the liberal government led by Jean Chrétien literally stole the referendum from Quebeckers. The rules which should govern any democratic referendum were flouted.

As members will recall, Robert Burns, who was the Minister responsible for the Reform of Democratic Institutions in the René Lévesque government, had the Referendum Act passed. Drawing from the experience in other countries, he had first drafted a green paper and submitted it to a public consultation. There have been few referendums in Quebec and in Canada. There was a referendum on Prohibition, which was won by the yes side, and Prohibition was ended. There were also two other referendums in 1980 and in 1995. Since Pauline Marois will likely become the new leader of the Parti Québécois, a new thinking exercise is about to start among the sovereigntists, and we are quite optimistic. We believe that, in the short term, there could be a referendum on the political future of Quebec. Inviting our fellow citizens to a rendezvous with history is a great moment in democracy.

We all know that the sovereigntist movement in Quebec is deeply rooted in democracy, given that three different leaders founded political parties for Quebeckers to democratically express themselves about this great project of making Quebec a sovereign state. Who are those leaders?

There is, of course, Pierre Bourgault, who was a powerful orator, profound, a very good platform presence. There were people who even compared him to Henri Bourassa. Mr. Speaker, you will surely recall Henri Bourassa not because you knew him, but because you have certainly read his speeches. He was definitely an extremely powerful orator.

There were three sovereignist leaders who founded political parties to enable the citizens of Quebec to consider the sovereignist option. There was Pierre Bourgault, René Lévesque, of whom I spoke earlier, and the third, whom I knew somewhat more intimately because he was the leader of my political party, is none other than Lucien Bouchard.

You will recall that Lucien Bouchard was the leader of the official opposition in 1993. What a wonderful time it was in October 1993, when the voters of Quebec gave the Bloc Québécois the responsibility of serving as the official opposition. I remember that there were 54 members of our party seated at the other end of the House. We had succeeded in electing Osvaldo Nunez in the riding of Bourassa. We had won the riding of Anjou and the riding of Ahuntsic. It was the start of a great movement of national affirmation that has never been interrupted, but which has varied in intensity.

All of that leads me to say that we support Bill C-54, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act regarding limits on loans to candidates. However, I want to remind members that there have been some great moments in Canadian democracy: the legacy of Jean Chrétien limiting the contribution of individuals to $1,100 is certainly a great moment, but there have also been moments that have greatly tarnished democracy. Unfortunately, I feel I must recall that the federal Liberals did not observe the Referendum Act.

I, myself, am writing a text that I hope to see published in coming days, and which concerns some ideas for renewing the sovereigntist movement. I hope that the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue will do me the honour of reading it for I know he has a keen intellect and that he literally reads everything that comes into his hands. I have asked the Library of Parliament how much the federal government spent during the 1995 referendum. If I were to make a little survey among the many members of this House who are listening to me—and I thank them for doing so— to know how much the federal government spent illegally, because that was not accounted for either on the “Yes” side or the “No” side, what would be the answer?

Mr. Speaker, do you think they spent $5 million? That was the ceiling allowed under the Referendum Act. Do you think they spent $10 million or even $15 million? Well, they spent $31 million: $16 million during the referendum campaign and $12 million on promoting Canadian unity. Obviously they have the right to be federalists. Remember what Lucien Bouchard said at the Dorval airport the day after the referendum was lost to the yes side in 1995. He said that no is no, but when the day comes that it is yes, it will be yes.

The sad part about the example I am giving you of this anti-democratic bungle, this shameful behaviour by the federal Liberals by which they did not respect Quebec's referendum legislation, is that they invested heavily in propaganda and these expenses were not accounted for. They achieved this in a number of ways. How can we forget Chuck Guité. I even wonder if the name “Chuck Guité” is parliamentary since there is so much disgrace associated with his name. If ever this name becomes synonymous with disgust and becomes unparliamentary, do let me know, Mr. Speaker.

Chuck Guité was the one who broke every accounting rule imaginable and who rented every available billboard in Quebec. At the time the Clerk of the Privy Council told Prime Minister Jean Chrétien that he could not allow the national unity reserve to go unchecked.

All that to say that among the unfortunate experiences of anti-democratic bungles, there was the non respect of the 1995 referendum when three major misdeeds and abuses of democracy occurred.

First, Chuck Guité rented billboards. Then, the investigations indicate that the electoral body was unduly and artificially inflated by allowing people to vote who, if normal administrative channels had been followed, would not have had the right to vote. People were naturalized, of course. The problem is not that they were naturalized—we want to allow everyone to exercise their right to vote—but that normal administrative channels were not followed.

