Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 21st, 2017

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

I speak only for myself, and others are—

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

More than that.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Every time I look at our young and energetic friend Ruby, I realize how aged I am.

I'm sorry. Did that answer your question?

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

It did, but I was wondering if you've heard of anything else that would be included in that piece of legislation. We have the fundraising access for ministers, but I was wondering if there is anything else included. For example, you've mentioned a change in limits, perhaps. I was wondering if also there might be a reinstatement of the per-vote subsidy. Have you heard anything more about that?

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

I hadn't heard that.

I can tell you about a basic problem with the reintroduction of the per-vote subsidy, which is this. When it was introduced by the Chrétien government before the 2004 election, it was introduced so that it would apply to the results of the 2004 election, so one party would get more money than another party every year, which I think is actually an inherently problematic issue in and of itself.

It was based on some future uncertain election. As it turned out, the election was much less good for the governing party in terms of the percentage of the vote it got than had been anticipated when the law was passed.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

It was seen perhaps as a way to transition to the hard caps on donations from unions, or.... I guess Mr. Harper had banned union and corporate donations—

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Yes, they were $5,000 at the time.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

—but it was a limit by Mr. Chrétien, so maybe it was seen as transitional.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

It might have been. You know, I've always wondered about his motivations.

The problem with doing it now.... I'm not saying that you couldn't do it the same way the Chrétien government did, but I think it would be inherently problematic if you did it and you applied it to the results of the 2015 election, at which point we could all project how much extra money one party would get over another. Your party.... I actually can't remember what percentage of the vote your party got.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

It was around 20%.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Around 20%? The Liberals got around 39%, so the Liberals would get twice as much, guaranteed, going into the next election, which would make it easier for them to campaign in a way that would ensure they would also get an additional number of votes. You can see that the problem is actually....

If it's done that way, I'm not so sure that it wouldn't face a constitutional issue simply on the basis that it represents.... If you read section 3 of the charter that deals with the right of Canadians to vote purposively, which is how the court normally reads these things—that is, you look at the purpose—you see that the purpose is to give people a chance to vote in a free, fair, open, and unbiased election held on a level playing field.

In a sense, those words are all written into that section even though they're not there overtly. Establishing that the governing party gives itself a substantial benefit over other parties would seem to me to be unconstitutional. I don't think that's an issue if you apply it to the 2019 election results, but I do think it's an issue for the.... I'm not a constitutional expert. It just strikes me that those are....

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

I have one more question on this, Mr. Chair.

I'm just wondering if it could be more like a hockey draft, in which the party that does the least well gets the most money.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Well, the Marxist-Leninists would do very well out of this.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Oh well, you know....

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Actually, the fundamental problem with these things is that you're trying to say that we're making this for the competitive parties. I can see a logic to that. It obviously accords with the general preferences of Canadians. Intuitively it does, and we can all sense that the parties represented in this place are different in some important respects from the parties that...I don't know how many.... You're from British Columbia, so you must have a zillion small parties running against you in every all-candidates debate.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Quite a few, yes.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

I don't have quite as many, but I've had the Canadian Action Party, which is a party with some monetary theories and never gets as much as a per cent of the vote in the riding. They've run against me. There's the Marijuana Party. There are the Libertarians. I have a lot of respect for them, but they don't get very much of the vote. The Natural Law Party—

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

The yogic flyers.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

That's right. They don't perhaps deserve all the ridicule they have received.

There also has been the Rhinoceros Party, which was intended to be a—

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Okay. Let's get back to relevance a bit.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

It was a satirical party.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

You were with the Rhinoceros Party...?

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Yes, I was—