Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 7th, 2010

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Fair enough.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

Mr. Reid.

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

I'm glad you made that last comment. That's really unfair. I hadn't known that.

Are we doing three-minute rounds or five-minute rounds?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Well, I'm trying to stay at five, but you're being very cooperative in doing less than that.

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

Historically, yes. I'll try to break that pattern.

First of all, thank you for coming here today.

I wanted to ask you, Mr. Mayrand, with regard to those outstanding loans to former leadership candidates for the Liberal Party, based on the most recent reports—I know this is public information and I probably should have it at my fingertips—how much is currently owed, and by whom, as of the last time this stuff was reported?

[Marc Mayrand]

I don't have that information right now. We could provide it. Again, as you mentioned, it's on the public record.

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

All right.

You mentioned that there'd been some court involvement in determining how this is dealt with. I think I'm right, and you can correct me if I'm not right, that you do have some discretion in this regard as to how such debts would be dealt with. Am I correct, or you did have some discretion at some point in the process?

[Marc Mayrand]

I had jurisdiction to authorize the extension of time for the repayment of unpaid claims, yes. After I granted those extensions, candidates wanted additional time. At that point, they had to go to court to get those extensions.

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

Oh, so an initial extension is something you can decide on. After that, they have to go to court.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, you had not been willing to give the initial extension. Would they then have had the option of going to court to seek a ruling that you were being unfair, or whatever the case?

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes, they could apply to a court.

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

Okay.

Based on your experience with this particular leadership race, and given that sooner or later one or another of the parties in Canada is going to have a leadership race, one assumes, and that similar problems could arise, would you, do you think, pursue the same course of action? If not, what kind of course of action would you pursue?

I ask you this because it's reasonable to assume that participants in those future races may structure their financial activities and their borrowing activities around their expectations of what your actions might be.

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes. There are recommendations in this report regarding unpaid claims and their treatment. The current rules are quite convoluted and not very efficient. I am putting forward recommendations to clarify the rules and to achieve better results with those rules.

I should point out, however, that my recommendations are driven not necessarily by leadership contests but by election contests. We have close to 400 candidates who still have outstanding debts today from the last general election. We still have quite a number of candidates who have outstanding debts from the 38th general election. That was 2004.

The rules in the legislation were designed by Parliament to achieve two things: transparency regarding what's happening here, who's being paid what, from what funds; and to achieve an end to this.

The problem you have—and it's described in the recommendations in the report—is that when you look at the provisions, it doesn't work like that. My recommendations are to the effect that we need to simplify the regime and allow 18 months, whatever the contest, to repay unpaid loans. After that, we need a report. You'll see that report recommends there be a strict liability offence for those who have failed to repay after 18 months. It also suggests that the court would have to authorize a further extension after 18 months.

I'll stop at that, unless you have an additional point.

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

Okay. That's actually very helpful.

You mentioned reporting, so if I wanted to find out who those 400-odd candidates were and how much the outstanding amounts were, is that information currently publicly available?

[Marc Mayrand]

It's on the website. It's part of their return.

The one thing I would caution you about is that the last time we received information might have been several months ago, so I would advise caution as to whether the figures you'll see there reflect the situation as we speak.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Monsieur Plamondon, you're going to split the time a little, but please, be short if you can.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

In terms of election advertising, you are recommending changes with respect to ridings or third parties that pay for advertising before the election campaign begins. In the Bloc Québécois—you have all our campaign returns—the money is held by the ridings. Obviously, there are some ridings that are able to handle three or four elections. That means that advertising… There is already a system in place: when we advertise during an election that has to be accounted for in one way or the other. Why are you asking us to do this? Is it because you're afraid …?

In the last campaign, the Conservatives took national funds and transferred them to ridings that didn't have much money, in order to pay for national advertising. Now you are telling us that the ridings can no longer pay for advertising… Please clarify.

[Marc Mayrand]

These provisions—and there is a whole series of recommendations dealing with this—are basically intended to clarify the act to ensure that even if an expense was incurred before the writ was dropped, it must be declared and accounted for during the campaign, if it was made during the campaign.

A strict reading of the act makes it clear that it is the case for candidates… When it comes to leadership contests and riding associations, there is a problem with the way the legislation is currently drafted. It refers only to expenses incurred during the event… So, technically, any expenses incurred prior to the event would not be reported. I don't think that is the intent. I believe most people would understand that whenever the expense was actually incurred, if the benefit associated with the expense is used during the campaign, it must be reported for that campaign.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Plamondon.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC]

I have a question about recommendation 11.5 that you referred to earlier, with respect to a candidate's liability compared to that of the official agent. You would like both to be fully liable, as my colleague was saying earlier.

Would that mean that, as a candidate, I could decide to run in an election without an official agent, simply make the invoices in my own name, then prepare the financial report and sign it, since I would have the same responsibilities as the official agent? If that's the case, why would I need an official agent? I may as well just make the invoices in my own name and sign my own cheques.

[Marc Mayrand]

Under the current regime, candidates are required to recruit an official agent. However, the official agent is also your representative to a large extent. You are already required to sign the campaign return.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC]

Yes, you have to sign it at the end.

[Marc Mayrand]

That also suggests that there is liability.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC]

When the return is presented to me, I sign it and am given some explanations. If there is something fishy in the report, I will not be aware of it, because I have been campaigning for 37 or 38 days. But now there is a possibility that I will be prosecuted.

Up until now, it was the official agent being prosecuted, because it was his job to track election expenses by the candidate on a daily basis.

[Marc Mayrand]

Remember that we are not talking about a strict liability offence here.

I won't refer to specific examples, but there have been cases in the past where the official agent was actually acting on instructions from the candidate. I think everyone would expect that, in that kind of situation, the candidate should be liable. But that is not what the act currently states.

Of course, if a candidate was acting in good faith and was misled by his agent, I don't think he would be held liable. I cannot image that a court of law would declare him to be liable.

However, in cases where the candidate himself was partly responsible for the issue that arose, I think it is appropriate to make the candidate liable.