Well, I know Mr. Rodriguez has had his name in the media for a while, in the last month or so, but this is another example of where he might get a little media attention.
I know, Chair, we have Monsieur Godin back talking to members of our media who are covering the proceedings, but I would suggest that...and I see my friend Mr. Naumetz is back there paying rapt attention to this, so I suggest he may want to use this example as well. Again, it's an example of how the Liberal Party and one of their candidates engaged in this in-and-out scheme.
To start off, Mr. Rodriguez receives a fully discounted invoice for services rendered from the electoral district association. In other words, his own EDA, his own riding association, invoices Pablo for $13,322.68 on April 27, 2004. He then claims that as a legitimate election expense. So his EDA invoices him just over thirteen grand and he claims it as an election expense. That occurred on April 27, 2004.
On May 4, the same EDA that invoiced him for $13,322.68 receives a cheque for the same amount from the Liberal Party of Canada. Then the electoral district association transfers the same amount of money back to Mr. Rodriguez.
So there is a three-way transfer here. The EDA invoices Pablo for thirteen grand. He pays it. The national party reimburses the EDA for the thirteen grand, so they're not out any money, and the EDA transfers that to Pablo.
At the end, then, he was able to claim $13,000 and change as an election expense. It didn't cost him anything, and yet he got about a 60% rebate from Elections Canada.
Now, Chair, that's the in-and-out scheme that the Liberals so adamantly state is the problem with the Conservative Party of Canada. They're contending that we followed that in-and-out transfer versus receipt of invoice situation and are at fault, that somehow we've broken electoral law.
Well, Mr. Chair, again I point out that Mr. Rodriguez wasn't charged by Elections Canada for violating any electoral laws or rules, so how can it be that if Mr. Rodriguez did exactly the same thing as some of our candidates, only one of those two candidates was charged? There's a very serious disconnect there.
You cannot have a situation in which, if two people engage in the same act, only one is deemed to be in violation of law. They're either both innocent or they're both guilty. Those are the inconsistencies, the great inconsistencies that we see with the ruling from Elections Canada.
Chair, these examples and many others are going to be fully discussed and examined in the court case. That's why we brought this court case forward. Some of our candidates, Chair, have yet to receive their election returns. They're being held up because of these charges and this pending court case. We want this dealt with expeditiously. We want these charges dealt with as quickly as we possibly can.
Chair, if members of this committee want to discuss this, examine all of the registered parties' methods of advertising during a national campaign, we would welcome that; hence, my motion. Then, if this committee were truly interested, sincerely interested, in getting to the truth, of getting to the bottom of this matter, I am sure that after a careful examination this committee would conclude that no party violated the Elections Act, and perhaps we could file a report to that extent, both with Elections Canada and with Parliament.
Yet, Mr. Chair, members of the opposition don't seem too inclined to follow that suggestion of mine. They don't want, for a minute, a fulsome examination of everyone's election books, and it's quite obvious why. I've given you but two examples of many. We'll have further examples later in my presentation this afternoon from the Bloc, more examples from the NDP, more examples from the Liberals, as to how they engaged in the so-called in-and-out scheme and how they were not charged, neither the individual candidates nor the federal parties, with any violation of the Elections Act by Elections Canada.
Chair, I'm doing what I can right here to accommodate Ms. Redman and her motion. Ms. Redman's motion—supported, I might add, by all opposition members—stated that they wanted to have an investigation of the Conservative Party. They wanted to investigate this in-and-out scheme. In fact, I believe in the motion itself.... Yes, it says “...investigate the actions of the Conservative Party of Canada during the 2006 election, in relation to which Elections Canada has refused to reimburse Conservative candidates for illegitimate election campaign expenses”.
Again, the political rhetoric spun by Ms. Redman is suggesting that this in-and-out procedure is somehow restricted to only the Conservative Party of Canada, when clearly it is not. I have given two examples from two different political parties that have engaged in exactly the same practice, Chair, yet they were not charged with any violation whatsoever of electoral rules.
I suggest, Chair, that not only is this patently unfair, but there was an egregious lack of judgment on behalf of the officials of Elections Canada when they first determined to level these charges at the Conservative Party of Canada, because we did nothing wrong. I will repeat and repeat again the fact that we are not suggesting for a moment that any member opposite, or any party that the members opposite represent, did anything wrong. Everyone followed the rules completely. That's why I'm at a complete loss, Chair, to understand why opposition members of this committee do not simply agree to examine with us the election expenses of all political parties. They've stated many times in the past, and I'm sure they will say it in the future, that they didn't violate any elections act. We agree. At least we have agreement on that.
Our point is, Chair, that the way to truly determine if the Conservative Party has violated any act within Elections Canada is simply to do a side-by-side comparison. We'll gladly open our books. We'll take the expenses in question from our various candidates and put them side by side with the election returns of other candidates, whether they be candidates from the Liberal Party, the New Democratic Party, or the Bloc Québécois. That's how you get to the bottom of this. That's how you do a comparison and determine whether or not a party or a candidate broke the law or perhaps violated the spirit, if not the literal interpretation, of the Elections Act. That's how you come to that determination, Chair. You do so because the investigation takes place in a fulsome and open and transparent process.
That's not what we have here with the motion opposite. The motion, as presented by Ms. Redman and supported by all members of the opposition, only wants to deal with the election spending practices of the Conservative Party. That's not the way to get to the bottom of it, Chair. That is absolutely not the way to get to the bottom of that.
So again I would suggest, Chair, what we are facing here is nothing more than a partisan attempt on behalf of the opposition to try to create a scandal where none exists. But we have many more examples.
