Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 1st, 2007

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

I'll rephrase it. Mr. Lemieux is not worthy when he suggests that Elections Canada should look at--

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I have a point of order. I'm sure that it's just the heat of the moment, but just as I regard everything this member has done as being worthy of his place here, I think he would want to have similarly appropriate sentiments toward all other members of this House.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I'll agree and caution the member one more time.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Lemieux's suggestion that other parties need to be looked at in the same motion is not in fact valid. The reason is that Elections Canada, which has the mandate to apply the legislation, looks at every party's campaign returns and Elections Canada has held that only the Conservative Party has participated in this systematic scheme in 66 campaigns, and perhaps more.

As for the idea that people need to show their books, that people need to open their books, every party and every candidate, under the law, does that with Elections Canada. Elections Canada, in our view, does a very thorough job, and in the exercise of that legislated mandate they have found the Conservative Party to have in fact not met the requirements of the law. That's the issue here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you, Mr. LeBlanc.

Mr. Reid, and then Mr. Lemieux.

Mr. Reid, perhaps I could just take a second.

Members, I will take a few minutes at the end of this meeting to discuss witness lists, especially in preparation for the first meeting back after the break.

Mr. Reid, please.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

There are a number of things that Mr. LeBlanc said that I think are factually incorrect, although I won't cast aspersions on him as to why he said them. But I do want to point out his use of excessive language, which I think is the underlying problem here, and this is the reason I proposed this amendment. He used the term “laundromat”, for example. I won't assume his intention. I'll say what I think the practical implications are of using value-laden or hyperbolic language.

Laundromat. Money laundering. I assume that some people out there might get the implication from the overheated rhetoric being tossed around this room by Mr. LeBlanc and others that something of that nature is going on. Let's understand what money laundering is. Money laundering is the activity of going out and creating imaginary activities, such as gambling winnings, in order to hide money that came from some illegal original source, such as buying and selling drugs, by way of example, or something of that nature. This is so far removed from what's going on here that even they aren't actually prepared to say it here, where they're protected by parliamentary privilege and all that sort of thing, because it's outrageous. But in terms of just putting out the rhetoric in the hope that it gets picked up and misunderstood, well, there's no problem doing that, Mr. Chairman.

What is going on is in fact--and when Mr. LeBlanc described it, he had to actually point this out in his remarks--that Elections Canada, which is not an adjudicative body but a body that interprets the act and tends to apply it and then has to, when its interpretation comes into conflict with other interpretations, refer it to a higher authority, provided an interpretation, and as he said, they have referred it to the Commissioner of Canada Elections. They've sent it to a higher authority who has some adjudicative power, although ultimately he too has to go to the courts.

So Elections Canada is not really one step away from actually being an adjudicative body, it's actually two steps away. It doesn't actually conduct legal proceedings before the courts. That's done by the Commissioner of Canada Elections. So here we are with the accusation. Well, it's all over; Elections Canada has made the ruling; let's not wait for those silly courts. I mean, let's get into the serious business of trying to impose some kind of double jeopardy here in this chamber and come up with a court that we hope will spin this issue in the short run as being some kind of horrible thing.

Of course, in the end, the courts will go along and they'll rule. They'll either rule, Mr. Chairman, that the Conservative Party and its various official agents were acting within the terms of the Canada Elections Act by spending money in a way that was legitimate...perhaps not a way that the Liberals had anticipated, or that they had the cash to do themselves in 2006, because in 2006, unlike in 2004, they were short of cash, as Mr. LeBlanc points out.

The thing that is relevant here is that Elections Canada will either have its interpretation upheld or not upheld. If it's not upheld, then they will actually owe money to the Conservative Party of Canada for legitimate expenses incurred by the Conservative Party of Canada. On the other hand, there's always the possibility--although I personally must say, based on a mature examination of the facts, that I think in this case Elections Canada is incorrect--that their interpretation of the law is in fact the one the courts uphold. If the courts do uphold this particular interpretation of the law, then what would happen is that there would be certain limited consequences under the law.

