You should be in Hollywood.
An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (accountability with respect to loans)
This bill is from the 39th Parliament, 2nd session, which ended in September 2008.
This bill is from the 39th Parliament, 2nd session, which ended in September 2008.
Peter Van Loan Conservative
Second reading (Senate), as of June 26, 2008
(This bill did not become law.)
This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament has also written a full legislative summary of the bill.
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.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Bill numbers are reused for different bills each new session. Perhaps you were looking for one of these other C-29s:
Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders
An hon. member
You should be in Hollywood.
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
Well, I am prepared to go anywhere and say this, and I am prepared to actually have a chat with Elections Canada and the lawyers at Elections Canada. Let us get this nailed down because everyone knows here that if there is a written agreement to repay a loan, it runs out beyond the 18 months, and that is exactly what has happened.
Of the $12 million borrowed for the Liberal leadership campaigns, approximately $10 million has been repaid and there is still $1.5 million or $2 million to go and that will run over for the next year or so. But, relax.
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleague from Scarborough—Rouge River that the whole principle behind the bill is to take big money out of politics so there is no unfair competitive advantage to any person running for politics because of who he or she knows.
I want to challenge my colleague on this idea and ask him to elaborate on it. Where does he get the idea that it would be better to have the loan loophole come from individuals rather than from financial institutions? The whole premise of that clause in the bill is to avoid the “good ol' boy” connections as well as the connections with business and unions, where they are not allowed to donate a single penny to an election campaign.
Under the current loophole, my union, the carpenters union, could loan me $100,000 and not push me to pay it back. That would be fundamentally wrong. It would give me an inside competitive advantage over other people running in the same election campaign who may not have connections with a union, or a business, or a rich uncle or an individual lending it to themselves. For example, it is fundamentally wrong for a guy who owns a car dealership to have his dealership loan him $250,000. However, it is perfectly legitimate for that same individual to get a $30,000 or $50,000 start-up loan from a bank or a credit union. In fact, it is necessary if we are to give equal access to the electoral system to all people who want to seek office.
My colleague has a convoluted, pretzel logic. He is a complicated man and an intellectual, but this reasoning is so convoluted that it does not hold water.
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member says that the objective is to squeeze big money out of political campaigns, but this legislation would not squeeze big money out. It allows banks to lend the big money. If he thinks the “good ol' boy” network does not include bank managers, then he is deluding himself there as well.
In terms of logic, if it is okay for a bank to lend $20,000 to get a campaign up and running then, why is it not okay for a citizen to lend $20,000 to get a campaign up and running, on the assumption that the money has to be paid back and that it is disclosed as part of the campaign? This is how we do it now.
I do not understand why the hon. member is so happy foisting upon the banks the sole responsibility for providing the interim cash flow, the line of credit, or the loan, for a political campaign. All citizens should have that right, provided there is disclosure and the amount is repaid.
Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders
Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre Saskatchewan
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform
Mr. Speaker, much to the chagrin, I am sure, of my hon. colleague from Scarborough—Rouge River, I will return to the fact, and I emphasize the word “fact”, that any unpaid debts at the end of 18 months of a leadership campaign must be repaid. That is quite clear in the elections act.
My hon. colleague has said that he is sick and tired of hearing this and that these words are being twisted because they are not debts but claims. I point out for the hon. member that the act currently includes loans as claims. Therefore, any unpaid loan is an unpaid claim.
I will give the member this opportunity to retract his earlier comments. Eighteen months is the deadline for the repayment of loans in a leadership campaign. Would he care to retract his statement now?
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
Not a chance, Mr. Speaker. A loan is mentioned in the act if it is a loan that is reduced, in writing, with a term commitment to repay the loan. It is explicitly excepted from the claim provisions that have the 18 month deadline.
Alan Tonks Liberal York South—Weston, ON
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been discussions among the parties and I think you would find unanimous consent for the following motion: That notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of this House, that at the end of today's debate on Bill C-474, standing in the name of the hon. member for Don Valley West, all report stage motions be deemed adopted, the bill be deemed concurred in at report stage with further amendments and be deemed read a third time and passed.
Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders
The Speaker Peter Milliken
Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?
Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders
Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
Mr. Speaker, I participate in this debate with some considerable interest.
I do not want to bore members, but I have been elected nine times, federally and provincially, under either federal or provincial statutes. I have run for two leadership contests in two different political parties in two different political jurisdictions, once successfully and once unsuccessfully, but both thoroughly enjoyable experiences.
I have had quite a considerable amount of experience, since first being elected to this place in 1978 and in the province of Ontario in 1982, in looking at the question of election financing. Therefore, I would like to put the debate on this set of amendments in a context.
For a long time, in most provinces, there were very few limits on contributions and very little transparency in the system with respect to who could spend what, whatever limits there might be, and what had to be declared of did not have to be declared. Companies, unions and individuals were allowed to give. Looking around the world, this is what pertains in a great many jurisdictions.
I think there is a very widespread feeling, and certainly one that I share, that this is not a very desirable circumstance in which our democracy should operate and that our democracy should operate under the rule of law, under a rule of transparency and of accountability and under the principle that one does not have to be rich to run for political office and that political office should be accessible to everyone, regardless of their circumstances.
