Mr. Speaker, I would answer the question in the following way. The member from British Columbia is very sincere. He sounds like he is a very straightforward, honest person, and he believes it is the wrong principle, if I am not mistaken. Right now we do have partial funding of campaigns, so my question to the member is, did he accept his rebate from the federal government for the last campaign? Did he accept his rebate from the federal government for his campaign in the year 2000? Did he accept his rebate for his campaign in 1997?
He has been accepting money from the federal government for part of his campaign. If he believes that is the wrong principle, why is he not a principled man standing up in the House and saying he will return the rebate to the taxpayers of the country? This is a principle we all accept in the House. The Reform Party members want to have it both ways. They are against this principle, yet they accept the money and they run.
I remember the Reform Party members standing and saying that their leader would not be moving into 24 Sussex, that they would turn it into a bingo hall. They became the official opposition and Preston Manning moved into 24 Sussex. I remember that at one time they would not accept the car for the leader of the third party. They got elected and accepted the car. They said they would not accept subsidized haircuts on Parliament Hill, and some did not even do that.
My question is this. If that man over there is really serious about this being the wrong principle, has he accepted money from the federal government for his campaigns in 1997, 2000 and way back in 1993? Has he or has he not? If he has not, then I will concede that he is a principled person in terms of his argument. If he has, then he is not very principled at all.