The Referendum Act has great democratic value.

We had the yes side and the no side. The government informed the National Assembly of the question to be debated for 35 hours. The president of the National Assembly apportioned the speaking time among the parties, the time allocated to the government and to the opposition being proportionate to the number of seats held by each.

At the time, Rodrigue Biron from the Union nationale sat at the National Assembly, as did socreds, although they were no longer called that, and their leader was Fabien Roy. The debate went on for 35 hours.

While the government has the prerogative to announce the question to be voted on at the time of a referendum, it is not allowed to spend more than those opposing its option. There lies the strength of Quebec's referendum democracy.

The yes side and the no side had equal opportunities. Both sides could speak at the National Assembly, and the public funding available to them was distributed fairly.

I am having a hard time getting over this stolen referendum in 1995. It eventually led to the sponsorship scandal. As we know, the Liberals in Quebec were all but decimated. I think there are more Bengal tigers at the Biodome, in my neighbourhood, than there are Liberals in Quebec. This goes to show the magnitude of public chastisement. It does not take anything away from the merit of the individuals involved, but it means that, next time the National Assembly decides to hold a referendum, the rules of the game will have to be adhered to.

In this Parliament, we have three bills in support of referendum democracy: one—Bill C-54—concerns loans to individuals; another concerns the selection of senators at the other place; and yet another, which we in the Bloc Québécois also support, concerns fixed election dates, something that already exists in a number of provinces. That shields us from all the scenarios of partisan vagaries, where the Prime Minister tends to call an election when his party is ahead in the polls.

I will conclude on that and I will gladly answer any questions.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech made by my colleague. Unfortunately, the member will not become a member of the Barreau du Québec because he does not want to, not because he is unable to. He does not want to take the bar exam, even though he just completed a law degree, which may be why he is speaking to us with such eloquence today.

Let us move on to serious things and talk about Option Canada, a subject I know he can debate at length. My colleague talked about what happened, about the various referendums, about how certain members of the federal government—a Liberal government at that time—got their hands on a large sum of money to—and I will use the same word that was used by my colleague from Hochelaga—steal the referendum.

What does he think about Option Canada, an initiative where funds were misappropriated without any regard for the Quebec Referendum Act?

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. One of his endearing character traits is the balance he achieves between his passion for defence attorneys and his role as a member of the House of Commons. I thank him for never crossing the line that would make him a greater advocate for the people before the courts than for his constituents.

As for his disappointment that I will not be taking the bar exams, I will simply say that one cannot do everything in one's life. I cannot keep in shape, represent the people of Hochelaga, be the critic for justice, take care of Montreal and do the bar exams all at the same time. There are limits to what a man can do. However, I thank the member for his good wishes.

He is quite right to remind us that Option Canada, which has been denounced by the Auditor General, is one more example of an anti-democratic flaw. I personally think that all the bills we study that concern our democratic institutions should make us wish to see the Referendum Act respected. I will add that, like my colleague, I am anxious to read the Grenier report tomorrow. I hope that it will include a few lessons. It could even cause the government to change a few laws. Some individuals will be publicly blamed. I am anxious to see to what extent Mr. Justice Grenier's words will cause certain persons to express their regrets, for not respecting the National Assembly's Referendum Act

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am in support of Bill C-54 and I will outline my reasons and perhaps make a couple of suggestions. I will have the opportunity to formally do that in committee but to get things rolling it is important to put some of those ideas forward in debate.

The one thing we have seen in the history of federal politics in Canada is the problem of big money influencing government, which usually results in the equation of big money plus influencing government equals corruption. We saw the Pacific scandal just after this nation was assembled. The pipeline debate certainly uncovered many problems of the association between government and money. We saw that most recently in Canada with the previous government.

One of the things we need to do is take out not only the fact that this can exist through the rules and that there will be manipulation but the perception by citizens that all of us in this place are running our campaigns fairly and cleanly, and we have not seen that. Canadians have the perception right now that there is a problem between parliamentarians and MPs who run for office and money. This bill would take away people's temptation to access loans from friends who have money to give them an advantage over those of us who do not.

Most of us observed, sadly, the most recent Liberal leadership campaign as an example. We certainly saw it with the member for Eglinton—Lawrence and others who had access to money and loans in ways that most of us would not bother trying to access. What it did was taint the whole process of how we, in the case of the leadership contest, elect leaders.

