We're talking a lot about problems and how to fill them, but globally Canada has one of the best campaign finance systems in the world. When we look especially to the south, the U.S. campaign finance system is broken. There are enormous amounts of money in the system, and it has a tremendous amount of influence. Canada has an egalitarian approach. That is what the Supreme Court said in Harper, and it's reflected in the Elections Act.
The challenge we had was that if enormous amounts of money were going to be spent in the pre-writ period, how could you still say that you had an egalitarian model? If you have spending limits in the writ period, you also need to have some kind of spending limit in the pre-writ period.
To me, what it really does is further those egalitarian values that are in the Elections Act, which the Supreme Court said are legitimate in the Harper case, by making sure there is a level playing field also in the pre-writ period so that politics is not dominated by those groups, on whatever side of the political spectrum they may be, that have significant access to resources. It gives the average Canadian voter or citizen or individual much more of a chance of having a say and not having their voice drowned out by those with resources.