Debates of Feb. 18th, 2003

Canada Elections Act

[The Deputy Speaker]

There is quorum. Resuming debate.

[John Williams, Canadian Alliance, St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to talk about the proposed legislation.

It was pointed out by my hon. colleague that this is not so much a government initiative. It is about Parliament, democracy and action. It seems to me that the Liberal Party does not recognize the distinction between governing the nation and providing rules for democracy.

Democracy is the engagement of all citizens in Canada in choosing their government, criticizing their government and holding their government's policies up to scrutiny prior to passage. At election time, if people do not like what has been delivered, they can vote for another party.

The Prime Minister wants to leave some great legacy, although I am not sure why because he has had nine years and has done nothing. However he now feels that in his last year in office he should leave some kind of tangible legacy. He thinks this legislation is part of that legacy. This is no legacy. He has taken an autocratic approach. He has gone to the Liberal Party caucus on a Wednesday morning and told his members that they will vote for this. Then it is foisted upon all other political parties in the House, and the country has to live with one man's opinion on democracy. This cannot be. That is why the bill is wrong.

Bill C-24 is wrong in the fact that it is one man's opinion. It should have been by all party negotiations, by all party support, so that the parties representing all Canadians who voted in the last election could have had a say as to how democracy would work in Canada. The simple, fundamental, failing of the bill is that this is democracy in one man's opinion. That in itself tells us that the bill is wrong.

When history looks back on the legacy of the current Prime Minister, it will say that he failed. He has failed in many ways but he has failed again in the way he has foisted this upon all Canadians.

We all know that the bill denies corporations and unions from participating in the democratic process. Unions by their very selves are part of the democratic process because they represent their members. Corporations have been used in the developed world to create organizations that bring capital and labour together to provide the prosperity, the goods and services we enjoy in Canada and in the western world. They are also being denied participation through the bill.

The next time around we might find out that local groups and organizations that want to have a role in the democratic process will be deemed illegal. Rather than regulating segments of society, we should be controlling the political parties. We should not be controlling the people. It seems to me a fairly simple thing to do.

There is nothing in the legislation that controls political parties once they get their hands on the cash, and most of that cash comes from the taxpayer. Therefore they are not accountable any more to the people who donated it. Therein is a fundamental flaw. The government is saying that political parties are now going to be another institution on the government welfare role and they will get a cheque from the government, from taxpayers, whether taxpayers support their ideology or not. The taxpayer has no say. The voter has no say. The people who disagree with the philosophy of a party have no say. The cheque will be written. From the point of view of the Liberal Party, maybe that is not a bad thing.

I heard on the radio a couple of weeks ago that the former minister of finance seemed to have vacuumed up all the Liberal Party money available in the country. I think that was the terminology used. There is nothing left for the party itself and now it has to negotiation with the banker to defer its loan payment because its does not have the cash.

How convenient it would be if the cheque just came from the taxpayer in the mail every month? Then the party could send a part of that to the banker, no problem whatsoever. I am quite sure there was a significant amount of that kind of thinking when the bill was drafted.

Democracy is about engaging citizens. Citizens have been sidelined by the bill. We all know that elections are about knocking on doors, distributing literature, having town hall meetings and engaging society in public debate. I remember one former prime minister who said elections were no time for public debate, but that is by the way. Perhaps I think elections are the time for a public debate and this is when we engage citizens.

The proposed bill will marginalize citizens and make them feel that they are not making a meaningful contribution because their money is no longer be required. We as politicians will not have to go out and raise funds. Therefore we will not have to have policies that will resonate and with which people will have to agree if they are to donate to our political cause.

Instead, based on the votes at the last election, the cheque will come in the mail from the taxpayers, which it should not. It will guarantee that party which won the last election will get the biggest chunk of money and therefore has a leg up chance of winning the next election just based on the money from the taxpayer alone.

I cannot understand why the Prime Minister would think that this is a legacy. If the taxpayer is not engaged, if our young people are not engaged, if the taxpayer pays the bills, then democracy will be even more so an issue in a place called Ottawa.

Ottawa is a long way from my riding in St. Albert, Alberta. Quite a number of people in my riding I am sure have not been to Ottawa. They have not seen this marvellous place, this crucible of democracy. They can only see what is on television. It is somewhere way over there, thousands of miles away where those people make rules and decisions that seem idiotic, unexplainable and unfathomable. Yet it affects their daily lives and the way they participate in democracy.

Political scientists bemoan the fact that every time we have an election voter turnout gets smaller and smaller. They also point out a lesser known fact that it is the younger people who are not voting. If younger people do not vote, if they are not engaged in democracy, when they grow up, democracy will be on a very weak footing. Bill C-24 will just make it weaker.

Democracy is a fragile flower that has to be protected and defended. Unfortunately, periodically we go to war, although I hope we will not go to war soon. When we go to war, we go to defend freedom and democracy. People have understood what democracy is all about. As many people know, there is an organization called GOPAC, Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption, which tries to elevate the effectiveness of parliaments and legislatures around the world because in some places they are totally ineffective.

I always use Zimbabwe, the Ukraine and Peru as three examples where there are elected presidents and elected parliaments. However in all three cases the elected leaders have been implicated in murder because the parliaments are totally and absolutely ineffective. They have become totally sidelined and marginalized. With the bill before us, we are going down the same road in Canada. This institution has become marginalized where people talk all day and achieve next to nothing.

I want it recorded that I am totally and absolutely opposed to this bill.

[James Moore, Canadian Alliance, Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to this bill. Unfortunately the bill is not much of a pleasure to read or actually consider. There are five points I would like to make in my ten minutes about Bill C-24, the political financing bill of the Liberals.

First, replacing an addiction to corporate and union financing for campaigns with an addiction to taxpayer financing is not an answer.