That was not the first case where this happened. We saw people, because of who they knew, accessing hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans for their leadership. The problem with that, which we have discussed in the House and in committee, is that if I receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in a loan from a friend and decide that I cannot pay it back, there is no recourse. The money is simply a loan that I did not pay back or an IOU that I did not honour.

If one were to explain that, most people would see that as simply a donation. A loan that was not paid back means money in one's pocket from someone else's pocket. That is the direct connection between how funds were raised for leadership contests and that at the end of the day the person responsible for paying back the loan really did not have to.

I recall extremely clearly that during the debate on Bill C-2, the government's accountability act, we presented an amendment because we saw that big money was influencing leadership contests. We saw that it was wrong so we introduced an amendment, which is very similar to what we have in front of us, but that is not a problem. It is something we are willing to share with the government. In fact, we have seen that happen on numerous occasions with the present government and previous governments.

However, it is passing strange that at the time the government did not see the importance of passing such an amendment to the accountability act. We had previously put forward the idea of banning union and corporate donations and thought it made infinite sense to close the loan loophole. At the time the Conservative and Liberal Parties voted against that amendment. We are happy that the government, through this bill, has seen the error of its ways and has provided us with a way to close the loan loophole.

When people have access to money, and in this case loans, there is not a lot of difference between handing that money over in a straightforward manner and doing it through a loophole. We saw this in the most recent leadership contest for the Liberal Party. It is also important to note that this has happened in the past with the Conservative Party.

It is important for us to take a look at what will happen not just in the future in terms of loans, but also to look at what has recently happened. When the Prime Minister ran for the leadership of the Conservative Party, many of us called for full disclosure of his donations. I think Canadians would like to have a gander at that. It is part of the idea of transparency.

When people donate to parties and leadership candidates, taxpayers pay money for that. It is a tax write-off. Most people will know that when a donation like that is written off, be it for the leader of the Conservative Party, or for the Liberal Party, or for the NDP, or any other party, taxpayer money is put down. Most reasonable people would say that should be transparent. Canadians should be able to see who donated money. This is extremely important when a party is nominating someone for prime minister.

I think back to not only the most recent leadership contest, but the previous leadership contest for the Liberal Party. We know there was really only one candidate and that candidate raised over $10 million. It turned out not to be a contest at all. That money did not only come out of the pocket of the leader at the time. It was also donations made on the taxpayers' dime. Why? Because of this rebate.

We have to understand that this tax credit is taxpayer money. This means that taxpayers are participating in the donation scheme. We believe leadership contests, like the last Conservative Party contest, should be transparent. We should see the full list of donors and exact numbers. Hopefully, we can agree to this in committee. The reasonable thing to do is to look at the bill not just from this point forward, but also to look at what has happened in the most recent past.

Democratic reform was one of the centrepieces in our ethics package that my predecessor, Mr. Broadbent, brought forward before the last election. We are delighted to see that the government has seen fit to take on some of those ideas. I think of the scrutiny of lobbying where there is still more to do. I think of access to information. The government has really failed on that. The government brought forward fixed election dates and we support that of course. It was something that we put forward.

Mr. Broadbent brought forward the whole issue of loans in leadership contests and loans in general. We know the member for Mississauga—Streetsville had some problems in the recent election in terms of how he declared the finances for his campaign. This bill would provide Canadians with the opportunity to have a clear and transparent view of how their dollars are being used to support candidates in the election process. That is fair, transparent and just.

Mr. Broadbent made the ethics package debatable. A number of people saw the idea as something that should have happened a long time ago. When I went door to door and talked to people about our ethics package, they were hopeful the whole thing would be adopted.

The fact that we are adopting the idea of covering the loans loophole and shutting it down will be welcomed. Canadians will want to see us go back in time, not only deal with the present and a go forward basis. They will want to see us look back to how money was spent in the most recent Liberal leadership contest, with the most recent election and with the most recent leadership contest with the Conservative Party.

This is simply to ensure, as I mentioned at the beginning of my comments, that not only are the rules fair, but that the perception by citizens of their elected members is clear and pristine, that there is no shadow of a doubt as to where people received money from and that there is 100% integrity in the system. We need to do that. Democratic reform is not only about making every vote count. We believe it is something we can achieve by bringing in proportionality to the system. We also believe there should be a full view of the donations that presently elected members received or someone who participated in a leadership contest received.

The history of election financing was mentioned by one of the Bloc members, who said that this was dealt with in the 1970s in Quebec. Premier Doer of Manitoba followed suit when that province closed all loopholes and ensured that there were no donations from both unions and corporations. That was one of the first things his government did. Manitoba, as well as other jurisdictions, also dealt with the loan issue. This is not cutting edge. We are catching up, and now is the time to do so.

