Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to ask a couple of questions of the minister.
I would like to preface my questions with the comment that we would not be standing here today if the government had approached this entire problem from a different perspective many years ago. It was its meanspirited attempt to keep in place a 50 candidate rule which has brought us to this position today.
Over the years the Reform Party and then the Canadian Alliance encouraged the government to adopt a 12 candidate rule, which was consistent with the numbers required for recognition in the House. In the year 2000 when we had a major revision of the Elections Act, I personally met and negotiated with Mr. Miguel Figueroa of the Communist Party who, at the time, was taking the legal challenge against the government, plus the smaller parties, including the Green Party. We came to an agreement that 12 was acceptable. Mr. Figueroa said that he would drop the legal challenge if the government would agree to 12.
I approached the then minister who rather pig-headedly refused to accept 12. He decided he would rather waste millions of taxpayers' dollars continuing the challenge all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, which is why we are now faced with this ridiculous number one for registration of a party.
My first question for the minister is, why did he not support me and my colleagues back in the year 2000? He was on the same committee as I was, although he was not a minister at the time. Why did he not support the 12 candidate amendment that was proposed by me at that committee in the year 2000, which would have avoided the necessity for him to be standing here today?
Second, why did the minister refuse to accept the amendments proposed by the Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley? When he appeared before the committee he expressed the concern that the bill requires him to make judgments about the platform and the purpose of a political party applying for registration. Most fair-minded people would think that is a completely inappropriate position in which to put a non-partisan, independent person. The Chief Electoral Officer does not want to be in the position where he has to make judgments about the appropriateness of a platform advanced by a political party. He suggested amendments which would take care of that problem in the bill.
I am well aware that the minister says that we will revisit this thing, but there is no guarantee he will be the minister or that the Liberals will even be the government after the election in two months' time. We should have got the bill right the first time.
Why did the minister reject the amendments suggested by the Chief Electoral Officer, which would have removed this very objectionable portion of the bill?