Before I was interrupted by the very well-dressed member from Hull--Aylmer, I was about to say that the report of the Chief Electoral Officer on the 1997 election--the 36th general election--gave the same interpretation, in the context of the fact that in the 1997 election, national parties weren't allowed to conduct advertising on June 1, which is the day before polling day, and June 2, the day of polling, under section 48 of the act. On the other hand, other candidates were allowed to do so when a similar restriction on them, contained in a different section of the act, had been struck down by the courts. These are all blackout provisions that don't apply any longer, but the interpretation of the relevant section of the act continues on and is consistent.
Here's how the Chief Electoral Officer expresses this. He says:
The criteria applied to determine whether specific advertisements were to be accepted for broadcast were the identity of the sponsor and that of the body or person invoiced. The content of the advertisements accepted was subject only to the freedom of expression guaranteed by the Charter. As a result, a number of individual candidates purchased time on the day before polling and on the actual day of the election. Since the time purchased was often used to run a national advertisement with a local tag line, this rendered the prohibition in section 48 somewhat ineffectual.
This wasn't just put out in the report to Parliament; it was also put out in a press release as well as in a notice to the media. These were issued by Elections Canada on May 24 and May 29, 1997, respectively.
So, once again, Elections Canada was asserting at that time, very clearly, that it was their position that there is no restriction on the content of advertising by candidates ever. Indeed, we believe that there can't be, because the charter allows it.
The man who was then Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Kingsley, explicitly recognized that the act allowed candidates to pay for national advertising. It actually spelled it out, that the time purchased was often used to run a national advertisement with a local tag line. He had no problem with that. Money was rebated, as long as the appropriate tag line was included, and no one disputes the appropriate tag lines, authorized by the official agent for so and so, was included. That's not in dispute.
So we now turn to the year 2000. Once again we see a consistent interpretation in the Elections Canada Election Handbook for Candidates, their official agents and auditors, the 2000 edition, which provides the following, in section 4.4.5, under the heading of “Election advertising”:
Election advertising means the transmission to the public by any means during an election period of an advertising message that promotes or opposes a registered party or the election of a candidate, including one that takes a position on an issue with which a registered party or candidate is associated.
Section 4.4.5.1, “Identification of election advertising”, reads as follows:
All election advertising that promotes or opposes a registered political party or the election of a candidate, including taking a position on an issue with which a registered party or candidate is associated, must indicate that it is authorized by the official agent of the candidate.
So once again, in case anybody was thinking, “Oh, that injunction, you've got do this because it dates back to 1988, and back then you had to register these things, and the rules have changed...”--although it was still that way in the year 2000.
Let's move a little closer to the present and consider the December 2005 Election Handbook for Candidates, their official agents and auditors. Now we are into the realm of the 2006 election, because this is the one that would have been used in the 2006 election. This is the one that would have been followed by all those official agents who the Liberal MPs over there are claiming were in violation of the law for claiming illegitimate expenses and were putting their.... The imagination trembles; they were putting their tag line--their tag line--on ads that were used elsewhere and that were promoting their candidate. Children are going to wake up screaming at night when they hear about this.