Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise on this bill. I like it very much in terms of the transparency it brings to riding associations, to leadership contests and to nomination competitions, but my one major misgiving with respect to the bill is this suggestion of $1.50 per vote to the parties after an election.
I have the evidence before me as to why the government may decide that this is a very bad idea. I would call your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the Elections Canada return for the riding of Burnaby--Douglas. That riding, that candidate, was entitled to spend $64,000 during the election campaign. That particular candidate, who sits in the House, actually raised $102,000 for the election campaign. That was $38,000 more than he needed. If we look at the return that is available on the Elections Canada website, we discover that out of that $102,000 the particular candidate received $15,000 from 12 unions, $175 from 2 individuals, and the rest, $82,000, from his own party.
What we have is a situation here where if this particular candidate were able to avoid having to raise money during an election campaign entirely, he would have saved more than enough money from his own party, not to mention the unions, but his own party that gave him the money.
This is the kind of danger that we are faced with if we have this $1.50 rule on votes. We may have a situation where individuals entering an election campaign will be able to get enough money from party head office such that they will not actually have to raise any money or do any grassroots work during the campaign at all.
What makes it worse, and leads us to I think a very positive aspect of the bill, is that for the $82,000 that the New Democratic Party gave to the member for Burnaby--Douglas, because of the current rules that lack transparency at the riding level, no one can see any of the individuals or corporations, or unions, for that matter, that contributed to the NDP, which in turn gave the money to the individual from Burnaby--Douglas. That is a major problem and a major abuse of process. There is no point having Elections Canada being transparent if the actual information we receive through a request to Elections Canada tells us nothing about the actual financing of the individual who ran for election.
So I feel very strongly that the centrepiece of this legislation is the requirement that riding associations are audited properly, make financial statements annually to Elections Canada, and provide a regime of transparency that enables Canadians to resume their faith, so that they can see where the money is coming from.
It also has the added advantage that by being able to see what happens in riding associations people will be able to see who are the individual candidates who really are in contact with their people and who raise money by small amounts, by having spaghetti suppers and small fundraisers, and who among us on all sides of the House receives money directly in large sums from individual entities. Because I would suggest very strongly that no riding association in this entire country needs to have any more money in its bank account than is half the allowable spending money during an election for its riding. In other words, because Elections Canada refunds half of one's spending, the most a candidate needs to spend in any election is about $35,000. So I have to ask why any riding association should need $60,000 or $70,000 or $100,000 or $500,000.
What we want to see by this proposed legislation is this kind of transparency so that riding associations that have these large sums will put these large sums where they belong, which is with the central office of party. Then the central office of the party will be less dependent upon corporate donations.
The other flaw in the bill is the suggestion that individuals should have a ceiling of $10,000 and corporations a ceiling of $1,000. The problem, Mr. Speaker, is that when big money comes into small ridings, that I think is where there is a danger. If anyone here does not think that an individual MP has the ability to influence the government's agenda, even if that MP is in the opposition ranks, they are very wrong. I think it is very important that MPs be seen to be receiving small amounts of money from as many people or small businesses as possible, and larger donations should go to the party head office. I would suggest just for starters that there should be a cap on donations to riding associations of, let us say, $500 to $1,000. There should be a cap on donations, be they corporate or otherwise, to the main party of around $10,000. The way it is set up right now, I do find it flawed.
The other very progressive thing in the legislation is it spells out that contributions are not to come from people who are not citizens or landed immigrants of this country. One of the disturbing problems that we think we have, although we cannot prove it because there is a lack of transparency, is the suggestion that there are organizations, generally very social-conservative, that are in the United States, which may be trying to influence the development of the Canadian government's agenda and democracy in general for that matter, Mr. Speaker, by funnelling money to Canadian riding associations. In other words, and I will be very blunt, it could be American money coming into riding associations in Canada or even French money coming into riding associations in Quebec, where the French might think that there are separatist individuals there who might be arguing in favour. I know, it is improbable, but we do not know these things. The important thing is to make sure it does not happen.
And what this legislation does is explicitly forbid offshore money going as political contributions to ridings or individuals. I think that is a very positive thing. I must admit that I am not worried about France, but I am a bit worried about the National Citizens' Coalition, which is an organization that is not transparent and that has been very actively campaigning against the kind of Liberal democracy that we see in this country. I would not like to think that the National Citizens' Coalition might be funding some of my colleagues and might be receiving those funds from offshore.
This legislation addresses that problem, except it is flawed again. The penalty is too small. The penalty for contravention against any of these ineligible contributions to a political party or individual is only a maximum of $2,000 or a maximum of six months in jail. I would suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that anyone who tries to circumvent the need for transparency, the need for contributions coming from legitimate sources as determined in the legislation, should be liable to a much more severe penalty.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I think the government is on the right track.
I do not know about the trust accounts. The issue has come up and one of my colleagues opposite has mentioned it. I want to go on record here as saying that I absolutely deplore any thought that politicians in office should be receiving money that they may have control over, even indirect control over. I think that is absolutely inappropriate. The legislation unfortunately does not deal with how any money in these existing trust accounts will be disposed of. I regret that. I was surprised to even learn that some of my colleagues engage in that type of activity. I would suggest that philanthropy is the business of those with money. It is not the business of those who do not have money and politicians technically do not have their own money. They have the taxpayers' money and they should only use the money in the taxpayers' interests.