Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Party has engaged in specious accusations around political campaign funds. The Liberals have complained that the Conservative Party decided not to charge taxpayers for the cost of its convention. Let us be clear on what this accusation entails.
The Conservative Party could have considered all of the convention fees that came from its last convention as political contributions and issued tax rebates or return funds to the original donor. That would have benefited the Conservative Party dramatically. It would have been in the Conservative Party's financial interest to go about its affairs in that way because it would have cost taxpayers to subsidize the convention and not just the donation amount above and beyond the costs of the convention, but the entire convention delegate fee would have been subject to a tax credit.
So, he is right in one sense, that it would have provided a significant financial benefit to the Conservative Party for it to have considered those delegate fees to be donations. However, our party does not believe that taxpayers should fund our operations at a political convention. Therefore, we made the principled decision to forgo the tax credit that goes along with the donation. The Liberal Party, on the other hand, does it another way.
If he is in fact right, is he going to recommend to Revenue Canada that it provide tax credits to all those people who attended the convention? How much would it cost the Canadian taxpayer if all those convention delegate fees were then turned into donations and taxpayers were forced to pay out a rebate?