I agree. I think most of us agree with the general intent of what they're trying to get at here. It's to prevent someone being given a huge advantage by having a whole bunch of paid volunteers who in effect aren't really volunteers--some company is paying them to work on my campaign or someone else's campaign.
As Mr. Simard says, it's gotten to the point now that.... When the CEO was here, we should have asked him how many returns--and we have to submit all this paper--are found to be in compliance now. It's getting ridiculous. There's a huge deterrent to most people to run for public office, because you take a look at what you have to do and...you have to have an accountant now to be your official agent. It wasn't so many years ago that just about anybody competent to run a calculator could be an official agent if they wanted to donate the amount of time required. It's getting more and more onerous on the candidates and on the parties.
I think we owe it as well to the smaller parties that aren't represented on our committee to also try to represent them. The Green Party certainly objected to this, and I would suggest that anybody considering running as an independent often has to rely even more than we do on volunteers, because they're unable to raise the same amount of money that most people running for a recognized party could.
I think it might be well-intentioned, as with a lot of the recommendations--give them the benefit of the doubt--but I think it's not workable for a lot of people, and it will provide another deterrent for people to seek public office.