Evidence of meeting #112 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 third.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Researcher and Writer, As an Individual
I don't think it needs to make it more lengthy. It just needs to tighten up some of the changes that are already proposed.
Liberal
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Thank you.
Ms. Krause, take a break if you wish.
Mr. Rozon, I'll try to make this short. On the administrative penalties that are talked about here in this particular bill, obviously Elections Canada is seeking more compliance here. It's what they've talked about for quite some time.
What is your opinion on the specifics here in the administrative penalties that are served up in this particular legislation?
Auditor, Gary Rozon CMA Inc., As an Individual
Too much stick and not enough carrot. Anyone who is a member here knows that you have financial agents and official agents who run your campaign. As I said, I've worked at elections, and I've worked independently in my own business. They are the oil that keeps this machinery going.
In Elections Canada's mandate, we always want to encourage people to participate in the political process. Sending them to court is not encouraging them.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Isn't that what we're doing here, to look at that, but through the pending mechanism? Is that the carrot you're looking for?
Auditor, Gary Rozon CMA Inc., As an Individual
The carrot is the money. Everybody can understand the money. No one says, “I'm going to mess up and forget to file.” If an agent makes an honest mistake, then a financial hit is one thing and going to court is another. It's cumbersome, and for a lot of people just the mere thought of going to court for anything is like saying, “I didn't sign on for this.”
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
In your opinion, how do you make that less cumbersome then?
Auditor, Gary Rozon CMA Inc., As an Individual
We keep it out of court. We hit you in the pocket. In the case of your election campaign, the longer you are late in filing, it's just less money on the rebate coming back.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Don't you feel legislation is trying to achieve that?
Auditor, Gary Rozon CMA Inc., As an Individual
What gets me is the inequity. Some of you have obviously well-financed campaigns and riding associations, and you can afford the money, but, for example, someone in the Marxist-Leninist Party who missed a deadline and has a $5,000 legal fee, doesn't have $5,000.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
I do appreciate that, but what I'm looking at is a situation where.... You're right about the litigious factor of it; there's no doubt about it. What worries me is the fact that this goes on too far, as you say, but the legislation does go to certain areas that can look at, for example, the Marxist-Leninist Party, and work out something that has run afoul of the law or about to run afoul of the law as written in the legislation, and can be worked out through mechanisms that are currently there with the commissioner.
Liberal
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Can I continue our conversation, Ms. Krause? There are a few other things I want to touch on with you.
The first one was that we've heard a little about collusion and the fact that when you have a variety of different groups out there that could work together and coordinate messaging, it might be a way around some of the spending limits and things like that. I wondered if you had any thoughts on that and whether you see that as a problem, and if so, whether you have any suggestions on what we might do about it.
Researcher and Writer, As an Individual
I think there were 12 or 13 organizations all partially funded by the Tides foundation based in San Francisco, which, of course, is the hub of the tar sands campaign to landlock crude from western Canada. They hired a consultant specifically to review the impact of the, and I quote, “coordinated efforts” of the various groups in the federal election.
I drew it to the attention of Elections Canada. They interviewed me as part of an investigation last September, and one of the things I mentioned was that you might want to speak with this consultant. Obviously, if she was hired to evaluate the coordinated efforts of multiple groups in the federal election, then chances are they were coordinated efforts. It would be interesting to speak with that person and find out what the coordinated efforts were and their impact.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
That leads into the next question I wanted to ask you. Do you think Elections Canada is doing enough to enforce the laws that we currently have in making sure that this stuff is being investigated and prevented?
Researcher and Writer, As an Individual
I'm glad you raised that because here is what happened. I spent four hours with the investigators from Elections Canada in September, and one of the conclusions I came to at the end is that Elections Canada can't do its job of keeping foreign money out until the charities director at the Canada Revenue Agency does its job of ensuring that there is compliance with the Income Tax Act in enforcing the law with regard to the Income Tax Act.
All we have now is a problem of what I would call shell charities. These are charities that serve no other purpose than to Canadianize and legitimize money from outside Canada. They also serve a variety of other purposes, none of which are charitable, and as far as I can see all have to do with enabling the provision of receipts for tax-receipted donations for a charity that never happened. They're charities that should be shut down by the CRA, and I could give you examples of dozens of them.
Just to give you one example—
Conservative
Researcher and Writer, As an Individual
One is called the DI Foundation. That's the name of it. The DI Foundation has only ever done one thing—only ever one thing—and that was to receive money from the Tides Canada foundation, pass it to the Salal Foundation, which then funds the Dogwood Initiative, which is one of the most politically active organizations in Canada. The Dogwood Initiative, by its own admission, is so political that it doesn't qualify as a registered charity, and yet over the years it has been funded by 10 registered charities, including Salal and the Tides Canada foundation.
I would put to you as a committee that the DI Foundation should be closed along with all other shell charities that are legitimizing, Canadianizing, money from outside of Canada. If they are allowed to go on, then Elections Canada really can't do much about their funding.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
I wanted to ask you about this. In the bill, there's this new pre-writ period, where there is regulation on foreign funding and things like that of these advocacy groups, and spending limits put on them. That starts on June 30 of a fixed-date election year. Everyone knows that's when it starts, so what you do outside of June 29 is a different story, right?
Do you think that is sufficient that that is still wide open? Also, what about the idea of contribution limits for these third party groups? Similar to what is done for political parties, they make a choice to participate in our elections. Should they then be making the choice to fall under the same kinds of rules as the political parties that have made that choice?
Researcher and Writer, As an Individual
I'll give you a quick answer to your first question. I don't think it would be practical to make the election period long enough to keep out foreign money. Practically speaking, in the case of the previous election, you'd have to make it a two-year period, or something like that. By their very nature, the groups that we saw funding third parties from outside of the country in the previous election are deep-pocketed. These foundations have billions of dollars in assets. They give away billions every year. They have virtually unlimited funding, so they can easily put their money in a year or two in advance.
