Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak today on Bill C-24, and particularly on Motion No. 11 which will make it possible for a review to be carried out after a certain period of time. This is a normal practice; Quebec has provision for it in its legislation governing political party funding.
I have never been prouder to be a Quebecker than I am today. Quebec has set an example for the people across the floor. The Government of Quebec took a real step on behalf of democracy in 1977 on the urging of René Lévesque.
I do not know if it is his approaching retirement that has wakened the Prime Minister of Canada up and moved him toward transparency, but for the second time in only a few weeks I want to congratulate him for taking his inspiration from Quebec legislation.
As hon. members are aware, democracy has many faces. Democracy takes on the face governments want the public to see. At the present time, federal political parties are financed in such a way that the public gets a very negative image. As my colleague in the Liberal Party has just said, we found our constituents discouraged. They told us, “On the federal level big corporations have control over the government, with hidden funds that end up filling the coffers of the party in power”.
At last a new day has dawned in Canada. Things are not perfect, of course, but this is a very important first step. For the years we have been here on the federal scene, all Bloc Quebecois members have been constantly calling upon the government to take action to at least bring in some transparency, for there at last to be some guidelines for political party financing.
Yes, that day is soon to be with us and at last we will be able to speak. We Bloc Quebecois MPs are financed by donations of $5, $10 or maybe $100. As a result, there are no strings attached and we can go and talk to people, ask their opinions on bills, on what is going on in their daily lives.
That is why Quebeckers identify with the Bloc Quebecois. In order to get $5, we often have to go five, six or seven times before we get the chance to talk to someone. We tell people that it is important they fund political parties through a small contribution of $5 to get a membership card, because that is what democracy is about. It assures them that their representative will never be bound by slush funds and big money, as we have seen in federal politics for decades.
There were some serious problems. I do not know why it took the Prime Minister so long to wake up to this, but as they say, “better late than never”. So, this is slow in coming, but it is finally being done and we will finally be able to have democracy. However, I think that we need to keep talking about this because democracy has many faces. For political parties, the first criterion of democracy is transparency when it comes to funding.
Earlier, my colleague, the member for Châteauguay—whom I commend for the work he has done on the file involving Mr. Gagliano—gave us some examples. He was telling us how, in the past, Mr. Alfonso Gagliano, who acted as the Prime Minister's right hand man in Quebec, had set up a patronage system involving funding, cronies and friends of the party. The tentacles even reached to his own son.
How many times—we are doing it still today—have we denounced this way of doing things? This has had an extremely serious impact on democracy and on the accessibility and independence of politicians, given that this was an issue that concerned the fundamental values of an individual.
We need to denounce this type of activity. We must not say that the slate is wiped clean with this new bill and that is the end of the story. We must continue to denounce what happened with Alfonso Gagliano. There need to be independent inquiries; we must get to the bottom of this. In fact, with this bill, people will say, “Finally”.
Still, we cannot say we are turning our backs on the dishonest practices of the past, wiping the slate clean and starting over. No. Things have been done in the past. In January 2004, this bill will take effect and introduce a new mechanism. Then we will have to be very vigilant to ensure that all political parties in this House of Commons are fully onside and ready to follow the new rules. We must not forget that it is not easy to change longstanding fundraising habits.
My hon. Liberal colleague was saying that in Quebec in 1964, under Jean Lesage, some faint questions began to be raised. We must never forget that the Liberal Party of Quebec was a carbon copy of its federal counterpart when it came to such practices.
So we are indebted to the foresight of René Lévesque, whose memory I want to honour today; this man was truly a trailblazer and a guiding light for the people of Quebec. René Lévesque was a democrat in the broadest sense. He was a man who believed that the individual should take precedence over society.
The Prime Minister of Canada is wise to take a page from his book. If Mr. Lévesque were alive today, and sitting in this House, I think he would walk across the floor and say to the Prime Minister, “Bravo. I have been a Liberal in the past, but congratulations”. Sometimes, perhaps, when one is approaching one's twilight years—because the Prime Minister is getting close to his announced retirement—one steps back and regards one's political adversaries in a different light, and can look to them for inspiration. This is a historic moment for the House of Commons as we consider Bill C-24.
The hon. members of the Bloc Quebecois, my constituents in Jonquière, and I, myself, will finally be able to say that all the rules are the same. No one is going to have a slush fund and everyone will be on an equal footing. Finally, we will be able to debate the real issues in future election campaigns and membership and fundraising drives, without our constituents saying, “That person will not speak for me, because his financing comes from the slush fund”.
Bravo. There are other groups of amendments and it will be my pleasure to speak to them at a later time.