Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 18th, 2012

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

It would be illegal, I would say. You would essentially be lying when you made that application—

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Right, but—

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

—so that would be a bigger problem of fraud, I would say.

[A voice]

It's fraudulent.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Gill.

Mr. Scott, to finish off, you have four minutes.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thanks so much.

If I could, I'll quickly return to where we ended on the last question, which is the exception for “subject to binding agreement” of a party.

Mr. Lynch, is that effectively just a new version of the same loan?

[Matthew Lynch]

It's actually a loan agreement and it's a provision that already exists in the act. It's just being carried forward.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Right. Okay. I understand that you've said you don't really foresee—although it's not written in as such—that a financial institution would ever get to the point of being deemed to be the contributor, because it could invoke at least one of those exceptions. I'm wondering if financial institutions are going to be all that happy if they know that the final outcome is that they could be committing an offence under the act, which technically you've told us they could be.

[Matthew Lynch]

Yes, I mean, the fact that financial institutions can write off debt, provided that it's properly done, then it wouldn't become a deemed contribution.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Okay.

On the question of the recommendations from the Chief Electoral Officer in 2007, are there any in particular we should know about that were not followed as part of this bill, Minister?

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

We have a long list of ones that were followed.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

No, a list of any that were not. I think in general you followed them, but....

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

I think in general they were followed, especially the overall concern of having some consistency. The biggest concern was making sure there's consistency. That was all followed, and bringing some clarity to the overall loans regime was all followed. I may not have the details.

[Matthew Lynch]

The government's bill is very much based on the Chief Electoral Officer's 2007 report with respect to loans. There were a couple of variations. One is that the CEO suggested that perhaps consideration could be given to allowing candidates to give themselves a start-up loan. His report was silent on the role of guarantees.

There were other provisions and issues raised in his report in addition to loans. We've sent you the report.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Yes. The start-up loan I think is the one that just came to my mind. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

One minute.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

There's the question of ceilings on leadership contests. I understand that the philosophy now is that the parties themselves determine—

[A voice]

Yes.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

—the amount that leadership candidates can spend. Is there not a role in this framework to set a limit on how much can be borrowed with respect to some of the same interests that you've presented about access to the process? If at the very top of a party there are fewer people who would ever have a shot because of how difficult it is to raise money, should there not be some kind of attention to leadership campaigns in that way?

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

I believe the parties are setting up a limit of how much you can spend.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Yes.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Essentially, it starts in the sense of how much you can spend. Somebody who was getting into the race would already have a pretty good idea of how much they can raise, how much they need to borrow to get that started, how much they can raise, and how to be able to pay that off. I believe that's a responsibility that should be on the party and the contestant.

Again, as I said, we expect Canadians to manage their own budgets and their debts, and we should expect it of politicians as well.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Could I make one quick comment?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Make it quickly.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

It's simply that the fact that rebates can be calculated in by banks is a valid point, but I wonder about the banks actually being able to guess this. In my own riding we expected a very vibrant party, the Green Party, to get 10%, and it didn't, and a party we would have expected to get well over 10% didn't. I'm just worried that banks will not really be in a position to think in those terms.