Mr. Speaker, this gives me the opportunity today to talk about a very interesting issue that has been the source of much debate for several months.
This week we learned in a Globe and Mail report, which was founded on a group of access to information requests, that in addition to breaking its own rules when it carried out its search warrant on the Conservative Party headquarters, Elections Canada was also totally preoccupied with its own media image and the media consequences of its visit to our headquarters.
There were pages and pages of emails that went back and forth discussing the public relations implications of the visit to the Conservative Party headquarters. That does indeed speak to the motives for that strange and unjustifiable visit that Elections Canada paid to the Conservative Party headquarters some months ago.
We have been trying to get to the bottom of this. In numerous parliamentary committees, Conservatives have moved for there to be an investigation on the subject. We want all parties to come clean and share their financial practices from the last several elections. We voted in favour of allowing such an investigation. We want our books to be publicly investigated at those committees. We encourage all parties to show the same openness that we have shown.
The member across the way said that Elections Canada has shown no interest in her party's finances, nor should anyone else. If she has nothing to hide, however, she will welcome a thorough probe of Liberal practices and Liberal transactions. We know that the Liberal Party transferred about $1.7 million to local riding associations, which then transferred back about $1.3 million.
There is nothing wrong with those transactions. They are perfectly legal. In fact, they are expressly legal under the Canada Elections Act. We would simply like to make that point by making obvious comparisons between the various parties to show the parallels of which I have just finished speaking.
We are really accused of four things. I will ask members which one of them is illegal.
We are accused of having transferred money from the national party to local campaigns. That is expressly legal in the law. All parties do it.
We are accused of having those local ridings transfer the money back to the national party. That too is expressly legal in the law. All parties do it.
We are accused of running national content in local advertising, that is to say, national leaders, national policy, national items in these locally expensed ads. Not only is that legal, in fact it is customary. More of the material that local candidates put in their mailers and other advertisements is national than is local, because of course they are running for a national office.
Finally, local Conservative candidates are accused of having run advertisements that actually aired outside of the constituency for which they were paid. Not only is that legal, it is impossible to avoid. If I were to buy a radio ad, as I have done in the past, as a candidate in southwest Ottawa, that advertisement would by necessity run all over eastern Ontario because there is no uniquely Nepean--Carleton radio station. It would run in probably about 13 or 14 constituencies in two provinces. There is no getting around that.
On all four of the pillars of this accusation that the opposition and Elections Canada have created, we are not only legal but we are very conventional in the way we do our work.