Mr. Speaker, I would like to start my comments on the motion moved by the member for Winnipeg Centre with a quote from Winston Churchill that should get us thinking. He said, “Democracy is the worst system devised by the wit of man, except for all the others”.
Obviously this quote may seem somewhat strange when presented like this. The democratic system is often criticized and sometimes we stretch it and try to make everyone see our point of view. However, with these words, Churchill hoped to convey his profound respect for democracy in comparison to other systems, be it communism or the totalitarian dictatorships that existed in Germany and Italy at the time Churchill was Prime Minister of Great Britain
The purpose of Bill C-24 is to improve the democratic system in which we live. Under the current system, which Bill C-24 would modify, certain privileges were granted to people who made significant contributions to Canadian political parties.
Yesterday, I said that Quebec had passed legislation on the funding of political parties in 1977. We support the bill before us, but we feel there are still more improvements that could be made, such as the fact that businesses are allowed to contribute to parties' election funds. While the limits have been reduced, I think we need to make it so that only people who are eligible to vote have the right to contribute to political parties.
Earlier, the Canadian Alliance was talking about unions. Obviously, neither unions, nor businesses nor corporations have the right to vote. As a result, unions, businesses and corporations should not be able to make an active contribution to political party financing.
I would like to come back to the motion by the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre. I think my hon. friend from the Canadian Alliance, speaking a short while ago, did not understand the meaning of the motion, which reads:
—as enacted by this Act, the registered association of a political party that is already registered on the coming into force of this section may provide the Chief Electoral Officer—
Certainly I was brought up short by the words “may provide”. At first I thought it should have read “must provide”. However, when one reads the motion closely and analyses it seriously, one sees in paragraph 2:
No registered association of a political party that is already registered on the coming into force of this section shall transfer to a registered party... any contributions that were received by the registered association during the period mentioned in paragraph (1)(a)—
This means that the purpose of the motion is to prevent—if I have correctly understood the sense of the motion by my hon. colleague from Winnipeg Centre—any money held in trust by these associations from being used illicitly by these associations or used “under the table” by the parties, so as to ensure the election or nomination of a particular person.
Therefore, I will support the motion of the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre, with whom I am in agreement now, even though I had some doubts at first.
I would like to return to Bill C-24 as a whole. There is another element which I think is not adequate and which we perhaps ought to have considered further. The federal government should have made a commitment to respect the laws of the provinces and Quebec. In Quebec during the 1995 referendum, we had a political party financing act and an act concerning the financing of referendums, dealing with the way the two sides were to be funded.
The fact remains that the federal government invested a lot of money; in the end, it violated Quebec's legislation because it claimed to be above the laws of one province, of Quebec.
The federal government should have made a commitment in this bill to harmonize its laws with those of Quebec, and to respect provincial legislation on political party financing or on referendum campaigns, so as not to interfere in the democratic process.
I also wanted to come back to what I was saying earlier about democracy and involving citizens. Last night, we watched the election results come in from New Brunswick, which were, incidentally, very close. As Premier elect Bernard Lord—whom I would like to congratulate, by the way—said, it was as interesting to watch as the final game of the Stanley Cup playoffs. It took quite some time before we found out who would form the government, and even today, there are still some doubts because of the recount.
I watched the reports on television and noticed that many volunteers participated in the electoral process, yet the voter turnout was lower. There was roughly a 69.1% or 69.7% participation rate, which is 5% to 6% lower than the previous election. The same thing happened during the last federal election and we see this happening throughout the country.
There is a reason for this dissatisfaction with politics. People are less involved in political parties and are therefore not canvassed by them as much, since politicians, including those at the federal level—where dissatisfaction is greatest—had no need to appeal to the voters for campaign funds.
It is essential that public financing become the focus of Bill C-24 and that we make it a long term goal. The only way to convince people to adopt our view is to go out and speak to them, to get them involved in the election process. A person first has to belong to a political party, then attend conventions, nomination meetings for instance, and then, finally, run in an election.
If people are to participate in this process, it is clear that we have to seek them out, win them over and spread the message. However, if, as is the case in several countries, we only use information media or, because we have the money to do so, increasingly rely on using advertising, sending out information and so on, we will not convince anyone to participate in the democratic process. There is only one true way to convince someone to participate in the democratic process and that is to ask him to participate to the best of his intellectual and financial abilities.
Even though we agree with Bill C-24, it will need to be improved over the years and at some point we will have to stop appealing to companies, which we have already stopped doing in Quebec. I would like only those who are entitled to vote to be able to contribute money to the parties, and not the companies, unions or any other corporation.