Second, the Canadian Alliance is opposed to direct subsidization of political parties. Any public funding to political parties must be tied to voluntary donations coming from individuals.

Third, it is fundamentally wrong to force Canadians to give tax dollars to political parties they do not support or with which they have a profound intellectual disagreement.

Fourth, the bill provides for no limits on donations to politicians' personal trusts. This is a big loophole which would allow individuals, corporations and unions to circumvent the new donation limits in the bill.

Fifth, it is worrying that while the whole world is focusing on concerns beyond this place, particularly the situation in Iraq and the situation with regard to the financing of health care, the Liberals are focusing on what will get them re-elected and what will get their party the greatest financial gain in the coming months as we head into the next federal election campaign.

I will talk about some specific components of the bill and the problems that I have with them.

First, in the bill corporations, unions or incorporated associations can contribute a maximum of $1,000 per year to a combination of the riding associations, nomination candidates or general election candidates of each political party. Therefore, they can contribute a maximum per year of $1,000 times the number of registered political parties. I do not have a big problem with that part of the bill, although I have a problem with the idea of limiting how much an individual or a corporation should be allowed to give to a political party.

With regard to the campaigning of elections, to me the question is not how much should one be allowed to give or how much should a group of people who are organized collectively be allowed to give, but how much should campaigners be allowed to spend and how is the money that is given disclosed?

A Canadian citizen or landed immigrant can contribute a maximum of $1,000 per year to a combination of the riding associations, nomination candidates, general election candidates and the registered party itself for each political party and an additional sum of $10,000 for the leadership candidates of any one political party plus a further sum of $10,000 for one general election candidate who is not a nominee of any political party. Therefore, they can contribute a maximum per year of $10,000 times the number of registered political parties plus the additional sum in any year when a political party has a leadership contest or there is a general election. All these contribution limits will be automatically indexed for inflation.

In the bill there is to be a prohibition on indirect contributions in an attempt to prevent funding by way of trust; that is the legislation as drafted does not in fact effectively do that if we were to really look at it. The political contribution tax credit will be increased to 75% on the first $400 from $200 and a maximum tax credit increased from $500 to $650.

A lot of people who have not donated to political parties do not realize that if they currently give $200 to a political party, they will receive a tax credit the following year of $150. This is a way of channelling mandated tax liability to its particular political party, up to 75% of the first $200 donation. Since the actual cost to the taxpayer is $50, $150 is taken off the tax bill's tax credit. It is not a tax receipt.

In other words, if people have no tax liability whatsoever and if they earn $8,000 as a student or as something else and decide to give $200 to a political party, they receive a cheque for $150. It is a credit, not a deduction. Now the Liberals want to raise this up from $200 to $400 with the idea of incorporating more money into political parties and encouraging more people to give money to political parties.

On this point I would like to digress a little from the specifics of financing political campaigns. After a decade in power, it is absurd that the Liberals, if they want to encourage citizens to get more involved in politics, would not want to get citizens more involved in dialogue, debating, activism and volunteer activities. Instead they want more of their money. If we give $200 today, we get to write off $150 of it as a credit that comes back to us. The Liberals want to raise that $200 to $400, so if someone gives $400 to a political campaign, that person will get $300 of it back.

The Liberals are not going to let their members of Parliament vote freely in the House. They are not going to give Canadians the capacity to initiate citizens' initiated recall. They are not going to give them the power to initiate a citizen initiated referendum about an issue that is complicated and difficult that the politicians do not have the guts to talk about. The Liberals are not going to give Canadians those tools, but if they want more money, well hell, they will loosen up the laws and make it easier for them to line their pockets. That is something they will do.

That is the kind of Liberal mindset that does not actually feed a system. All it does is feed more cash going into the pockets of politicians.

The most absurd and offensive part of the bill states that there will be an annual allowance paid directly by the taxpayers to each political party that qualified for the reimbursement in the 2000 election. The allowances will total an amount equal to the sum of $1.50 times the number of valid votes cast in the last general election. Each eligible party's share will be based on a percentage of the valid votes cast.

What this means in actuality is permanent subsidization, a permanent distortion of the political financing of our country.

In the last federal election campaign the federal Liberal Party received just over 40% of the vote, the Canadian Alliance received 25.5%, the Bloc Québécois received 10%, the NDP received 8%, and the Tories received just over 12%. Under the Liberal plan, the Liberal Party of Canada would receive the number of votes cast, which would be 5.2 million times $1.50. They would permanently, every single year, from the year 2000 of the election campaign until 2004 or 2005 when we have the next federal campaign, have a cheque cut from the taxpayers for $1.50 times the number of votes they received in the last campaign. The Canadian Alliance, which received 3.2 million votes in the last campaign, would receive $1.50 for every vote cast.

The absurdity of this is twofold. First is the idea that taxpayers would be forced to finance political parties. Second is the permanent entrenchment of Liberal hegemonic power would now be financed by taxpayers against their will. Taxpayers would be forced to give the Liberals a financial advantage over other political parties. This would be entrenched in law. This is how the Liberals say they want to encourage political participation.

The best way to encourage political participation is to reform this institution so we can have debates in the House where there is more than one out of 180 Liberals actually sitting in the House participating in the debate. That is how we encourage more people to get involved in democracy. There is one Liberal in the House out of 180 Liberals. It is pathetic. If we want more people involved in political debates, in our political process and in political dialogue we need to reform the institution of Parliament and reform the mechanism by which we elect people.

We should inspire people by politics. We do not inspire people by entrenching a permanent financial skewing of the system whereby the Liberal Party of Canada will be sustained by taxpayer dollars in an unbalanced and unfair way that will permanently prop it up in this perpetual one party rule that we have in our country. It is completely destructive to our system of government.

