Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Yes, I recall that back in 2006 that Mr. Martin indicated to Canadians that perhaps the greatest thing we could deliver from the 39th Parliament would be accountability, but now we see that the NDP has forgotten about that, because if we read the story in Le Devoir of September 22, they revealed that the NDP received at least $85,000 from big labour unions. That's just three unions that admitted they gave money, but we see that the USW, the UFCW, Stratcom, PSAC--the Public Service Alliance of Canada--CUPE, the IAFF, the machinists union, and Thistle Printing, were all sponsors. We only know three of them. We know that it's a minimum of $85,000 that they received.
I thought it was pretty clear in the Elections Canada Act that you can't take money from corporations and you can't take it from unions. I thought that's what was established, so this is unquestionably an egregious violation.
Now, the New Democratic Party has “new” in their name, but they're not new. They've been around for about 50 years. They've just been in fourth party status for a while, so perhaps nobody paid any attention to them, but when you flaunt the law this badly and you challenge it, and in fact you've stepped outside the Elections Act and what's permissible for parties for donations twice in three months, you're going to get some attention for that.
My question to you is...the members who are members of Parliament who were involved in the organization of this party convention, if they have in fact accepted union donations contrary to the Elections Act, don't you think this would place them in a position where they could potentially be beholden to these unions? Isn't that part of why your office exists? To make sure there are no outside undue influences...?