Thank you both for being here.
I'm going to divert a little bit from the actual elements of Bill C-21. I don't know how germane my questions will be to the examination of Bill C-21, but I am going to ask the questions anyway.
I would like to hear from you, as an industry, as to what you feel your obligations may be to assist and participate in the democratic process. I want to give you a specific example. Back in the late nineties, there was a political party—I'm not talking about candidates now, but a political party—in Saskatchewan. It was called the Saskatchewan Party. I was very involved with it at the time. Now, of course, it's the current government of Saskatchewan. At the time, it was fledgling. It had just started. About a year and a half after the party was formed, there was a general provincial election. I was one of those who was tasked with negotiating with financial institutions to try to secure a bank loan. Of course, there are slightly different determinants in provincial elections as opposed to federal elections in terms of rebates. You need 15% of the popular vote, both as a candidate and as a party, to get any kind of a rebate. Nonetheless, we didn't really have much of a political history to assure the banks that we would in fact be able to get over and above 15% of the popular vote and then trigger a rebate.
We were able to secure a loan. One of the determinants was that the banker in question said that he believed, and his bank believed—I won't give you the name of the bank—there was an obligation on their behalf to participate in the democratic process. It really was part of their decision-making process to assist in the political process. Having said that, I don't think they would consider it if there was a million dollar loan request from the Rhinoceros Party of Saskatchewan. But given the fact that this was a fairly legitimate political entity, that factored in to their determination of whether or not the loan should be granted.
Is that common in the industry, both at the candidate level and at the political party level, or does it have any bearing whatsoever?