Mr. Speaker, I do not know if I have enough time to answer both of those, but let me try.
The hon. member raised a couple of issues in terms of the recent expenditures of the Reform Party executive. It is a well known fact that I had indicated I was not happy with the structure of those particular expenditures and I had recommended to the council that it go about receipting any legitimate expenditures that our leader incurs. The executive council of the party I understand has in fact endorsed that kind of a policy.
The reason I said that was that we are here in the House of Commons, the Reform caucus, trying to get our current non-taxable, non-receiptable expense allowance that we all enjoy of $21,300 a year receipted. This is one particular expenditure. This type of expenditure should not occur. It should not occur in the Reform Party and it should not occur in this House of Commons where in addition to being non-receiptable it is also non-taxable.
I would hope that having gone though that particular controversy and kept our policy consistent as we did that we now have the support for the hon. member for the scrapping of that particular kind of non-tax allowance that we as members of Parliament all enjoy. I would expect to get that support.
The member also asked me more specifically whether Reform Party funds have a subsidy component. The answer in my view is that they do because of course they are funnelled through a tax credit system that all political parties enjoy.
We have urged that this government bring forward legislation to end that kind of special tax credit status for political parties in a number of areas. We have urged that we do this for all political parties. If the members of the government feel so strongly on that particular issue I would urge them to take action on it as soon as possible.