My hon. friend raises the interesting question on how much organized labour contributed to the New Democratic Party. It is a fair question.
Let us agree first that before any union makes a contribution to a political party, regardless of whatever the political party might be, the decision is made by officers elected by the membership. How many bank presidents contact their bank shareholders before they make a contribution to the Liberal Party of Canada? Not many. Therein lies a pretty fundamental difference in terms of who is contributing.
I could refer to my friends in the Conservative Party, but they only obtained 46% of their financing from business. Reform is quite far back in the pack at 12% and 3% of New Democratic Party federal contributions for 1996 came from small businesses across the country. The numbers are 55% for the Liberals, 46% for the Conservatives, 12% for the Reform and 3% for the New Democrats.
It is important to know who pays for the Liberal Party's operations. I mentioned the banks and financial institutions. Every one, from what I can gather from the list, contributes significantly to the tens and tens of thousands of dollars annually. Bell Canada of course.
Third on the list is Bombardier. Remember the big contract Bombardier got and gets repeatedly and repeatedly. When we look at the top echelons of Bombardier and the lobbyists who work on their behalf, they are all well connected to the Liberal Party. They coughed up $85 million. BrasCan is in there. BrasCan is always in there supporting the Liberals. Canada Trust is in there. The CBA, the Canadian Bankers Association, makes a healthy contribution. The CNR, CPR and all major accounting firms.
Then we have Glaxo Wellcome and Merck Frosst, two of the large multinational pharmaceuticals. These are the ones that are well connected. They have as their top lobbyist a former member of Parliament and cabinet minister, Judy Erola. She does a wonderful job. From what I can gather, looking at the legislation that governs pharmaceuticals, they write the legislation. Perhaps the minister puts the final signature on it and maybe crosses the odd t or dots the odd i , but basically the legislation is written by the pharmaceutical lobbyists.
Is that the kind of country that Canada wants to be? Is that the kind of country that Canada has become? Unfortunately yes. That is why this nonsense has to change. We need a full investigation into how political parties are funded.
I will not stand here and say the funding of the New Democratic Party is perfect or anything else, but let us open up the system.
My hon. friend did an excellent job in saying that our system is better than the American system. That is praising with very pink praise. That is the most bizarre system where everybody just buys influence in the United States. We are far removed from that, but when we read the headlines and listen to the accusations and comments from across the aisle, it appears that people are buying influence from the Liberal Party. We know they bought influence from the Tories.
A number of Tory cabinet ministers ended up in court, some on their way to jail and some backbenchers who made their living on kickbacks and saying “Listen, give the local association a political donation, give the party a political donation, and we will ensure that you get government contracts”. It went on and on and on.
I will go as far as to say that every significant major contract offered by the government and the Parliament of Canada under the Mulroney era probably involved kickbacks of one kind or another. I could list all sorts of examples that I am aware of personally, but I do not have the facts. I just heard people tell me that if they did not pay the kickback they were laid off, lost their jobs, lost the contract and so on.
I am making those accusations on the floor of the House of Commons. I hope to hear some people say that is not right. Stevie Cameron made them in her book, 600 pages of accusations, and not a single Tory has taken her up on her challenges.