Thank you.
Thank you for being here, Mr. Mayrand. I think I can quite confidently speak for my caucus and my party in expressing our appreciation for the quality of the work and the impartiality and objectivity of Elections Canada and the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada both here in Canada, in our federal general elections, and abroad and elsewhere in other countries.
Conservative MPs have insinuated that when you refused to answer certain questions put to you at these meetings that necessarily meant that you were afraid of undermining the case that is currently before the court, in the application brought against Elections Canada by the Conservative Party. In my opinion, and the opinion of anyone with in iota of comprehension of the law, that is simply ridiculous.
Other standing committees of the House have heard witnesses on other subjects and where there were proceedings underway in a criminal or civil court, those witnesses have refused to answer certain questions.
I think it is reprehensible on the part of Conservative members of Parliament to insinuate that because the Chief Electoral Officer is refusing to answer certain questions that are sub judice before the Federal Court, he is somehow doing so because he is afraid of weakening his case before the Federal Court. We have had cases where witnesses before other standing committees on the LRT, the light rail transit project.... The Conservatives might remember that, as the environment minister, Mr. Baird, cancelled the whole program. Well, there were witnesses on both sides of that civil litigation who refused to answer questions before the standing committee.
My sense, in trying to be an objective person, is that the Chief Electoral Officer may not want to answer certain questions that the Conservative members of Parliament are asking because he doesn't want to harm the party even further than it has been harmed with its electoral fraud and financing scheme.
I have a question. There was a Conservative candidate in Cardigan, P.E.I., who spent over 90% of his campaign expenses on advertising, according to his campaign election returns. Well, that same riding, Cardigan, is one of the ridings that appeared in the tag line of a TV ad, along with other Conservative candidates. But it's not a riding that Elections Canada has identified as having participated in this scheme which it has found to be in violation of the law, one, and which it is refusing to provide rebates for. And secondly, when the returns were filed, the official agent of the Conservative Party candidate in Cardigan, P.E.I., did not report that ad as an electoral expense, and the national party returns didn't report it as an expense for that particular election campaign by the Conservative candidate in Cardigan.
Is there any way you can explain that? You may not have the information now. If you don't have the information, would you provide it in writing to members of this committee, through the clerk and the chair, as to why no expense was assigned by that campaign for that ad, which it and the Conservative Party media publicly attributed to that riding through a tag line for the official agent of the Conservative Party candidate in Cardigan, P.E.I.? In electoral financing, is it possible for an ad, whether print or electronic, to be attributed to a particular candidate, but that candidate does not have to report its value to Elections Canada? Is that a possibility?
I've gone over my time.
