Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 4th, 2011

[Marc Mayrand]

He is looking into it, that is correct.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Will that be within the scope of what the commissioner will look into? Will the illegal subsidization of delegate fees through sponsorship be a part of the investigation?

[Marc Mayrand]

I cannot speak on the specifics of the case and the specific actions of the commissioner, but I am confident that they will look at all aspects of--

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

You mentioned that the 2009 NDP convention is also under investigation for sponsorship. Did I hear you correctly?

[Marc Mayrand]

That's been referred to the commissioner.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

That was two and a half years ago. How long does it take you folks to investigate these kinds of things and report back to Parliament?

[Marc Mayrand]

The convention may have occurred two years ago, but that doesn't mean it was brought to our attention at that time. In fact, for the 2009 convention, I believe things were brought to our attention in late spring, just before the election.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

We've been talking about a party convention here....

Am I done?

[The Chair, NDP, Jean Crowder]

You have five seconds.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Okay, that's fine.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, NDP, Jean Crowder]

Mr. Angus, you have five minutes.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayrand. I appreciate your coming this morning.

It's interesting. This is really turning our committee into Mr. Del Mastro's personal court. I notice he didn't bother to ask you any questions. Perhaps he wasn't really interested in any answers. It would seem that the writer of the Canada Elections Act is now Mr. Del Mastro, who seems to have lots of evidence over there. He got his friend Mr. Butt to claim $35,000 on something. I don't know where that information came from. Mr. Del Mastro certainly has lots of charges to lay out.

I want to get back to whether there are any New Democratic Party officials up on criminal charges for illegally receiving contributions in the manner of $10,000, $20,000, $30,000—I think he hit $50,000 at one point. Are there any officials up on charges?

[Marc Mayrand]

I don't comment on specific files. All I can say is that charges would be public, of course, and I'm not aware of any charges.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

You are not aware of any charges.

When the 2006 audits came back to you, audited by third-party auditors, to find fair market value—my colleague seemed to have a problem with fair market value, but it is the law, and if you follow the law, then you don't get charged. In 2006 they brought their elections audits and you found four key people—Doug Finley, Mr. Gerstein, Susan Kehoe, and Michael Donison, who was director of the party—to have broken the law. Included in that, as you told us, were 67 riding associations.

It is interesting. These guys are up on criminal charges, and I know you don't want to comment on them, but Mr. Gerstein, who broke the electoral laws of Canada in the largest electoral fraud scheme in history, is now appointed by Prime Minister Harper to live off the taxpayer for the rest of his natural born life, as a senator. I find it quite outrageous that a guy who introduces himself as a senator says “I'm a bagman and I'm proud of it”. That's the only reason he's a senator, and he's up on criminal charges. We are subsidizing the Conservative Party through its campaign manager, through its chief bagman, to sit in the Senate and send out--as Mr. Gerstein continues to send out--all the fundraising letters for the Conservative Party, while being paid by the people of Canada.

Those four are up on charges. Then you mentioned the 67 riding associations, and I want to be really clear here. Not all Conservatives are criminals or crooks. There are many honest Conservative riding associations that had nothing to do with the in-and-out scandal because they knew it was illegal, including Inky Mark, who was a great member of Parliament.

I want to get to the issue here on the illegalities of what they tried to pull on this in-and-out scandal. They broke the election ceilings, ceilings that are intended not to give them an unfair advantage, and then they told the riding associations that they could go through their Elections Canada return to receive money that they weren't entitled to. This was a scam. This was a money laundering scheme. And 67 Conservative riding associations dutifully went to Elections Canada and tried to claim money to which they were not entitled, that they then would put in the pocket of the riding association to carry on activities. That is extraordinary. I don't think we have ever seen such a cynical misuse of the electoral process.

We have no New Democrats up on electoral charges right now.

Mr. Andrews, do you know if anybody in the Liberal Party is up on charges right now?

However, we have the four leaders of the Conservative Party who are up on criminal charges and they're up this week in court. Perhaps there is a reason for Mr. Del Mastro calling this a kangaroo court session, but I'd like to ask you, in terms of those 67 riding associations...were there other riding associations of the Conservative Party that did not attempt to go along and claim money to which they weren't entitled?

[Marc Mayrand]

I should point out first that the matter before the court does not involve riding associations; it is candidate campaigns.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

It's candidate campaigns, I'm sorry.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Jean Crowder]

You have 30 seconds left.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I really appreciate your coming today. We will go back to seeing what Mr. Del Mastro wants to go hunting after next, whenever he decides to give us our instructions, now that he seems to be not only writing the Canada Elections Act but certainly trying to run this committee into the ground.

[The Chair, NDP, Jean Crowder]

Thanks, Mr. Angus.

The final question goes to Mr. Carmichael, for five minutes.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Mayrand, thank you for coming this morning.

I'd like to go back to the initial purpose we're here for, separate from the lectures you've been receiving.

With regard to sponsorship and advertising, I come from a business background and so have been exposed to many galas and different charitable events. When you run a charitable event, you appeal to many hundreds and thousands of attendees and you establish your values on sponsorship based on your reach. The question is, what's that fair value? Obviously, it's what the market will bear.

The regulations, and the act itself, clearly were designed to ensure that undue influence was not exercised by any organizations, etc. We've seen the pictures. I can tell you from the pictures, for the numbers we're hearing, whether the range is $10,000, $20,000, or whatever it is—to Mr. Angus's comment, I don't know what the actual number is, but obviously it's 10, 20, 30 times the allowable limit—that I wouldn't have been able to get away with this in the private sector. This is not acceptable. I'm very concerned, from a fair value, how you establish the true reach, particularly when you only have a few hundred people who come to the convention.

The other side of that, on the advertising side—and I am coming to a question for you—is that in my market, in Toronto, our major newspapers will cost out for a full page advertisement anywhere from $15,000 to $30,000 a day. The objective is to reach hundreds of thousands of people. My concern is, as we look at this—and we've heard all of the comment—how you establish fair value versus undue influence when you're trying to get your hands around people who are circumventing, clearly circumventing, the rules, which exclude them in the beginning, as far as contributions go. How do you establish that fair market value?

I know you've said you have to refer to somebody, but I wonder if you can be a little clearer as to your perspective on it.

[Marc Mayrand]

Again, the first question in my mind will be what's the market here. Who are the players in that market and how do they trade in that market normally? In the case of a political convention, it raises, of course, a prima facie question: what's the market there? Why would a third party spend money on a political convention?

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

I think we know the answer to that, but that's what we're hopeful you can answer.

[Marc Mayrand]

Well, I think that's going to be the commissioner's role--to gather, first, all the facts about the transactions that occurred.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Could I ask you just one more question? You spoke to Mr. Butt about it.

When you've got, let's say, $1,000 per registration for one convention and another is being subsidized at $200 or $300 due to the support from sponsors, in the event that the sponsors were found exercising undue influence and in fact challenged, would the attendees at that conference be charged back the difference? Is there a mechanism to go after the attendees at the conference, to have them repay the difference between fair market and the subsidized value?

[Marc Mayrand]

If I understand your example, in the case where a third party would subsidize participation to the party, the party would have to return the equivalent of funds to the third party who subsidized.