Mr. Speaker, in talking about the accountability act I will go back through a bit of the history. During my term, which started in 2004, we called numerous witnesses. We realized that the previous legislation that had been proposed but which was never brought to the Commons, was flawed and had some serious problems. We had 17 months essentially of having people make representations as witnesses from the United States and all over Canada, people who essentially had been victimized as whistleblowers.
We had a tremendous amount of concurrence in terms of the understanding of the legislation that in a minority government forum all parties would have input. Indeed, several of the committee members are in the House today. Through that process, indeed, on the last day of Parliament in June 2005, the legislation actually concluded in Parliament and went forward.
Since we already have the legislation, which has gone through the process of having called witnesses and having spent a lot of time calling these people, why would this legislation not simply be passed and, if it needs strengthening in some form or another, then we could simply do it through other processes? We know a lot of work has already been done and that during the committee process there were certainly more members of opposition parties at that time than the government which, in effect, gave them a majority on that committee.
It seems strange that the parliamentary secretary would resort to attacking other kinds of things as opposed to simply answering the question. I did not think I had asked anything untoward. It was pretty clear in terms of this and it was a reasonable question to ask.
The second component glaringly and obviously missing from the legislation is third party financing. Most of the people with whom I have spoken can agree with the financing rules and with the general intent of the accountability act. I do not know anybody on our side who is trying to slow this down whatsoever. In fact, we are probably ready to send it to committee as soon as possible so let us do that.
In this case the question then looms: Could other nations have an influence on Canadian elections? It is very clear that there is a gap in the proposed legislation. If we want it to work and we are concerned about making it work then let us send it to committee where these kinds of things can be addressed and there are no tragic gaps that are in there now.
Yes, the legislation is necessary and timely but, in this case, I believe that with the good work of committee we can actually make it even better.