We want people who have a broad range of experience in many different sectors of society to get involved in public life. To create rules that are unnecessarily strict, to the point that they discourage good people from getting involved in politics, I think is counterproductive.
It's important to have rules that are strong enough so that most Canadians think that the people getting involved in politics have high ethical standards. I mentioned the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing, which reported in 1991. One of the exercises that we undertook was to have a couple of days of meetings with representatives of all the parties. I think we chose five women and five men from every party that existed in 1991 to talk about ethics and about how to promote ethics.
One thing I remember from those two days of meetings with the equal number of men and women is that many women said that they were reluctant to get involved in politics because the ethical standards were so low and that if there were stricter standards, more women would get involved in politics. The men tended to be of a different point of view—if you're too strict, you'll keep too many good people out—so it's a question of finding a balance.
As I said, I am interested in studying ethics in politics because I want Canadians to have a high opinion of people who get involved in politics.