Mr. Speaker, it is good to speak to Bill C-24, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act (political financing). The two are closely tied together.
It was interesting the other day when the Prime Minister introduced the bill in the House. He stands here day after day, and defends himself and his government against scandal after scandal. He says over and over that everything is fine, everything is above board, and there is nothing going on that should not be and it is squeaky clean. On the other hand he brings in a piece of legislation and promotes it by saying it would clean up influence peddling. If there is not any, what is the problem here? I think an assumption we all must make is that there is a problem.
He indicated that this would make things more open and democratic. One of the members from the Liberal side talked earlier about being nominated. In some constituencies there is no nomination meeting. The Prime Minister parachutes a candidate and says it is the person he wants to run in that riding and that is who it is. In the governing party the Prime Minister has the right to not sign nomination papers. That is not democratic. It is certainly different from the way our party works.
If hon. members want to talk about fighting for democratic change, I do not think they should look across the House. They should look right here. That is something on which this party has based its policies and platform. There needs to be more democracy here in the House and throughout the system under which we operate. Time after time we have brought forward recommendations that could have been implemented. We have looked at all aspects of governance to see what could be done to make it more democratic and make Canadians feel that they have more of a say in what happens in governing the country.
However we have been turned aside. There were simple things like working with private members' business to make more bills votable allowing individual members the opportunity to have more of a say and to bring up issues that they were hearing from their constituents to put into law. However that is fought at every turn.
I believe the bill is proposing to take away from Canadians the opportunity to support who they think best represents their policies or what they feel is right for Canada and the Government of Canada. I have always maintained in my campaigns and in the campaigns of our party that if a person wants to donate, then that is great. People donate because they believe in the policies and platforms of a party and they believe in the candidate. If people donate because they expect to get something back in return they will be very disappointed. If people are donating to a political party because they think it will bring back some personal or corporate benefit to them, then indeed we do have a huge problem.
I will always remember that in the last campaign I received a cheque from an elderly widowed lady for a small amount. It was sent with an attaching note saying that this was all she had. She said it was all she could afford, but she wanted me to have it to use it to promote what my party and I believed in. That is what this is all about. If we take that away, if we make people donate through the tax system and contribute to parties in which they do not believe, that gets away from the whole aspect of what is right and what needs to be done in our political system.
I wish to do a recap on what the bill entails. The intention appears to be to compensate parties for the removal of corporate and union donations which are largely made at the party level rather than to individual candidates or constituency associations. The way the bill is constructed, there would be many ways to get around that. The amount of individual contributions is high. I am sure that if a union or a corporation were to funnel some money into a party, then that would be able to be done, even under the new rules with the $10,000 for personal contribution. When we think about that, the maximum tax credit people could receive is for a donation of $1,275, so if they are donating over that, then it certainly is not to get a tax benefit.
Political parties are at the heart of a modern political and electoral system and are essential to a vibrant and viable democratic system. It is so important that different parties come forward to represent different views and represent different aspects of society.
Whether this should entail public funding, directly or indirectly and, if so, at what level or what level is appropriate is the debate today. At present, registered political parties are publicly funded through the tax system, deductions for contributions, and through the partial reimbursement of election expenses. I will get into that a little later.
Candidates are also reimbursed for a proportion of their election expenses, while contributors can take advantage of the favourable tax treatment of political donations. There is a compounding factor that I will mention. The bill proposes to enhance and extend that regime.
Currently, registered parties can be reimbursed for 22.5% of their election period expenses. Anything that is spent during the writ period, the federal party or the national party gets 22.5% of that back. The rate of reimbursement of electoral expenses for candidates is currently 50%. In our local campaigns we get back 50% of everything we spend during the writ period from the taxpayer.
If people donate $400 under the new proposal, they get a 75% tax deduction for that. When we as candidates put that forward, we get 50% of that back. This has a compounding effect and the taxpayer continually pays for campaigns.
With respect to individual candidates, the bill proposes that the percentage of votes a candidate must obtain in his or her riding to qualify for reimbursement of electoral expenses be lowered to 10% from 15%. That 15% has always been a platform where we want to try to keep our opposition or the people who we run against us underneath that because they do not get the rebate. It is an additional challenge when campaigning. Now that has been lowered to 10%.
The proposed bill provides for an annual allowance. I want people to understand that this is an annual allowance to registered parties in the amount of $1.50 per vote received by the party in the previous general election, provided the party has received in the last election either 2% of the valid votes cast nationally or 5% of the votes in the ridings where the party ran candidates. Every year between elections that $1.50 will come to political parties. This figure is apparently based on replacing what would be lost to corporate donations. I believe there are other reasons for that.
Let us look at what happened in 1993. In the previous election in 1988 the Progressive Conservative government had a majority. That majority was reduced from roughly 170 seats to 2 seats. Over that period of time the support for the party had dropped right through the floor. It had come down to about 2% of what it used to be. However during the period of time between elections it would have continued to receive $1.50 for everybody who cast a ballot for it in the last election. In the meantime its support had absolutely evaporated. Therefore, in the last couple of years before an election things can change dramatically. People who had voted for the party but no longer supported it would still be giving $1.50 per year.
As an incentive to encourage contributions by individuals, the bill also introduces amendments to the Income Tax Act to double the amount of an individual's political donation, which is eligible for a 75% tax credit from $200 to $400, and to increase accordingly each other bracket of the tax credit to a maximum tax credit of $650 for political donations of $1,275 or more. The Income Tax Act amendments in the bill will apply to the 2003 tax year and beyond.
If we raise the eligible tax credit to 75%, I know one gentleman at home who will be completely torn apart by this issue. He wants to donate to the Canadian Cancer Society, the Kidney Foundation of Canada, Child Find or others and he wants to get the same credit for that as he does for a political donation but he cannot.
In wrapping up, we cannot support the bill because it puts the onus of funding political parties on the taxpayer in general, instead of a person having the ability to support the party that he or she wants.