Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Sept. 28th, 2017

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

I appreciate your question.

The premise of this is that fundraising is a legitimate activity that all political parties do whether they're in government or in opposition, and it is a Canadian's right to be able to contribute to a political party. The premise of this is really based on ensuring that right as a form of democratic expression, but also ensuring that Canadians have access to information so that they can make those judgments themselves with regard to who is attending and what is going on at these events.

All of us have attended fundraising events in some capacity and generally know that these are events where you have people who support a political party, who support you perhaps as a candidate, and want to contribute to that campaign. I think this legislation is based on that premise.

You're right. The law indeed wasn't being broken, but it's also based on the fact that since 1974, successive governments have introduced legislation that would make fundraising more limited. I believe it was your previous government that limited the amount of individual contributions. That was a positive move.

The previous Liberal government to that banned union, corporation, and organization donations. That was an important move. They also introduced bringing in nomination and leadership contestants into the fundraising fold because prior to that there were a number of leadership contestants who didn't disclose who their main fundraisers were, and that was a significant issue.

This is a continuation of those practices in order to ensure that fundraising be recognized as an important and necessary tool for political dialogue and political parties in this country, and also to ensure that we're continuing to expand the transparency and openness and the information that Canadians have so that they know who their political leaders are engaging with.

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

I have less than a minute. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for warning me of that.

It seems to me the fundamental issue has not been dealt with. Did you consider doing what Ontario has done? They haven't banned donations. In fact, donations are still larger in dollar terms in Ontario than they are federally. They just said you can't have these events where a person pays and therefore gets access to the prime minister, or in that case, the premier.

Did you consider that? If so, why did you not go that route?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Different provinces are doing different things based on their own political experiences. I respect what each province has decided to do and, of course, we looked at all the different options when considering this legislation. Personally, I think it is important to ensure that we are shining the light on these activities and not driving things underground either. It is important that we maintain the robust system we have and that we are doing what we can to provide even greater access to information on these events.

That's the direction we have chosen to go.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Now we'll go to Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Very good. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for attending. It's good to see you again.

Before I get into Bill C-50, I just want to ask your opinion on something. I realize you are not planning to bring this in, but it's relative to this, and it has to do with public financing of elections. Fantastic, healthy democracy comes from it. The politics are horrible.

Pleasantly surprise me. Tell me you are planning— I'm assuming you're not planning—to bring in this change. However, I'd like to know whether you are thinking about that and whether you believe, as our minister, that it's healthy for democracy or not. Given that your government brought it in and then the Conservatives took it out, I'd like to hear your thinking on that, please.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

There is certainly a role for public financing within elections and within democracy, and we actually still have that in many respects with regard to the reimbursements that political parties, candidates, and riding associations receive after an election. Political parties are reimbursed 50% of their expenditures post-election, and candidates are reimbursed 60%; so there is still significant public financing in elections, and that is important. I think we have struck a balance with regard to individuals being able to express themselves and support the parties of their choice, but also to ensure that we still have a strong public mandate when it comes to the political system.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I would love to debate that with you sometime, but I do appreciate your giving me your unvarnished opinion. Thank you.

Moving now specifically to Bill C-50, Chair, my colleague Mr. Reid just said that Bill C-50 was not very substantive in his opinion. He's being very kind. This has so little impact at the end of the day that this could be a Seinfeld episode.

Let me pick one: five days, for instance; now democracy will be saved because five days ahead of a fundraising event, you can now find that event on a website prominently. We'll come back to “prominently” in a moment. Five days; in over three decades of public life, I have never heard of a significant fundraiser being pulled together in five days. Clearly, the organizers would have known that this event was coming for a long time, well before five days. What's with the five days? Who are you trying to kid?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Thank you for your question.

With regard to the five days, this is a conversation I've had with all the critics, members of this committee, as well as the political parties. Part of it is to ensure that we don't provide undue burden on what are often voluntary organizations when they're organizing events. This is feedback that I received from the consultations that I did with political parties prior to developing this legislation.

Also, there's a reasonableness in terms of ensuring that it's sufficient time for the public or journalists to be able to determine that these events are taking place, and to ensure that they have enough time to decide whether they're going to pose questions or to ask if they can cover the event. Essentially, it's a balance between ensuring that the information is out there with enough advance notice while also recognizing that we don't want to place an undue burden on what are often voluntary organizations that are bringing these things together.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I would submit, with respect, that it's meant to minimize it being out there, thereby negating the benefit that's supposed to be there.

