Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to support the subamendment suggesting that we go eight more rounds. Also, I certainly want to contradict some of the comments.
Monsieur Mayrand, in no way am I attempting to kick sand in your face. What I'm attempting to do is to understand the process to date.
I would like to let the committee know, with all due respect to Mr. Martin's original motion, about some of the comments that Mr. Martin made when he presented the motion. He stated that he had put this motion forward and that we've been stalling it. That's absolutely false. Records will show that many times our party tried to expand this. We were completely willing to open our books, and not just for 2006; we offered to open them up for 2004 as well, because we have absolutely nothing to hide. The caveat was that we felt it should be all parties, because parliamentary committees—this was the logic—don't study one party. That's what the courts do. Parliamentary committees study the Elections Act and the advertising expenses of all parties.
So Mr. Martin, quite respectfully, is absolutely incorrect with that smokescreen. We've tried to expand opening our books completely. They have blocked that. In fact, when we suggested that we open this up, the NDP was one of the first ones to say “No, we don't want anyone to look at our books.” And do you know what else happened? The Liberals just about freaked out, especially when we suggested 2004. That's a funny one. And of course the Bloc voted no.
Now, here's my point: This is not a smokescreen; this could be a smoking gun. Right here, I have in front of me a series of e-mails that I absolutely think the committee would want to see, showing how Monsieur Mayrand's five factors have been applied to this case. That is a significant question for me. I want to know if any red flags were raised in this case. Mr. Martin may want to shut this down quickly because he knows this is an NDP case. But I want to find out if and how these factors that we've just heard about in the last two days, which are not in the act, which are not in handbooks, were applied, and if they were applied, on what grounds they were eliminated.
I don't want to go into it now, but my point is that I need time for the questioning. Eight rounds would probably suffice. The official agent says here, “This is not our invoice.” And do you know what it says? “This is really, really bad. Please check, because it's really, really bad for our ceiling.” And the bookkeeper for the NDP says “Shove it through anyway. Put it through anyway.”
Monsieur Mayrand said a number of times that we can transfer funds back and forth. That's not a problem. But you can't transfer expenses.
Well, Pat, here's your own party dictating that exactly.
So all I'm asking for is a round of questions to ask our expert witness how he applied these invented factors that we've all just heard about this week, whether he did in fact apply these factors, or if he didn't, then why not. These are legitimate questions. They're not partisan. They're not attacking the Chief Electoral Officer. We have great respect for Elections Canada.