Mr. Speaker, my colleague's direct question was, why is the Conservative Party taking Elections Canada to court? Quite frankly, we are doing it so that our candidates can get their reimbursements.
We believe that Elections Canada erred. It is that simple. If the member, who I believe in a former life might have been a lawyer by profession, would care to examine the affidavits that we have filed in the Federal Court, he would quickly come to the same conclusion that we have, that there was full compliance with elections law and that our candidates affected should be eligible to get their reimbursement back.
We have given over 100 examples of similar activity from other candidates in different parties which clearly demonstrate that the method we used on our regional advertising purchases were exactly the same as other parties used. I think that at the end of the day we will be able to clearly demonstrate to all Canadians, particularly those naysayers in this House, that we were in full compliance with electoral law.
The examples are many and varied, but clearly it is an indication that each candidate should have the right to determine what kind of advertising would best serve his or her purposes of getting elected.
What we have done in all of these cases is we have used national ads, yes, but they have been authorized by the local candidate. Frankly, I think that is quite a common practice that we have seen not only in federal elections but also in provincial elections.
I have stated in the House on several occasions that in one of my former lives I was responsible for the Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan in working within an all-party committee to make changes to the Saskatchewan elections act. What we did in the changes we made to that act were very similar to the federal Canada Elections Act. In fact, all parties agreed that we would try to mirror the Canada Elections Act in all things that we could. One of those aspects was regional advertising buys. We copied exactly what the federal one allowed and did not allow and embraced that into the Saskatchewan elections act.
Therefore, I know a little bit of what I speak and I can assure members of the House and my hon. colleague that Elections Canada in my opinion certainly erred in its rulings. That is why we are taking it to court. We want our candidates to get their reimbursements, which they are duly owed.