Mr. Calkins, you and I share a bit of history around this place. You will know that in 2003, I believe, the Elections Act began to regulate party processes, especially the financing of party processes.
We have, over the years, tweaked and tried to continue to perfect that system. The line that we have never gone over, and one that I do not believe we should traverse, is that political parties should be able to govern their own democracies. That is not to say there are not things like financing that should have public and legal scrutiny. Parliament has, in its wisdom, decided to do that, and I think that's a good thing.
Parties are also public goods. They are imperfect. They are made up of volunteers. Anyone who has served on a volunteer board, whether it's inside a political party, in a charity or in any other kind of organization, knows that volunteer organizations are sprawling and hard to govern, and it's hard to enforce rigorous standards.
However, I think that the Conservative Party, the Bloc Québécois, the New Democrats, the Greens and the Liberal Party of Canada, for sure, should be the default choices for governing how their candidates are chosen, as in who is eligible and how the processes of electing candidates or leaders, for that matter, are set out. The financing, as is appropriate, is a public matter and therefore should be regulated by our public institutions, like Elections Canada.
The actual rules governing nominations and democracy in political parties—