Mr. Speaker, the fundraiser last night that the member referred to was totally within the rules.
He knows full well that if someone makes a donation and other individuals receive some value in return, there is a certain value ascribed to the goods or services that the individuals are receiving that has a fair market value and the differential is a political donation. When we get into silent auctions, there is a certain value that we derive and I am sure that is being looked at and will be dealt with.
I would like to come back to a point that I failed to mention which came up in the previous discussion and that is the public appointments commission. The Conservative government promised to have a totally non-partisan appointments process. Bill C-2 talked about that. The government set up a public appointments commission and brought in Mr. Gwyn Morgan to sit as chair. Mr. Morgan is an eminent Canadian who may have said things that were not totally appropriate. Nonetheless, the government operations and estimates committee did not want Mr. Morgan as chair.
The committee did not approve of Mr. Morgan, so the government had to find someone else because it is committed to a non-partisan appointments process. Instead of the government saying it gave its best shot, it threw in the towel.
If the government could not get Mr. Morgan then the whole idea of a non-partisan public appointments process would go out the window. That is like a little kid playing on the street and a bigger kid comes along and takes his toy. The game is then over. That is something the government should revisit and bring forward.
I think the member realizes that the bill deals with loans and that is what this issue is all about. Members on this side of the House will comply with all legislation this House passes, so I do not see any problem there at all.