You said, “sufficient time”. Really, with only five days, you pretty much have to have somebody whose job description it is within each of our parties to monitor the website every day so that you don't miss any of those five whole days that are going to be there if you want to see it ahead of time. To me, it's a joke. That, in large part, is a symbol of how you're spinning this piece of legislation like it makes a big difference, but in reality, it doesn't.

I know I'm going to run out of time—I always do—but we have lots of time because we have days and days scheduled. While I'm still on the five days, you said that it has to be prominently displayed on the website. Define “prominently”, please.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

I think this legislation actually does make a significant difference, because for the first time in Canadian history, we're actually requiring parties and political entities to disclose this information, to advertise, to let the Canadian public know, and then of course to disclose who is actually attending this. This has never happened before.

With regard to prominent display, that means it should be easy to find; it should be accessible. The reason we chose to put this on central party websites as opposed to that of every riding association or leadership candidate, is so that if there is someone who is very interested in this file, they have one place per party where they can go to find out all of this information, because we do want this to be easily accessible to Canadians and to the media.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Fair enough.

Let me push further along the vein that this doesn't make any difference. You make a big deal about their having to post who attended the fundraiser if it was over $200. Don't they have to post it anyway? All this does is it gets it out there a little quicker, maybe. That information is already on Elections Canada's website. Is that correct?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Some of it would be. If you individually have made that donation, then yes, it would be, but it wouldn't be necessarily known that you attended a fundraiser. Currently, for anyone who makes a contribution over $200, their information is publicly displayed, but it's not connected to a fundraising event.

What this legislation does is it states that if you specifically are attending one of these events, it will be reported on within that event. What it also changes is that even if you as an individual did not make a contribution to the party, political entity, or actor designate, if you attended, your information would also be made public.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'm sure that's going to scare all those wealthy people away. Well done.

Anyway, that's to be continued at another time. I believe my time has expired. I look forward to continuing engagement on this thing.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

As do I.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you, Mr. Christopherson, and now we'll go to Mr. Bittle.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for coming before us today.

Mr. Reid brought up a point in terms of different models, and he suggested the Ontario model. I noticed the previous 10 years, being involved in politics in St. Catharines back in my riding.... There's a previous member of Parliament, and many ministers, and Prime Minister Harper came through on a number of occasions. There weren't fundraisers that were open to the public or that you could buy tickets for, but there was a suspicious certain segment of donors and supporters by invitation only to those events.

I'm wondering if you can explain how this legislation increases transparency in the political process in terms of donations to those types of events?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

This legislation looks to capture any event for which an invitation or ability to participate or attend requires a cost of over $200. That would include appreciation events for donors. If you're an individual who has donated $200 or more to a riding association or a political party and, in return, are invited to an event where only individuals who have made that contribution are invited to attend, and one of the designated political actors is present, those would be captured as well.

We had long thoughts and conversations about those to ensure that we're creating a system that is holistic and captures where there is a ticket purchase required or a cost associated in order to be able to attend.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

The legislation captures individuals such as leadership candidates who may not hold a seat in Parliament. Why is it important to capture those individuals within the framework of this legislation?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

While not every leadership contestant may become prime minister or leader of the official opposition or leader of an opposition party, every opposition party leader, leader of the official opposition or prime minister has at one point been a leadership contestant. It's important to ensure that Canadians have access to that information as well, because those are individuals who are seeking to become decision-makers and to hold public office.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Just to clarify something, so this legislation covers.... It's not necessarily donations of $200 as a ticketed price of $200. Can you explain that and the rationale for it?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Again, we thought long and hard about this, and the way it works in Elections Canada currently is that you only have to report on the contribution amount, not the actual cost of the event itself. There were concerns that there could be a $500 ticket price, but the contribution value would be considered $199 and therefore would not be captured. To make it clean and simple, it was a $200 cost associated with attending so that there couldn't be games played around what was a contribution and what was part of the cost of hosting the event itself.

Of course, we do see some events that are listed $199, but we're hopeful it's something people will not try to get around.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

You've said before, and you said during your introduction, that Canada has one of the most robust systems in the world when it comes to political financing. Can you expand on that for us?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Sure. As I've reiterated many times with regard to political financing in Canada, we have strict limits around individual donations: $1,550 per person per year within the different buckets available to them. There are no corporate, union or organization donations permitted, and of course, if you donate over $200, then it is publicly required that you disclose that.

I think when you look around the world, it is a very strong standard when it comes to political financing and how we engage in our democracy. I've said many times, and I firmly believe this, that contributing to a political party, entity, or actor is an important form of democratic expression, but as I outlined, within reason and within a limit. I think we've struck that balance here in Canada.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

When drafting the legislation, did you look at other models in other countries?