Mr. Speaker, just to underscore what my hon. colleague from Calgary West was saying in response to the member for Hull—Aylmer, the Conservative Party has transferred money into ridings or regions in which we needed to get additional political support. Clearly, Calgary West is not an area where we really need to pump up our support, since Conservative members have been elected there for many, many years. That is why, if we take a look at all of the areas in which money was transferred, it was to areas and regions in which we had an opportunity to elect more Conservative members. That is why we absolutely, within the rules, did the same thing as the other parties and transferred money into those areas.
It has been stated by the former commissioner of Elections Canada, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, that the determining factor between what constitutes a national ad and a local ad is the tag line. I can verify that quite clearly because in a previous life I ran a provincial party and I was also involved in revamping the provincial electoral laws. When we did a revision of the Saskatchewan election laws, we mirrored almost identically the laws that controlled federal election practices.
When it came to determination of local versus provincial ads, we had the same situation. As a matter of fact, before any election, I always got written clearance from the provincial electoral officer as to if we group bought and put a number of ads together, provincial in scope, purchased by local candidates, as long as they had their tag lines on the bottom, would that constitute a local ad and would that be eligible for local reimbursements. The answer that always came back was “yes”. That was identical to the provisions contained in the federal Elections Act.
I simply ask my hon. colleague from Calgary West, is it his interpretation, as it is mine, that if all candidates who participated in giving out a national advertising message had local tag lines on the bottom of their ads, that would comply with federal election laws and would be considered a local ad?