Yes. Based on the indiscretions that have been going on for 20 or 25 years and that are becoming increasingly common and specific in recent years, including recent months, recent weeks, that is more or less what is going on in Quebec. There is even a court case about this. A law firm will tell its various associates that it is in the collective interest for each of them to donate $3,000 to a particular party, and maybe, as an insurance policy, to give $1,000 to the other party. So there are 40 contributions of $3,000 on paper for naïve people like me who read the reports, who look at that and think it looks just fine: 40 people decided, of their own accord, to donate money to a political party. But what we are told by people who are closer to the situation is that we are innocents abroad, that what is really going on is that companies are financing political parties, but doing it by evasive methods that are in fact contrary to the principle of the law, the law we think is so fine. Be careful! I am not telling you that all contributions in Quebec are like this, but we have to acknowledge that this is happening, because there are not enough individual, disinterested contributions by individuals to enable parties to stay on track financially.
I got some figures to illustrate the change. In the late 1970s, about 200,000 people a year, based on the figures filed under the legislation, contributed to political parties. Today, again going by the official figures, the number is something on the order of 50,000. In other words, there was a situation in the 1970s that meant that politics was fairly exciting and people were fairly motivated to go out and give money in $10 and $20 amounts. Politics was working well.
What I see, and I take no joy from, I will say straight off, is that political activity at present is not seen in a very positive light. And I think the number of people who care enough about politics to give money to parties without some self-interest in the back of their minds is not as high as it used to be. That is why somewhat more self-interested motivations are emerging, and they are doing it within the framework of the legislation, that is, while people are pretending to abide by the letter of the law, they are certainly not abiding by its spirit, because there are contributions that are de facto corporate, although they are formally individual. That is why government could emerge as the only solution, because government money comes with no strings attached, to use the English expression.