Chair, we'll go back now to the New Democratic Party, and I think I'll concentrate for the moment on election claims of sitting members of Parliament, because I think most Canadians are more familiar with them. I could invoke names of candidates who ran for the NDP or the Liberals or the Bloc, but since they weren't successful in their elections, I won't use them as examples. Since we have many MPs who have been elected for several years and are familiar to Canadians, I think we might be able to get the attention of Canadians focused more easily if they can relate an example of election spending to an individual they know.
Let's use the example of Mr. Peter Stoffer of the NDP. The NDP invoiced Mr. Stoffer for $6,118.02, dated December 29, 2005. Then a cheque from the NDP back to Mr. Stoffer for $6,000 was deposited on January 18, 20 days later. The cheque from the candidate to the NDP to pay invoices was dated January 17 and cashed on February 1. That's exhibit 57 in our affidavit to the Federal Court, again an example of this in-and-out transfer scheme, in which a candidate claims as an election expense an invoice for which he is repaid. He's invoiced for $6,000, claims it as an expense, and all of a sudden he's reimbursed the same amount of money from the federal party.
The contention of Elections Canada is that if the net effect is that the federal party paid for the ad, that should be included in their cap. Yet, nowhere in the submission by Elections Canada does it make mention of Mr. Stoffer's case; nor did it make mention of Libby Davies' case; nor did it make mention of the federal NDP exceeding their cap; nor did it make mention of the Liberal Party of Canada exceeding their cap when they engaged in exactly the same practices as we did.
Again, I cannot understand for the life of me how, if two parties engage in the same practice, only one party could be deemed to be in violation. You're either both in violation or you're both not. You can't have one without the other. Yet that is what we have seen from Elections Canada. Again, that is why it is my fervent wish and the wish of our party to have this case heard as quickly as possible.
I don't know when it's going to be heard. Chair, obviously there are many, many cases before the courts. If I had my way, I would certainly have this case dealt with today. I would have the proceedings start today. Unfortunately, people other than me make those decisions as to when individual cases will be held.
Chair, one of the reasons I brought our affidavit to this committee is to outline not only to members of this committee—who I'm sure will ignore it, because again, they're not interested in getting to the truth—but to the members of the media the inconsistent behaviour of Elections Canada in this case, because it doesn't make sense. How can you take two examples, in a side-by-side comparison of two candidates—the amounts may vary, but the methodology is absolutely the same—and you have one candidate deemed to be in violation of elections law and another candidate who followed exactly the same practices deemed to be not in violation? How can that happen? In my view, it can't.
I guess it did. I guess charges were laid, but it doesn't mean they were right. That's why we are engaging in a legal pursuit to overturn the ruling of Elections Canada. That's what we should be doing.
I would humbly suggest, Chair, that if any of the other parties were in this situation, they would do exactly the same thing, as they should, to protect not only their own candidates but their own integrity and reputation, and to prove in a court of law that there was no violation of any sort with respect to our practices in the 2006 election. It is our legal right, and frankly, I believe it's our obligation to bring this case forward.
I honestly don't know where the problem lies in Elections Canada, why they had only singled out the Conservative Party. I'm not going to try to presuppose that; I'm only saying I am confused. I cannot understand why, when it is completely evident that other candidates in other parties engaged in similar practices, only one political party was singled out.
I will let others perhaps try to determine the answer to that question, but all I can say is that I am absolutely confused as to their interpretation. I think it was wrong on a number of different levels. It was wrong because they misinterpreted their own rules, and then they failed to see the inconsistency of their ruling with respect to the actions and practices of other parties.
Let me just go back to one of my very earliest comments here and read again the interpretation guidelines contained in the Elections Canada candidate handbooks, that advertising conducted by local campaigns could promote the candidate specifically, or it could also promote the national party.
Secondly, let me again read into the record something from Elections Canada, where Elections Canada interpretation material also indicates, consistent with the act, that “national parties have an unrestricted right to transfer funds to local campaigns”. Okay? National parties have an unrestricted right to transfer funds to local campaigns, and the local campaign can determine whether it wants to run a local or national ad.
That's what has happened in all these examples. The national campaign transferred funds to a local campaign, and in Elections Canada's guidelines it says that's okay, you can do that. Then the local campaign ran a national ad with their own candidate's tag line at the bottom, and that's okay, according to Elections Canada guidelines.
We did nothing wrong, the NDP did nothing wrong, the Bloc Québécois did nothing wrong, the Liberal Party did nothing wrong, and it states so in Elections Canada guidelines. Yet we have been somehow singled out, and the suggestion is that we broke the law somehow.
I'm not a judge and I won't be hearing this case, but for the life of me, I would defy anybody at this committee to explain how this interpretation is valid. It simply is not.
That's why I brought forward a motion, because I don't want, and frankly I know our party doesn't want, this charge hanging over our heads. I want it dealt with expeditiously, and I would love to have an examination, a full study by this committee, if only they would do what we are requesting of them to do and to allow their own books to be examined at the same time as ours, to allow us to fully illustrate, as I have been attempting to do here, why the practices that we engaged in were similar and in fact, in some cases, were the exact practices of candidates from opposition parties.
If we were allowed to do that, if we were allowed to simply open up our books and the books of the opposition, put them beside each other, and compare the transactions of individual candidates and individual parties, we would quite clearly see, frankly, in a matter of moments, that we have engaged in similar common practices.
Then the question becomes, quite simply, if we're all doing things in a similar fashion, if we're all engaging in the same practices, we all have to be in the same boat when it comes to the interpretation from Elections Canada. In other words, if Elections Canada ruled that those practices were in violation of electoral law—