Some things the government can do to further the cause of accountability, when looking at financing, is to ensure that not only will the loan loophole be closed, but ensure that the Chief Electoral Officer has some oversight as well. I think this would be welcomed, particularly in the area of leadership contests.

We only have to think of the recent leadership contests of both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party. There was no transparent view or window into the financing of those leadership contests. We know millions of dollars were raised. I have already mentioned that these dollars were raised not only by individuals, but with the support of taxpayers because of the way funds are credited when people donate.

What the government really needs to do is to ensure that not only is the loan loophole closed, but that the Chief Electoral Officer has oversight to leadership contests as well. This would be another addition that would be welcomed. I know the NDP made very clear who donated to whom. It was transparent and there were no question marks. It can be done and should be done.

For the whole notion of reaffirming confidence in federal politics, this should have been done before. The NDP tried to get an amendment through in Bill C-2.

If the government wants to become accountable with respect to loans in a genuine way, we have to ensure that it allows people the ability to run for office. I know in our party one of the things we have taken on fervently is to ensure that for people who do not have the money to run for a nomination and to run for office, we must be able to support them, people who traditionally have been on the outside of politics and unable to participate.

One thing the NDP has done, particular for women candidates, is provided them with financial support. This is not done outside the party structure. It ensures that women have financial means and it provides support when needed.

We do this because it is not enough to say that we want more women nominated and elected. We have to address where there are gaps. We know historically there has been a gap for women running in politics because of their lack of access to money. This is underlined when there are predominantly male candidates, and we saw this in the leadership contest, who have access to these loans. They have friends who can loan them hundreds of thousands of dollars.

For many women, traditionally, that has not been the case. They have been unable to access money to the degree that men have in terms of the kind of loan loophole we have seen.

We need to do more to address that. We need to see more support for people who have had challenges in terms of being nominated and elected. I think of women and people from ethnocultural communities. I think of our Inuit first nations aboriginal peoples as well. This is one facet, one idea, where the time has come to close a loophole. However, we should also address the barriers that exist for those who have challenges of being nominated. That would be the next step.

In terms of what can be done to further the cause of transparency and accountability in election financing, we need to address not only what loopholes exist, how money is raised and who can donate, but we also have to ensure that all Canadians from coast to coast to coast are aware of this. When someone donates money, part of the public purse donates. We do this because we want to make the process more fair.

The first steps were taken in the seventies in Quebec, followed by the Doer government in Manitoba. This is what we are attempting to do here. I give Mr. Chrétien the credit for starting this federally, and we supported that. However, Canadians need to know that when people donate, there is a tax credit. We need to have all the evidence and information out there, so people know what they are supporting.

For many people, the problem in confidence and perception of politics is they are not fully aware of how the system works, and I do not fault Canadians. We were not as transparent as we should have been. The loan loophole is an excellent example. It is a quiet secret, this parlour conversation that went on for years about not worrying about getting money because something could be done. I think those days are over. We have to be clean, clear and concise with Canadians about how elections are funded. When people make a donation, there is a tax credit.

I know in my campaign that was something we told people so they would donate, but other Canadians who do not donate need to know that is how the system functions. We need to do a public relations exercise to say that we have closed these loopholes and that we have come in with these changes because we want to ensure there is more confidence in the system.

We need to bring the bill forward to committee, make some of the changes the NDP are suggesting, provide Canadians with the information and ensure that absolute transparency is there. We need to look to the recent leadership contests and ensure that all leadership contestants are clear about who lent them money and that this needs to be repaid. Ordinary Canadians need to know, without a doubt, how much money was donated to which candidate and exactly from where that money came. If there were loans, not only will we close those loopholes, but we will ensure it is known who received money from whom and when in the most recent contest.

The NDP supports the bill. In fact, it was our amendment at committee. We are glad to see the government has seen the light and will shine it on the electoral system. I look for the support of the other parties to get behind it as well.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today on this bill and continue in somewhat the same vein as my colleague in the NDP.

In my occupation as a criminal lawyer, it is often said that the judges before whom we stand must not only be impartial but also appear impartial, free of any partisanship and able to listen to the arguments of both opposing lawyers. As we know, in the criminal law there is a crown prosecutor and a defence attorney. The court, presided over by the judge, must therefore be totally impartial.

