Whether or not these proceedings are televised, my point is that a part of me wishes they were so Canadians could actually listen to the arguments I'm advancing here and understand the situation at hand.
On the one hand, we have an argument advanced by Elections Canada that the Conservatives were at fault because of national ads run by local candidates funded by the national party. That would then be, in the opinion of Elections Canada, part of the national advertising buy and part of the cap.
If these proceedings were televised, we could read into the record example after example showing how other parties did exactly the same thing but were not found to be in violation of the Elections Act. It wouldn't take long for Canadians to determine on their own that there has been wrongdoing here; that there has been an incorrect application or ruling from Elections Canada.
Furthermore, the members opposite have no intention of allowing a full examination and a full defence to be offered by the Conservative Party of Canada. They have no intention of accommodating this motion, because they do not want us to be able to demonstrate graphically and empirically that our advertising practices, procedures, or protocols--whatever you want to call them--were identical to those of the other parties. They don't want that on the record. That don't want that to be televised. They don't want Canadians to see that. They would simply prefer to continue with their attempted spin of the situation and their smear campaign.
I've always been a big believer that Canadians and the Canadian public can very easily determine what's right and what's wrong. They can easily determine in the course of an election or political discourse who's playing games and who's telling the truth. So I wish this testimony could be made available in a more visual and auditory fashion to Canadians from coast to coast to coast. I don't think it would take long for them to determine, as we have, that the political games being played here are being advanced from members opposite.
As I mentioned earlier, all we can do is give examples of and read into the record some of the defence we'll be advancing as part of our legal case, in the hope that anyone who has an interest in this case will be able to get the record of this testimony and make their own determination as to whether or not we, the Conservative Party, have ample cause to advance the arguments we have been advancing.
With that in mind, I would like to read into the record another quote. This is exhibit seven. It comes as a direct quote from the Election Handbook for Candidates, Their Official Agents and Auditors (2000). With respect to section 4.4.5, election advertising, it states:
Election advertising means the transmission to the public by any means during an election period of an advertising message that promotes or opposes a candidate, including one that takes a position on an issue with which a registered party or candidate is associated.