Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to participate in the debate on this motion on party financing put forward by the hon. member for Richelieu.
One of the speakers opposite referred to the Lortie Commission, a commission which has investigated extensively and heard the testimonies of numerous witnesses who wanted to voice their opinions on political financing. At the time, I had seized the opportunity to very humbly submit a brief on party financing because this is a subject I have been interested in for many years, even before I had the privilege of representing the people of the riding of Papineau at the National Assembly. All this to say that my main concern was with the way political parties were funded. I maintain, and I am not the only one, that the way political parties are funded leaves much to be desired. I have read extensively on the subject and I have come across a solution I consider very practical, yet revolutionary. It is from a professor at the University of New Brunswick who was completing a doctorate, and the subject of his thesis was party financing in Canada.
In this thesis, it was demonstrated that indeed, the easiest and most democratic way of financing political parties would be to eliminate all contributions from companies, labour and other organizations and allow only individuals to make donations or contributions to political parties. No companies, no legal, architectural or engineering firms. We all know the gamut of contributors to party funds. There is no need to elaborate. I do
not think that large contributions are made out of love for democracy. We must absolutely look at this issue.
I say this as the member for Gatineau-La Lièvre. I have had many discussions on this with my fellow citizens and they fully support the opinion which I have always expressed, not only in this House, but also in Quebec's National Assembly and before the Lortie Commission, to the effect that changes must be made. If we believe that we are a democratic society, then we must make changes to the financing of political parties.
I want to go back to the New Brunswick professor. I discussed this issue with him and, in fact, I had a question put on the Order Paper to get information to help him in his work. That person claims that only a citizen of Canada should make a donation and that the maximum allowed should be one dollar. One might say: How are we going to finance political parties? It is very simple. We are here to represent all Canadians; consequently, we should be elected only by individual Canadians and not by lobbies, law firms or engineering companies. Our fellow citizens should be the only ones allowed to financially help us get elected.
So, that person suggests a one-dollar limit. How would that be done? It is very easy. For all intents and purposes, one dollar per Canadian amounts to $25 million. That $25 million would be divided each year between the political parties. I will not get into technicalities here, but it would not be complicated. According to the professor, the procedure would be very simple-it only takes two pages-and the distribution would be done very democratically, thus ensuring that political parties would have the necessary monies to conduct their activities.
Subsequent to the conversations I had with this professor, I learned about the amount of tax refunds the governement of Canada grants to people who donated to a political party. You have all heard about tax credits and other such things. I do not have to get technical and go into details. Suffice it to say that such contributions entitle to tax credits. In 1990, in particular, these tax credits reached $20 million. And this does not take into account the management of the system, etc. In other words, it would almost amount to an economy for the state if people were contributing the funds needed to operate democratically the political parties of Canada.
This idea is very attractive and deserves careful thought. I submitted it to the Lortie Commission, which found it very interesting, but the opinion is divided on this issue. The principle is very simple.
If we believe in a democratic society and if we believe that one could represent people in this House without having to accept contributions from anyone, this would be the ideal situation. That is the goal aimed for in our society, because we know human nature. There is nothing illegal involved, but such is human nature. There are people making contributions who are very sincere in their contributions to a party or a candidate.
However, we have to take into account that we always have to find means to keep it as democratic as possible. I personally felt that this professor from the University of New Brunswick had a magic solution to this problem.
We do not have all the data, but we could have a closer look at it. I would have liked to speak longer, but the principle, the notion is very clear that only individuals, the people, our fellow citizens, should finance our election to this House.
In concluding, I would like to put forward the following amendment:
That the motion be amended by substituting to the figure of "$5,000" the figure of "$1".