Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate on the bill before the House. In fact, this concerns the referral to committee of Bill C-3, to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act.
Obviously, we agree with the underlying principle of the bill, which is to amend the Canada Elections Act to recognize small political parties. We must make a distinction here between a registered political party and a party recognized in the House, as my colleague from Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île-d'Orléans mentioned earlier. Previously under the Canada Elections Act, as the Supreme Court ruling stated, a party had to endorse a minimum of 50 candidates during a general election in order to be a registered political party.
This was extremely difficult for small political parties. For example, a new political party had to endorse 50 candidates, have at least 50 ridings with a candidate, who, in my opinion, had few means to make their ideas heard. This presented various difficulties in many ridings.
We agree with the amendments to the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act recommended by the Supreme Court. Naturally, we agree with the principle underlying this bill. Various things will have to be clarified to ensure that a political party is defined. This will require careful attention. What does political party mean? What does it mean in practical terms?
A clear and precise definition is required. That is why this bill must be considered in committee and amended if need be. We need and must agree on a real definition, in order to prevent organizations—I will not mention any names—without any interest in public affairs from being recognized as political parties and benefiting from tax credits normally given to political parties.
This also gives us an opportunity to talk about what democracy is. In the Bloc Quebecois, we had adopted the tradition promoted by the Parti quebecois during the 1970s concerning electoral legislation. We set ourselves the objective of getting the most people possible involved. It was our true and clear intention to recruit many members in order to enable the population as a whole to express itself at all levels of the party, from the local to the national levels in Quebec.
Over the years, I believe the Bloc Quebecois has achieved that objective. First of all, the Bloc banked on the public funding of a political party. As well, it has defended in the House, pretty much consistently, the changes required to the Elections Act, so that, among other things, corporate contributions to political parties would now be banned.
Finally, this past year, after a great many years of major debates, the Bloc Quebecois succeeded in having federal politics cleaned up, as Mr. Lévesque had done in Quebec. This is very important, because this kind of approach made it possible to improve Quebec politics and will, I hope, have the same effect on federal politics.
With all that is going on, and has gone on, we are still far from the objective of this new law. I hope we will be able to solve this problem at the federal political level. This past week, with all of its focus on sponsorships, we were hearing that this was how politics works in Quebec. A statement like that is totally false.
We know very well that politics in Quebec have been cleaned up since the 1970s, and such things could never have happened under our present electoral legislation. Our elections act was brought in by the Parti quebecois and has been upheld by subsequent governments. It has the approval of the National Assembly and of the people of Quebec.
When we hear such statements, we know they are totally unacceptable. A person would really have to be lacking in judgment and knowledge to say such things.
That also gives us the opportunity to say that in order for our democracy to exist and flourish, it is necessary that the public be able to participate. Of course, if more opportunities are opened up for the creation of political parties that will defend different opinions and different ideals, that can only be healthy for democracy, because it will encourage more citizens to participate in democratic life.
Considering the recent history of general elections, we see that there has been a gradual disaffection of the citizens with politics, particularly federal politics, if we look at the percentages of people who bother to get out and vote.
At present, there is a danger in letting things slide, making it easy for citizens not to be involved in or committed to a political party or even politics in general. If we want democracy to continue to exist and flourish and have the effects we all hope it will have, it is essential that the majority of people go to the bother of voting and participating in our democracy. In a democracy, the usual method of participating and sharing ideas involves political parties.
We are in favour of an amendment to the bill. In any event, the Supreme Court gives the government no choice. The Elections Act has to be amended and so does the Income Tax Act so that political parties wanting to register are able to sell memberships and collect contributions. All this will be done within the new framework established following much debate and the Bloc Quebecois' incessant demands that federal government politics be cleaned up.
The Supreme Court gave the government one year to achieve this objective. At the end of that year, the need to present 50 candidates will be eliminated. From the Supreme Court ruling to the end of the one-year deadline, the bill has to be adopted and the necessary changes made. It is absolutely imperative that through this bill, we give small political parties every opportunity to form and express their points of view and ideas.
Naturally, several changes have been proposed by the government. We probably will not agree with all the changes presented and I think that is normal, but they have to be closely examined in committee.
For instance, we are told that for a party to be formed, it needs at least 250 members who have signed a statement declaring their membership in the party. That is the minimum. To create and register a party, to have it prosper and to have candidates in each riding, a membership of 250 is not much. We should perhaps reconsider this requirement to ensure that the political party is serious about registering. Our democracy needs to benefit from this. Contrary to what might happen, democracy must not be ridiculed, but applied properly. The public must be able to take part in it.