Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House today to speak to the following motion: “That the House express its full and complete confidence in Elections Canada and the Commissioner of Canada Elections”. Not only do I support this motion, I personally champion it. I am championing this motion because I audited various candidates' election reports many times over the years.
I also did several stints as official agent for candidates for many years. That gave me opportunities to deal with and talk to auditors from the Chief Electoral Officer's office. I found them to be competent, professional and independent.
It seems that all of these dealings were very discreet. However, when I found out about it through the media, and through the actions of the Chief Electoral Officer, of course, I wanted to make up my own mind. I wanted my opinion to be well structured and based on facts.
In all honestly and sincerity, I am saying that the Chief Electoral Officer is right to ask these questions. Furthermore, of course he needed documentation to confirm any doubts that could remain after the Conservatives' reports had been examined. What is more, Mr. Caldwell's remarks led me to go and look deeper. Mr. Caldwell, remember, was a candidate in Compton—Stanstead against a colleague of mine who was elected without manipulating the elections laws. Mr. Caldwell claims that he trusted the party leadership when he agreed to funds being deposited into the local organization's account. He said "The money was intended for local advertising, but it was not used that way."
Clearly, that was certainly not done everywhere. I felt obliged to check two candidates at least: I looked into one in more depth, and the investigation on the other is on-going. The first is the Conservative candidate in the riding of Sherbrooke. I can mention his name because, obviously, he was not elected. He is Marc Nadeau. There is also the person who, at the time, was the Conservative candidate in Mégantic—L'Érable, now a member of this House. We can see that some large transfers were made.
In the case of Marc Nadeau, the candidate in Sherbrooke, we see a transfer of $57,531.46 that came from the Conservative Fund Canada. When we look at the financial report of the 2006 election campaign, under the heading “media advertising”, we see $51,566.46 in advertising expenses.
We know full well that when we pay election expenses—this case gets worse—we normally make a cheque out to the person or organization to whom the money is to go. There is then a confirmation and a returned cheque and documents are available. In this case, it is worse because we clearly have the invoices. The first one was paid. In response to my colleague, our party whip, who spoke previously and who addressed the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, there is an invoice from the Conservative Fund Canada for Candidate share of media buy. There is one invoice for $10,000 and a second invoice for $41,566.46. However, when we read the bank statement that provides us with the information, we see that no cheque was issued.
There were, however, cash withdrawals. It appears that another Conservative candidate did a Mulroney and carried a briefcase containing $51,000. We might ask ourselves all kinds of questions. Did the money make it to its destination? What happened? Did the party issue instructions to the effect that, whenever possible, people were supposed to make cash withdrawals and carry around the cash? What would anyone do today with $51,000 in cash to pay bills? It was to pay the Conservative Fund Canada invoices. The money had to be given to it directly. Does one ask for a receipt?
Now the Conservatives are upset that we are presenting a motion calling on the House to reaffirm its confidence. I definitely have confidence in Elections Canada officials. I am convinced they will get to the bottom of this. It is clear that the Conservative Party did not want to hand over things like that. The RCMP had to go into their offices.
I am anxious to see how the matter plays out regarding the Conservative candidate in Sherbrooke. I still wonder if it was a Conservative Party directive.
The second part of my audit, although it is unfortunately not yet complete, nevertheless raised some interesting points. We were talking about $51,000 in the first case. In that case, there were transfers from the Conservative Fund for $40,000. There was a transfer from the riding to the Conservative Fund for $23,000, an amount that was included in the advertising expenses. What could this possibly correspond to? Upon checking the other expenses, we see that there were silkscreening expenses. That was probably for signs, at least those that were paid for. It is impossible to know exactly what is going on.
We do know one thing, though: the populations of the two ridings are similar. Let us start from the following premise: one person, one vote, one expense, that expense being the national spending limit for the Conservative Party. But the Conservatives exceeded that limit. They decided to divide their spending among specific ridings. The proof is that the expenses are different in two potentially identical ridings. For one, it is $51,000, while for the other, it is $23,000. The money was therefore not allocated according to the number of voters. Even worse, that gave the Conservative Party even more flexibility, because it had reached the limit.
If the Conservative Party had wanted to make the ridings pay for national expenses, it would have acted properly and divided the expense among all 308 ridings, according to the number of voters. It did not do this. All the Conservatives wanted to do was use their surplus and keep on paying the expenses they had incurred. It is obvious.
I repeat that I have the utmost confidence in the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, the auditors and the investigators. I cannot wait to see what will come out of the investigation. I am especially anxious to find out what happened to the briefcase containing $51,000 in cash. Was it a party directive? These are likely some of the things we will learn.
Moreover, candidates can claim a rebate of 60% on these amounts spent over and above the election spending limit. The Conservative Party hoped to receive 60% of these expenses. What is happening to democracy?
The Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities mentioned that he was going to vote against the motion. Is it because he has no confidence? No, it is because the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer does not want to accept the incorrect interpretation made by the Conservative Party. It is easy to discuss interpretations, but in this case, the supporting documents will clearly show that the Conservative Party issued a directive in order to exceed the election spending limit, in addition to being reimbursed with taxpayers' money.
We must not forget this principle: one person, one vote, one expense—not two.