Why do I digress in this way? Because Bill C-54 is very interesting. It recalls a bit of Quebec’s past, quite a few years ago. Without delving too deeply into history, we should remember the 1970s in Quebec. There were political parties and what was called the famous secret fund of one party.

We had a television series called Duplessis. Here we could see the hon. Donald Martineau getting a cut on all the contracts awarded by the Duplessis government. This helped to replenish the campaign funds. So anyone who wanted a government contract, therefore, had to donate to the campaign fund. The approach that the Union nationale developed in Quebec was to take its cut directly on the contracts that were awarded. We are talking here about 1945, 1950 or 1955. Unfortunately, though, this continued into the 1960s in Quebec. It was not until the Parti Québécois came to power in 1976 that a bill was introduced in 1977 under the hon. René Lévesque to clean up party finances and put an end to secret funds.

Unfortunately, secret funds still exist, or at least still existed until Bill C-2 was passed. Our friends in the Liberal Party took ample advantage of them, as did the Conservative Party. I will return to this in a minute.

What Mr. Jean Chrétien left us when he departed was a new law on party finances. It is probably the only thing that history will retain of Mr. Jean Chrétien’s presence here.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Well, in any event that is what we will remember, no matter what the member for Hull—Aylmer may think. It is about the only thing that we recall about Jean Chrétien. He cleaned up the financing of political parties. Despite what the hon. member for Hull—Aylmer says, he must also understand that was the end of secret funds.

They found a new way of operating. The Conservatives tabled a bill that, on the face of it, was rather brilliant, Bill C-2. They proceeded quickly. It was urgent because it was an election promise by the Prime Minister and it was absolutely essential that it be passed quickly. I do not know whether you remember it, Mr. Speaker. Since I am a lawyer, just for fun I took a look at it. It must have been almost as thick as the Income Tax Act, about four inches. It amended nearly 200 federal laws. The concept was enormous. The basic idea was excellent, to clean up financing.

They called it the Accountability Act. It was intended to restrict financing and ensure that no one could ever again get around a law that made it possible to donate large sums of money about which nothing was ever heard. But then something happened. We became aware of something, and I am not the one who says so. Our good Liberal friends found a way to do it. I imagine that the lawyer who found this way of doing it must have been paid a great deal more than we are. They found a good solution: loans. They call it a loan and they do not mention it again.

For those who are watching us on television, here is how it works. Suppose, for example that I am Bob Rae or the honourable member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, who is currently the leader of the opposition. Bob Rae received $705,000 and the honourable member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville received $655,000. How did they proceed during the leadership campaign? By means of loans.

What took place? Someone loaned the money. My name is Joe Blow and I really like a leadership candidate or a candidate for election but I can no longer make a donation of $20,000, or $50,000 or $100,000, as was previously the case with the Liberals and some Conservatives. So, what can I do? I give him a loan. Nobody ensures that the loan will be repaid. So, if the loan is not repaid, what does the loan become? It becomes a donation, but we do not say that. That is how the Liberals have been financed, and how, for the most part, they financed the party’s latest leadership campaign. Obviously, we obtained this information from a source, namely the Ottawa Citizen. There should be no doubt about that. It is not the newspaper that I read every day but I do read it occasionally. We can read right there that considerable sums of money were loaned to them. That is where this Bill C-54 comes into play.

If my name is Bob Rae and I receive a $580,000 loan at a 5% interest rate from someone named John Rae, who, by some unfortunate chance, is a former vice-president of Power Corporation, would I not have a debt toward this individual? The hon. member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville received a sum of money—I asked a question and we did not get the answer—from someone named Stephen Bronfman. He received $50,000 from that man for his leadership campaign. If he has not paid it back, would the hon. member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville not have a debt toward this individual should he become prime minister one day?

This is the message that I am trying to convey to the public and this is the purpose of Bill C-54. I agree with my colleagues from the NDP, and this is something we said during the study of Bill C-2. We said that there was a loophole, because it was possible to circumvent the rules by making a loan. Let us take a look beyond this legislation.

What does the Quebec Election Act say concerning loans? They are not contributions. I will read section 88, and I will try to read it slowly, so my friends opposite and especially my good Liberal friends can understand it. It says: “... are not contributions: volunteer work and the goods or services produced by such work”. Thus, the work of volunteers who are in our offices is not a contribution.

The act also refers to “anonymous donations collected at a meeting or rally held for political purposes”. There is nothing complicated there. After delivering an extraordinary speech, I pass the hat around and I collect $150 or $200. There is no problem, because this is not a contribution under the act—I am talking about the Quebec act.

