Madam Speaker, the NDP's national bookkeeper, Lucie Ladouceur, sent this email to an NDP candidate. It has all of the characteristics that the Conservative transaction had.
This email was in the possession of Elections Canada. I am sure we will now see some investigative reporting by some of the media, who will also realize that these same practices were commonplace and paralleled by other parties. The email was filed with Elections Canada, and we obtained it from them through the Access to Information Act.
As John Robson from the Ottawa Citizen said at the time:
The more I watch this stuff...the more convinced I am that if there's a scandal here, it doesn't involve the Tories. But nobody seems to care. The opposition want a scandal, the press want a scandal...let's not bore ourselves with details—
However, let us also see what other supporters of the opposition say.
Robin Sears, a longtime advisor to the Liberal MP for Toronto Centre, as well as a longtime New Democrat, had this to say about the matter on the CTV news channel on February 25:
It's a load of nonsense—the guys at Elections Canada have a few bricks short of a load. Every party plays games with moving money around, have always done, will always do. What's a national ad, what's a local ad? It's nonsense. It's time we got back to things Canadians care about.
I am very surprised to be in agreement with a staunch NDPer like Robin Sears, but he hit the nail on the head with comments like those.
It is quite evident that the motion by the Liberal member for Beauséjour is contrary to the principles and practices of the House. It assumes there is a presumption of guilt and that the House can pass judgment on individuals without any respect for due process. Regardless of one's partisan support or opinion on the political financing issue being debated, I think Canadians would agree that the motion is very troubling when put in this perspective.
I submit that in a mature democracy such as Canada, we ought to respect the rule of law and due process before condemning anyone. I say this to preserve the credibility of the House, as well as the reputation of all of its members. Our democratic values require that the rights of the individual are not subject to the tyranny of a majority, in this case, the opposition or its coalition majority.
I therefore encourage all members to stand up for our democracy and reject the motion.