Speaking very personally, the first time I ran for Parliament in 1978, I ran for a nomination in which I would have spent somewhere in the order of $500. The money was raised from a group of friends of mine from law school, who all contributed money so I could run for the nomination. The spending limit at the time I was elected would have been something in the order of $25,000 to $30,000. Contributions came in large and small amounts. It was, by any stretch of the imagination, in discussing with my American or British friends how that system compared with others, a very democratic and open system.
In the early 1970s in the province of Ontario, the premier of the day, Mr. Davis, asked Dalton Camp to chair an inquiry into election financing in the province because there had been a great deal of concern about the principles, which I have outlined: the principle of transparency, the principle of accountability and the principle that the system should be seen to be fair and should be seen to be operating in a fair manner.
Mr. Camp was a Progressive Conservative of some note and he wrote what I think many people would regard as a very fine report. He was assisted in that regard by Mr. Doug Fisher, who is well known to many of us as a public figure and commentator, a former member in this place, and by the former leader of the Liberal Party in Ontario, Mr. Farquhar Oliver as well.
They produced a report that set out some of these principles, but it also did something else, which is worth noting. The way Mr. Davis approached it was to go to the other political parties and say, “We have a problem”, not “I have a problem”, or not “I want to manipulate the system to my temporary advantage”, but “We have a general problem and as much as possible, we should try to regulate the question of election financing by consensus”.
As much as possible, the participants in politics, the political parties, should try to create institutions and methods of operation and establish a broad basis of consensus and stability that would allow us to proceed in a way that no one would be able to suggest that somehow, for reasons of temporary advantage of one kind or another, we would make a change, a change that would be seen to be benefiting one political party as opposed to another.
We all know that nothing could be more subversive of our democratic process than to have a party in government suddenly decide that it would change the rules, so it would completely undermine the position, the credibility and the ability of other parties to operate in that system.
I make no secret of my friendship with Mr. Davis and of my great admiration for him. He and I have since had occasion to work together on many different tasks and projects, including most recently the report that we wrote on improving higher education in the province of Ontario.
I know Mr. Davis continues to regard me as philosophically misguided, as he would put it, but nevertheless our friendship remains very strong. I have great admiration for his sense of occasion and his sense of critical times in the life of the province. He was not simply going to exercise partisan advantage in order to achieve something. He was going to be doing something on behalf of all the people of the province. No issue reflected this more significantly than the question of election financing.
I could tell a similar story about the changes in the federal law and the federal rules, the decision by Prime Minister Chrétien to make a very significant change, which was carried through. It is notable, for example, that the proclamation of the date of that change was delayed so it would not negatively impact a leadership contest then under way in the Conservative Party of Canada. That was, again, an example of someone saying, “Let's recognize that we're not going to take advantage of this to simply punish a party which is now undergoing a political battle”.
I entered the contest for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada under a certain set of rules. Those rules were not made by me. They were not written by me. They had nothing to do with me in a sense. They were passed by the Parliament of Canada. I assumed those rules would apply to the leadership contest, which I was entering, for the full time of that contest.
I do not say this directly when I look at my friends, including my colleagues who are here from the Conservative Party and my friends from the New Democratic Party and the Bloc.
I became a candidate under legislation approved by the Parliament of Canada and very clear rules. The rules said that there was a $5,400 limit on individual contributions and that the contributions could be made up to 18 months after the convention. The law was very clear, unequivocal and transparent, and it was passed by the Parliament of the day.
To put it mildly, I and a number of other leadership candidates were shocked. It woke me up to how the new government plays the game of politics. In the middle of the period in which we were raising money for the leadership and engaged in the leadership race itself, the Conservatives changed the law in such a way that for the entire 18 month period after the convention we were no longer allowed to collect cheques of $5,400. We were only allowed to collect cheques of $1,100.
I want to tell everyone in this chamber and anyone else who wants to listen that there is no other interpretation that one can give to that unilateral change, joined in by the Bloc and approved and egged on by the New Democratic Party. There is no other way to interpret the timing of that law and the fact that it was not grandfathered for those who were participating in the leadership contest. There is no other way to interpret that law but as a deliberate attempt to undermine the credibility and integrity of the Liberal Party of Canada and to cause personal difficulty and embarrassment for each person who ran for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada. It was a deliberate and flagrant attack on our political process in which we had all entered in terms of that race.
The member for Cambridge is laughing. Let him laugh because for him to change the rules in the middle of the game is just a laughing matter.
Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders
Gary Goodyear
You were taking money from kids, Bob.
Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
I will say to the hon. member that if we are on the other side, I hope we will not do what they have done to us. To change the contribution limits, when people ran campaigns on the assumption that financing would be possible, and then to change those rules and those limits in the middle of the game when we had all taken the personal risk that we take when we go into a leadership race, is simply disgraceful. I must confess that it has affected, for all time, my view of what the party opposite is really all about. I think I now understand what it is all about, what it is trying to do to us and what it is trying to do to the democratic process.
The Conservatives can shout down, heckle and comment any way they want but I will not be cowed nor bullied by them into not stating what I know to be the truth. The government opposite interfered in this process because it had a political agenda. That is what it is all about. There is no way that anyone in his or her right mind would support the government in any effort it makes with respect to the project that is now under way with Bill C-29 and the statements it is making about the current law with respect to Elections Canada.
The member opposite is not sitting in his chair and I am not sure he is allowed to heckle from anywhere in the House.