Evidence of meeting #53 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was million.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
We went for six minutes on that one. I'm being quite flexible, because I am interested in the answers.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
John Williamson Conservative New Brunswick Southwest, NB
All right.
Thank you for coming forth, Mr. Kingsley.
I have a couple of questions. You talked a little bit about the last leadership race and the trouble with where you draw the line and when you declare a debt out of bounds. One of the changes in Bill C-21 is that instead of allowing one and only one contribution donation of $1,200, the bill would allow that contribution to be made over several years. Do you agree with that change?
12:40 p.m.
Former Chief Electoral Officer, As an Individual
Yes, I do. I indicated that I did agree with that, sir.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
12:40 p.m.
Former Chief Electoral Officer, As an Individual
I think it facilitates the picking up of money afterward, from people who are supportive.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
John Williamson Conservative New Brunswick Southwest, NB
Okay, good. I'm pleased to hear that, because to me the biggest challenge those members had was an inability to go out and raise money year over year.
Your idea of having the EDA and even the party involved when a candidate is chosen is wise, perhaps, because the legislation calls for that debt to fall back to the EDA after three years, so that check box makes sense. However, I think it is neat but unworkable for both nominations and leadership. Let me explain why.
What if you're in a nomination contest and an EDA or the party doesn't want a particular candidate in the race and disallows any kind of bridge financing? I could say the same thing for a leadership contest. With all due respect, in the current Liberal leadership race there are 10 candidates at this point. One of the criticisms we hear, and this is from Liberals themselves, is that you really should be a top-tier candidate, an elected member. What if the party simply refused to extend any kind of loan provision to those candidates and thereby put them out of bounds?
12:40 p.m.
Former Chief Electoral Officer, As an Individual
The party would be facing the fact of probably having no candidates, or only one or two able to come forward, only the ones able to pick up money to launch the thing. That would be a decision by the political party, and it would have to face the music from the Canadian public for having run its leadership process that way.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
John Williamson Conservative New Brunswick Southwest, NB
But isn't that the problem with this proposal—that it's more about control and not fairness? I think people should be given the ability to present themselves for nomination for a leadership contest, and it shouldn't be up to a party official or party bureaucracy to disallow a candidate from taking out a loan, particularly in a leadership race requiring a substantial amount of money.
12:40 p.m.
Former Chief Electoral Officer, As an Individual
I don't see this decision being made by a party official or a party bureaucrat. I see it being made by the executive of the party, the elected people who run the party, so that a true leadership race takes place.
12:40 p.m.
Former Chief Electoral Officer, As an Individual
You don't want 25 candidates. We all agree with that.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
John Williamson Conservative New Brunswick Southwest, NB
No, actually I don't agree with that. I think that's a question for individuals to face. If 25 individuals think they've got something to contribute, they ought to be given that opportunity. It makes it messy, I agree, but I think oftentimes democracy is very messy.
12:40 p.m.
Former Chief Electoral Officer, As an Individual
If those 25 people find there's no loan available, they have to go out and pick up some money. They have to get some people to support them to indicate that there is support for the ideas they're willing to put forward.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
John Williamson Conservative New Brunswick Southwest, NB
I agree, but what if you have a situation in which the party does advance loans to some, but not to all?
12:40 p.m.
Former Chief Electoral Officer, As an Individual
This is part of what I was saying. The permissible amount of the loans would be even for all the candidates that are accepted as candidates.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
John Williamson Conservative New Brunswick Southwest, NB
In that case, you could have a situation of unintended consequences because if you make it that easy, I might run, not with any belief I can win but knowing that at the end of the day the bill will get sent to, in the case of the Conservative Party, Jenni Byrne to pay. Suddenly I'm given a platform and I'm not responsible for paying off those debts, knowing full well the political party will pay for it.
12:40 p.m.
Former Chief Electoral Officer, As an Individual
You would also have to cross the other hurdles that are put your way by the party to be a candidate. Either it's money or a form of public support, so you would have to cross that. We already have these unwritten hurdles. Some of them become written, but they're unwritten in the way we run the system now. We have these limits.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
John Williamson Conservative New Brunswick Southwest, NB
I agree, but I think the scheme puts too much control in the hands of a central organization that has a vested interest in keeping things clean. On the one hand, it will block candidates out or, on the other hand, it will allow candidates to come in because the cash is available for all. You're stuck on both ends. If you're the candidate, one reason we run for political parties is for the benefit that gives us: you give up a bit of control and they sign off on your loan, subject to the risk.
Nomination and leadership contests are altogether different beasts; they're contests among individuals. We've seen examples already in which, at the nomination level, boards and parties have favourites and have candidates they would rather not have in the contest. I worry that if we give them tools to disallow them, it's going to narrow the scope of candidates. At the other extreme, opening it up too far would bring forward candidates who are running simply because someone else is going to pay the bill.
12:45 p.m.
Former Chief Electoral Officer, As an Individual
By the way, from the questions you were raising with the previous witness, I think you should run for the leadership of the party.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you, Mr. Williamson. You noticed Mr. Kingsley didn't say for what party.
Thank you. I have no one else left on the list. I'll take a one-off question.
Go ahead, Mr. Scott.
12:45 p.m.
NDP
Craig Scott NDP Toronto—Danforth, ON
Be careful what you joke about, Mr. Kingsley. That might appear as an endorsement in literature down the road.
I have one last question, again dragging you back to Bill C-21, which at the moment we're sort of working within. We're open to opening it up, I suppose.
You said something very interesting about how you had to make judgments about making extensions, often on a no-information basis, and using a presumption of good faith on the part of the person asking for the extension. Mr. Mayrand also spoke about the problems in the current bill. Section 405.6 deals with the circumstances under which an unpaid amount doesn't become a deemed contribution—that's another area of confusion—at the end of three years if one of four things has occurred.
One is the loan is subject to a binding agreement that effectively means you have almost a new loan, and another one is that it's been written off by the lender as an uncollectable debt.
Basically I think he was saying that if he was going to have those functions, he was going to need access to more information than he currently had.
I assume you would agree with that and that we should be considering writing in informational requirements.
12:45 p.m.
Former Chief Electoral Officer, As an Individual
Obviously I agree with that, because I indicated that we obtain some information at the time but that we don't get to verify that information necessarily. You don't get access to the paper documentation that will allow you to feel secure about the judgment you're making, so yes, I would agree with that entirely.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
I know the legislation we have has a slant towards political entities. Every election you always get someone who says, “I want to run. I want to have my name on the ballot as an independent”, and many of those individuals are shocked, I suspect, to find out the rules that apply to campaigns.
Do you have any insights as to what could be done to make our democracy even better for those individuals who are not affiliated with a political party? If you don't have that now but could provide something in writing at some point in time, that would be great. I'd be interested in your opinions.
12:45 p.m.
Former Chief Electoral Officer, As an Individual
From my 17 years at the helm, I don't remember a lot of concern.... I shouldn't put it that way. I did not hear a lot from independent candidates who said the rules were too severe.
I did hear from the Communist Party that the thousand dollars down was an issue. That becomes an important break against entry into the system for independent candidates. It went from a hundred dollars to a thousand dollars in one fell swoop, and the Communist Party said, “We're going to have to fork over $50,000, and our candidates don't have that kind of money”, and the party did not have that kind of money.
That was for a small party. From independents I did not hear a lot of concern, but maybe they were so discouraged that they didn't even think of calling the Chief Electoral Officer. I don't know. Certainly the thousand dollars would apply. It was of concern to at least one party and maybe others, and it would obviously be a concern to independent candidates.