Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) Committee on May 31st, 2006

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

It takes a lot of $5 contributions.

[Pierre F. Côté]

...television ads. They cannot afford it. So one comes to the conclusion that a means to solve the problem has to be found.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

All right. I hope that your judicious comments have been heard.

As far as the appointment of returning officers — ROs — in our ridings is concerned, the legislation stipulates that your counterpart in Ottawa could appoint them. In Quebec, they are appointed and identified after a competition.

Would you have any suggestions to make to the committee for the Chief Electoral Officer?

[Pierre F. Côté]

Yes. In Quebec, we experimented with different formulas, for example holding a competition and submitting 3 names to the party in power. The party in power chose the person that suited them. Before that, we had the system that you currently have in Ottawa.

I believe that we have finally found the right formula, which is the following. We hold a public competition in each of the ridings. Any person or voter having the ability and the required knowledge may take part in the competition. However, this competition is followed by an interview of the candidates. This interview allows us to see whether or not the future candidate for the position of returning officer has good judgment. It has already happened that we encountered people in this interview having extraordinary knowledge but no judgment.

The first thing that I always say to my returning officers is the following: you must always approach situations with a healthy dose of doubt. Returning officers are appointed for a 10-year period in Quebec.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I will be quite brief, if I may.

Unless I am mistaken, in by-elections in Quebec, a returning officer is allowed to represent two ridings, if there is a problem with the competition and appointments. Is that correct?

What happens if an election is called suddenly, which could be the case when we have a minority government?

[Pierre F. Côté]

In answer to your first question, I don't think that is the case. I would be very surprised if returning officers could do that. When you're short one returning officer, an interim returning officer is appointed.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Fine. Thank you very much, Mr. Côté.

My next question is for Mr. Villemure. We are being forced to pass Bill C-2 very quickly. You stated that if Bill C-2 is passed as is, problems could arise. Unfortunately, in spite of everything you have stated, it probably will be passed as is. Could you nonetheless tell me what the problems will be in implementing Bill C-2?

[René Villemure]

Bill C-2 has no underlying rationale. The rationale, which is made up of principles or values, guides decision-makers when the law is silent. If there is no rationale, and when the law is silent, anything goes, or nothing goes; there is a vacuum.

Despite the fact that this is a very ambitious, very lengthy bill with considerable content, we cannot foresee the unforeseeable. That is why there is always a basic framework that guides you in managing the unforeseeable. In my opinion, that framework is missing. The bill may be successful to a certain extent but its foundations will always be fragile.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

I have one last question, Mr. Chairman.

You mentioned that the bill does not include the commissioner's role and that it should. We will therefore focus on that.

You also mentioned the words “éthique” and “ethics”. Perhaps a linguist should look at this because otherwise the French and English versions will not be equivalent. That's what you're telling us.

[René Villemure]

You may need more than a linguist. I know that parliamentary staff worked on the translation. However, these words contain a philosophical meaning. I think the word should be translated by a linguist, a philosopher or a philologist, someone who is well-trained in etymology and philology.

I conducted an etymological analysis, that is, an analysis of the actual history of these words, that took into account Greek, etc. I don't think that this was done in this case but it is something I often observe. We have two cultures with their own heritage, so these things happen. However, it is much more important in a bill that in a mission statement in a convenience store.

In my opinion, given how important the situation is, we should be paying special attention to this. If I had one suggestion to make, it would be to set out those values that underpin the bill. Currently we're assuming those values, just like we're assuming what the commissioner's role is, but we need to go beyond assumptions and state them.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Martin.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the witnesses for being here today.

Mr. Côté, let me start with you, sir. I was very interested in your observations about political donations and limits on donations. I used to envy Quebec, because I felt it had the best legislation associated with political contributions. It seemed to me Quebec recognized that businesses and unions would have a disproportionate amount of influence over the political process because they were able to donate far more money; in other words, that it was anti-democratic or less democratic to have businesses able to buy elections, as it were. We certainly have had that problem in the rest of Canada.

So I was rather surprised to hear you say, sir, that you don't recommend banning contributions altogether. If I understood you correctly, sir, your reasoning was that businesses will find a way around the laws, and therefore we shouldn't have those rules. That doesn't seem like a satisfactory reason to disregard the ethical issue we were dealing with. Wouldn't you say we should have better enforcement of the rules, rather than give up on the rules? Is the principle not worth the extra effort to fight for it, if you will?

Perhaps I could ask both parties to answer.

[Pierre F. Côté]

If I understood correctly, current legislation forbids corporate contributions. I'm saying that they shouldn't be absolutely forbidden. They should be allowed within very specific rules and a very specific framework. In Quebec, all businesses and any organization other than a private individual are being placed in situations that allow for unethical behaviour. They find indirect ways to make political contributions. For example, an executive, a board...

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

That's against the law, sir. That would be breaking the law.

[Pierre F. Côté]

Yes, that's against the law. I absolutely agree. That's why we need to change the law and allow for it. It's very difficult to prove that it's against the law. Take, for example, a firm of 30 engineers, ten of them who make the maximum contribution allowed. How can you be sure that the money they donated to a political party won't be reimbursed? It's a well-known fact that this happens. The problem is that it would take an army of investigators and very sophisticated accounting to catch them in the act and to prove that they had circumvented the law.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I understand your point, sir.

Would you care to comment?

[René Villemure]

Yes. I don't think people should not contribute because it's against the law, but because it's unfair. Those are the types of principles I'm talking about.

Rules will prevent people from doing stuff, but where there's a will there's a way, as Mr. Côté just said. But I think we should educate people on the notion of being fair, being just.

These are the things we don't talk about a lot these days. We don't talk about values. We talk about interdictions, rules, and whatever, but these will never be enough.

Rules will never completely cover the unforeseen.

We cannot foresee the unforeseen or the unforseeable.

So you can write rules until you're blue in the face, but eventually, if somebody wants to break the law, they will. But I think educating people as to the notion of ethics, to do good, is a good thing. We just don't talk about it a lot. We hear people saying “It's against the law,” or “I can break that rule,” but we're not talking about being fair.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

This is actually one of the reasons my party, the NDP, felt that the most critical part of this Federal Accountability Act would have been the access to information provisions, because even if you can't regulate people into higher ethical standards by observing them or by shining a light on their activities, you might force them to operate on a more ethical level. Unfortunately, the government withdrew most of the access to information provisions from this bill. We will try to reinsert some through the amendment process.

But going back to the elections financing, the province of Manitoba, where I'm from, followed Quebec's model, and we haven't had that problem so much, because the penalties are very severe for cheating. It would be against the law to do anything to deliberately circumvent the donation limits of the act.

I'm being sued currently, frankly, by a Liberal member of Parliament because we believe he's circumventing the act by having the CEO of a company, his wife, and all four of their children donating the maximum amount of money under the Elections Act. We believe that's taking deliberate steps to circumvent the rules and therefore breaking the law.

So rather than give up on trying to enforce the law, I would get tougher on those rules, because I think the principle is worth fighting for. It's fundamentally wrong that a corporate citizen, which is a super-citizen in terms of wealth and power, has more influence over the political process than individuals. I think that principle is offensive.

And unions too. I'm from the union background. Unions are excluded as well, because it just strikes me that only a citizen should be able to participate in the democratic process.

Corporations can't vote, so why should they be able to contribute money?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Your time is up.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Is it?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

It is.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I think Mr. Côté had one point he wanted to make.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Yes, okay, we'll bend the rules.