Mr. Speaker, I would like to take the opportunity to say a few words on the bill. It is one that I suppose a lot of us look at with mixed feelings. Most people in the House and all people outside of it have been looking forward for some time to cleaning up election financing. However we have to ask this question. Does the bill do anything about that or does it make it worse? There will certainly be arguments on both sides.
When people outside the House analyze the bill itself, they will note that they are being asked to finance political parties which are in existence. No provision is made for parties that are non-existent. It comes at a tremendous price. We are looking at roughly $20 million a year in contributions to the parties. No wonder the governing party is so interested in the bill because it would get the large share of the contribution.
Contributions will be based upon the amount of votes received in the last election. For a party that has a heavy debt, as does the Liberal Party, it will help pay off its debt and put it in very good shape. Other parties will not fare so well, although that part of it should not be the determining factor.
We should look at one thing. Why do we want to change the financing of elections? The first thing most people would say would be to make it transparent and clean it up. A lot of people think politicians and political parties are bought by big corporations, unions and, in some cases, perhaps individually bought by individuals who have significant dollars. That cleaning up and transparency has to be brought in.
I think most people would find it would be few and far between that large donations would be given to anybody except the governing party. Who can buy favours from our party, the NDP, the Bloc or even the Alliance? People might want to ingratiate themselves and make healthy contributions. However, if people looked at the contributors to most of our parties, I do not think they would be very concerned with influence peddling, regardless of what stripe the governing party was. It could be a different colour. That is the kind of stuff we need to clean up.
There is no doubt about the fact that there should be a limit on donations. However what that limit should be is a good question.
When I discussed the bill openly with people in my province, they asked me what the limits would be on donations. I told them that it would be $10,000 on a personal donation and $1,000 from corporations. They said to me that I had it mixed up, that surely it had to be $10,000 from corporations and perhaps $1,000 from an individual. I told them that was not the way the bill had been written.
To me it does not make a lot of sense to set a $10,000 limit from individuals and have a $1,000 limit from corporations. That is not reasonable. Certainly that amount could be significantly higher without people feeling the corporation is trying to buy favours.
We have to realize, as a lot of us do, that the majority of the companies do not try to buy favours. They are clean-cut, honest corporations and individuals. They contribute to political parties because they think those parties or individuals within parties are doing a good job. They want to ensure we continue to do our work. The only way to do that is to be re-elected, and to be re-elected costs money.
Reasonable donations made for the right reasons have always been a part of our system. There is absolutely nothing wrong with people, individually or collectively through their companies or unions, contributing to political parties, if it is within reason and it is done in a transparent manner so everybody knows where the money has comes from.
On the other hand, we also realize that the majority of politicians are honest individuals. They do not want to be bribed or bought and will reject any offers to try to influence their decisions.
That is not what a lot of people think. Just a couple of days ago I saw a poll on what people thought about different professions across the country and who was honest and who was not. Politicians of course came out on the bottom of the poll. People have a perception that politicians are there to get what they can out of it and to help the buddies who buy them.
That perception has to be cleaned up. The legislation does nothing to help out in that regard. Trust funds are not counted. Any contributions made before announcements have been made are not counted. Any specific individual, whether it be a leadership candidate or a party candidate, has all kinds of under the table ways of accumulating large sums of money that he or she can use. That will not be affected by the legislation.
I am not sure what the present legislation will do to help correct the problems that have to be corrected. The only thing of real significance is that it asks Canadians, who really finance everything that goes on in government anyway, to finance the election of members. Maybe people will say that by this they could ensure we were not being influenced by outside events, individuals or corporations. I do not think that is what they will to say. I think they will say that if a MP wants to be elected then go get elected and find any assistance that is needed. However in doing so, ensure that it is done properly, that is above board, that is transparent and that it is an honest process. The legislation does absolutely nothing to assure this.
I have absolutely no problem with the general idea that we have to make election financing accountable and transparent. The process in election financing and the financing of leadership races or anything else that is involved with those types of activities is what must be addressed and be addressed in a way that is right, proper, open and transparent.
If we do that, people will look at all of us here and say that we are here for the right reasons and that we have been elected through the right process. They will be able to say that they are proud to make a reasonable contribution and do not mind doing it openly. Then a lot of the misconceptions about politicians could be corrected. Maybe it is time we got down to doing it, instead of complicating the process which the legislation as it exists will do.
Hopefully through the House and through the committee these changes will be made. Then we will have a piece of legislation which we can all support by the time we finish.