I will. It's a large document.
I will attempt to be fair in my testimony and bring examples from all political parties, as many as I can. But only because my friend and colleague, Monsieur Godin, has shown such great interest in my testimony, for his benefit I'll bring forward an example of another New Democratic Party candidate to further underscore my contention that all parties have engaged in the same process, this in-and-out transfer.
This is a candidate by the name of Barry Bell. The NDP—that is, the national party—invoiced candidate Bell for $2,944.91 in an invoice dated January 13, 2006. Again, 10 days before the election, the national NDP central campaign office invoiced this candidate for close to $3,000—$2,900 and change. Then, Mr. Chair, the candidate, Mr. Bell, claimed it as an election expense. About three weeks later, on February 2, 2006, the candidate deposited the same amount, $2,944.91.
In and out: the candidate received an invoice from the national party, paid the invoice for advertising, and then was reimbursed fully and totally by the national party a few weeks later—in and out.
How, Chair, are we to interpret that? How are we to possibly sit back and say we accept the findings of Elections Canada in which they say we violated some electoral rule by engaging in this in-and-out “scandal”. That's a term obviously coined only by members of the opposition Liberals, because there is no scandal here. We all know that.
That is the question I would like to ask. I can't. Why can't I? It is because committee members here won't allow it. Why won't they allow it? It is because they won't support my motion. My motion quite clearly states that we will bring forward all of our books for full examination. These individuals, members of this committee, could call as witnesses—and I'm sure they would—election officials, campaign officials, party officials, candidates, MPs.... I'm sure their list would be extensive.
The only thing we ask, Chair, is that we be allowed to do the same thing. We would bring forward as part of our witness list a request to examine executive directors and the financial officials who ran their respective campaigns in the 2006 election, and in fact in the 2004 election and the 2000 election.
We would bring forward some of their candidates and some of their members of Parliament and would ask them questions as to whether they were fully briefed about how this process works. We've already heard testimony, which I've read into the record—an e-mail from the NDP national office to Ms. Libby Davies and her campaign office stating, in effect, not to worry about paying the invoice they were sending her, because the federal party was going to fully reimburse it.
That's in the public record. It's part of our testimony; it's part of our affidavit. It seems to me from that e-mail, that reference I just made, that perhaps the national campaign team of the NDP had to explain how this scheme worked; otherwise, why would they try to give an explanation in their e-mail? And if that's the case, Mr. Chair; if the national campaign had to explain to a local candidate how this worked, it means that this scheme was the concoction of the national party. They were the ones who came up with this. They were the ones who said, “We've examined election guidelines and we see where we can make this happen, legally and above board.”
I mention that for the record, Chair, because part of the argument I have read, from allegations and testimony given by others, is that this was a duplicitous, an illegal scheme concocted by the national campaign team of the Conservative Party because they had to convince local candidates to enter into this scheme, had to tell local candidates what to do.
Chair, it's quite obvious that the NDP has some explaining of its own to do. Ms. Davies is an experienced parliamentarian. She's been through a number of election campaigns, yet it was still necessary, in the view of the NDP, to send her an e-mail telling her how this whole thing would work and assuring her that she really would not be out any money. They e-mailed her and said not to worry, that the invoice amount she would be paying would be fully reimbursed by the national party: “You won't be out any money.”
For any members opposite to allege that this was a protocol conceived by the national Conservative Party and forced upon local candidates is totally nonsensical, because we have evidence, which I've just produced, that says the NDP entered into the same thing. They had to explain to the local candidates how this whole thing worked. They had to e-mail them to say: “Here's the deal. We're going to invoice you. Pay the invoice, and we'll reimburse you. The ads will be national ads but they'll be played locally, and just as long as you tag your candidate's name and your authorization at the bottom, it will be okay, because we've cleared this through Elections Canada.”
Do you know something? They were right. Libby did nothing wrong. None of the examples I've given were violations of the Elections Act, none of them. They're completely within the rules.
What we did and what our candidates did was exactly the same. There is nothing that we did wrong, that was outside the rules of election campaigning.
In fact, Mr. Chair, I want to relate to you, because it's certainly germane to this conversation—