Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Hull—Aylmer for his question.
First of all, I have never seen that member's dog. However, his behaviour is typical of the Conservative Party. And I stand by that. This scheme was used by the Conservatives and the evidence of this is being uncovered by the RCMP. We saw that when documents were seized, and now emails are being made public. The Conservatives knew from the start that they had enough money to win a media campaign. The only problem was that there was a spending limit they could not exceed. When they felt that a majority government was within their grasp, they were willing to do anything to achieve their goal, including finding ways to get around our elections laws.
When a government that had everything planned quickly decides to launch a civil suit against Elections Canada because it wants to buy time, it means that it will stop at nothing. And when a committee of the House of Commons wants to look at the issue, the Conservatives resort to a filibuster. They will do that as often as they want because their only goal is to buy time until the next election campaign so they do not have to be subjected to the kind of repressive measures that could result from this.
The fate of those members who may have knowingly broken the law is very important, because no one should ignore the law. And when a member of Parliament who signed up as a candidate does not comply with the law, the penalty is the loss of his or her status as member of Parliament. That is the tragedy: 67 candidates should not have ignored the law and, today, they will try hard to win their case, because if found guilty, they would no longer be allowed to sit in this House.
This is the battle that the Conservative Party is waging, but it is a serious blow to democracy. When a party with a lot of money is willing to exceed the spending limits, circumvent the law and then go to court and spend all the money necessary to buy time, it certainly puts a black mark on democracy.