Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her glowing comments. It is always nice to recognize each other's work. Most of us do very good work, with conviction and sometimes with emotion. I understand my colleague to have said that we owe this legislation to Mr. Chrétien. I am pleased to say, as other colleagues have said in this House, that he followed Mr. Lévesque's lead. People know that not only am I an independent, but I am also a separatist. I am always pleased to commend Mr. Lévesque, his influence and his inspiration.
As far as limits are concerned, as I was saying earlier, I think our goal should be to spend as little as possible and not to adopt the philosophy of spending as much as possible, since it is not our money. It is not right to think that way because it is all our constituents who pay a big part of the bill, whether through the Elections Canada rebates, and that is fine, or through financial donations.
In my opinion, it has always been absurd for political parties to tell their candidates to take advantage and spend the maximum in order to elect their party and their candidates. The priority should obviously be to work as democratically as possible, to defend the common good and our citizen's interests and to show them how we, as candidates, plan on doing that.
What about visual pollution? We should agree to not buy the huge numbers of signs that we see in major centres or rural regions on posts kilometres apart. Candidates in rural areas know this. In the cities, it is a visual abomination and is very harmful to the environment because the material used, coroplast, is not recyclable. It can be used to insulate garages, but it lasts 504 years.
Our guiding principles could be to spend less and also to save the environment. I have never believed, especially in the case of candidates outside major urban centres, that regional advertising in daily newspapers has helped elect anyone. We do it because everyone else is doing it. Candidates end up spending inordinate amounts.
To answer my colleague's question, I have always been pleased to say, and this can be verified, that I have always spent only half of the amount allowed by the Chief Electoral Officer in my riding.