But we're not talking about anything as radical or extreme as what Mr. LeBlanc's words would imply. The word “illegitimate” is inappropriate, and the implications of something much, much deeper and more devious than that are just out of place. The only reason they can get away with saying them here is that this is a body that doesn't have the restraints that exist in the court system, which, Mr. Chairman, is why we don't actually adjudicate cases in the House of Commons or its committees. Indeed, Mr. Chairman, it is why we make a policy of not trying to have findings of fact at all in these bodies. It's simply inappropriate for this purpose. Our goal is to try to work on policy and to make sure that policy is enforced.

Mr. Chairman, I want to mention something else with regard to Elections Canada's interpretation of this. You would think, based on the comments of Mr. LeBlanc and some of the other Liberal members here, that getting an interpretation of the law from Elections Canada is kind of akin in its level of authority to going up Mount Sinai and speaking to the burning bush. You would think that we ought to be treating these interpretations with the same respect that would be shown to Moses as he came down the mountain with the Ten Commandments under his arm. This is the same group of people who were attacking and ridiculing the Chief Electoral Officer for his ruling on veiled voting, his interpretation of the law on veiled voting. So I don't know, is it their position that this is a guy who can't interpret the law at all, who just doesn't understand the law, or is it their position that the Chief Electoral Officer's interpretation of the law is a holy writ, notwithstanding the fact that the law itself says that his interpretation is meant to go through a process--two processes, actually, going to the Commissioner of Elections, who then makes his decision, and then off to the court system--before we get a ruling, because he's fallible.

They want to have their cake and eat it too, of course, and we suspect that they want to have their cake in the 2004 election, and then, when somebody else does the same thing in the 2006 election, say, “Oh, no, that's not legitimate.” This is part of the reason--not the whole reason, but it's certainly part of the reason--why the Liberals absolutely don't want the 2004 election discussed at all. There was a time, Mr. Chairman—I remember this very well, I was in Parliament at the time—when the Liberal Party was awash in cash and everybody else wasn't. They were engaged in actions, some of them completely legal, that were parallel to this action, and some of them, quite frankly, completely illegal. I don't just mean in violation of the Elections Act. I mean in violation of the law, period: the transfer of funds in envelopes--envelopes of cash--to 21 Quebec ridings by the Liberal Party.

Mr. Godin was quite correct when he said it is legitimate to transfer funds to ridings, but it's legitimate to transfer it when you record the amounts and when you keep them under a certain amount and when they are receipted. It is not legitimate to have envelopes stuffed with cash, any more than it was legitimate for all those Liberal operatives to turn up and have those envelopes of cash that the Gomery commission was looking into in that particular Liberal scandal.

To say that Mr. LeBlanc's comments miss the point would be an understatement, Mr. Chairman.

I can think of three good, solid reasons why they don't want to allow this motion to be amended to include their expenses along with our expenses and to examine 2004 plus 2006. They want it focused just on 2006, just on the Conservative Party, but there are four reasons, Mr. Chairman. As far as I can see, they are the following.

One, it would soon become apparent that the Liberals have done the very same thing themselves, which is okay because it's legitimate. But this is a pattern you see with these guys. Do you remember the Rosh Hashanah crisis? That was when it turned out that somebody had received a Rosh Hashanah card from the Prime Minister or from a Conservative MP. Anyway, this was a great scandal, and the member for Thornhill, who is a Liberal, was up. It was a crisis. Where did this come from? What nefarious means were used to get the name of this individual and send them a Rosh Hashanah card? Then it turned out that the very same member had been sending Rosh Hashanah cards to people who had not provided her with any of the information that she found to be so mysterious.

Mr. Chairman, what you see going on is that something that's acceptable when Liberals do it is a scandal when somebody else does it. Then when people notice that actually Liberals were doing it as well as those dastardly Conservatives, suddenly it's not an issue anymore and it just drops right off the agenda, and we just won't discuss it anymore. It's just their way of operating in this Parliament.

In the absence of any actual scandals to point to, they'll invent some, just dig into their own bag, find the acts that they've been engaged in themselves that weren't actually illegal, and then say those other guys are doing these things too. We'll just hope nobody notices we were doing it, and we'll accuse them of doing things that are illegitimate, present it as if “illegitimate” and “illegal” are the same thing, and then we can engage in a parallel system to whatever court proceedings are going on.

