Thank you, Mr. Chair.
These are certainly interesting topics that we are discussing, but they are not the real problem. The real the problem that the committee wants to study is not the fact that sums of money were transferred from the party's national campaign to another campaign. What we want to study is the fact that expenses were transferred to ridings to allow a national party to exceed the spending limits authorized at the national level.
My colleagues opposite can go on and on about the fact that all parties transfer, have transferred or will be transferring money from a riding to be national party, from the national party back to the riding, a candidate or his or her campaign, but the real problem in this issue is the fact that this money was transferred by only one party, that Elections Canada criticized only one party and conducted on investigation only into that party. In fact, the candidates from that party are the only ones whose reports were not approved following the last election. And that is simply because these transfer methods seemed to have been used to allow this national party to exceed the spending limits authorized by the Canada Elections Act.
My colleagues opposite can put a great deal of energy into telling us that anyone could be accused and that everyone transfers money, but that is not where the problem lies.
In addition, I would like to come back to a question that I raised at the last meeting of this committee, concerning the relevance on the part of my colleagues opposite, of referring to other parties, such as the Bloc Québécois, when it comes to defining the term public office holder. At that meeting, the clerks did not have the text of the Conflict of Interest Act, so I would like to inform the committee that I have done some research.
The Conflict of Interest Act, enacted by section 2 of chapter 9 of the Statues of Canada, 2006, reads as follows:
“public office holder” means (a) a minister of the Crown, a minister of State or a parliamentary secretary; (b) a member of ministerial staff; (c) a ministerial adviser; (d) a Governor in Council appointee, other than the following persons, [...] (e) a full-time ministerial appointee designated by the appropriate minister of the Crown as a public office holder.
In this definition, nothing would lead us to believe that a member of Parliament of the Bloc Québécois or of the New Democratic Party is targeted by what we are discussing. I would thus emphatically implore my colleagues opposite not to waste this committee's time by presenting all sorts of scenarios involving the Bloc Quebecois or the New Democratic Party.
As I said, the crux of this problem is not the transfer of funds, it is the fact that a national party could exceed, or did exceed, the spending limits authorized by law.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.