Another part of the bill states that allowable expenses for nomination contestants will be capped at 50% of the writ period expenses allowed for candidates in a general election in that riding. I think the maximum a person can spend in a campaign in most ridings is around $68,000 to $72,000. Half of that, about $35,000, would be the cap for spending in terms of running a political campaign.

I, in principle, have a problem with limiting how much people can donate to a campaign. Capping on the spending side is not necessarily a bad idea but even capping on the spending side generally is unnecessary.

If we had mandatory reporting inside of 48 hours, if it were done electronically on the Internet, open for everyone to see the amount of money and who gave to whom and how much, I do not think we would need limits of the degree that are talked about in the bill because there is an assumed liability.

If a political party or an individual accepts a contribution, of whatever size from whatever organization or individual, there is an assumed liability associated with accepting that donation that they may be skewed with the perspective of that person, group or union. I think open disclosure about who gave how much to whom and why is perfectly okay.

I think it is fundamentally immoral and undemocratic to force citizens to pay politicians' election campaigns. It is against the very nature of democracy to reach into people's pockets and force them to finance political views with which they disagree. We have seen this with union contributions to political parties without asking the union's consent. Now we are talking about financing political parties, such as the Bloc Québécois which wants to separate from and destroy Canada. Asking people from my riding or any other riding to finance the destruction of Canada is wrong.

[Vic Toews, Canadian Alliance, Provencher, MB]

Madam Speaker, I certainly listened intently to the comments of my colleague. I wish there were more Liberal members here to take a lesson from some of those comments. I note that there is perhaps 1/172nd portion of their entire caucus here. I find that rather disturbing on such an issue.

Recent events and revelations over the past--

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

I would remind the hon. member that we do not mention the presence or absence of members in the House.

[Vic Toews, Canadian Alliance, Provencher, MB]

Madam Speaker, perhaps we could have a quorum call.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

We have quorum. Resuming debate.

[Vic Toews, Canadian Alliance, Provencher, MB]

Madam Speaker, I will not make a comment about all the members leaving.

As a result of a string of scandals involving the resignation of cabinet ministers and the misuse of tax dollars, many Canadians increasingly are distancing themselves from the political process.

However, instead of dealing head on with the ethical scandals that have plagued the Liberal regime, the Prime Minister chose instead to blame the media and the opposition for the high level of cynicism among the electorate. Obviously Canadians were not convinced and, despite the Prime Minister introducing a series of vague, new ethics rules and codes of conduct, the public continues to doubt the sincerity of these attempts by the government.

The Prime Minister has now introduced Bill C-24 in a further attempt to alleviate ongoing criticisms of his government's ethical lapses. However the introduction of the bill is just one more example of why Canadians have become so disenchanted with the Liberal government.

The Liberal way of doing politics reminds me of a saying by Groucho Marx, who defined politics as the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying all the wrong remedies. Bill C-24 clearly falls within this definition.

In its latest effort to remove the taint of scandal from its handling of tax dollars and government programs, the Liberal government has introduced a bill which would, among other things, ban corporate and union donations to political parties. These provisions may prevent a repetition of the advertising and sponsorship scandals involving donations to the Liberal Party and the awarding of government contracts to those same Liberal Party donors, but at the same time it places the overwhelming burden of funding federal political parties on the taxpayer.

Under the new rules each political party would receive $1.50 for every vote cast in its favour in the last federal election. This would translate into an additional cost of approximately $23 million a year in a non-election year, about $40 million in an election year, or about $110 million during the typical four year lifespan of a government.

I was speaking to a colleague of mine just recently about the passing of the hat at political meetings. Under the bill, anyone putting $10 or more into the hat would have to be disclosed. Passing the hat was a strong tradition with the old Reform Party and it continues with the Alliance Party, but imagine passing the hat at a political meeting and announcing that if people give $10 or more they need to leave their name and address. That is the kind of wrong-headed approach that the government wants to adopt. It wants to discourage the ordinary voter from participating in political meetings and voluntarily supporting their party of choice.

While all political parties stand to benefit from Bill C-24, the Liberal Party of Canada stands to gain the most. In debt and unable to raise the funds it requires to fight another election, because the former finance minister has reportedly scooped all of the available corporate donations into his own secret leadership war chest, the Liberal Party would now receive almost $8 million a year under this proposal.

As one Liberal member of Parliament said, in stating the obvious, “Fundraising will be a lot easier and it will take care of the debt”. What a remarkable statement. It is like a bank robber walking into a bank where everybody has already been tied up and saying that it makes robbing banks a lot easier. It will but it is shameful conduct.

The New Democratic Party and the Bloc Québécois predictably quickly expressed their approval of this new scheme to lift money from the pockets of the Canadian taxpayer. On the other hand, I am proud to say that the Canadian Alliance and its official opposition leader have taken a strong stand against this tax grab. Our leader stated after the bill was introduced:

This was truly a missed opportunity to bring in responsible campaign finance reform, but the Liberal proposal just replaces an addiction to corporate and union funding with an addiction to taxpayer funding. That's just not on--not with the Alliance, and not with the Canadian people.

I know that it is certainly not on with the residents of my riding of Provencher. One of my constituents, a Mr. Tim Plett, wrote an editorial in the Steinbach Carillon strongly expressing his disagreement with the bill. I would like to take the opportunity to quote from that editorial. Mr. Plett states:

Under the bill, the money now coming out of corporate and union coffers will, instead, come to some extent from the federal treasury. That surely seems to make it likely to make elections even more expensive and raises concerns about taxpayers unwillingly supporting parties through their taxes. It also seems to give the advantage to the party in power since funding will be proportionally based on the number of seats held in the House of Commons. If voters are cynical about democracy it surely has more to do with what happens after elections than with how campaigns are funded. If there is a problem with cynicism and apathy, this bill will amount to nothing more than window dressing.

