I'm very pleased to put a few words on the record today about this amendment.
I'm disappointed that the government side has decided not to support it. They're quoting one expert we heard from at this committee, but there were many others who thought the charter challenge question raised by the Chief Electoral Officer.... He was straining to find a reason to keep it, I think, would probably be the most generous way to describe his argument that this 10% cap should be imposed and not go all the way. For them to use one witness's testimony rather than that of the number of constitutional experts we heard from, to base their decision to vote down this amendment is particularly disappointing.
When we drive around during elections, we see that Manitobans and all Canadians are looking at signs not just from political parties and candidates, but from third parties of various different kinds. Pick the type of third party organization—it doesn't matter. They have billboards up and ads on the radio and maybe television, if they're a particularly wealthy third party organization—as we know, television ads are quite costly in this country. My Manitoba constituents assume pretty much that those ads are paid for by Canadians.
Wandering around my constituency I would struggle to find a handful of my constituents who know that those advertisements could have been paid for by people from anywhere else in the world. I think they would find that to be a ludicrous proposition, number one, that this is allowed to begin with; and number two, that somehow it's a Canadian organization's individual charter right to use foreign funds to deliver a politically targeted message. It would take me a very long time, in the 18,000 square kilometres that I represent, to find a Manitoban who thinks that's an appropriate assessment of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
I think this is a ludicrous proposition, really, that's being put forward today as to why we need to allow this 10% cap, which my colleague Mr. Cooper rightly points out sounds really small when you mention it as 10% of a donation. If somebody is giving $200 million from a super PAC in the U.S., regardless of their political affiliation, 10% of that is still a lot of money in a Canadian election, where we have significantly lower spending caps and donation limits for individual Canadian citizens who are donating.
If these funds are donated, again, as Mr. Cooper rightly points out, before the year prior to the election—which this legislation as it currently exists leaves as a loophole—they're free to do that. The organization is free to use all of that donation as their own funds and use it for political purposes during the prewrit or writ period.
I would challenge the Liberal members to find constituents who think it is appropriate to use foreign dollars to try to persuade Canadians to vote in one direction or another. They shouldn't be coming from the U.S. They shouldn't be coming from China. They shouldn't be coming from Europe, regardless of the political campaign or policy issue that they're supporting. This money should not be in Canadian elections—it just shouldn't. There's absolutely no reason for it.
This extremely weak, tenuous charter argument is, in my opinion, a ludicrous justification and use of the charter to defend foreign money in Canadian elections. It shouldn't happen.
I'm quite sure that my argument today is not going to persuade Liberal members to change their votes, but I think it's leaving a vast loophole open in our system, which we could very quickly and easily solve today. It affects all political parties equally. There is not one that benefits more or less from removing foreign funds completely from third parties' ability to fund advertisements during prewrit and writ periods. There is no reason that we Conservatives are trying to get a one-up on the Liberals here, or vice versa. This impacts third parties that campaign on all sides of the political spectrum and for particular niche policy issues.
I'm finding it very difficult to follow the tenuous, strained argument that the government side is putting forward today.