But to reiterate, you not only have to be a business person, you also have to look at the reality of what finances are about. The $130,000 is all the money that is really under dispute. No matter where you allocate the money--whether it be to the national party or to the 67 candidates--the only big problem legally is the position of the chief financial agent of the Conservative Party of Canada who is in violation, if he loses in court, of the Elections Act through having had the Conservative Party overspend.
I think, Mr. Chair, we also said today that the government changed in 2006 by fewer than 30,000 votes. So the implication probably in terms of all of this is that somebody spent more money than they should have spent in order to get enough seats in the House of Commons to form a minority government.
Mr. Harper, you know, Mr. Chair, has a long history of fighting with Elections Canada. It goes back to his time before he became Prime Minister, when he dealt with the National Citizens Coalition. He was in court with Elections Canada. So it's simply a continuation, Mr. Chair, of the efforts of the Conservative Party to challenge Elections Canada and to make sure they get their own way and operate a country the way they want to operate it, which is not the way our Liberals or the NDP or the Bloc want to see Canada operated. It's a simple situation. It's a good job we're not looking at some external group that is coming in to see what we're doing with our Elections Act.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.