Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2017

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

At the beginning of your comments you talked about the application of this bill with amounts of $200 and over, and that it would not apply to all parties. With respect to all parties specifically, you thought that was a good thing. Can you expand on the $200 amount, and the second point about not applying to all parties?

[Stéphane Perrault]

It's not $200 but over $200, which mirrors the contribution disclosure rule even though, in this case, it may not be a full contribution as long as a portion of that is a contribution. If you are buying an over-$200 ticket, let's say that $75 of that is a meal benefit that you buy. The rest is a contribution that would be caught even though the contribution portion is less than $200. That's one thing.

The other thing is about the parties that are not captured. It is important in the act to strive to calibrate the regime to the realities of different parties. In the recommendations we made to this committee, and to Parliament, we have tried to reduce, for example, the number of mandatory audits for small campaigns.

A one-size-fits-all approach to all campaigns and all parties is not always appropriate or warranted, and this is a good example. Parties that are not represented in the House of Commons, even though they may well be one day, at this point probably should be exempted from these rules.

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Getting back to the example of the table, if someone pays $500 for a table and it is $50 per ticket, does that $500 contribution still show up in Elections Canada as a contribution, so that person is actually named as a $500 contributor?

[Stéphane Perrault]

The person who buys the table will be making a contribution minus any personal benefits that he or she directly receives from attending, so the value of his or her meal, but not the others. With respect to that contribution, in this case I would assume most of the $500 would be reported as part of the regular reporting on contributions either through the quarterly reports that parties file or the annual reports, and whether or not it's caught by the regime there.

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Perfect.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you, Ms. Tassi.

Mr. Reid, for five minutes.

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

First of all, thank you to both of our witnesses for being here today.

I want to clarify the $200 limit, because there are two ways of slicing this. It's only a penny difference, but I want to ask. If I contribute $200, does that have to be reported or is it required to be $200.01 in order to get reported? We keep on talking about over $200, so the question is, is the dividing line $200 or is it—

[Stéphane Perrault]

The penny makes the difference. The reporting rules currently in the act for reporting the name and address of the contributors are contributions made over $200 in the aggregate. If in a year you make several contributions, and at the end of the day you've made in the calendar year more than $200 in contributions, then your name and address will be reported.

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

If you choose to seek the nomination in the riding of Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, for the sake of argument, and I'm an enthusiastic supporter of you and I write you a cheque for $200 at an event you're at, that will not be reported. There's no requirement for that. It has to be $200.01 to be reported, to be clear.

[Stéphane Perrault]

Correct. That's true of every threshold. There's always the penny over that threshold, whatever the threshold is.

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

I only wanted to make sure, because we had a discussion here with the minister last week where she referred to $199.99, as if that was the dividing point. I wanted to make sure I have the number right. I can just state as a matter of fact that trying to slice things that way will leave a trail that will be embarrassing, but if $200 versus $200.01 is the dividing point, then it's actually fairly easy to create an event where you sell $200 tickets. I just wanted to be clear about that.

[Stéphane Perrault]

It is more than $200, which is the same threshold in the act for contribution disclosure. Even though in this case the amount of the contribution may in fact be less than $200, it's the price of the ticket.

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

Yes.

I got the other point you made. That was a good point to make. I appreciate that. But it's helpful for us all, I think, to understand that the division is between $200 and $200.01.

I wanted to make an editorial comment, if I could. You're welcome to comment or not comment on my comment, but this is meant for the benefit of everybody else on the committee, and for the minister, if she's listening.

In its zeal to be all-inclusive, the government has dealt with the problem that actually was the problem we had here. Chinese billionaires are buying tickets to get access to the Prime Minister of the country. That was the issue: cash for access to people who have direct executive power. Those dinners are now covered by this legislation. So, too, are those dinners covered for opposition leaders who are contestants for the leadership of a party, both parties in and out of power. Had the law gone into effect a little earlier, Jagmeet Singh would have been covered, for example, and the other contestants for the NDP leadership, as well as people who are contestants for nominations.