I'm sure we could embarrass anybody in this room if we said we're going to have this committee investigate the contents of their sock and underwear drawers. I think if we all had our sock and underwear drawers investigated, we would be equally embarrassed, so let's just focus on one guy's sock and underwear drawer and not on anybody else's and hope we can embarrass him. But the fact is that having unsorted socks in your sock drawer isn't necessarily against the rules. There are a whole bunch of other things that are, but having household messes and whatever are not illegal and they're not illegitimate. This isn't illegal, and this isn't illegitimate, but if we can focus on one particular party's actions, decontextualize them, then we think maybe we'll get some media pick-up. That's reason number one.

Reason number two, that the Liberals want to discuss 2006 and not 2004, is that they were awash in cash themselves in 2004. In 2006 they were short of cash, and things had changed. The Conservative Party, which is much better at raising money, apparently, than the Liberal Party is--at least raising money legally....

I hear one of my opponents commenting on this. I don't think anybody would dispute that the returns we got in just recently, which showed that the Conservative Party had raised about $3 million, as it reported to Elections Canada...was not all raised legally, and that the, I think, $800,000 the Liberals raised was not raised legally. The point is we're getting about four times as much cash as they are. And this is a phenomenon that's been going on for some time.

The Liberals were short of cash. They didn't have the option of doing certain things. So once they can't do something, then it changes from being a legitimate action to an illegitimate action. It's only good when the Liberals can do it. When, over time, circumstances change as well, that crisis, brought on by the fact that nobody wants to give the Liberal Party money because nobody trusts them to govern the country, becomes grounds for the actions of anybody else who is raising money and spending it legally, and it is now seen as an illegitimate action. But to make sure that the embarrassment that occurred when Susan Kadis was shown as having given out Rosh Hashanah cards, after accusing others of being nefarious for doing the same thing, is prevented from happening, we have to word this so that we exclude the period when we ourselves were engaged in these kinds of activities, because we ourselves had more substantial money at our disposal.

That's reason number two of the four reasons.

Reason number three, Mr. Chairman, is that the Liberals are not anxious to go into the past and potentially further into the past. You may recall that when this issue came up in early September, and we were having meetings of this committee at that time, proposals were made to amend a similar Liberal motion to go back further to elections, not just in 2004 but further back--these were the elections in which the envelopes of cash were flying around, these are the ones that are actually beyond the statute of limitations that's written into the Canada Elections Act—and to investigate all of those practices that occurred during the era of the sponsorship scandal, following the 1995 referendum.

We wouldn't want to get into that, Mr. Chairman, would we now, because there were things that were genuinely illegitimate, genuinely illegal, going on, and they were all by the Liberal Party. It wasn't the Bloc; it wasn't the NDP; it wasn't the Conservatives or the predecessor parties of the Conservatives. It was the Liberal Party of Canada in there doing things that are, by anybody's measure, and certainly by the measure of the courts, illegal acts with regard to campaign funding. So they don't want to get that done.

And I stress again, 21 Quebec ridings received envelopes of cash. We don't know which ones, because when former Prime Minister Martin drafted the mandate of the Gomery commission he made sure it had a mandate to investigate only certain aspects of the sponsorship program and not the parts that would have implicated the Liberal Party itself. The Auditor General had drawn attention to a range of different activities, and one of the chapters--I think it was chapter 7 of her report--was specifically excluded from the mandate of the Gomery commission. So Mr. Justice Gomery could look into certain things and just had to halt his mandate at a certain point.

That's a can of worms, Mr. Chairman, that the Liberals really and truly do not want opened again. Thus the need to ensure that it's 2006 and nothing else. We don't want a temporal context there, we don't want a multi-party context; we want decontextualized information. And we also don't want anything that involves those annoying little courts, which actually have to base their findings on what the law says, involved in this either, because our goal here is--

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

To embarrass somebody.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Preston.

