Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question. I think it is very insightful.
It is even more paradoxical that these schemes are clearly intended to exceed the election spending limits provided for in the legislation. We are talking about over $1 million dollars, an amount which is quite significant in an election campaign. For instance, some regions where the Conservatives could foresee some gains must have received a good share of this windfall at the end of the campaign. It is quite a paradox to realize that this took place when the Conservative Party and the Prime Minister were campaigning on transparency and accountability and some toughening of ethics rules that had been—and this has to be recognized—quite undermined by the previous Liberal government.
If people want to clean things up, they have to be irreproachable. In that sense, not only have they violated the intent of the law, but they also violated the law itself. Even if they had violated only the spirit of the law, that was already a misstep because, during the election campaign they wanted Canadians and Quebecers to believe that, finally, with the Conservatives in power in Ottawa, there would be real ethics, responsibility and transparency. However, it was false pretence and, in that sense, Canadians were misled in this general election. The acts that are presently being investigated by Elections Canada are the best proof of that.