I will just state the obvious. In the scenario I gave in which you are running for the nomination for one of the parties in the riding of Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, an event you hold is now covered. The chances that a Chinese billionaire is going to buy a ticket seem unlikely. What I'm wondering about are where we're mostly likely to see non-compliance, where people are contestants for nominations, unless I've misunderstood something. Is this not likely going to result in a lot of technical non-compliance with a law where there's no actual problem in any meaningful sense? Are we not simply creating a large administrative burden for the agency and for people who are local volunteers, enthusiasts, partisan supporters, without the requisite expertise to always understand what the law requires of them?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

You have 30 seconds if you want to respond.

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

Sorry about that.

[Stéphane Perrault]

On your editorial comment, I want to clarify that the fundraising events that are captured would include a fundraising event that is held for the benefit of the nominee in Lanark, in your scenario, as long as the leader of the party, or interim leader of the party, or leadership contestant, would be present. It's not sufficient for the nomination contestant to be present. It has to be one of the leaders, or if it's not a member of cabinet, aspiring leaders of the party.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

We'll go to Ms. Sahota.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to ask a more general question. You were saying that we currently have one of the more strict regimes in the world when it comes to fundraising goals. Do you think that this piece of legislation adequately addresses some of the holes we may have had in our fundraising rules? Do you think we need it to go further and be more strict?

There's a lot of talk about people just showing up at fundraisers and wanting to give all this money and saying, “Here, take it”, even though it's not a requirement for getting in. This is not my experience. When I throw a fundraiser, even if it is $200, I'm usually chasing people around for months afterwards. Sometimes there are a few who it's a year later before they get their cheques in. My experience has been, whether there's a minister there or not, you have to chase people around for a long time. People are not just willingly giving money. It's tough, and it's a part of the political reality that you have to fundraise. It's not my favourite part of this job, but in order to succeed and carry on serving people, it's a reality we all have to face.

Do you think this piece of legislation takes that into account and reaches a balance, or do you think we perhaps should have gone as far as Ontario's legislation? If we do make the rules that strict, could we have a whole bunch of other unintended consequences, where people are finding other means of doing things that perhaps create other problems?

[Stéphane Perrault]

Fundamentally that's a policy question as to how far you want to go. It's not for me to speak to that. The purpose of this bill is not to limit fundraising activities. It's not to restrict the amounts people can give. It does not deal with the fairness of the electoral process, including the level playing field in terms of the capacity to raise funds or receive money from groups or individuals. Individuals in Canada can only give up to a certain amount. That is not affected by this bill.

This bill is really about fundraising activities that raise a concern or create a perception of privilege and access. It's a bit remote from the main goals of the Elections Act, in terms of a level playing field and the fairness of the electoral process. I understand why it's in the Elections Act, because it takes place in the context of fundraising activities, but how far you want to go is really a policy question for members of this committee.

What I would say is that you have to be careful not to over-regulate unintentionally. This bill is carefully drafted. It avoids some of the traps we've seen elsewhere, such as catching a party convention that was not intended to be caught. It's for members of this committee to look at the policy and see whether it should go further. From my point of view, this is not a bill about the fairness of the electoral process. I would say only that it increases transparency, that it's calibrated, and that I can administer this piece of legislation, with some improvements. I think that's the limit of my words on the matter.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Do you feel that it increases transparency?

[Stéphane Perrault]

It certainly does increase transparency, yes.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Okay.

I know I'm going towards a policy question. Ontario changed its fundraising rules recently. This came up in our last meeting. I was interested in knowing your opinion on whether that was a good road to go down. Maybe you can't even answer that, but we were discussing whether there are events you could still have where only a certain list of people get invited. It could be donors who have already donated $1,500, $300, or some other amount. Then you have events where the invitee list is made up only of people who have previously contributed a certain amount. The entry price would not be listed, because you don't have to pay to come to this particular event, but you're only invited to it if you've already donated a certain amount in that calendar year or whatever. Is that something that would still be seen as problematic? Do you think the Ontario legislation solves the problem of not having cash-for-access events, as people have been putting it?

[Stéphane Perrault]

I just want to make clear here in a scenario where you would invite only people who have contributed over a certain amount, in this case over $200, that would, generally speaking, be caught by this bill.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

This bill would catch that.