It's to embarrass somebody. It's not to actually find out what happened; it's simply to sift through that sock drawer, to dig through somebody's old love letters, to go through the contents of their garbage can, and that sort of thing, to take that out of context and see what sticks--just throw mud at the wall and see what sticks.

That brings me to point number four, Mr. Chairman, the four reasons the Liberals don't want to discuss their expenses along with ours, and they don't want to look, as the amendment to their motion suggests, at 2004 as well as 2006, and that is that it would remove their opportunity to set up a de facto double jeopardy here. The concept of double jeopardy and the prohibition on double jeopardy in Canada--and in all civilized countries, I might add--is based on the idea that if an assertion is made that you've done something that is not lawful, not within the bounds of the law, those who are prosecuted are allowed one shot at it, and of course, as you know, there's a proceeding in court.

I should mention, of course, the proceeding in court is the Conservative Party trying to get its money back, and not the reverse.

The Liberals realize there's a very good chance that what's going to happen is that the courts are going to rule in our favour. Well, they don't want that to happen. They can't stop that from happening, thank goodness, or else we'd be debating a motion to stop the courts from looking at this because this committee is so much better suited, in the Liberals' minds, to be dealing with issues like this. But the courts are going to ultimately decide how the law ought to be interpreted, and that's what this really comes down to: how should the law be interpreted? Laws get written sometimes in ways that allow for a variety of legitimate interpretations. Ultimately the courts have to decide which of those interpretations is legitimate.

Look, we on this committee interpreted the Elections Act, the part dealing with identification, differently from how the Chief Electoral Officer did when it came to the issue of veiled voting. I personally think, with appropriate respect, that the Chief Electoral Officer's interpretation was incorrect and ours was correct, but I'm respectful of his interpretation; that is, I think it was given legitimately. All of us are anxious to pass legislation that will deal with the fact that the Chief Electoral Officer has come along and interpreted a law, actually the same law, with regard to the addresses of rural voters, or the absence of addresses that cite a civic address, a physical location, from drivers' licenses and other pieces of ID. Now, this is something where the law was passed without an awareness that this could arise as a problem, and not just from us but from the experts. Mr. Mayrand and his predecessor, Mr. Kingsley, appeared before us, and it hadn't occurred to them either.

Mr. Chairman, I'm using this by way of analogy to point out that there can be multiple interpretations of the same law and that it's legitimate to have differing interpretations. If there were no differing interpretations, and if we all had the same interpretation of the law, there would be no need for courts. We could just have police and no court system. There would be no need to adjudicate disputes, because it would be clear: here's the law; you've broken it or you haven't broken it, and we'll deal with you accordingly, and that will be the end of that. Of course, the odd time there actually is a state that gets run that way, and we know those as police states. We don't do that here, Mr. Chairman; we have a court system. But the Liberals would like to set that aside because there's a very strong risk--

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I appreciate the fact that filibustering sometimes causes you to reach very deeply into your life experience or some obscure point to keep going, but I'm having a hard time finding how this is relevant to the amendment before us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you, Madam Redman, but as chair, I'll make that interpretation. I appreciate it.

I'm interpreting that this is relevant. He does bring it back, and I ask him to bring it back to the amendment, please.

I will just caution members that we are running a little out of time here, and I do need those lists of witnesses, so I will stop the meeting probably in about 10 to 12 minutes.

Mr. Reid, please continue.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Chair, actually I appreciate Mrs. Redman's observation. You yourself had noticed that I was getting a little too detailed in my analogy and that perhaps the point had been made without the need for me to continue on through multiple examples.

But the point I was driving at is that there are different legitimate interpretations of the law. You'll notice I'm using the word “legitimate” now. Of course this goes back to my concern about the word “illegitimate”. There are legitimate different interpretations of the law, so you know, it makes it inappropriate to use the term “illegitimate”.

I'm bringing all this back to the point I was getting at, which is that there are four reasons why the Liberals are objecting to the examination of both their expenses and ours in both 2004 and 2006. I was on the fourth of those points, which is that there is a process for dealing with these things, and they want to have a discussion that essentially prejudges before the courts have a chance to judge.

