Evidence of meeting #106 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was elections.
A video is available from Parliament.
Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Machinery of Government, Privy Council Office
I said, I don't think I could convince you, if you were from that—
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Oh, you don't. You're just going to remain upset about this. Uh-oh.
Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Machinery of Government, Privy Council Office
Let me just play it through for you, because it's a serious question.
What is being attempted here, and what makes us.... I would compare the Canadian political system with what we see south of the border and say that we have a superior system in Canada, in part because we have a more restrained system that allows political parties to perform an incredibly useful democratic duty for Canadian society. It is required that their voices not be drowned out. The risk of unfettered involvement by third parties during the election time period would, in effect, drown out the voices of the political parties, making them unable—
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Some people would like those political parties to have their voices drowned out.
Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Machinery of Government, Privy Council Office
They would be wrong to do that.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Let me challenge it back. I'm not talking about unfettered. We have placed limits on what political parties can raise and spend. We have limits now on what third parties can spend. Why is it so much less? There are some libertarians—and others, not even libertarians—who will argue and say if a Canadian wants to donate to a political party of any stripe to have their issues and their voices back their candidate, that's fine. But many Canadians don't engage in political parties. Less than 1% have a membership in any of the parties represented in the House of Commons. Canadians voice their views in other ways, much more than they did a hundred years ago. Why are we setting a lower limit for that voice than we are for the people who choose to donate through a political party?
Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Machinery of Government, Privy Council Office
You've come to the crux of the issue. In that moment of an election period, which is not a long period in the length of our democratic society, we're trying to preserve a little extra space for the political parties by providing some restrictions to the amount of partisan advertising. It's partisan advertising in the pre-writ period—
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
[Inaudible—Editor] candidate. It's issue advertising as well.
Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Machinery of Government, Privy Council Office
During the writ period it is, but during the pre-writ period it's just partisan advertising. We're doing it for a limited amount of time in order to have the democratic debate that we need to elect a view.
Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Machinery of Government, Privy Council Office
Yes, indeed.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
It's the time when more voters are paying the most attention. If you or I were sitting in an NGO saying that we have $100,000 to spend on advertising, and what's the best bang for our buck, of course it's when voters are paying the most attention. However, we are now limited by this bill in terms of our ability to get at our issue, which we believe in and which people gave us money for.
Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Machinery of Government, Privy Council Office
If you had $100,000, that's fine. You could spend $100,000.
Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Machinery of Government, Privy Council Office
It's an important point that most third parties are actually quite small in Canada—
Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Machinery of Government, Privy Council Office
—and that's a good thing.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Thank you, Chair.
Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for being here with us.
I have a couple of technical questions regarding the legislation. Then I want to get into something that interested me several years ago and I'm glad to see that we're going through it.
The first one is on nomination contestants.
Proposed section 476.67 talks about limits on nomination contest expenses. A lot of people out there are trying to figure out what period it applies to. When the date of the nomination contest becomes public—from there up until that date—is that for every nomination contestant? If that is the case, has anything changed in this particular legislation?
Manon Paquet Senior Policy Advisor, Privy Council Office
It hasn't changed. The same rule applies in terms of the timelines. The definitions were adjusted to align with the new categories that were being established for candidates. That explains part of it.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
That's why it's addressed here, under proposed section 476.67, correct?
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Okay, thank you for that.
There is another small technical question I have, under “Election expenses incurred by candidate”. This comes under clause 290. It's proposed subsection 477.47(5.1).
Despite subsection (5), a candidate shall, before incurring election expenses, obtain the written authorization of their official agent to incur those expenses, and shall incur them only in accordance with that authorization.
I know we've expanded the idea of personal expenses through several ways. I can pay for it with my Visa card or what have you, and then be reimbursed for it. What does this mean about “the written authorization of their official agent”? I'm not sure how that applies. Why is it here?
Senior Policy Advisor, Privy Council Office
This was a recommendation of the Chief Electoral Officer that was implemented to give more accountability if a candidate were to go over the limit in who approved those expenses. There are provisions to account for the fact that some of the expenses can now be paid from personal funds, like child care and disability. Those would not require authorization in the same way.
