So here we are, being brought back again to where I was. You had ruled that the motion was out of order and that we should carry on working on Bill C-6 at that time. It was Bill C-6. It's Bill C-6 still now, and again you've ruled that the motion we're trying to talk about is out of order. Yet the gang of six has come together and overruled you again.
Have they overruled you so that the country will move forward? Have they overruled you so that legislation gets done? Have they overruled you so that Canada becomes a better place? No, clearly not. They've overruled you because it suits their partisan interests to do an investigation on an election that took place, now, clearly two years ago.
We've talked a lot about this in-and-out scheme, or the election financing piece on which they would like to do the investigation. As a matter of fact, through the conversations in this committee, we may have done a great deal of the investigation that this committee would do.
We've brought forward all of the affidavits that have been placed before the courts—where they'll get a proper airing, because it's a court of law rather than a committee of partisan members trying to sling mud—and we've discussed many of them.
We've discussed many examples of the similarity between the election procedures used by all four parties in the last election. We truly have found the exact same activities that the Conservative Party used being used by members of the Liberal Party, the Bloc Party, and the NDP. We found that there weren't any differences. We've certainly shown that the type of financing, the financing from the national party down to riding associations, from EDAs to campaign teams, from campaign teams back to national--that there was a flow of funds in every party's case from one side to the other. It's happened with all of us.
We have also discussed at this committee that the type of advertising that they're trying to find fault with has happened by all parties, that the “group buy”, if you will, the regionalization of advertising, has happened not only in the Conservative Party, but in the Liberal Party, in the Bloc Quebecois, and in the NDP. We saw it in many cases, whether it was in the city of Edmonton or.... I believe there was a group of members.... I'm sorry, you'll have to forgive me, I don't even remember which party it was in New Brunswick where a group of candidates bought a bunch of advertising together that truly talked about their party's performance and talked about things on a much more national scope. They each put their name at the bottom of it, or when it was shown or heard on the radio in each of their own little pieces of the province, it said who had paid for what portion of it, by listing, as we do in elections, that this ad was brought to you by the financial agent of whatever candidate it was.
We've shown instances of how the same type of financing and the same type of advertising happens by all parties. I'm not certain of the investigative need of the rest. I leave that to the will of Elections Canada. They're doing it, and through the courts that we've sent affidavits to, they certainly will do it. They talk about this being some dire need by this committee to actually get to work and do that. I don't get it. I'm not there; I'm lost on the reasons why, when in fact this committee, for the life of itself, has always dealt with legislation when there was legislation.
We actually have a piece of legislation we should be dealing with--it's sitting there waiting--and we're not dealing with it.
I guess what we need to do is look back on what else can be done to break this logjam. We've tried, Chair, but you've been overruled again on making a ruling to move to legislation. I think, rightfully so, the chair of this committee has tried to move Procedure and House Affairs towards actually dealing with legislation.