Chair, I think again the motivation is not that they have anything to hide, but simply that they want to try, to the best of their abilities, to use this in a political smear campaign against the Conservatives, pure and simple; it's nothing more than that.
What's at stake here? What's going to happen now that we have this apparent impasse? Well, we're going to keep reading into the record examples of candidates and members of Parliament from the last campaign and other campaigns to further demonstrate the fact that this so-called illegal in-and-out advertising scheme, as characterized by my friends opposite, is nothing more than the practice followed by all political parties.
Perhaps we can give another example. There are so many here from the NDP, but let's go to the Bloc for now. I know this will appeal to Monsieur Godin, and I know my Bloc colleagues are feeling left out, Chair, so let's use an example of theirs.
Here's a sitting MP, Christiane Gagnon. Let's look at this. The Bloc party, the national party, invoiced Ms. Gagnon $16,642.77. The candidate paid it. Then the Bloc sent another cheque to reimburse the candidate in the amount of $17,000 about two months later.
Like the NDP, this Bloc candidate actually made money on that transaction, being invoiced slightly over $16,600 and receiving about $17,000 in return—the in and out. So while the Bloc candidate was able to claim that $16,000 as an election expense, it really didn't cost her any money, because the Bloc, the national party, reimbursed it, and in fact reimbursed it with a few hundred dollars to spare.
How can that happen? Well, it happens very simply because it's allowed; it is allowed under the rules. Under the Elections Canada guidelines, unrestricted transfers from the federal party to the candidate are allowed.
I would suggest that once again we have an example, now from the Bloc Québécois, in which they engaged in the same in-and-out process or protocol, as did the NDP and as did the Liberal Party and as did the Conservative Party.
In the case of another Bloc MP, Marc Lemay, the Bloc Québécois invoiced Monsieur Lemay for $29,285.75, dated May 24, 2004. This was during the 2004 election. A few months after that, in October, the Bloc sent a cheque back to Monsieur Lemay for $29,200.
If I were Mr. Lemay, I'd be cranky; they ripped him off for $85. In other words, he paid $85 more on an invoice than the Bloc paid him back. I would be absolutely enraged and incensed if I were that candidate. Some candidates got $200 more. They made out like bandits. But poor Monsieur Lemay actually got $85 docked. Maybe he was a naughty boy; maybe he said something. I don't know what happened. All I know is, he didn't make out as well as some of the other candidates.
Perhaps Monsieur Lemay didn't even recognize that. I am doing this as a public service to Monsieur Lemay.