Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-21 which, for reasons I will explain in a moment, the Liberals will oppose.
The bill does a number of things. It amends the Canada Elections Act in the following ways: All loans to political entities, including mandatory disclosure of terms and the identity of all lenders and loan guarantees, must be uniform and transparent. We are fine with that. Unions and corporations are prohibited from making loans to political parties, associations, or candidates. That is fine. Limiting the amount of loans and loan guarantees that individuals can make within the framework of the permitted individual annual contribution is also fine. Limiting the ability of financial institutions and political entities to make loans beyond the annual contribution limit for individuals and only at commercial rates of interest is the part we do not agree with. Finally, there are tighter rules for the treatment of unpaid loans to ensure candidates cannot walk away from unpaid loans.
The Liberal caucus certainly is in favour of full transparency and disclosure of political loans. We are also in favour of forcing those loans to bear commercial interest rates.
What is a problem for us is when the bill says that only financial institutions or banks will have the authority to make these loans.
Before entering politics, 12 years ago, I worked for the Royal Bank. So I am well aware of how banks work. In my view, it is not the banks that asked for this exclusive authority, but rather the government that wants to give it to them. This puts too much power into the hands of the banks. Basically, the banks would have the authority to make political choices by lending money to the candidate they like the most and by not giving a loan to a candidate they do not like. I am not saying that that is what they would do, but all the same, it gives excessive power to the financial institutions.
Furthermore, with these rules, the candidates with more money, the candidates who are wealthier, would have an advantage, because they would have a better credit rating than candidates who are not as wealthy. This kind of system would favour the rich rather than treating everyone fairly. The system might also be unfavourable to women, especially to those who are going back into the labour market after a number of years at home. They might be less able to borrow money from a bank because they would not have as much money.
For all of these reasons, the Liberals will be voting against this bill.
I want to emphasize that it is only the exclusive aspect of the banks being the only lenders that we object to. We are entirely in favour of total transparency, total disclosure, the requirement to pay commercial interest rates, and so on.
In closing, I would remind the House that the Prime Minister has not, to this day, disclosed any of the names of the people who contributed to his leadership campaign, let alone the sums involved, let alone whether he borrowed any money. I would say that what is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander. I would suggest that as the government is moving forward with this law, now would be a good time for the Prime Minister to disclose at least the names of his donors, if not the amounts.
Perhaps during questions and comments one of the Conservatives could give their view on the proposition I just put forward.