Evidence of meeting #29 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was recommendation.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you, Mr. Hoback.
We have Mr. Weston, just to finish off everybody getting one round in. Then we'll go to some one-off questions.
Mr. Weston.
November 2nd, 2010 / 12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Rodney Weston Conservative Saint John, NB
Thank you, Chair. I won't take a lot of time.
Mr. Lavigne, your comments focused a bit on accountability. You had some concerns over regulation, and you seemed to imply that less regulation would allow more people into the system. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but that was the implication I drew from that. You said--and I'm paraphrasing here--that we shouldn't require an audit on candidates who receive less than 10%.
My question is on that. I'm not trying to stifle any participation in the political process, but there always has to be a measure of accountability. I am wondering if you could go a little further on that to let me know your thoughts. Surely you're not suggesting that any candidate who receives less than 10% should not be accountable or not have to provide audited statements.
Would you be looking at something of the nature that the CEO would be able to randomly select candidates? What were your thoughts there? Could you expand a bit further?
12:25 p.m.
National Director, New Democratic Party
There's a whole host of things that would reduce the regulatory burden on the local campaigns. I highlighted a few of them.
Obviously we do want accountability; we do want to make sure. But some of these provisions.... For instance, if you have no financial transactions, it's very hard to explain to somebody why they have to open up a credit union or bank account. This is from our perspective and how we train our local teams.
We keep putting them through all these hoops. These are volunteers. These are people with jobs, with families, people who are taking their kids to soccer and to dance. They don't have time to go through motions. If you have absolutely no financial transactions, you have to open up a bank account, and if you don't receive very much revenue coming in from donations or expenditures going out, you still have to do an audit. Nobody is saying they shouldn't do returns, but an audit...? Many times our people have phoned and said, “Who drew up these rules--the Auditing Association of Canada?” I mean, come on.
12:25 p.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
12:25 p.m.
National Director, New Democratic Party
There's one on this committee: go figure. There is finally some news coming out of all this--
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Rodney Weston Conservative Saint John, NB
I'm not trying to interrupt, Mr. Lavigne, but your correlation was to the number of votes garnered--less than 10%--not to whether they actually incurred any financial expense. That's what I'm trying to get to here: that there isn't a direct correlation between the two.
12:25 p.m.
National Director, New Democratic Party
Understood, but the benchmark I was using here is if you don't get your rebate back: you don't get your rebate or your deposit back if you don't get that 10% or more. That was the litmus test I was talking about.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Rodney Weston Conservative Saint John, NB
No, I understand where you developed the benchmark, but I just wanted to make sure that you weren't...that there wasn't a correlation. There's no correlation between financial transactions and amount of votes garnered.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Rodney Weston Conservative Saint John, NB
That's where I was going with that. I don't think it's a fair statement to say that anybody who got less than 10% of the vote shouldn't have to be required to provide audited statements.
I guess here's where I'm going with this: do you have an idea of how to provide the best...? I mean, there have to be some accountability measures built in here regardless of what percentage of the vote you get.
12:25 p.m.
National Director, New Democratic Party
Certainly. They do a return and that return is eventually audited anyway, but the litmus test is whether or not they get rebate money back from the taxpayer. That's what I'm saying. That's the cut-off. If you're not getting any money back from the taxpayer, then you file your return, and it will eventually get audited--but no audit when you file your return. That's my litmus test. It has nothing to do with votes. It has to do with whether or not you're getting a rebate.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Excellent. All right. We have time to do some one-off questions, so I'll follow in the order of questioners.
Ms. Ratansi is first.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
On the candidates who conduct no financial transactions, my question is this: how can you not conduct financial transactions? You are a candidate. You must have an office. You must have some expenses. You must have some profile. How can you claim you're not conducting a financial transaction? The accountant in me says “debits and credits”. Which is your debit and what is your credit?
12:30 p.m.
National Director, New Democratic Party
Oh, oh, I'm going after the accountant now.
12:30 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
12:30 p.m.
National Director, New Democratic Party
There are candidates who are names on ballots, who are staff people for members of Parliament or senators, who are running in what we call low-resource areas. For these people, they're a name on a ballot. They give the opportunity to the local people to vote for all the political options before them. They don't enter the riding. They don't expend. They don't make any expenditures or garner any revenues. That happens in dozens of ridings among a variety...I would look to some of the smaller parties for that very evidence.
One thing we're trying to suggest is that we agree with the chief because all of this stuff has to be verified by Elections Canada staff. There is important work to be done, and I don't think looking at a small party that is running a candidate's name on a ballot in an area of non-traditional strength is deserving of the amount of time it takes to review an audit.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
I wanted to come back to the issue regarding candidates' debates and the proposal that expenses incurred in organizing these debates be treated as a non-monetary contribution.
Mr. Arnold, you said--and I was surprised to hear this because I would have thought the contrary to be true--that this is already going on in practice and that the proposal would just codify an existing practice.
I'm only basing this on my own experience in my own constituency, but we had eight all-candidates debates in the last election and eight in the one before. That's four times now. You can do the math.
I've never had any attempt, to my knowledge, to take these costs and require us to include them in our return. Now, I haven't spoken with my opponents, but I wonder if you might have been mistaken there, or maybe I just misunderstood.
12:30 p.m.
Senior Director, Regulatory Compliance and Administration, Liberal Party of Canada
No, I agree with that. From reading the recommendation, it was not our understanding that Elections Canada was trying to change the rules on this. They're simply stating here that Parliament should adopt clear provisions in the act “that define under what circumstances expenses incurred to organize a candidates' debate consist of a non-monetary contribution”. I don't believe they're proposing that those current rules be changed.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
I see. So the idea is that for the current rule the law is vague as to when it should be counted or not counted, and in practice what's happening is that it has never been counted as something that should be put on.... Or it should be divided up among the candidates. Is that what you're...?