Mr. Brison and I agree on that.
What it did was level the playing field and allow individual Canadians to have a voice. It was very credible, it was effective, and it has helped to start to address the cynicism that many people feel out there about political parties generally and about political financing.
What we've seen in the last couple of elections is more participation. More people are stepping forward. That's a very good thing. The government seems disturbed by that and is clamping down with these ill-considered and inappropriate amendments.
There is no way that we are going to support this particular section. It is mean-spirited and inappropriate, and it is fundamentally undemocratic.
I certainly hope that the members opposite, who are democratically elected, will join this party so that the three parties have a consensus in throwing out this section, so that we can have one component of political financing that is democratically based, and so the new student who is 18 years old and voting for the first time in Fort McMurray, or in southern Ontario, or in Toronto, or in Kamloops, can actually step forward knowing that they can vote for the party of their choice and that it will have a meaningful impact, not just at the ballot box, but also in the coming years.
That's something that Canadians support. I am surprised, quite frankly, and profoundly disappointed that the government is moving to rip that apart.