This is very interesting. I'm firmly convinced it's possible to develop common sense rules, but of course, you need someone who will apply common sense rules.
I'm looking at all the recommendations. Some I find are interesting, and some I'm less sold on. A $30 gift for me, personally, I don't know what I get out of it. I get a blanket. I get some snow globes. I don't know what the value of them is. I guess I could keep track. We actually keep them all in a box in my office because we're not sure what to do with them. We give them away to kids or whatever.
There's that, and then there's the issue of fundraising. Political fundraising to me is a real clear benefit.
When the commissioner ruled in the Lisa Raitt case on the cement lobbyist, she ruled it wasn't a problem because there was no personal benefit, but it was a lobbyist for a cement company who was lobbying on a contract and showed up at the fundraiser. To me that would be an apparent conflict. A lobbyist could show up at a fundraiser without you knowing that they were lobbying you. Would you then be held accountable? Someone could donate to you—people donate all the time—and you might not check who's coming in through your riding association, and then six months later, they're hitting up your ministry or you for a favour.
In terms of the fundraising rules, she says there needs to be clarity but she doesn't lay out what it is. How do we have clear rules so that we're ensuring that people are not using fundraising at the riding association level to try to influence an MP or a minister? How do we ensure that if someone is making a donation it isn't retroactively putting blame on an MP or on a minister? What's the clear dividing line here?