My report contains another recommendation about the transparency of third-party funding which includes the issue of third-party foreign funding. We discussed this the last time I appeared before the committee.
Currently, third parties can neither receive nor use foreign contributions. It's important to note that a third party is any individual or group that is not a candidate or a political party. Third parties have a life outside of elections and have sources of income that can be commercial or consist of contributions received for general purposes to serve the causes they defend. So if third parties decide to get involved in an election, the funds they use are considered under the act to be their own, even when they come from abroad originally. That raises an issue of transparency and possibly of foreign financing.
What I recommend is that the possibility of requiring groups that receive a certain threshold of funding in the form of contributions to be limited, for the purposes of activities regulated by the Canada Elections Act, to using contributions from a bank account containing donations only from eligible Canadian donors under the act. Groups that do not receive contributions and have commercial revenue, can continue to use their own revenue.
This is an option I suggested to the committee to deal with the issue of third-party funding, including potential foreign funding.