The Minister for International Trade is reminding me that Les Patriotes were great Liberals, and I would not want to forget them.
Getting back to my speech, I do not want to get into partisan rhetoric, because it is not in my nature.
Another point of concern is the personal safety of electors. If there is reason to believe that the disclosure of electors' personal information, such as their address, would put them in danger, they would be allowed to indicate a former place of residence. This is very important for women who live in shelters for battered women. Their aggressors would not be able to find them because the address would not be on the voter's list. That was a side effect in the past when we had to print a permanent voter's list. We have made accommodation in the bill to protect those in danger of violence. This clause will now protect women who are living in battered women's shelters.
We also recognize the difficulties that can be encountered by persons with disabilities who need help to mark their ballots and who cannot get to the poll. An election officer will come to their residence now and assist them to vote in the presence of a witness of their choosing.
On the practical side of things, we have considered the future impact of new technologies in the polling process and, more specifically, their utilization. We will authorize the Chief Electoral Officer to develop an electronic voting process and put the process to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to seek approval to test it.
I must thank the hon. member for North Vancouver who has been quite insistent on involving electronics and modernizing the electronic voting process. At his strong insistence, we put that item in the bill.
With regard to finances, there are a number of changes to the reporting procedures. It should be clear that from now on candidates can include expenditures for child care and the care of any dependants in their reimbursable expenses. Although this clause has been designed for everybody, I hope it will have a particular attraction to women who might want to be candidates. It is not the be all and end all, but if it at least encourages a larger number of women to be candidates then it will have contributed toward the democratic process.
Another new measure lowers the veil on trust funds.
Again, it is the hon. member for Verchères—Les-Patriotes who brought this issue to our attention.
The bill stipulates that the name and address of the original donor for any contribution over $200 made through a trust created to promote the election of a candidate will now have to be clearly identified. I thank the hon. member for bringing that issue to our attention as well.
To respond to the technical concerns expressed by experts, the spending limits for candidates and political parties will be adjusted using the revised list of electors. We now have a larger than usual number of revisions on the permanent voters list. This meant that a candidate running for public office would often not have the total number of names. Therefore, when they set out campaign spending limits and found out later that there was a revision, they were unable to take into account the multiplier effect of the new people added on the voters list in order to increase the amount they were allowed to spend. This will now be taken in account because we have made that adjustment.
This is where I am afraid that perhaps some members, in particular my distinguished colleague from Vancouver North, might not agree with me. The most important financial reform of this bill relates to the participation of third parties in an election campaign.
The elections act formerly imposed limits on third parties and candidates. Those of course had been thrown out by a court in Alberta and had not been appealed. The result of this was that in the last election campaign those who wanted to vote for a member of this House had spending limits in terms of what they could do to promote the candidate. However, anyone organizing to defeat a member of this House, effectively had no limit if they organized through a third party.
Call that third party the National Citizens' Coalition, call it the rifle group, call it anything else, it does not matter. Those who were outside of the candidate process could do virtually anything, could obtain funds entirely, if they wished, from outside of Canada, something that is illegal for the purpose of electing someone and they could participate indirectly in the electoral process that way.
Luckily the Libman decision in 1997 by the Supreme Court of Canada declared that control on third party spending would help to preserve the fairness of the democratic electoral process. Bill C-2 rectifies this and now puts in measures to control third party spending.
The measures concerning third parties are based on three major principles. First, third parties have a right to participate in the electoral process. This is in compliance with the supreme court ruling in the Libman case.
Second, their spending should be restricted just like that of registered parties and candidates. That is perfectly normal.
Third, even if the third parties have important things to say, their spending should be subject to limits that are stricter than those of the candidates or the political parties, since, after all, still according to the Libman decision, according to the supreme court, the candidates and the political parties are the ones trying to get elected.
Second, naturally, the limits that apply to the third parties apply only to spending on advertising, whereas in the case of the candidates, the limits apply to almost all spending, including the cost of running an office, election headquarters, and so on.
We therefore are proposing to limit the advertising expenditures of third parties to $150,000 nationally and to $3,000 within each riding.
We are also proposing that third parties be required to register once their spending on advertising exceeds $500. We want to avoid in this is having a group with a very small base, such as a school program wanting to write to a candidate, subject to such a limit. We do want to be reasonable. Therefore, only spending of $500 or more would be subject to the elections act.
Members will agree that all these measures reinforce the three broad principles governing our electoral process, namely accessibility—it is expanded by this process—fairness—I think that, once again, with the measures on the third parties, and so on, the bill talks a lot about fairness—and transparency, which will be increased by the new ways of disclosing amounts and electoral spending.
Bill C-2 provides us with yet another opportunity to assert Canada's leadership in the electoral process and thus enlighten democracies the world over.
I am sure that all members will recognize the wisdom of the measures proposed and that they will take this opportunity to support them. Our electoral system is the envy of the world.