I think that Mr. Plett's disappointment with the government's handling of political financing is indicative of a widespread belief among the Canadian public, certainly among the people in my riding, that politicians need to be viewed with a measure of distrust and that governments look out for their own interests above those of the public.

In contrast, the Canadian Alliance position is a much more accurate reflection of Canadian values. We believe that any public support for political parties must be tied to voluntary donations from individuals, not to mathematical formulas based on prior election results and additional moneys from taxpayers.

The Canadian Alliance opposes any increase in taxpayer funded subsidies to political parties, although we can support, at least in principle, some limitations on corporate, union and individual donations.

We think that the bill should be amended to prevent indirect contributions through trust funds and to make the provisions of the bill fairer to smaller parties and non-incumbents. We should not presume that because we are in Parliament today the voters of Canada will want to see us there tomorrow. This is a built-in bias toward elected officials.

Without those substantial amendments, my colleagues and I in the Alliance cannot support this bill that is at best, as my constituent put it, “window dressing” and at worst a cynical attempt to turn the hard-earned tax dollars of Canadians into political benefits for the governing Liberal Party.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to make some brief comments in this debate on Bill C-24 now before us, a bill that proposes to amend both the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act as those two pieces of legislation relate to political party financing and election funding.

I suppose that a broad-brush description of what Bill C-24 is about what might be captured by two explanations, the first being that this is a bill to keep big money out of politics and the second being that it aims to create a more level playing field for candidates running for political office and also for political parties seeking representation in the House of Commons. It would allow them to more fully participate not just in political debate but in the political decision making that takes place in the Parliament of Canada.

It is no secret to anybody in the House, and I think it is well known to Canadians, that the New Democratic Party has long favoured getting the big money out of politics. That is why, when the federal New Democratic Party was in a balance of power position from 1972 to 1974 with a minority Liberal government, the NDP pushed very hard and successfully to gain some reforms with regard to election party financing and political party funding, the most important of which I think was recognized at the time to be the full disclosure of the sources and amounts of political party financing.

I think that over the years this has helped to illuminate somewhat the connections in regard to political parties that run on a platform saying they aim to represent the interests of working people, the interests of small business and the interests of all Canadians equally, including those who are disadvantaged. What actually happens when some of those political parties are elected to govern is that it suddenly becomes clear that the political decisions, the public policy decisions made by those parties funded by big money, either big corporate money or contributions from very wealthy people, the policies they actually embrace and implement in the end, work against any claim to represent ordinary people, to represent a commitment to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor or to create equal opportunity among big business and small business interests, for example.

There are many examples of this, but of course the most consistent example has been that of the Liberal Party. As a result of the massive financial base for Liberal Party candidates and for the party itself being from corporate Canada, it very often has just turned its back on the very commitments to represent ordinary Canadians in a more fair-minded way that were made on the election trail.

I was in the House when the Prime Minister spoke about his inspiration for bringing forward this legislation. I do not think it makes much sense to dwell very much on the motivation, but when he talked about it being from his point of view important to get big money out of politics, I could not help but wonder why it took him almost 40 years in public office before he came to the conclusion that this was an important thing to do. I could not help but wonder whether the motivation had a little bit more to do not so much with keeping big money out of politics but with frustrating the ambitions of the member for LaSalle—Émard to succeed him in political office, knowing how much the most likely successor to the current Prime Minister in fact is very handsomely bank-rolled by big money, both corporate and from wealthy citizens.

Having said that, I think it is very welcome that we now, whatever the motivation, which will not actually affect the legislation itself over the long term, finally have some significant reforms before us. I want to say what my colleagues who have spoken in debate prior to me have said: that we very much support in principle the legislation that is now before us. Of course, as is always true, the devil is in the details. We feel that there are some parts of the legislation that do beg for amendment, that do need to be understood in terms of how they actually would undermine and frustrate what is the stated purpose of the legislation.

I do not have a lot of time to talk at length about those specific examples, but let me zero in on one, which is the defining of the maximum individual contribution as $10,000.

I noted that a number of Liberal members, particularly women members of Parliament, spoke very positively in support of aspects of this legislation, as well they might, and I applaud them for that. They have acknowledged that in many cases big money has defeated not only women candidates but minority candidates and less financially well heeled candidates in regard to winning Liberal nominations in the past. I believe that one Liberal member was candid enough to disclose, and I admire her for it, that she actually spent $100,000 just to gain the nomination for the Liberal Party in her riding. She was not required to disclose that, although under this legislation candidates would have to. Previously they did not have to. However, I admire the fact that she disclosed this. She is quite convinced that had she not spent that $100,000, she would not have won the nomination.

However, I have to say that this underscores a couple of weaknesses, I think, in both the case that is being put by the government for the specific measures and also their credibility. It is in the sense that any political party actually in favour of creating more diversity and more equity in terms of persons seeking political office surely would have cleaned up its own act, surely would have put in order within its own house various checks and balances on the impact of big money.

It really is surprising to me that the Liberal Party, if actually seriously committed to limiting the impact of big money, has not long since done what the New Democratic Party has done, for example, in the absence of federal legislation binding on all political parties, all political candidates and all nomination seekers. It is surprising to me that it would not have put in place limitations within its own party, because of course we are responsible to govern within our own party with rules that are fair-minded. Nevertheless, whatever the motivation, I think we have to welcome the fact that the government is finally now moving on this.

