Evidence of meeting #49 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was elections.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
It's hypothetical at this point. When the review of the return is completed, we will see whether an amended return should be requested or some other action is needed.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
You know that the MPs have not testified before the committee. When we met with the candidates who lost the election and their official agents, they told us that they had relied to a large extent on the Conservative Party to give them information about the legality of the procedure. Their lawyer or the people from the party told them that what they were doing was legal.
Did official agents consult you about the legality of this procedure during the last election campaign?
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
When I appeared in July, I was asked whether the party had consulted us. My answer was no, that we had no indication of that in our files.
Regarding the agents, I am not in a position to answer that question at this time.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
In the document you sent us on August 6—you don't have to look at it, I know you know it by heart—you answered a question Russ Hiebert asked you, essentially asking whether the other parties had done the same thing as the Conservative Party. I'm summarizing his question there. You say in that document that a review of the database of financial returns, etc., and the review identified that for the 38th and 39th general elections candidates had reported, first, some expense that was paid to the party, and second, a transfer of funds from a party riding association.
In other words, you didn't find anything in particular. For the other parties, you found nothing illegal in the 39th general election, on January 23, 2006, or in the 39th general election, in June 2004.
Is that correct, that you found no system similar to the Conservative Party's in any other party?
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
According to the analyses that I provided to the committee, we discovered no situations that resembled the media buy situation. However, as I pointed out in the letter, there are four cases still under review.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
But there isn't a system like the Conservative Party's.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
Again, I am not going to comment on cases that are still being reviewed at Elections Canada.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
If I understand correctly, based on the Conservative Party's system, or gimmick, the party absolutely wanted to break through its spending ceiling, which was $18.9 million. Because it had more money, it found the way to ship its expenses to the ridings, and not necessarily, as we have seen this week, with the authorization of the candidates or official agents, to whom they did not always provide an explanation.
I want to be sure I have understood correctly. The last time you came to the committee, you told us that for an expense to be considered to be authorized by an official agent, five criteria have to be met, the first being that the agent must have known about it. As we have seen, some candidates did not even know about it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
If Mr. Mayrand has an answer.... If not, we have to go on to somebody else. You're well over seven minutes.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
Because the question was not completed, it would be difficult for me to answer it.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Mayrand and Mr. Bernier, for being here again. It gives me an opportunity to restate the confidence that the NDP, my party, has in your office and in the job you're doing. I recognize that coming to this committee would be like going to the dentist for a root canal for any sane person who has to sit in your seat, so I thank you for being here.
I don't have many questions, really. Let me summarize it.
If I understand correctly, the official agent and the candidate both sign off on the financial statements for the election returns, and when they do so they attest that the expenses they are claiming, first of all, actually occurred in the local election campaign, and secondly, were at fair market value and not at some inflated price so that they can get more rebate.
Is that statement accurate?
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
They both sign to the effect that the return reflects the transactions that occurred during the campaign and are in compliance with the act.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
It's that to the best of their knowledge, both those things are true.
We heard testimony that some official agents had no direction or control over the money that was transferred into their accounts, that they did not spend it locally. In fact, one official agent testified he had no idea what the money was for. He actually thought he was going to get leaflets and pencils and stationery for his campaign for the money that was transferred in and out of his account.
In that example, without naming that riding or that person, would this, in your estimation, qualify as being a local campaign expense under the direction and control of the official agent?
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
Again, as I indicated to the committee in mid-July, the circumstances that you have just mentioned were considered in coming to the decision not to authorize the reimbursements, because it did not satisfy me that the expenses had actually been incurred by the candidates.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
And was that original adjudication made by the previous Chief Electoral Officer, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, or did he rule on any of those returns?
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
It was done by me in March 2007. I don't recall whether.... I'm sorry, it was April 2007.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Very good. Thank you.
Fair market value and the commercial value of these purchases or the expenses claimed has come up a few times. One of the examples that particularly jumped off the page at us concerns York South—Weston, Davenport, and Parkdale—Hyde Park, three contiguous ridings. One was charged $49,999 for the advertising, one was charged $39,999, and one was charged $9,999, for essentially the same advertisements.
We made the point that radio ads and TV ads don't recognize electoral boundaries, that there's spillover, and so it's the area that you're saturating. And I don't think there's any TV or radio station in Toronto whose coverage stops midway through the city. If you're buying a radio ad for downtown Toronto, you're probably covering them all.
Do you have any comment about how you assess the real commercial value of the advertising that took place and the variance in the values?
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
As I indicated again in my previous testimony on this matter, this is another circumstance that caused me to conclude that the expense was not incurred by the candidate--the fact that there was disparity in the amounts being claimed for what appeared to us as a common expense. There was no reasonable explanation for the variation in the amounts being charged.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
One of the other justifications for the search warrant sworn out on the affidavit that justified the search warrant says: The CONSERVATIVE FUND CANADA...did on or about June 6...file with the Chief Electoral Officer election returns...that it knew or ought reasonably to have known contained a materially false or misleading statement, contrary to subsection 431(a)
Can you elaborate what specifically the misleading statements would have been in the election returns filed by the Conservative Fund Canada?
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
Again, I think the document you're referring to is part of the proceeding that led the commissioner to seek a search warrant, part of the court record, and I will not comment on those at this point in time, given that the investigation is ongoing.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Although this particular aspect is in the public domain, you still feel that the—
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
Yes, but again, the proceedings are far from over.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
All right, I won't press that point.
We heard testimony from another candidate in this time who called this arrangement a creative fundraising scheme to help ridings that have very little financial reserve to build up their bank account. Putting the money into their account and pulling it out again gave him the opportunity to claim a rebate of 60% of that amount, and it was justifiable to create a level playing field, he argued, because the winning incumbent Liberal candidate had a bigger bank account than he did. Therefore, in a creative way, it was justifiable to walk this money past that bank account long enough to file for 60% of it from the taxpayer.
Do you have any comment on that attitude?