Thank you very much.
I want to respond to one thing that Mr. Godin said. He indicated that being against this motion as originally worded seems to imply that the Conservative Party has something to hide. Mr. Chairman, in a way, the attempt by the opposition here today is to change this committee into a court. Unfortunately, in our legal system in the country, just because a person pleads not guilty doesn't mean they are. And that is the assumption he is making, that if we protest this, somehow we are admitting that we have something to hide and that we're guilty.
It is just the opposite, Mr. Chairman. I believe we have a committee here that should be in essence non-partisan, and it's turning into a very partisan thing. It's true that the opposition outnumbers the Conservative members in this committee, but it has become partisan. Just the wording of this motion, which says these are illegitimate expenses, presupposes the outcome of the hearing. I think it does a disservice to this committee to behave in such a way.
Mr. Chairman, I have one more little comment. In five elections that I have run in my riding, it is my opinion...and I don't want to state this as fact, because I would have to check it out. In every one of those election campaigns, I don't think the NDP in my riding had enough support to raise enough money so that they could have run a campaign, and they always received money from the national party, as far as I know. And, Mr. Chairman, if they had ever had enough votes so that they were eligible for reimbursement of expenses, I am sure they would have put them in as local expenses.
The same thing is true for the Green Party. The Green Party, to my knowledge, Mr. Chairman, used a national campaign in every one of the ridings. I know that in my riding there were no local signs at all; they were national campaign signs, and that money came from headquarters for the most part, in my opinion.
I'm being as loose here as I can because I'm just going on my perceptions of what happened. I didn't pay a great deal of attention to this at the time of our election campaign, because that was not my focus at that time.
Mr. Chairman, I really think this committee should focus on the wide general principle, if they want to examine it, to see whether the Elections Act and the conditions that are spelled out in that act have been carried for all parties. That, I think, would be legitimate. The fact that they are here trying to single out one party to the exclusion of the others belies their partisan motives.
Thank you.