Mr. Speaker, Motion No. 12 in Group No. 3 of Bill C-24 at report stage basically requires that the electoral district associations or, as some people refer to them, riding or constituency associations, within six months after being registered pursuant to this act would provide a statement of contributions received since the last general election and before the bill comes into force, including the name and address of each contributor who made contributions of more than $200 to the registered association.
That is a valid requirement and could be put in the bill but it already is a matter of public record. The member will know that all contributions in excess of $200 where there are receipts issued are already a matter of public record each and every year and are available for the public to see.
It is not just with regard to contributions raised during election periods. In fact, riding associations do take in contributions to help with their administrative costs, as well as to pay for levies against them from the main party for the administrative support that is provided. Indeed, in my own party, all the receipting of donations is done by the central party. They are audited and all the information is provided through the offices of the chief electoral officer for the public to see.
On that basis, I do not have a problem with the motion. It is somewhat redundant but it somehow suggests that this is information that is not available and I wanted to make sure members knew that it is in fact available each and every year to all Canadians. That is part of the transparency of our existing system.
Since we are talking about riding associations, Bill C-24 is a very important bill in terms of the impact it would have on the overall process of financing the electoral activities in Canada. When I spoke yesterday to the bill, I compared it to the United States where basically people can spend millions of dollars in support of their candidacies for congress or the senate. In fact, just today in the news it was confirmed that Senator Hillary Clinton actually raised and spent $30 million to become a senator in the United States.
One can imagine what would happen in Canada to the public perception of people in elected office if they raised, for instance, $1 million and spent it to get elected, if they could. What would be the reaction of Canadians? Obviously they would be outraged because the job is not worth $1 million.