Mr. Speaker, if the member is so concerned about eliminating big money from politics, why is he not turning his guns on and rubbing the noses of the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence in it in regard to their actual undisclosed leadership campaign contributions, debts and payers?
If he is that concerned, and here is the theory about this issue, why is he not turning his party's guns on those undisclosed loans? He is not because this is about politics for the NDP. This is not about improving the status of financing in Canada. I would remind him, even though he fails to remind Canadians of this himself, that it was our government in 2003 that introduced the very first annual limits on individual contributions to a party and a candidate.
It was our party that banned contributions to political parties from corporations and his friends in the unions. Those changes stand today as the most significant at the federal level that we have ever seen in this country.
We went further in 2006. I would remind the member of that. We further lowered the amounts that were entitled to be contributions. They are now tied to the rate of inflation. In theory, they should rise only slightly each year.
Therefore, it is passing strange that the NDP is now turning its guns on the party that cleaned up election financing in the first place, while partnering with the Conservative Party, whose Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence, at the very least, have never come clean on who paid off their debts and who gave them money for their leadership races. It is high time for Canadians to know who put this Prime Minister in office, what influences is he now bearing, and how this is affecting public policy across the country.