Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to Mr. Proulx as well for his very interesting contribution.
Mr. Proulx listed a large number of people he thought would be appropriate witnesses to come before the committee on the subject of electoral finances, transfers between riding associations, national parties, and so on, but he's very anxious, based on his prior commentary at previous meetings, to ensure that this deals only with the previous election and only with the Conservative Party of Canada, despite the fact that his party, the Liberal Party of Canada, has engaged in similar practices, which are perfectly legal, and despite the fact that of course his party has also engaged in some financing practices that are very much not legal.
We are anxious to ensure that all these matters can be reviewed by this committee. You'll recall that at our first meeting I drew to the committee's attention the fact that the motion as submitted by Liberal members calling for this committee to come back was aggressively rhetorical, unnecessarily rhetorical, and made allegations that on the face of it are not so, certainly assuming the existence of facts that are incorrect, asking us as a committee to make findings of fact, which parliamentary bodies do not do, and violating the sub judice convention, that is, the convention that parliamentary committees and Parliament itself should not deal with and debate matters that are before the courts. What is before the courts is a matter in which the Conservative Party of Canada...or rather a number of representatives of local campaigns who had worked under the umbrella of the Conservative Party of Canada have taken Elections Canada to court because these campaigns engaged in perfectly legal activities that they were not receipted for. What they are arguing as plaintiffs is that Elections Canada is not merely incorrect in disallowing these expenses but actually owes a substantial amount of money. Now this has been turned around and twisted by members of the opposition into somehow being an action in which the Conservative Party of Canada is a defendant. This is clearly not the case.
We are very concerned, speaking of the sub judice convention, that these hearings could prejudice the results of that court action, in which we are attempting to get moneys owed to our local campaigns, and it would make it harder for us to compete in future elections, that we are denied moneys that the other parties have received in past elections when they've engaged in similar transfers between riding associations, campaigns, national campaigns, and the national party.
This is, of course, completely unjust, using a parliamentary committee in this way. So on this basis I've tried to devise an amendment that would allow us to deal with all these matters fairly and equitably, dealing with a number of election campaigns, and for that reason I would like to propose the following amendment to what we are dealing with:
That the Committee for Procedure and House Affairs conduct a thorough study as to whether and to what extent the Conservative Party of Canada and its predecessors, the Liberal Party of Canada, the Bloc Québécois, and the New Democratic Party, have engaged in the elections of 1997, 2000, 2004, and 2006,
(1) in the practice of transferring funds in the following ways:
(a) transfers from the national party or national campaign to local campaigns or riding associations,
(b) transfers from riding associations or local campaigns to the national party or national campaigns,
(c) transfers between riding associations and local campaigns; and
(2) the uses of any funds at the level of local campaigns:
(a) to pay for advertising that could promote campaigns or candidates in other ridings, or
(b) to pay for advertising that could promote the national campaign.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.