Mr. Speaker, I am a bit out of breath, having rushed here from a meeting of the national security committee, where we would have greatly appreciated the presence of the hon. member for Scarborough West. Oh well, maybe next time.
I took part in the examination of the bill known during the first session of this Parliament as C-319, and now with reprinting and Motion No. 1 it has become Bill C-243. As the hon. member for Fundy-Royal has said, this is a compromise, reached after many
efforts on all sides by all of the parties represented on the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.
I would like to commend the hon. member for Edmonton Southwest, if I may, for all the energy he has devoted to this entire process, first of all, in having managed to get his bill into the works, then in having defended it before the Sub-committee on Private Members' Business, and then in having defended it brilliantly before the procedure and House affairs committee.
My congratulations, not just to the hon. member for Edmonton Southwest, but also to the colleagues who contributed to this compromise: the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands, of course, who chaired the committee, the hon. member for Laurier-Sainte-Marie, who shared his experience with us, and the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, who, as usual, helped us draw up a better bill.
As has been mentioned, but I will take the liberty of repeating it, we focused on one thing: avoiding having public funds, the public purse, used to support marginal groups, which, through sometimes contorted interpretations of the law, manage to register as political parties and, by spending an amount of money, manage to recover certain amounts.
The aim was simply to eliminate the flakey. In no way did we question the political programs or options of any party. That was far from our intention. We set minimum criteria that enable parties with some popular support to develop in a democracy. It was certainly not our idea to limit access to Parliament, in practical terms, to existing parties or to parties that had existed in the past.
The criterion we chose was that a party, to obtain reimbursement from the public purse, had to have 2 per cent of national votes or 5 per cent of votes in ridings where they ran a candidate. With the elections act requiring a party to have at least 50 candidates in order to register, we felt this standard was high enough to eliminate the completely flakey organizations while allowing the development of political parties that failed to gather 30 or 35 per cent of votes in an initial election.
It is a tricky balance to strike, but it was feasible with everyone's patience and co-operation. Credit here must be given to the member for Edmonton Southwest for endlessly contributing, with constructive suggestions, to the improvement of the bill and successfully creating a consensus on the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.
Of course we have to come back to the funding of political parties by looking at other aspects of the question. This does not end the debate. An important point has been reached, however, and unanimously I assume. But, we must not stop here. One day we have to deal with the funding of political parties. In this case, we are only dealing with reimbursement. But how are parties funded?
We had proposed in a motion which was voted down by this House by only a few votes-members of both opposition parties had overwhelmingly voted in favour of it-that contributions to political party election funds at the federal level be subject to the same rules as in Quebec. Contributions to political parties registered in Quebec can only be made by individual voters and cannot exceed $3,000 per party, a reasonable limit in a free and democratic country.
This House came very close to passing such a measure and having a bill to this effect. If I remember right, motion M-150 moved by the member for Richelieu dealt with this issue. We will have to resurrect it some day because Canadians have the right to know who is funding political parties in this country.
The rule is simple: "Tell me who is funding you and I will tell you whom you are serving". The Bloc Quebecois has nothing to hide, we are entirely funded by our own members. We went way beyond the Canada Elections Act by choosing to accept contributions only from our members who could vote and by limiting contributions to $5,000. I must say that this maximum is rarely reached, contributions are often more modest.
As most Canadians know, in Quebec, we raise money for our party through all kinds of events, giving us the opportunity to have a good time while holding more in-depth political debates, and ensuring grassroot funding. By using this form of funding, the Bloc Quebecois makes sure it is its own creature.
We are only accountable to those who elected us. If a contributor were to insist too much, it would be easy to say: "Listen, I will write you a cheque-in this case it would be an Air Canada passenger coupon more than a cheque-I will write you a cheque, here is your refund". But there are no such situations.
If I had received $50,000 or $60,000 from the Royal Bank, I could perhaps write the first cheque, but as things stand, I am not sure my bank or caisse populaire would honour it. I would have a hard time paying it back.
That is the problem they have on the other side. I hope the problem has not yet reached the Reform Party, because they seem unable to define their position on this.
Our friends on the other side have a problem: they get their funds from large corporations, big business, and they are first and foremost accountable to those who provide those funds. Tell me who pays your way, I will tell you who you serve.
Of course, the president of a large corporation who contributed to an election fund to the tune of a five or six-figure amount will
probably get some private telephone numbers or cellular phone numbers that will give him access to influential people.
In our party, it is very easy, our numbers are in the phone book. All voters are welcome, whatever their political colours, blue, red, multicolored or any other colour you want. Reformers are a bit on the green side, I would say, but they are welcome too. When we are elected, we are, as yourselves, here to represent everyone. We are here to serve not only Bloc party members, but also Liberals, former Conservatives and NDP members who need our support.
In conclusion, it is with this in mind that I send this message, so we can debate the financing of political parties in the near future. This would be a major reform, one of the great reforms of Canadian parliamentary process, as it was in Quebec.
If we had to choose the most important piece of legislation in Quebec in the past 50 years, the first prize would go to the political party financing legislation, which only allows persons qualified to vote, ordinary citizens, to finance political parties, not unions, corporations or body corporates. This measure has revolutionized parliamentary customs.
And if we were to adopt it here, of course, it is more difficult to build up campaign funds with $20, $50 or $100 here and there, although tax provisions allow for a generous refund of up to 75 per cent on the first hundred dollars, which may help sometimes.
So, it is not so difficult, but we have to take the trouble to do it. Of course, it is always easier to make a phone call and receive a big cheque, but we stay in touch with the grassroots when we go from town to town in our ridings, to see our constituents and ask them for a contribution to a fund raising campaign. They are able to give us the message, to tell us what they want us to do in the House of Commons and which issues they want us to deal with first. This is a wonderful way for us to keep in mind we are accountable first and foremost to those who have given us, for a limited time, the seats we are sitting in so that we can rise from time to time and make some interventions such as this one, which is coming to an end.