Mr. Speaker, this is a very important topic. I wish we were dealing with the issue of campaign finance reform and electoral legislation as part of a broader agreement between the parties and, frankly, on the basis of the issue of fairness to all players.
Unfortunately, the reality is that the government is bringing in legislation because of problems in the Liberal Party's image around corruption and scandals, and because of the struggle for power within the Liberal Party itself. Some of the ideas in the bill are half thought out and, as we know, have divided support even within the government caucus.
The central idea proposed is that we replace corporate and union contributions as the basis for financing political parties with forced funding from taxpayers. Our view is that this solution is worse than the problem.
If shareholders and union workers do not want their funds to be used to fund particular political parties, why should they be forced to do so as taxpayers?
If political parties depend on money from corporate CEOs and union bosses, why should they not get the money directly from those individuals and from others who share those points of view? Pointing out a minor flaw in the legislation, why should they not be able to fund parties even if they have firms of their own, their own personal holding companies, why would they not be able to fund parties through those vehicles if we are talking about their own money?
We should point out that a large amount of public money goes into federal political parties. We estimate that about 60% of the funding of federal political parties is already coming from taxpayers. Proposals in the legislation would take that number to at least 80%, if not higher.
I should point out that in opposing the legislation the Canadian Alliance is speaking from a position of principle. Even for us, we are not naive, a lot of what the government proposes would be in the short term interests of the Canadian Alliance. We, like all parties, would stand to gain money from this arrangement. In the long term our party and the system will be better if we get our money freely from the people who do in fact support us.
The worst idea in the legislation is new direct stipends to parties themselves based on previous electoral performance. In this case not only would parties be isolated from the feelings they may have from their own former supporters, but frankly even people who never supported them would be asked to support the party, whether it be the Bloc Québécois or the NDP or ourselves.
Not surprising, with this particular provision, the biggest beneficiary would be the Liberal Party. This is fairly typical in a range of proposals in electoral legislation, particularly broadcasting, where the Liberal Party gives itself more time, both paid and unpaid time, than any other party is entitled to.
I would point out that some of these provisions are probably unconstitutional. However, we know that has never bothered the Liberals in this particular area of legislation.
Another bad idea is enhancing rebates. Rebates would be linked only to spending. Very few taxpayers understand that their donations to political parties are subject to tax credit. However, even after that process, when political parties spend the money, the political parties get rebates in many cases both locally and nationally from that additional spending. This is just an addiction to spending. Once again, our same reservation applies here. It is not linked in any way to whether voters want further support of these parties.
I would point out by just looking at the provisions of this legislation that we are already talking, in addition to things I have mentioned, an additional $30 million to $40 million of more public funding.
There are some good ideas in here however even those are flawed. Disclosure ideas are good for leadership races. I have said we support that. Unfortunately, provisions in here would make it difficult for people to enter nomination fights to challenge incumbents.
We talk about limits but there are no limits on contributions to private trusts of politicians, which is a very serious oversight. And, of course, there are no limits ultimately on the exposure of the taxpayers themselves to any of this funding.
Historically governments have sought consensus on electoral legislation. I hope we will do that in committee. The member for West Vancouver--Sunshine Coast will be handling this for us at committee. Some ideas here are worthy of acceptance, many should be discarded and some should be improved, but certainly the government cannot count on the support of the Canadian Alliance unless the philosophy behind unlimited taxpayer funding is changed.