It was unbelievable, as one of my colleagues pointed out, because he did nothing wrong. There was an accounting dispute between the member and Elections Canada, one that was finally resolved in favour of the member. The overarching argument was that Elections Canada claimed the member had overspent in the 2011 election by tens of thousands of dollars. When the final resolution came to pass, it was agreed upon by Elections Canada that overspending was less than $500. That is what the member for Selkirk—Interlake had claimed all along. In other words, the member was right and Elections Canada was wrong, but the egregious part of all of this is that Elections Canada sent a letter to the Speaker of the House stating that because, in its opinion, the member had overspent in the 2011 campaign, that the member should not be allowed to sit or vote in this place.
Elections Canada did not have to do that. First, it was inappropriate at the very least. Second, Elections Canada should have at least allowed a full examination of all evidence, and if the member wanted to go to court for a decision, Elections Canada should have allowed the resolution to take place through the courts. That was not the case, but with this bill now it would be. So it respects the will of Canadians; the tens of thousands of people who voted for the member would not then be subject to the type of fear that their duly elected member would be removed from this place and would not be able to represent their views.
The bill addresses that. It would allow that any disputes between Elections Canada and a sitting member would have to be resolved completely, even if that meant going to court, before the draconian measure of trying to impose the severe sanction of removing the member from a seat would take place. That is called fairness, and that is why the bill is presented to the House. It is to make elections fairer for all Canadians but, at the same time, to impose strong sanctions against those who may wish to abuse the rights of Canadians in an election.
I look forward to more debate on this matter, and I very much look forward to this being presented before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in short order, so we can begin to conduct an in-depth examination of this very, very fine piece of legislation.