Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure of commenting on this bill. I would first like to remind the House that the Bloc Québécois is in favour of this bill. We have been speaking a great deal about the motions, but we agree completely with the substance of the bill. We believe that it is necessary to regulate loans in order to prevent financing limits from being circumvented.
These limits were established after a long debate with the Bloc Québécois, which wanted to put an end to corporate funding and to limit individual contributions, as Quebec did 30 years ago.
I believe that Quebec, in this regard, can truly provide an important and valuable example. We have a problem with the motions, particularly Motion No. 3.
The government wants to make political parties responsible for the debt incurred by their candidates.
My colleagues spoke about this earlier, but I would like to take it one step further. I believe that adopting this motion would lead to some very significant abuses, to the point that a political party could find itself with a great deal of money in its coffers. That could be the case for some political parties, or at least for one we know.
These political parties could tell their candidates to go into debt, that someone or another could lend them some money and that, in any case, three years later, the party would advance the money. They do not need to feel responsible because the party will pay back the money. That means that the candidates would have a millstone around their necks and that they would be chained to their party. They would not have the freedom to say that they felt responsible for their own election campaign because, in any event, the party will pay for them if they do not repay their debt.
These things can be planned. That is why I am saying that things can go farther than my colleagues have acknowledged. People will be able to plan things and borrow money from multiple sources because the party will pay it back in three years. The party has the money.
The Bloc Québécois finds this way of thinking outrageous. We think that candidates have to have a modicum of freedom in their ridings to get themselves elected democratically by their supporters.
We do not dictate who can run for our party. It is important for candidates chosen by their supporters and by people in their ridings to be responsible for their own election campaigns and the money they spend. As a result, our candidates have much closer ties to their communities and are more connected to the voters in their ridings.
We can pretty much eliminate parachuting people into a riding. Parachuting people in is easy. Some people, a week before the election, have never campaigned. This happened in Quebec in the last election, especially with the Conservatives. There were candidates who had never been involved in politics, not at all. At the last minute, the party found some people and told them not to worry because with the three-year legislation, they would not have to pay back the money they borrowed.
Imagine what being told in advance that the debt will be paid off in three years can do to a candidate's accountability. A party can parachute in any candidate at all. The candidate is not accountable and is not even chosen by supporters. We are well aware—experience has shown—that there were candidates who did not even have supporters.
It is much easier for a party to go into a riding and convince people to run if it promises to pay off their debts later.
This motion is truly unacceptable. The government wants to hold the political parties responsible for their candidate's debts. That is unacceptable and I would say it is bordering on immoral. In our capitalist system every individual is responsible for their own debt. Under the new plan, an individual is no longer responsible for his or her debt, but a third party, an entity, in short, a political party is. The party would become responsible for an individual's debt. That makes absolutely no sense.
What is more, five or six lenders could be identified. They could even come from outside the riding and be reimbursed in three years. See how complicated this becomes? The lender would no longer ask for a guarantee. When the Bloc Québécois candidates borrowed money—at one time we needed to do so, but fortunately that is no longer the case since things are going well—they went to the bank and were responsible for the debt. This is fundamental. It gives candidates the chance to be responsible to the electors and to hold their heads high after the election whether they won or not. They do not owe anyone anything and they will settle their debts.
This necessarily forces people to work together, to collaborate and create a much greater sense of belonging within the riding. A candidate has to work with the people who are there to help. This takes many $1,100 contributions and there are not many people who donate that kind of money. In my riding, there are very few people who give $1,100. As my colleague was saying earlier, we collect donations of $5, $10 or $20 and that is what we use for our election campaign. This creates a democratic link with the people in our riding and that is what really counts. If we no longer have that and can borrow $80,000 in one shot—as we saw a candidate do and then switch parties—without paying it back, this becomes institutionalized and there is no longer any need to pay money back because the party will take care of it. That does not make any sense. It is wrong and we cannot accept it.
The first amendment made in committee makes sense to us since all the contribution limits currently in the Canada Elections Act are annual, except in the case of candidates for party leadership. Contributions should be annual and should not be contributions for a leadership campaign. It is a well-known and perfectly correct old habit that every January, in the new year, people can once again give money to the political parties. Why would it not be the same for leadership campaigns, which do last from one year to the next? This would let anyone who wants to support a candidate give again after the year ends. One year is long enough to assume people would be able to give again.
We think that Motion No. 1 is very important and we want to keep it that way. We are not against the idea of the annual contribution, but against the fact that parties would be responsible for contributions that come from personal loans. This could lead to dishonesty. We could end up with such a law in a few years and we could plan out all the loans taken by a candidate. This is completely unacceptable. We are against this motion and will keep voting against it.