moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.
Mr. Speaker, I thank members in the House and in particular in the committee that dealt with the bill for their assistance. I also thank the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada and Elections Canada for their assistance in putting the bill together.
The idea behind the bill was that election expenses, money paid by the government, by the taxpayers of Canada, to registered political parties is done so for good reason. There are some who say there should be none paid and there are others who say it should be paid differently. Today the country reimburses political parties and candidates a certain amount of the expenses they incur in their political activities.
In the case of individuals running for political office federally there must be a hurdle to be met. That hurdle is that in addition to whatever else one does one must get 15 per cent of the total votes cast in one's constituency in order to qualify for reimbursement of election expenses, which amounts to 22.5 per cent of whatever qualifies.
The case with registered political parties federally was that all that was required was that a minimum threshold be met in spending. It seemed reasonable that if members had to receive a minimum amount of popular support in their constituencies, registered political parties should also receive some popular support.
When the bill was examined in committee the question was raised of what the threshold should be. There were those among us who said the threshold should be fairly high and there were those who said it should be fairly low.
The compromise of a 5 per cent threshold of a political party's having to garner either 2 per cent of the votes nationally or 5 per cent of the votes in the constituencies in which a political party fielded candidates was a compromise between those who wanted a lower number, say 2 per cent, and those who wanted a higher number, say 8 per cent or 9 per cent.
In committee we determined that 5 per cent was a compromise and that is how we arrived at 2 per cent of the total votes cast nationally or 5 per cent of the votes in the constituencies in which a political party ran candidates.
I want very much to thank all of the members who participated in committee who helped give consideration to the bill. It does not have a particularly large effect in the scheme of things on the pocket book of the nation, although it is over $1 million we are talking about, and that is not small change in anybody's lexicon.
Most important, it brings into the body politic the necessity to be accountable for what we do as citizens and how we spend the nation's treasury.
I welcome the debate that will follow and I thank everyone for their participation and consideration of the bill. I thank Elections Canada and affirm to everyone in the Chamber today this measure fits exactly with the report of the Chief Electoral Officer submitted to Parliament in February.