Thank you, Chair.
The point I have made fairly consistently in this presentation is that there is this complete inconsistency in the rulings presented by Elections Canada. We have just given two examples of regional media buys from the Liberal Party of Canada. In both cases, a number of Liberal candidates got together to pay for ads that appeared in their local newspapers that were completely national in content. But the money that was transferred from the national party to the candidates was to pay for those ads. So again I point out the obvious that there is certainly an argument to be made that perhaps that shouldn't be allowed.
But the fact of the matter is that it was allowed. For 18 years, from 1988 to 2006, the rules allowed such transfers to be made. They also allowed local candidates to determine whether or not they wished to present, on their behalf, a local campaign ad or a national ad. They determined what would be in their own best interest.
I know we read this into the record before, but I must do it again because it says--and this is right from the Elections Canada published interpretative material from 1988 to 2007:
Interpretation guidelines contained in Elections Canada Candidate Handbooks dating back to 1988 are consistent over time on the issue of candidate advertising, until a sudden drastic change in 2007 (i.e., after the 2006 Election). Until this drastic change, the guidelines were clear that advertising conducted by local campaigns could promote the candidate specifically and/or national party.
Let me point out it also states in Elections Canada's own material--this is absolutely consistent with the Elections Act itself--the national parties have an unrestricted right to transfer funds to local campaigns.
So we have seen time and time again, certainly from the Liberal Party in the 2004 election and in the 2006 election, that local candidates participated in regional media buys. By that I mean that a group of candidates who lived in the same region would all get together, contribute money--probably an equal amount of money from each candidate--and purchase newspaper ads on their collective behalf. But the ads, as I've indicated, were always national in content. They didn't promote the candidacy of the local MP or candidate. In the case of the Liberals, they would promote the national campaign. They would run a picture of the leader of the party, Paul Martin, and say “Vote Liberal”. The only reference to local campaigns was a list of names of all of the candidates at the bottom of the ad.
If that is allowed--and I would argue it was allowed under the guidelines of the day--then why should the Conservative Party, which engaged in similar practices, be found in violation of the act? It makes absolutely no sense to me. I eagerly await the Federal Court case in which we have identified these examples as being inconsistent, and get this matter determined once and for all before a court of law.
But I absolutely wish that we could get this issue dealt with at the committee level, and once and for all put this behind us and be able to demonstrate, without question, that the activities and actions of the Conservative Party of Canada and their candidates who represented that party in the 2006 election were certainly within all acceptable guidelines, as published by Elections Canada, and certainly consistent with the advertising practices of the other political parties.
I don't see, Chair, how there can be any dispute with that fact whatsoever, given the examples that I've already read into the record, but let me also go a little further.
The Elections Canada publication called Election Handbook for Candidates, Their Official Agents and Auditors, Mr. Chair, which was last updated in 1997 and issued by Elections Canada--