I want to say a further word about the $10,000 limit. If the purpose of the legislation is genuinely to limit the impact of big money, then it has to be recognized that this $10,000 limit is simply too high. Otherwise, what the government is knowingly saying to Canadian citizens is that it is purporting that the purpose of the legislation is to level the playing field and to remove the undue influence of those who have big money, and that means the government is profoundly ignorant of the fact that vast numbers of Canadians, the overwhelming majority, could not possibly make a $10,000 contribution, no matter how deep they dug into their pockets: not ordinary wage earners, not seniors, not those living on fixed incomes, and not the average working family that can barely make it to the end of the month and still pay the bills. This is just a contradiction in what the government says is its objective.

Second, to not place that limit as a finite limit for all contributions similarly leaves the door open for those who have big money, for them to spread $10,000 around, let us say, for the Liberal candidate, the Conservative candidate and the Alliance candidate, knowing that they roughly support the same public policies, in order to defeat a New Democrat candidate who simply does not represent those monied interests. Really it would be a limit of $30,000 put into those right wing campaigns to try to frustrate the will of people who want to see a more representative Parliament.

There are many things to be said for the legislation. If the government is serious about limiting big money in politics, I hope it will take seriously the need for some amendments that are in order.

[David Anderson, Canadian Alliance, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, we are here today to talk about Bill C-24. I appreciate the applause from across the way. In response, I want to say that I do not think I have seen legislation that is as self-serving as this legislation appears to be, so the member may wish to refrain from clapping.

There are a number of reasons that parties would support this bill. We know that at least three of the parties have tremendous debts and that they are more than willing to try to get the taxpayers to bail them out. One of the parties in particular has a philosophy that it never fails to belly up to the trough. I guess we see that on a regular basis when we see that party's unelected leader is only too happy to take a free lunch in the member's lounge.

The bill is definitely not what one would call leadership. I think of it more as legislative sloth and selfishness.

The bill has three purposes. The first is it would restrict the amount of contributions allowed to political parties, to riding associations and candidates, including candidates for nomination and/or party leadership. Most notably it would restrict donations from corporations and unions, although we are beginning to hear rumblings from members on the government side that they would like to see the limits removed on some of the corporate donations.

The second purpose of the bill is it would compensate political parties for the anticipated loss in revenue from their large corporate and union donations by way of direct public financing.

The third purpose of the bill would be to extend the regulatory aspects of the Canada Elections Act in terms of registration and financial accounting, all the way down to riding associations and to nomination and leadership candidates.

Those contributions would be restricted to individual Canadians and landed immigrants. A maximum of $10,000 per year would be able to be given to each party, which would include riding associations, election and nomination candidates, plus a further $10,000 per year that individuals would be allowed to donate to leadership candidates of a particular party. We see that the restrictions on individuals are not particularly onerous.

Corporate, union and unincorporated associations would be prohibited from giving donations except for an annual maximum of $1,000 for each donor per party. Those donations would only be given to riding associations or candidates for election or nomination and not directly to the parties themselves. There is a weak attempt as well within this to try to prohibit indirect donations, that is, any donation from a person or entity who had the money given to him or her by some other party who wants to give it to the political party. As I read through the legislation I thought that was particularly weak in trying to prevent those donations from taking place.

With respect to the compensation provisions, the government has decided that it would use taxpayers to fund directly political parties. Parties would receive an annual allowance equivalent to $1.50 times the number of valid votes that were cast for them in the last election. In reading the legislation I saw that this was called an allowance and I got a picture of when I was a small child going to my parents with my hand out trying to get my weekly allowance. The government wants to see itself as a big mother who is handing out allowances to the political parties. That is how it would be done.

Tax credits would also be increased to 75% on the first $400, up from $200, to a maximum of $650, up from $500. As well, reimbursements to political parties would be increased, as would be the maximum eligible expenses per voter. Incredibly, polling costs for political parties, which is basically the propaganda of the campaign, would be covered by taxpayer funding. That is a little ridiculous.

The government would regulate the number of ways it extends most of the bureaucratic control it now has from political parties right down to the local associations, to nomination candidates, as well as to leadership candidates. There would be massive demands put on nomination candidates, people who have come off the street and have decided they want to try to run for a nomination.

As I read through the legislation I thought that the regulations put on people who are just running for a nomination would be far too demanding. They would have to get a financial officer, an auditor, and fill out the reports. I did some math and it could be somewhere between 3,500 and 4,500 people who have to fill in the forms and send them in to the government to make sure they have done everything right. That is just for their nomination.

There would be an increase in bureaucracy at the local level. It would just go to ridiculous lengths. The present disclosure rules would be extended to riding association nomination candidates and also to leadership candidates.

Riding associations would be affected by this. They would have to register and provide annual reports and have CEOs and financial officers and auditors on an annual basis. It seems to me that this would be a bureaucrat's dream but everyone else's nightmare.

The implications of the legislation are huge. As the government sees it, there is a problem but it thinks the problem is perception and that perception is that politicians are tainted. The government has a history of being tainted because of things like the HRDC scandal, a golf course and hotel affair and ad scandals. It also had to ship one of its ministers off to Denmark in a hurry.

We all accept the reality that the government is influenced by a few companies. Yesterday in question period we heard that two companies, Nortel and Bombardier, have over 50% of the Business Development Bank's loan portfolio. They are just two companies with close knit connections to the government.

The government's solution is not to change reality but to change the perception so people think it is actually doing something. As the public sees it, there is a problem here with a lack of accountability. That lack of accountability is both within the Liberal Party and outside the Liberal Party.

The Liberal Party has a situation where people cannot buy memberships as they choose within the party. What kind of democratic party is run that way? A while ago one of the vice-presidents from one of the B.C. riding associations had a letter in the paper asking why they should sell memberships to non-Liberals. She did not want to open it up to Canadians to buy a membership within that party.

We know the Liberal Party has a problem in terms of nominations because many of its people are appointed. They do not have to go through the whole nomination process. Most of them will probably not have to file their reports because they are just given the nomination. There will be no expenses involved there.