Now, in the end, whatever it might happen to be, no matter whether it's in context or out of context, the judgment of this committee is going to be a preliminary finding. Ultimately the courts will rule as to whether the Conservative Party is deserving of those rebates that it is seeking before the courts or whether in fact the Conservative Party's interpretation was not the correct one. And when that happens, everything we've done here will all kind of fade away.

But, Mr. Chairman, I think the concern the Liberals have is that there could be an election in between then and now and they really could use a Conservative scandal, and this one just looks so juicy. The facts may not be on their side, but we can set up a set of hearings in which only some of the facts get presented, in which people will be asked questions.... And Mr. LeBlanc sort of hinted at this in his comments--or he didn't hint, he said specifically--that they will be asked, were you pushed, were people prodding you, were they bullying you? Whatever, these questions are all subjective. They're not questions of law. They're not questions that ask, did somebody illegally force you to do something? Did they tell you to doctor your books, for example? Those would be breaches of the law. No, it's all this sort of soft stuff. But it will make great TV, and with any luck, if we have an election between the time at which we have these hearings and the time at which the courts decide, bang, we're set, we have what has the appearance of being a scandal. If a bit later on the courts rule and it turns out it wasn't a scandal, well, who cares? We did better in the polls because we left the false impression that somebody was engaged in activities that were wrong, because we decontextualized the whole thing.

That's the point, Mr. Chairman. That's the fourth point, and frankly, that's the most important one. They're hoping to engage in a court of star chamber. They're hoping to engage in a McCarthyite witch hunt. It is inappropriate, Mr. Chairman, and that's why we're seeking to amend this to make it more open and to ensure that a context is provided by looking at Liberal financing practices for 2004 and Conservative financing practices in 2004. The Liberals aren't interested, because they think that Tom Flanagan has indicated that this particular financing method wasn't in use in 2004. But we're seeking to open this up, and if they go along with that, Bob's their uncle, we've got our hearings. But I think the hearings won't produce the make-believe scandal they think they can generate, and that's what I'm hoping to see changed.

For that reason, Mr. Chairman, I will be supporting the proposed amendment to the original motion.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you, Mr. Reid.

Mr. Lemieux.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd just like to point out that one reason this motion needs to be amended is that there's confusion within the Liberal Party. One of the first things Monsieur LeBlanc said at the very beginning, quite categorically, was that this is not about limits. This is not about local limits and this is not about federal limits. He went on at quite some length, explaining to everybody that this is not about limits.

Monsieur Godin, when he spoke, said this is about limits, actually.

When Monsieur LeBlanc spoke again, a second time, he agreed: it's about limits.

So there's definitely confusion with the original motion. I don't think it's in anybody's best interests to be so limiting and to have such confusion, especially in amongst the opposition ranks.

Mr. Chair, one thing we have always said--we've said this in the House, we've said it outside the House, we're saying it again here in committee--is that our actions with respect to election financing are in accordance with the law. They're in accordance with the spirit of the law, they're in accordance with the letter of the law. That's important. But one key thing we've also said is that they're in accordance with the practices of other parties.

This is a key point. We want to move ahead in a spirit of openness. Let's open the books. Yes, we'll open our books. Let's open the books of the other parties. Let's call witnesses to look at our books and the books of the other parties--in this case, I'm suggesting the Liberal Party--and let's move ahead for Canadians in a spirit of openness.

Mr. Chair, I want to pick up on a point that my colleague Mr. Reid mentioned, which is why would the Liberals not be interested in moving ahead in this fashion? One thing I've noticed--and I'm a new MP, so this is somewhat shocking to me--is that the Liberal Party is steeped in hypocrisy. I've seen this particularly in the last two weeks, actually. I want to pick up on a couple of examples.

The greeting card example came up in question period. The Liberals were very concerned that the Prime Minister had sent greeting cards to Canadians. But we find out that one Liberal MP, an MP who's actually asking the question, who's leading the attack on this--

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, I don't like to interrupt a colleague, but you indicated that we have a few minutes left. This filibuster is obviously designed to run the clock.

