Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question. I will answer by giving him two examples. The first one I will draw from our political past.
As you know, in Quebec in the 1960s, the government took over the hydro sector. I suspect that was when Lévesque developed his plan to limit the funding of political parties to that provided by individuals.
A very powerful lobby of private companies opposed government ownership of utilities. These companies were making important contributions to the political parties. They used to send all kinds of money to ministers and members of Parliament and Lévesque was keenly aware of this pressure. His reasoning was that those he spoke with thought government ownership made plain common sense. That was his finding.
Then, he figured there might be a way of reducing the pressure and ensuring that the voters are given as much importance as those who do not have the right to vote. In a democracy, the greater the importance given to the voters at the expense of those who do not have the right to vote, the more significant and interesting it sounds to me.
The other aspects I would like to address is family trusts in the existing system. Take the hypothetical case, in relation to family trusts, where funding by corporations and other organizations did not exist. Would the outcome have been the same if only individual citizens could have funded these trusts? To ask the question is to answer it. That is why this reform is incomplete.
This is an incomplete bill. There is an important element missing. The government overlooked a significant aspect in lacking courage in establishing its political base: the funding of its political activities. The bill does not contain the main thing that is required to ensure the quality of democratic life that suits our needs.