Evidence of meeting #125 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 election.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
Yes. We'll have a recorded vote on CPC-83.
(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 3 [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Welcome, Ms. O'Connell. I didn't even see you there.
She's so quiet.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
We'll go to amendment CPC-84.
Mr. Nater, are you going to present this?
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
Thank you, Chair, and welcome Ms. O'Connell. It's nice to see a voting parliamentary secretary on this committee. I thought the Liberals did away with that but....
The act deals with the definition of “partisan activity”. This amendment removes provincial political parties from an exemption. As the act is written, provincial political parties can engage in partisan activity in terms of hosting rallies. This amendment would take out that exemption.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
I believe this is during the writ and pre-writ period. The way the current bill is written, an exemption is provided for what we'd consider partisan activity by provincial political parties—to host rallies on behalf of federal parties.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
This would take out that exemption so a provincial party couldn't do that.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
Of course, it includes doing all the corollary stuff with that, such as making phone calls, advertising, and so on and so forth.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
I am going to ask for a recorded vote.
(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 3 [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
It was amended by LIB-26.
(Clause 222 as amended agreed to on division)
(On clause 223)
LIB-27 was the first amendment but that was passed as consequential to LIB-26.
It's great that we have Ms. May here, who can introduce amendment Parti vert-5.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Thank you.
This amendment is to amend in clause 223 one line only, with one clear purpose only. It speaks to some of the concerns explained by Professor Pal from the University of Ottawa law school when he was here, namely, that the situation has changed since the hearing of the Harper case back in 2004. His point was that between fixed election dates and the impact of social media buys, the kind of latitude required to protect freedom of speech doesn't need to be as high as $700,000 in a pre-writ period for third party groups.
The point was that you can target more, and you can spend more directly. You know when the election is going to be. To restrict the impact of big money, my amendment would change the total amount of third party expenses from $700,000 to $300,000. I'm just reflecting on his testimony where he was saying that this really is a lot of money to spend in a pre-writ period. I know it's down to $700,000, but I would hope that the committee would consider reducing it to $300,000.
In the real world, that's a lot of money from a third party group in a pre-writ period.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
I think it is a reasonable amendment and something that we as the official opposition will be supporting. Putting it in more reasonable terms is important. We don't want to see undue influence from third parties who may be exercising that. With inflation, it actually works out to about a million bucks. A million dollars is a lot of money. Going with the more reasonable amount is something we will support.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
In the bill it's listed at $700,000, but it's an inflationary indexed amount from 2000, I believe—
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
—and so it works out to about a million dollars in current dollars.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
I don't imagine the officials have any comments on a policy decision.
Mr. Bittle.
Liberal
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
Mr. Chair, I sympathize and I guess I would philosophically agree, but I want to consider the potential charter issues that may arise.
We're already dealing with one charter issue—limiting the amount that a group can spend. The argument for placing a reasonable limit on that charter right becomes weaker the more we decrease that fund. So I'm concerned that lowering it too much will lead to charter issues.
