Thank you for that.
As you do note that the legislation is an improvement from the status quo, insofar as the Chief Electoral Officer identified at least two existing loopholes in the law for third parties to use foreign funds. The first loophole is the melding of funds, whereby monies donated to a third party can be treated as part of the general revenue of the third party. A second loophole, as Mr. Conacher rightly noted, is that a third party can accept contributions from another entity that in turn collects contributions. That can be used as a means to hide the actual source of funds. That's what happened in the 2015 election, when there was a funnelling of millions of dollars in U.S. money through a series of third parties such as Leadnow, which used those foreign monies to influence Canadian voters.
Now, as you note, Mr. Conacher, there is a loophole remaining in this bill. The requirement that third parties set up a separate bank account during the pre-writ and writ periods and accept donations only from individuals would not apply to third parties if their contributions did not exceed 10% of their revenues.
Professor Loewen, I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on the reasonableness of that exemption, or the lack of reasonableness. What are your thoughts on it? It would seem to me to be a loophole that is problematic.