Mr. Speaker, in response to my hon. colleague's question, let me say, first of all, as I indicated earlier, that every chance we have had since coming here in 1993, we in the Bloc Quebecois have defended funding of political parties as we know it in Quebec.
We have also strongly criticized funding by big business, these large corporations that make huge profits every year and can easily afford to make substantial contributions to the traditional parties such as the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party. Any government receiving such funding has no choice but to return the favour at one time or another. For one thing, what this means for democracy is scary.
Will bills introduced in the House under these circumstances truly reflect the wishes of the people or those of the lobbyists and financial backers? That is the first part of my answer.
Now, as to whether the people opposite had enough courage or not, I have to say that they lacked courage in introducing this bill. For once, funding of political parties could have been put in the hands of those who should have it, the voters, with a cap on contributions.
Our colleagues across the way missed a golden opportunity to give power and opportunity, equal power and opportunity to all. At present, there is disparity. Some political parties are immensely rich because big business keeps pouring money into their coffers, while the others get the crumbs. This necessarily has an effect on
the debates. All parties are not on an equal footing, there are strings attached. They certainly lacked political courage in this matter.
There is still time to take corrective action. They could do it right now. But they will argue that, traditionally, nothing new is added at third reading stage, that we should either pass or defeat what we have before us.
The strength of the Parti Quebecois is in public funding. You can be sure of one thing: we will get re-elected in the next election and we will have public funding to thank for that.