We know that the cabinet is appointed by a formula. We see every day that it is definitely not appointed by quality. There is a problem within the party at that level as well.

The Prime Minister has told us that he does not need anybody and that he can do what he wants. What kind of accountability is that to Canadian people?

There is also an understanding outside the government that it cannot handle the country's money in a safe and secure way. We have seen things like the HRDC scandal which I mentioned before. The gun registry is another example of how the government has completely failed to manage taxpayers' money. We know there is a problem, but why do we try to fix it by amplifying it? By using a solution that will make political parties less accountable is not going to work.

The Liberal government would get almost $8 million from the head tax in this proposed legislation which would be even better than the $6.5 million it received from donations last year. If the corporate donation limit is dropped and restricted, why should the parties not be obligated to make it up from other donors? The problem for the Liberals is that they do not have public support to do that.

The Alliance Party received donations last year from 50,000 individuals. The Liberal Party received donations from 5,000 individuals. Less than 10% of the number of individuals who supported our party were willing to support the governing party. It received only 19%, less than one in five dollars, from individuals. The rest came from tax rebates from big corporations. As my colleague from Fraser Valley said yesterday, if the Liberals had to rely on the average voter, they would starve to death.

The Liberals did not want to go to the public. This was never more evident than yesterday when the member for Davenport spoke. He took our leader to task because last week he said that political parties, like markets, should be responsible to the people who need and want them. That seems to be a perfectly reasonable statement to me.

The member for Davenport said he would reject that notion as he was sure most members of the House would do as well. He said that political parties are not a marketable commodity. He may dream that. Maybe he has been sitting in government a bit too long. He cannot say that parties should not be responsible to the people who want and need them.

The member also said that political parties have nothing to do with the marketplace. Of course they do. The marketplace of public opinion is determined every election and it should determine the support of political parties.

The Canadian Alliance has some simple solutions. One of them is to reduce donor limits where there are problems. Two, political parties should be forced to get their funding from their own supporters, not from taxpayers. That is a pretty simple solution. Three, something should be done with this legislation to address the problem of where influence really is. We need a standard of conduct for those people who have the influence: the cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister. Individual MPs have an influence as a group, but cabinet ministers have influence directly. Something definitely needs to be done about that and it is not addressed in the legislation.

[Rob Merrifield, Canadian Alliance, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, on behalf of the people of Yellowhead it is a great privilege for me to speak to this legislation.

This very important piece of legislation is long overdue. It is long overdue because of what I see as a deterioration of democracy in the country. It really is a hurtful situation when we see some of the disasters of cabinet ministers and individuals who have allowed corruption to infiltrate their professionalism as politicians.

I was newly elected as a member of Parliament in the last election. When I go back to my riding, I tell people sort of under my breath that I am a politician. At the airport people may not know exactly who I am and I am a little shy about telling them I am a politician because of the connotation around the word “politician”. People do not like the idea of a politician, provincial and particularly federal. The word “politician” is reflected negatively. Interestingly, it is because of the lack of performance, lack of credibility and lack of ethics that we have seen so much from the government.

Over the last two decades we have seen the amount of control the ordinary person walking the street has as far as federal politicians and decisions go in the House. It is really disturbing. We come into this place and say that we live in a democratic land. We come in here to debate the issues of the nation and to make laws that are good for the citizens of Canada yet the words in our debate become so hollow because nobody listens in this place. Nobody understands that it is not a true debate here because the people who make the decisions are bound to the party position so much, particularly on the other side of the House. They act like trained seals. They do not vote according to the conscience and will of the people who sent them to this place.

It disturbs me that the name tag on this bench has my name on it. This is not my seat. It is the seat of every man, woman and child of the constituency of Yellowhead. So often in this place we forget whom we are supposed to represent.

Then we bring in legislation like the bill before us which would allow democracy to slip even further than it has already. It is a shameful situation that this legislation is before us. It is a shameful thing in the country when we allow democracy to slip from our ability to be a government of the people. That has to change.

My grandfather fought for democracy and freedom in both world wars and it disturbs me that many times people in the House do not have the backbone to stand up and fight for democracy of the people in their ridings who sent them here. That has to change if we are truly to be a nation of the people and have a government that responds to the people.

Why is this legislation here? It is before us because Parliament has lost its way, one might say, but I think there are three reasons it is here.

Number one, Canadians think that the Liberal government is in the pocket of big business. We have seen the scandals involving cabinet ministers. The perception of the government is it is one plagued with scandal after scandal. It has lost the confidence of the people.

This legislation is an attempt by the government to become Mr. Clean. It cannot become Mr. Clean by bringing in legislation that moves us even further from the people we are trying to represent. One becomes clean by getting rid of the scandals and the corruption that have allowed the confidence to slip away.

The second reason is that the Liberal government is not able to pay for its own party debts. That party is in debt up to its eyeballs. The Prime Minister has said publicly that he will not leave the party and the government in debt. How will that party get rid of the debt? The government brings in a piece of legislation that forces the electorate, ordinary hardworking Canadian men and women, to pay off that debt. That is scandalous.

The third reason is because internal party politics are involved in this. We should examine why the Prime Minister, at the end of his term, wants to change the rules of how politics works in the country. Many members who have spoken on this piece of legislation have asked, what would drive the Prime Minister to bring this in at the eleventh hour? Is it a guilty conscience or is it personal petty politics that are driving this decision? We must discern and consider all of these things as we look at this piece of legislation.

After all the Liberal media spin and rhetoric has been put aside, it can simply be said that we have a government that is replacing the addiction to large business and corporate donations to an addiction to direct taxpayer funding. That is my biggest and strongest opposition to this piece of legislation.