Mr. Chairman, they're talking about an unrelated issue with respect to greeting cards. Many holidays are approaching. We're all worried about greeting cards. Perhaps you could rule on whether greeting cards are relevant to allegations of election fraud made against the Conservative Party.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I'm going to rule on the point of order.

I'm going to ask you to come back to the amendment. We're debating the amendment. If we could just have your comments focused around the amendment--

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I have a point of order.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Actually, Mr. Chair, he's trying to push the conversation into greeting cards. What I'm saying is that it has to do with hypocrisy. Why would the Liberals not support this amendment? That is where I'm going with this. What I'm saying is that they will not support this amendment--

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Mr. Reid, on a point of order.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Chairman, unless I'm very much mistaken, neither the original motion nor the amendment speaks of election fraud, which is a very specific allegation. I just want members to be aware of that.

I think Mr. LeBlanc honestly misstated something. I think it points to the danger of using hyperbolic rhetoric.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I think we all have an opportunity, with debates...and certainly the chair wants to keep debates as wide as we can possibly keep them. I know that members are very passionate about various positions, but I would ask members to be careful in their choice of words as we continue this debate.

We do only have a few minutes left, and I too hate to cut off members. We can continue this debate at another time. I'll talk about that in a few minutes.

For now, Mr. Lemieux, please stay on focus with the amendment at hand. Thank you.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

What I'm discussing, Mr. Chair, is why the Liberals would back away from an amendment that asked them to open their books. One of the points I made was that we have said in the House, and we have said outside the House, and we've said here in committee that our election financing practices are in accordance with the practices of other parties. This is important: they are in accordance with the practices of other parties. I then went on to ask the question why the Liberals would back away from an amendment like this. If they want to be open with Canadians, the Liberals should in fact open their books and say, yes, the Liberals have nothing to hide either.

One of the reasons I'm putting forward, Mr. Chair, is that of hypocrisy. To show hypocrisy, I'm pointing out what happened in the House in the last two weeks alone. There was the greeting card attack by the Liberal Party, and the very Liberal member who was leading the attack in the House of Commons had herself sent out the same greeting cards to constituents.

Then, if you'll remember, more hypocrisy--

[An hon. member]

Still on hypocrisy.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I'm still on hypocrisy because this is why you'd be backing away from this amendment.

On hypocrisy, then there was the software. Oh, the Conservatives use a software to track such things as when particular holidays take place. They led an attack on that only to find out the Liberals use exactly the same software, and then all lines of questioning stopped.

So as I said, the hypocrisy is somewhat breathtaking. When it comes to this particular issue of election financing, I don't know if anyone else has noticed--I'm sure they have, and I'm sure Canadians have noticed--the only party in the House pursuing this during question period is the Liberal Party. I'm saying that if this is the case, if they really want to serve Canadians and they want to show in fact that their actions have been above board, then they should open their books as well. They should not be backing away from this amendment. What do they have to fear?

As I said, Mr. Chair, one of our key tenets is that what we have done is in accordance with the practices of other parties. What that means is that other parties have done exactly the same thing. It is legal. It's in accordance with the letter of the law. It's in accordance with the spirit of the law.

The reason I think the Liberals are worried or why they might be scared is that they have a huge crisis in credibility. When I say a huge crisis in credibility...why would they have a crisis in credibility? It's because of hypocrisy, which is what I just pointed out. They've got their own problems with an MP such as Blair Wilson.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Again, I want to caution members about using the names of other members at this time. We can keep our comments strictly focused to the amendment debate. That's what we're on.

I'm going to ask you, Mr. Lemieux, to stay right on that, please.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I take your point, Mr. Chair, and I apologize for using his name.

What I want to say, though, is that the Liberals in fact should be embracing this amendment. I think Canadians would embrace this amendment. If the Liberals have nothing to hide, then they should move forward, and they should vote in favour of this amendment. Why not open the books for 2004 and 2006? I think if we do proceed in that fashion, then in fact, Mr. Chair, we will see that the actions of the Conservative Party in 2006 indeed are in accordance with actions taken by other parties in the 2006 election, and in previous elections as well.

Thank you.