Mr. Speaker, the member for Sarnia—Lambton talks about union members possibly not wanting their dues spent to support political parties. I have good news for the member, which is that neither corporate nor union contributions are allowed to federal political parties. I certainly support that change to our democracy.
What the member for Sarnia—Lambton might be getting at is that, in some provinces at the provincial level, corporate and union donations to political parties are allowed. I think the solution to that is for provincial governments to follow the fine federal example and ban both corporate and union donations.
However, if we are in a jurisdiction where those sorts of contributions are allowed, then the important thing is to just have a democratic process within the union to determine how funds are spent and whether and how they are contributed. That is the appropriate way for workers to be able to defend their interests in the democratic process.