The Liberal government does not really like democracy or citizen participation. It has shown that. That is why so many members from this side of the House say that we need free votes on legislation. Either a piece of legislation is good for Canadians and garners 50% plus 1 of the members of Parliament who represent their constituencies and the people of Canada or it does not. It should continue to be amended until it does garner that support. That is democracy and that would be in the best interests of the country.

I have spoken to Liberal members who say that every vote is a free vote. In reality they know it is not; it is party position. If it is a free vote, they are certainly voting the wrong way on a lot of these issues. What is even more disturbing is a government that in the last session brought in 73 time allocation motions and 9 closure motions. When it forces debate to end in the House and says it is absolutely going to drive legislation through regardless of what the representatives of the people of this country are saying, and does not listen to them, then that makes this place a mockery.

I am fortunate in that the constituency of Yellowhead is a large rural riding. When I return home I have the opportunity to bring every issue that we are wrestling with in this place to the people of Yellowhead in a closer way than if I was a member of Parliament representing a large urban area. I am able to place a column or a news release in most of the papers, of which there are about 13 or 14 in my riding. I am able to talk on the radio so I can inform people of the issues that are happening here. Because of that, my constituents are much more in tune with what is happening in Ottawa than if they were in a large urban riding.

As a member of Parliament it is a privilege to be able to explain to them what is actually happening and how the laws that we debate here would impact them. Even in the midst of that when I return home, they feel alienated. They feel they are left out and their voices are not heard here. I say that because if we look at the last election almost 40% of the electorate did not exercise their ability to vote in this country. With only 60% voting one can discern quickly that we have a problem with democracy in this country.

I have spent some time as a municipal representative and I have spent some time in the provincial government as a regional health authority on health care. I am much more in tune with what actually can happen at those levels of government and how at those levels of government we can represent the people in a more aggressive way. It is very important that we discern that the power of this House must be broken from the Prime Minister's Office and the press gallery, and be given back to the people of Canada.

When we look at this piece of legislation where $1.50 would be coming out of each taxpayer's pocket to subsidize political parties in this country, we should realize quickly that it is something that is not in the best interests of this country. It would alienate Canadians even further than the 40% because not only would they feel they are not being heard, but they would feel that they were not even needed to be able to contribute to the party of their choice to influence the decisions that are made in this place.

That is a shameful part of this piece of legislation that must be corrected. As it goes back to committee, and through the process of the House, I hope that those important things would be taken into consideration for Canada to remain a truly democratic country.

[Deepak Obhrai, Canadian Alliance, Calgary East, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-24.

Before I go through the details of the bill and why I oppose it I would like to go back to a personal observation that was made a couple of years ago when I went to Washington with the international trade minister. We were there for a globalization conference. During the luncheon speech that he was making, I had an opportunity to walk around and speak to some of the Americans that were in the audience. They made a very interesting observation. They said it was quite enjoyable and pleasant to talk to Canadian elected officials because they listened and paid attention to what was being said.

Their observation was that it was because privy council members and other members were elected, and were accountable to the people. In Washington, with the exception of the President of the United States who is elected, the secretaries of state are appointed by the president, so they have the attitude, “It is my way or the highway”. It is the president alone who is accountable, not the secretaries of state. The people I spoke to gave the comparison that elected officials who were accountable would listen to the people, whereas those who were not elected did not have to listen to the people. As they are not bound to listen to the people, they might make decisions that are at times not reflective of what the populace desires.

What does that have to do with Bill C-24? It has to do with accountability. Bill C-24 talks about political financing for political parties, riding associations, candidates, and nominations. It is an attempt by the government to transfer the control from being accountable to the populace to relying on the state for the financing of political parties. Financing of political parties is one of the most important aspects in democracy because only then are we accountable to the electorate.

The government's rationale for this is the same as saying it does not want to be held hostage or be unduly influenced by corporations, unions or other bodies. It wants the whole thing transferred to the government so it would become less accountable.

The Liberal Party has failed miserably to raise money from individuals. In the past it has relied on big corporate donations. As far as other parties are concerned the New Democratic Party is a typical example. It is totally detached from the Canadian population because its money comes from the trade unions. Its constitution allows trade unions to have a disproportionate amount of influence in its party affairs than ordinary people.

The Canadian Alliance and the Reform Party, being a new party, has a higher level of contributions from ordinary Canadians. As such we are accountable to them including myself. My average donation is between $100 and $150 from the people in my riding. If I need money I need to go out to talk to individuals and be responsive to them. They feel good about being involved in the political process of the country and that they are contributing to democracy.

A couple of questions need to be raised as to why the bill is coming forward now when the Prime Minister has already declared that he is going. He has introduced this bill saying that we need to reform the financing of political parties because we do not want undue influence from big corporations. Just think for a second about the timing of the bill. The Prime Minister has declared that he is going and is accountable to no one, as he likes to point out.

If we look at the history of the Liberal Party, it has benefited the most from corporate donations. Why would a party that has benefited the most from corporate donations suddenly have a conscience saying that no, it does not want this. Up to now it has benefited the most and now it says that was a bad thing. One wonders why that happened. If we look at the political financing of the Liberal Party we ask the question, why now?

If the Prime Minister thought he could stop his challenger, I think that big fish is gone out of his net. He has already amassed a fortune out of corporate donations. I am sure that 90% of the former finance minister's financing has come from corporations, which is exactly directly opposite to what this bill is intending to do. The whole purpose of the bill, no matter what the government says, is under suspicion.

We are shaking our heads and asking: What has happened? Why should Canadian taxpayers suddenly take this responsibility of financing political parties? Where is this grassroots democracy where one must give money to participate?

