Evidence of meeting #26 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was referendum.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
If the rules are the same for both camps, the "yes" camp and the "no" camp, it will be equal.
Professor, Department of Political Science, Laval University, As an Individual
It will be equal…
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Is it necessary to have more money to...
Professor, Department of Political Science, Laval University, As an Individual
If you think that too much money is spent in politics, and that if the parties' resources are reduced, it is better because they will spend less, that's correct. But I have the impression that the parties might tell you that politics is an expensive business.
Conservative
Professor, Department of Political Science, Laval University, As an Individual
They will tell you that a referendum is an expensive business, because the positions have to be developed, they have to be publicized, leaflets have to be printed, messages have to be presented on television. That's expensive.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
And funding all that is a government responsibility?
Professor, Department of Political Science, Laval University, As an Individual
Ah! In both cases, it will be the government that...
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
That's what I'm saying. That is your position.
Professor, Department of Political Science, Laval University, As an Individual
I think that this is what will happen. If you allow companies to finance referendum committees, the government will probably not have to get decisively involved. It will not have to provide money.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
It won't be possible for individuals to finance this?...
Professor, Department of Political Science, Laval University, As an Individual
In any event, for political parties, that is certainly not what happens. I can tell you, on a side note, that I think it will be increasingly difficult, for reasons I would prefer not to expand on, to persuade large numbers of individuals to give enough money to political parties for them to be able to carry on their activities. In my opinion, there may be parties that will succeed in financing their activities that way, but there will be others that will have more difficulty.
When the federal government decided to limit the right to finance parties to individuals in 2003, there was a reason why it felt a need to turn on the public tap at the same time, because it said to itself that if it didn't do that the parties were going to be short of money.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
They couldn't maintain the same level of funding.
But if both sides cut their spending?
Professor, Department of Political Science, Laval University, As an Individual
Right. That may not be a bad idea. Maybe there is too much political spending. On that point, your opinion is as good as mine; maybe there really is too much spending.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
You mentioned that the amount of money spent is not necessarily...
Professor, Department of Political Science, Laval University, As an Individual
That's possible. In fact, I think that because it is political parties that make the laws about this, they might want to protect themselves against funding shortfalls. That is also not impossible.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
I have no one else on my list. If there's anyone else...Mr. Reid, if you'd like just another couple of minutes, we'll be happy to do that.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
The idea has bounced around a bit that there might be merit under federal law to have a version of the umbrella committee idea that's used in Quebec legislation. My impression is that there are good arguments on either side of this question.
One of the features of Quebec's legislation is that the leader of the yes side in any referendum is the premier, and the leader of the no side is the leader of the opposition. It seems that there could be cases in which this is problematic. Had there been a referendum under this model in Canada at the federal level when the Bloc Québécois was the opposition, you would have had, effectively, an opposition representing only one province, despite the fact that it was conceiveably a minority government in which other parties from other provinces could have participated. Even today, if we had such a system, we could have a situation in which the leader of the Liberal Party would be the head of the no committee, and the Bloc and the NDP, who are legitimate opposition parties, would be in some way not represented.
In 1992, I think Mr. Bourassa said that if they didn't get a constitutional deal that they could present to the people, they'd have a referendum on whether Quebec should secede. He would have been the head of the yes committee, and Mr. Parizeau would have been the head of the no committee, and you could not have spent money on behalf of the no committee without Mr. Parizeau's say-so. That strikes me as being inherently problematic.
Am I missing something?
Professor, Department of Political Science, Laval University, As an Individual
No, you are flagging a very interesting issue. What Quebec's referendum provides for is that once the referendum question has been passed by the members of the Assembly, members of the Assembly are invited to join either the yes side or the no side. What happened, of course, was that all the members of the Liberal Party went on one side, and all the members of the Parti Québécois went on the other side. There were a few third parties, which were not very numerous at the time.
What happens under this model if parties have no opinion on the merits of the question? What will members do? Indeed, the Quebec legislation foresaw this problem. It said that if no member of the Assembly joins a side, then the Chief Electoral Officer is instructed to find people to staff the national committee.
Indeed, this model, this umbrella committee, as provided by the Quebec legislation, is different from the umbrella committees of the British type, which were more flexible. This system has been devised on the assumption that politicians would have a definite opinion on either side, and that parties would join a side en masse.
What happened in 1992, I remember, is that Monsieur Parizeau headed the no committee on the Charlottetown accord. But Mr. Libman, who was the leader of the Equality Party, was also opposed to the Charlottetown accord. I understand that he had to campaign under the umbrella of Monsieur Parizeau. This apparently worked. Apparently, they found a modus vivendi. Of course, it was a union, an illustration that politics makes strange bedfellows. But it worked. To my knowledge, Mr. Libman did not complain of being shut out. Indeed, Monsieur Parizeau had every interest in broadening the appeal of the no side, whatever the inner motives of those who voted no might have been.
Have I answered your question?
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Yes, very well.
I gather, then, that had the first referendum, the one that would have occurred had the Charlottetown accord not been developed—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Mr. Reid, you're going over your time. and I feel that another question will put us well over.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
In that case, thank you very much.
Conservative
Bloc
Raynald Blais Bloc Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, Mr. Massicotte.
I am jumping in a bit here, but the discussion you had with Mr. Lauzon prompts me to ask you a question. I have the impression that your opinion about party financing must be very interesting.
You say that when political parties' funding sources are cut off, it is to the benefit of the government or Parliament to turn on the tap, as you put it, to make up for the shortfall, to arrive at an adequate funding level or one that resembles what they had before. Once organizations, corporations, can no longer contribute, the general public can do it.
The general public can take a variety of forms. It might be, for example, a denomination, a religion, that asks its adherents or its group to support one party over another. There is a form of corporation and financing that sets in and ends up more or less vitiating the system that is meant to ensure that the general public is financing political parties.