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.