If people feel good and we are responsive, they will give us the money. Accountability of elected officials is the key element. The bill would take that away and would create a federal bureaucracy that would interfere with the workings of a party because the government would be financing it.

One of the reasons why we oppose the bill is because it would take the accountability out of ordinary grassroots Canadians and spread it to the government so that, for the ordinary Canadians, the ruling party would not be accountable. That is the trademark of what is happening with the Liberal Party and the Prime Minister who has proudly said that he was going and that he was accountable to no one, and that he could bring these things forward.

He has been in the House for 40 years and we give him credit for that. He has been in the political arena for a long time. He has seen everything and he has respected tradition. However, for him to say that he was accountable to no one must go against his own grain of thinking. Forty years of being in the House and he is saying that upon leaving.

In conclusion, the timing and the intent of the bill is suspicious, given the record of the government. As such, we will oppose the bill.

[Joe Jordan, Liberal, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to make a few comments on what I have heard in the last hour. The member who spoke before me talked about the sort of indicting nature of this correlation between corporate donations and the Liberal Party. I guess this is the danger with statistics.

If we were to look at the funding in political processes in modern democracies, what we would find is that the party in government receives more corporate donations. It is not getting money because the party is of any particular stripe but because it is perceived to have its levers on the power mechanisms of the machine. I do not think it is necessarily a fair comment to say that the Liberals are getting this corporate money simply because they are Liberals. In the brief periods in the history of this country when the Liberals have not been in government, the governments of the day received equivalent shares of this corporate money.

I think this underscores what the bill is trying to do. The bill is trying to take that element out of the equation because, real or perceived, I think it has no value being there.

I am going to speak a little about the concept of what we are trying to accomplish. Certainly this piece of legislation needs to be vigorously debated. I am glad to see that it is.

I was fortunate enough to attend business school in the United States. One of the courses I had to take in the United States in business school was a course on government relations, or lobbying. Let me say that the relationship between business and government in the United States is a much more sophisticated and complex arrangement than what we have here. I honestly say that we have something worth preserving here. We do not have public policy influenced to the same extent by political action committees and by funding through what is called the black money or the dark money or the grey money in the American political system. I think we can agree that what we are trying to accomplish is to take that out of there.

The thing that seems to be sticking in the teeth of the Alliance is that we are going to transfer this to the taxpayer. I do not see the problem in that because we are representing the taxpayers.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh.

[Joe Jordan, Liberal, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

That is all well and good, but let us remember something. Let us remember that during the Kyoto debate the Alliance critic for the environment said that the Alliance stand on Kyoto was going to help its fundraising.

So thanks very much. Thanks very much for pulling the curtain aside and admitting the worst fears of Canadians: that the legitimate interests of public policy, and we can hear that the silence here is deafening now, should not be influenced by money. Maybe those members should look up democracy in the dictionary.

The other issue is that we had an MP stand up and say that the image the public now has of politicians is just horrible. Let me say that no party has done more to destroy the public perception of politicians than the Reform-Alliance, when its candidate in a debate--

[An hon. member]

How about a billion dollars for the gun registry?

[An hon. member]

The truth hurts.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

Order, please. The hon. member was not even in his seat when he was shouting.

[Joe Jordan, Liberal, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Madam Speaker, in a former life I was a teacher. I just hope Canadians understand that I am presenting what I think are some reasonable facts and I am being confronted with behaviour from the Alliance that I would not tolerate in a grade two class.

The problem the Alliance members have, I think, is that they have a three second solution to every problem. Every problem is black and white. If they repeat it enough they seem to think they are right.

We are balancing interests and I think that it is at least a legitimate debate that we are trying to have.

To get back to the point of image, I can remember my 1997 campaign and going into debates. There was the Reform candidate talking about the pension. This was the most horrible thing on the planet, this gold plated pension, and MPs were just at the trough. Let us just follow this through to its natural conclusion, because every single Alliance MP or Reform MP is now collecting that pension. That issue seems to have gone away.

[Werner Schmidt, Canadian Alliance, Kelowna, BC]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. He said that every one of the Canadian Alliance and Reform has done that, and that is not true.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

That is not a point of order. I thank the hon. member.

[Joe Jordan, Liberal, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Madam Speaker, through you to Canadians, you understand now that when I present the issue as black and white, they freak out, saying, oh, no, it is more complicated than I am presenting it.

They campaigned against the pension. They took the pension. Black. White.

They can answer to Canadians. I am not going to go on with that point anymore.

The only reason I stood up was to talk about the level of debate that I heard. The member talks about truth. I think that what we are trying to do with this legislation is bring the political process back down to where it is accessible by people. In my riding, for example, I can spend $73,000, I think, and I think that is too much. I do not think I need to spend $73,000 to run a campaign for a federal election, but let me say that if we do not de-escalate the role of money in the system, we are going to price ourselves so that there is only going to be a certain kind or class of Canadian who will be available to run, and I think that the system is less if we go that route.

[An hon. member]

You are the ones who appoint candidates.

[Joe Jordan, Liberal, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Madam Speaker, I hope all these interruptions are not coming off my time.

One of the issues that came up yesterday is third party spending. I am not saying I am right. I am just saying let us talk about it. I am not rubbing salt in anybody's wound. I am trying to discuss the issue.

Let us say that there are third parties like the National Citizens' Coalition, although as my hon. colleague yesterday pointed out, it certainly is not made up of citizens and it is a strange name for this group. If they have unlimited spending power to target, then the political side, the politicians, has to be able to defend itself. That is not democracy. That is the politics of money. Let us just de-escalate it. Let us take money out of the system. Let us make sure that for anybody in any town who decides they are not happy with the way things are going, then let us get them get into politics. Money should not be a barrier.

What the member talked about in terms of corporate donations is that the party in power seems to be able to raise more money than--