Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question and for giving me an opportunity to talk a little bit about political party financing.
It is, obviously, extremely important that the federal government address this question and make a fundamental change to prohibit all companies from making donations to political parties. The money to fund political parties must come from individuals and there must be a limit on contributions.
We have seen what has happened in the past. If we look at Mr. Desmarais' contribution in the Charlottetown referendum campaign, each of the eight members of his family, including a three-year-old girl, gave $3,000. His contribution could not exceed $24,000. That is a far cry from the $250,000 campaign contribution he could have made.
It is the same thing with Bombardier. These companies have to paint themselves red or blue. It would take too long to give a detailed answer to my colleague's question, but if we took away the right of companies to donate money to political parties, we would not have such a mess on our hands. If the legislation on lobbyists was reformed, we would know exactly how things work and we could get to the bottom of the matter.
The same applies to people who appear as witnesses before committees. We should adopt the American system where sworn testimony is the rule, otherwise the work of committees is pointless.