Mr. Speaker, it is a shame that there are only three or four minutes left in the debate. I almost wish I could seek unanimous consent to talk about this for another 20 minutes, but I will be reasonable.
I will explain to my colleague that the problem stems from the fact that a local candidate could incur expenses to get nominated or elected, expenses that the party could be completely unaware of, expenses that could be considerable. The individual could declare bankruptcy, and the party would be liable for the debt.
My colleague is a member of the Liberal Party. There will be 308 candidates in the next election. Some of them might end up spending excessive sums of money to get their nominations.
Why should the party be responsible for expenses that it did not even know about? That is the problem.
I see that my colleague, the member for Hull—Aylmer, is here. I managed to get an amendment in the committee to raise this absurd possibility. Unfortunately, we have to go back to the original starting point as it was set out in Bill C-29 at first reading.