The act also refers to “a loan granted for political purposes by an elector or a bank, trust company or financial services cooperative at the current market rate of interest at the time it is granted, or a guarantee granted by an elector as surety;”

I now turn to section 105, which reads:

“Every loan shall be evidenced in a writing setting out the name and address of the lender, the date, amount...”

Section 106 is interesting. Again, I am talking about the Quebec Election Act:

“The official representative shall, at least once a year, pay the interest due on the loans he has contracted.”

Therefore, we will support Bill C-54, so that it is reviewed at second reading. This bill is interesting, because we would have liked to know, from our Liberal friends, and of course our Conservative friends, who are getting loans, how the Prime Minister's leadership campaign was funded. According to some data, we are talking here about an amount of $1.1 million. Who provided financial support to the Prime Minister? I imagine that all those who are listening to us would also like to know the answer to that question.

With all due respect to this House, I believe that before going any further we have to stop playing hide-and-seek. Everyone in this House and outside, including those who are listening today, knows that it takes money to run an election campaign. Some ceilings have been set. Now, an election campaign is said to cost $89,000 per riding, depending on its size. How are we going to fund election campaigns?

We must stop playing hide-and-seek by saying “I will get a loan from someone and forget to repay it. Since that someone really likes me, he too will forget about it”. Unfortunately, this is how election campaigns have been funded all too often in the past.

We will have to take a good look at this bill to see how it deals with this. I would like to draw members' attention to a government press release about this bill that reads in part as follows:

Only financial institutions (at commercial rates of interest) and other political entities could make loans beyond that amount. Rules for the treatment of unpaid loans would be tightened to ensure candidates cannot walk away from unpaid loans.

Loans that are not repaid after 18 months would be considered political contributions. In my opinion, this is an important point. We have to clean up politics.

Why do we politicians have such a poor image? Because too often, we conceal things from voters. We do not tell them the whole truth. We do not reveal everything about where the money for an election campaign came from. People still have this idea of the party slush fund, where someone says, “I'll give you $1,000. I expect you to do things for me, and once you're in power, I'll have an in with you and be able to get favours”. This has to stop.

I hope that this bill will help us clean up politics. The Conservatives' idea behind Bill C-54 is good. However, I hope that when the bill goes to committee, protection for whistleblowers can be added and reform of the Access to Information Act discussed.

I will start with the reform of the Access to Information Act. It is thanks to this legislation that we have all the information we have today and that journalists can obtain that information. We often hear that thanks to the Access to Information Act, information has been uncovered or obtained, or that information obtained under the Access to Information Act has revealed something. The Access to Information Act must be reformed so that it can go even further in controlling ethics.

Our good friends, the Conservatives, who boast about how they have cleaned up government, need to do their part as well. They have not done much to protect whistleblowers. When the bill goes to committee, the committee will have to find a way to strengthen that protection. People who work in departments and witness goings-on in political offices that are illicit or illegal or violate current legislation should be protected.

Whistleblowers are entitled to $1,500 for legal costs. Let us add a zero to that. One thousand five hundred dollars is not much, since there is no lawyer who will work for less than $100 an hour. This means that the person would be entitled to 15 hours. We know the whistleblowing procedures, what those who work in political offices or within a department experience, which we must respect when they decide to publicly blow the whistle or send information. They must be protected. I think this $1,500 limit for recourse must absolutely be increased. I strongly suggest that it be increased to $15,000. There would be no problem. We will see how this will be debated in committee, but I think this limit must absolutely be increased.

I hope my Conservative friends who are listening will understand that the public sector integrity commissioner must be given the power to enforce the Public Service Disclosure Protection Act. To ensure that the translation is correct, I will repeat. The public sector integrity commissioner must be given the power to enforce the Public Service Disclosure Protection Act. It is this public sector integrity commissioner who must be in charge of getting things in order and enforcing this act.

I hope my Conservative friends will understand this as well, and that the members of the committee will consider the suggestion to make it impossible for the government to exclude crown corporations and any other entity from the application of the Public Service Disclosure Protection Act. Crown corporations—VIA Rail, Air Canada or any other company under federal jurisdiction—must have access.

I will close by saying that we will be in favour of this bill, the purpose of which is to counter the misappropriation or bypassing of campaign financing rules, because it is very important. We also agree with this bill because it will fix the problem of loans, which helped bypass the political contribution restrictions.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

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

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

I declare the motion carried. Accordingly, the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

(Motion agreed to and bill referred to a committee)