Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to this bill. It is an important bill which addresses a number of perceptions of the Canadian public that need to be addressed. I want to congratulate the Prime Minister on his ability to put this bill on the floor of the House and to address issues of transparency and accountability which we are all subject to. In large measure the bill attempts to enhance accountability and transparency, and in that respect I support the bill at its inception.
I want to address the misperception and that is the apparent alleged connection between the donation of moneys to a political party or a candidate and the concomitant linkage to influence. That has not been my experience. I do not know of anyone in the House who can in fact make that connection. I would be shocked, indeed horrified, if in fact members accepted money on the basis that there was to be influence or that there was to be quid pro quo. I find that a completely offensive notion and all members need to address that issue as they speak.
There certainly may be expectations on the part of donors. I would say all donors; I would not simply limit it to corporate or union donors. There is a small percentage of people who do, in some manner or another, expect some influence as a result of their donation. Those donors and the Canadian public need to realize that this place is a lot more complicated than that and simply writing a cheque does not result in what one might in fact expect.
However, it is at this point almost settled political lore that money buys some form of influence. It does not seem to matter much how often it is repeated that money does not in fact buy influence. It has still become almost part of the myth of politics in this country and indeed in other countries.
In politics perception is reality and it does not matter much that there may not be any evidence to support that reality. It is a reality that in fact generates this bill, which in some respects may even be a bill that is based upon a myth rather than a reality.
I want to address the issue of fundraising in political parties. Political parties are simultaneously simple mechanisms and very complex and sophisticated mechanisms. They do require funding. If in fact a party is to get its message across, it requires access to significant resources. It is a little bit more than bake sales. Frankly, I have been there and done that, and it is not a lot of fun to raise money in small amounts at a time. It uses up a lot of energy and in the end does not produce sufficient resources to communicate what needs to be communicated in the years 2001, 2002 and 2003.
In my view, the bill has some problems which are not insurmountable. A lot of them exist on the periphery of the bill rather than in the bill itself. We heard the member for Fredericton talk about the fact that the party in New Brunswick is a fused party because the provincial and federal wings exist together. I believe that is true in Nova Scotia as well as in some other provinces. It would create a difficult situation which would have to be disentangled. It would have been nicer to have had a bit more lead time so that those parties could disentangle themselves from each other.
It does not address the issue of how current debt will be paid off. There are parties, ours included, that carry a significant amount of debt. One has to think in the context of the bill and in the context of various leadership races, one just finished and two still continuing, that limited moneys will be funnelled to leadership races rather than to the needs of the party. As the bill is to be proclaimed on January 1 of next year, there will be a situation for a number of the parties where in fact their debt may be increased rather than maintained or decreased, the consequence of which will be difficulties in doing things like election readiness.
Another problem that comes to mind is in the allocation of the moneys that are raised on the per voter basis. In the case of the Liberal Party I am told that something in the order of $8 million would come to the Liberal Party, so the real question there is how those moneys are to be allocated. Will they be allocated on a pro rata basis? Will they be allocated on a per vote basis? Will they be allocated by some form of discretionary allocation which may or may not be a reward and/or punishment system? I, like all other members here, need to know how those moneys will be distributed and made available to members and to the provincial associations as well.
Another issue that has come up is the limit on the $1,000 corporate donation. On the face of it that sounds like an attractive proposition, except that not all corporations are by any means created equal. We have a situation where a bank, let us say, is limited to $1,000 nationally as a corporate donation. The Toronto-Dominion Bank in downtown Toronto is a very different entity from the Toronto-Dominion Bank in Beaverton, Ontario or Biggar, Saskatchewan or a town or village in New Brunswick. Basically, we are precluding those banks, trust companies and financial institutions from participating with their local member. Essentially all of that money will be distributed wherever the head office is located.
Again, maybe that is not a problem, but for some entities it will be. On the other hand, for a Tim Hortons franchise, which is part of an extensively franchised corporation, in theory each franchise could give $1,000. It seems to me that members will end up cozying up to Tim Hortons and distancing themselves from the banks. Did we actually accomplish anything by doing that? I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that possibly in the future a Tim Hortons manager will be far more influential than a bank manager, if in fact the basis for the bill is a perception that money buys influence.
How will parties adjust to election readiness? We are in a cycle. We were elected in November 2000. We potentially have a mandate to November 2005. We are sort of in the middle of a normal election cycle. We have this bill that will proceed. There will be some modifications in committee. The bill will come back to the House and be proclaimed sometime in January. We will have something in the order of a year to a year and half to develop resources for the next election. That in and of itself will be somewhat difficult, because there will be limitations on being able to get ready for election readiness.
The final point has to do with some unintended consequences. One of them might well be the unintended consequence of enabling only very affluent leadership aspirants to seek the leadership of various political parties, because if in fact there are limitations on abilities to do corporate and union fundraising and the leaders expect to be able to spend significant sums of money, that will be difficult for people who are anything other than quite affluent themselves.
I offer these as a series of concerns that come to mind as I read the bill. I hope they are useful concerns and I hope some of them will be taken up in the committee.