Madam Speaker, what I am trying to relate it to is the fact that the member opposite wants to institute some sort of democratic support of parties. I am trying to point out that the government side is not interested in anything democratic. Its members will not vote for the motion. They will not allow it to be voted on because they are not interested in democracy. They want to pursue their political agenda, their party agenda.
If Madam Speaker would feel more comfortable with me getting more closely aligned to the motion, I am certainly prepared to do so.
I support the idea that the government should review and reform the funding for political parties, but not along the lines suggested by the member. I would rather see the House get involved in the Reform Party proposal, which is to make the support of political parties depend entirely on the money they can raise from the people they purport to represent.
After all, political parties are nothing more than special interest groups. At the moment, political parties are special interest groups that have a special advantage because the donations they receive are tax deductible with a premium. They are much better than the tax deductibility for any other type of charity or special interest.
The politicians of the past have chosen to give themselves an advantage over everybody else who has to raise money from the public. Members of the Reform Party feel that the political parties should have to raise their money from the people they purport to represent and that the money should not be tax deductible. It should be truly money that is given in support of that party.
As I said earlier, if it is not worth working for something, it is not worth having. It is certainly worth working to build a political party.
Reform also disagrees with the idea that these election rebates go back to candidates and parties. All it does is perpetuate the public paying for special interest groups that they may not have any interest in supporting whatsoever. Clearly this is anti-democratic, not democratic, as the member would like us to believe.
In summing up, I would like to repeat one more time the Reform Party's position on this type of motion. I will read that policy one more time.
The Reform Party opposes any assistance to political parties and political lobbies from public funds, including any refund of candidate or party expenses, government advertising during the electoral period, the renting of parliamentary staff for reimbursement, tax credits for contributions to federal political parties and the transfer of tax credits to leadership campaigns, to nomination campaigns or to parties at the provincial or municipal levels.