They always overspend. They overspend on the budget. They overspend in every department. Now they overspend in the campaigns.
Let us stop the federal subsidization of political parties and let them get on with it. If they can get the support of the people that way we will have a true representative democracy where people are prepared to put their money where their mouth is. That is what it is all about.
In 1991 the main estimates show that it cost the taxpayer of Canada, whether he believed in politics or not, $11,503,800 to subsidize political parties, and that was not an election year.
We do not have the numbers for the election in 1993, but I can assure the House that it is going to be a lot more than the $11,503,800 that taxpayers put out whether or not they think we should all be thrown out of office.
I would suggest to the mover of the main motion and to the mover of the amendment that they get their heads together and come up with a real policy, a reform policy that gets government out of subsidizing political parties.
Let us put money where our mouth is and let us introduce some real legislation to get the job done.