Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Mr. Mayrand, for being here.
I think the chair is right, we're going to have a lot of questions. You've given us a lot of information to consider.
I note that your predecessor, Mr. Kingsley, had recommended to this committee back in 2007 that a number of changes be made to the loans regime, which we have done, and which are contained in Bill C-21. I hope you agree that those changes, generally speaking, address the concerns that Mr. Kingsley had. But I'd like to focus on one possible recommendation that you made. As opposed to individuals being allowed to contribute only up to their maximum contribution limit on a yearly basis, you felt that we might want to consider an exemption so that candidates could loan themselves any kind of money on a one-time basis.
I'd like to ask if you could clarify that, going into a little bit more detail. While one could certainly argue that this would violate the spirit of the individual contribution limits, a more serious consequence could be that if you had a particularly well-heeled candidate who was able to lend himself $5 million or more, he might not ever have to go and seek loans or contributions again, because this one-off loan would be sufficient to run his entire leadership contest.
So my questions to you would be: do you still feel this would be an appropriate qualification to put into this bill, and if so, what should the limits be on a candidate loaning himself money?