Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 29th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Okay, team, let's get started so that at some time this evening we'll actually get finished.

We suggested when we left here this afternoon that we were still on amendment PV-13, but I don't see Ms. May. We had also deferred NDP-1 and a group there, so we could go to it, and I'll come back to PV-13.

We are back to what was called NDP-1.

Mr. Scott, are you prepared to resume at that point?

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Okay.

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

Just as a point of order, Mr. Chair, if Ms. May doesn't return, does that matter? Is it still on the table?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We would then go back to PV-13. She has already spoken to it, but I'm going to give her the time to go through this, and then, before I go back to it.... But if at that point she's not here, we'll just do it as if the independent amendments have been moved.

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

Okay, good.

We started out on what looked like a very picky, almost semantic, point with NDP-1 and NDP-2, where there was an amendment that I moved to clean up the definition of “leadership campaign expenses” and “nomination campaign expenses”.

Circulating now is something that I missed. I always knew there was a definition of “monetary contribution”, but I had forgotten that “non-monetary contribution”, which we were stuck on in terms of what it could actually mean, is actually defined in the Canada Elections Act. What's circulating is the definition in subsection 2(1) in French and English; it's in the middle box. The non-monetary contribution language in this amendment would mean exactly the same thing. It means “the commercial value of a service, other than volunteer labour, or of property or of the use of property or money to the extent that they are provided without charge or at less than their commercial value”.

There's a further provision in subsection 2(2) of the Canada Elections Act that says if property is worth $200 or less, it's given nil value. The reason this is important is that the definition already covers the volunteer issue that we were worried about, and the $200 or less covers the apple pie, cherry pie....

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

Maybe not in your riding, where maybe some of these go for $300 or $400 a pop, but at least where I'm from, a cherry pie is about $100. Okay?

Without belabouring it anymore, I think we have a clear legal reference point for what “non-monetary contribution” means. I'd like to ask the folks from the Privy Council whether or not that would be how they would read the language too.

[Marc Chénier, Senior Officer and Counsel, Privy Council Office]

Non-monetary contributions are defined as excluding volunteer labour, and the definition of volunteer labour excludes as volunteer labour those that are provided by a person who is in the business of providing the good or the service.

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

It includes that, too.

[Marc Chénier]

Pardon me?

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

It includes that—

[Marc Chénier]

It excludes from volunteer labour—

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

All right. So somebody who's in the business of giving accounting services couldn't volunteer that labour. They could volunteer for something else.

[Marc Chénier]

That's correct.

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

Okay. That goes back to Scott's example.

My bottom line would be that this is the existing act, and this is cleaning it up in the way the Chief Electoral Officer wants by using the exact inclusion he wanted, and it's very clear what the definition is. I would like us to move on and vote for it. Everybody vote yes and then....

Dave, like I said, I'm going to get you to vote once for us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Okay.

Is there further discussion on NDP-1 and the group that's involved with it?

Mr. Simms.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

One of the suggestions I brought out earlier was to exclude the word “any”. What I was saying was that when you use the word “any”, you have to consider everything, whereas if you take out the word “any”, if you look at expenses as defined in section 478, as well as non-monetary contributions—and thank you, we now know what that is. Also, it gives them a discretion to use, I think, if you take out the word “any”, so I would humbly suggest that we do that as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

If you're suggesting an amendment to the amendment, I would again need you to....

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

It's dangerous territory.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I know.

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible--Editor]

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

All right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Let's have the discussion while that happens as if it's happened.

Is there further discussion on NDP-1?

Seeing none, let's call the question on the amendment to the amendment that would remove the word “any”.

(Subamendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

It appears that we like the word “any”.

We will now move to the motion as written.

[An hon. member]

Could we have a recorded vote?