On a point of order, I want to clarify that a member of Parliament--you're right, it is not cabinet--has to authorize the franking of the material. They sign off on the expense, the development, and the messaging at the end of the day.
So Lisa Raitt, a cabinet minister, has decided that on this issue, before we have the witnesses come forth and the legislation once again tabled in the House of Commons. I want to make it clear that a cabinet minister--we don't know if others have done this, and we'll find out perhaps later on--has decided they want to use public money to influence debate within their riding on this issue. Perhaps it went to other ridings. We don't know; maybe we'll find out later.
I'm going to consider a point of privilege about this, because it affects my capability and my opinion when you have a cabinet minister doing this. They have a vote at the end of the day that's significantly different from that of regular members of Parliament like myself. When we try to sit at committees, where we're supposed to be--in the history of Parliament, at least--working on issues instead of partisanship, this is significant. It could have happened before, but I haven't seen this before. So to me it's fairly significant.
As far as those regulators, or those who perhaps are poor operators, do you think there's a fine level that would be appropriate to curb them or put them in order? Do you have confidence that it can be done through regulations versus legislation? Legislation means we decide here; regulations mean it can ebb and flow, depending on what the department says at that time. It goes to cabinet.