It is a difficult question whether or not parties should be viewed as private organizations. On the other hand, perhaps it's something like public utilities, because they play such an important role in our democracy and receive a significant amount of public funding from the taxpayers.
I testified before the Senate committee on the reform act. When the act was still prescriptive, when it said you had to do these things, that it wasn't left up to the caucuses to decide, I thought it was a terrible idea, because it imposed on our parties a particular set of values and ways they should organize.
For the most part, I think that's best left to the political parties to determine for themselves, although I do think the money that's given can sometimes be used as a carrot. You could incentivize things like increasing the number of women nominated. It is an area where I think we want to move very cautiously. We don't want parties to be creatures or captive of Parliament.