Chair, I will just reassure my honourable colleague that the article to which I referred is extremely relevant, although I won't enter its complete content into the record at this time. I will be doing that later this afternoon or this evening, but I will give you the headline, Chair, to give you and my honourable colleague the sense of why this is relevant.
The article's headline is “Hardly the same as Adscam, Grits' Attempt To Pin Advertising Fraud On Tories Is Off Base”. The entire article deals with the motion and the story that we're discussing this very day. I would suggest it would be extremely relevant.
In this article, Chair, the writer makes what I think is a very valid and relevant point. It is that perhaps there should be some changes in the way Elections Canada sets its guidelines for advertising caps. This is at the core of the dispute we have before us. Frankly, I suppose Elections Canada has launched its investigation because they think there are, at the very least, some gray areas here, but the opposition members certainly contend that the Conservative Party was transferring money to local candidates so that the local candidates could then run a series of national ads—in other words, promoting the national party—and that in fact is wrong, because that's not a local ad; it's a national ad, and that money should be part of the national advertising cap.
In the 2006 election the national advertising cap for every political party was $18.3 million. The members opposite who presented their arguments in yesterday's news conference made a point of saying this could potentially allow the Conservative Party to exceed the advertising cap by as much as $10 million. My guess is that the calculation they used in coming up with this figure of $10 million was based on the number of candidates for election. There are over 300 ridings, and if you run a candidate in all the ridings and each of them receives $30,000 from the federal party and spends that money on strictly national ads, then the Tories could conceivably exceed their national advertising cap of $18.3 million by $10 million.
Again, we're talking about a situation that.... When I saw them making this claim, I had to think this was so outrageous and so unbelievable that anyone who knows anything about elections and their campaigns would see the absolute absurdity behind this contention.
First, to suggest that every one of the candidates running for the Conservatives across Canada would have $30,000 left in their campaigns under their own caps to run national ads is absolutely, simply, absurd. I can only speak about my case, but I'm sure my situation is probably reflected by almost all, if not all, of the members of this committee. My cap to run a local campaign in Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre was slightly more than $70,000, and I can assure all the members that I ran the maximum. I spent all of that, so to suggest that I and 300-plus other candidates would spend $30,000 less than we were able to do in order to receive $30,000 from the national campaign for only national ads is absolutely absurd.
The caps that candidates have include all forms of expenses, including advertising, lawn signs, the establishment of a campaign office, telephones, and all of those things. You need that money to effectively run a good campaign, so the suggestion made in yesterday's news conference that the Tories have the potential to exceed their national cap by $10 million because they can send $30,000 to each of their candidates across Canada—who would then in turn run national ads to promote the national party—is absolutely absurd. The local candidates would not be able to cut back $30,000 and lop it off their local campaign expense cap to facilitate that type of request. I certainly wouldn't. I would want that money to pay for the essentials of running a campaign. I would not have that amount of room.
In other words, if my campaign expense limit in Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre was roughly $70,000, I wouldn't agree to anything or anybody who told me I had to be able to cut down my expenses and only run a $40,000 campaign because they were going to give me $30,000 to run national ads. I'd tell them get out of here, to take a hike. I can't do it and won't do it. That's why I say that much of what was said in yesterday's news conference is absolutely nonsensical. It's bordering on the absurd to suggest this is part of a major scheme the Tories have.
Not only was there the implication during this news conference, Mr. Chair; there was also the outright assertion by opposition members that we want to get this done because an election could be imminent. If we don't deal with this now, this committee can't investigate those dirty Tories and get to the bottom of this if an election is held in the near future. Before we've had a chance to thoroughly examine the books of the Tories, they could potentially exceed the national advertising cap for the next election by $10 million. They are stating there is a sense of urgency to get this investigation going because an election may be called within the next month. According to the opposition, they want to have this matter settled and dealt with to prevent the Tories from having the ability to exceed the national cap in the next election, the one that may be coming very shortly.
Mr. Chair, I would suggest that if the opposition members are truly interested and concerned about doing that because they think the Conservative Party has this master scheme to go into an election with an unresolved issue that would open up the door to allow the Tories to spend millions of dollars above our cap, then let's start the investigation right now. It could be done today. All the opposition members have to do is agree to support my motion.
Mr. Chair, as I stated earlier and as was raised to me in a question by a member of the media yesterday, the probability is that the investigation of the Tories and of our election campaign would be one of the, if not the, earliest campaign investigations by this committee. In other words, if they agreed to my motion to look at the books of all four parties, then the internal determination has to be where we start.
Where do we start? There are four parties here. Do we bring them all in at the same time, or do we do it one by one? How do we coordinate and arrange the witness lists? Chances are we would be speaking to Conservative officials and taking a look at some of the Conservative campaign expenses before any others. Those are just the odds of probability, I would suggest, Mr. Chair, but even with that high degree of probability, the opposition members continue to refuse to support my motion.
My colleague just asked, off the record, “What do they have to hide?” That is something I'm starting to ask now.
Unfortunately, Chair, we have another member who has just joined, has obviously not been here, and has not heard my comments of the last few moments—