Thank you, Chair.
I know I'm not going to be able to say much in three minutes. I assume we're going to go around again, so I won't worry about rushing things.
In no particular order, but on Ginette's last comment, I thought that was a valid point, too. I underscore that. If you recall, I was the House leader of the third party at Queen's Park when we didn't have the point system, but it was pure dollars. The unfairness of it speaks to Mr. Bosc's point. It was there, it was open, and it was transparent, but the politics of it were horrible. That's why we adopted the federal system.
Now we're hearing that there is still an issue, and I think there is merit in that. I gave the example of the difference between Mr. Bagnell and me, or the difference in the distance to Hamilton versus his distance. There is also the question of the number of family members, how old you are, and how many dependants you would have. I think in the element of fairness—I like the idea, and I hope we pursue it—we need to find some way of coupling the total dollars so there is total transparency. The points used are still there, but it's just not that stark differential, like, “Hey, Christopherson, you only spent...and MP Smith over here spent five times as much”. As a stand-alone political statement, that's not helpful. That's not the kind of headline you want to see in your local paper. You've done nothing wrong or different from any other colleague, and yet because of our reporting mechanism, you're left in a negative political spot. It seems to me that in terms of fairness, those of us who don't face that should be the ones who are pushing the most. Otherwise it looks rather self-serving.
As one of those who benefits from this, I'm willing to keep on pushing for the same reasons I did 20 years ago at Queen's Park—fair's fair, and there seems to be an element of unfairness. It's going to take some work and imagination. We have to maintain the transparency. Nobody should interpret this as a desire to hide anything, but we're trying to find a way.... Just like the move from raw dollars to the point system was meant to introduce an element of fairness, there is another element here that's not quite fair.
We may be limited by the transparency and disclosure, but surely creative people can find a way where we don't lose that, but enhance the fairness just as we did at Queen's Park when we looked around, saw the federal system, and said, “Hey, there's a way to go. Let's do it by five times in one month you went back and forth to your riding, stacked up against somebody else and how many times they went”, and not by how much money they spent.
I hope we continue to pursue that.
Before I lose the floor, I'm going to jump out of my order. I want to apologize, Mr. Bosc. I shouldn't have said what I said to you, and I regretted it as soon as it was out of my lips. I think it comes from the Attawapiskat issue where there was a thought that, “Well, why don't you just move?“ When you said, “Why don't you just walk”, I took it the same way, and I know you don't mean that.
By the way, I want to say to all your staff that my issues are not with the way you've managed it. My issues are political ones in terms of the money that's allocated. I know you can't address that, so I was asking my question in a way where I was hoping you could make my case from a practical operational point of view, and then I would go back and do the political stuff and do all that kind of stuff.
I do apologize, sir. I know that you and all of you care greatly about the staff, and I retract what I said and apologize. I feel bad.
