Mr. Speaker, in respecting the tradition of the House, I will make my comments very brief to give the member an opportunity to wind up, if that is the pleasure of the House.
I want to say a few words to this particular bill. As the House knows and as has been made very clear by the member for Kingston and the Islands, I have a bill before committee that speaks also to election financing. I commend my hon. colleague opposite for bringing this question to the House.
I am not speaking in favour of this bill. It does not provide the respect to emerging parties that it should. That has already been covered by others. It does not pay respect to new ideas and to parties that may never in fact elect anybody but do bring new and fresh ideas into the body politic of Canada. That is extremely important to our political discourse as a nation. And this bill does not respect performance. In my view, it is absolutely essential that performance be respected and rewarded. No matter what their historical significance, parties that do not resonate with the people should not be rewarded.
The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands went to great lengths to point out the contradiction in my presenting a bill to the House that would affect election financing that does not speak directly to the party policy. I want to make it clear, so that everyone understands, that my bill is incremental. The notion and the reason behind my bill is that it will save the taxpayers of Canada $1 million or so. In my books, saving $1 million or so is particularly important. In particular, the measures in that bill would ensure that political parties are rewarded only if they have resonance within the body politic of Canada, that political parties are not rewarded merely because they have the resources to spend money.
I have listened to the debate this afternoon. I think this debate is particularly important. When I started to investigate election financing I noticed that if you measured the number of books they would be approximately eight or nine inches high. These are all books about election financing in Canada.
The point the hon. member from the Bloc raised about making sure the political process in Canada is kept as free as is humanly possible from any taint of scandal or influence peddling is one of the reasons I have come around to the view that there is much we can learn from the way the province of Quebec handles financial donations in that province.
I thank the House very much for the opportunity to speak. Once again I congratulate my hon. colleague opposite for bringing this very important debate to the House.
I concur with my hon. friend from North Vancouver who lamented that this was not a votable bill so we could see where all the dogs lie on this particular issue.