Mr. Speaker, I believe the member was asking when the Chief Electoral Officer of Elections Canada came up with this scheme. This was in a 1997 report on the election that occurred on June 3 of that year. He was writing about whether or not advertisements should be expensed locally or nationally. He says, “The content of the advertisements accepted was subject only to the freedom of expression guaranteed by the Charter”.
The fact that the advertisements run by local candidates for the Conservative Party had national content has no regard, because in fact we have freedom of expression in this country.