Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.
I'm just following up on Mr. Poilievre's comments on his amendment. The charitable sectors that came forward, and the charitable sectors that have been involved in the discussions around making these changes, are some of the most reputable organizations in the country. I find it a bit perplexing that Mr. Poilievre is denouncing them all as far left. I certainly would have to disagree with him on that. Those organizations would disagree with him as well.
As far as what needs to happen in the legislation though.... We've come through a somewhat sad discussion this morning, where pay equity amendments that were offered in good faith by a wide variety of our witnesses, including the Canadian Labour Congress, CUPE and the coalition for pay equity, were all refused. There were major flaws in the pay equity legislation, as Ms. Malcolmson said earlier. Ultimately, it means that women are going to have to go back to court to achieve their ends. These were major flaws, and they were not addressed.
We now have flaws in terms of the overall structure of the legislation. It basically bans direct or indirect support or opposition to any political party. As members may recall, we had a number of witnesses that were concerned about the term “indirect”, which remains to be defined. The term “indirect” is something that Revenue Canada has not yet defined as well.
Mr. Poilievre and I disagree on many things. We would agree on the idea that any direct support or opposition for any political party should not be part of a charitable tax credit. There's no doubt about that. The fact that the definition of indirect is vague and leads to confusion is something that has to be addressed at this committee.
That's why I'm proposing in NDP-1 that we would put that aside and focus the legislation on direct support for any political party or candidate, leaving the ambiguity around indirect support aside.