I believe people can sign up on the Liberal Party website.
What do people get for becoming members of the Laurier Club? They get this: “Invitations to Laurier Club events across the country, hearing from leading voices on our Liberal team”. They get access to senior members of the Liberal Party and the Liberal government. In fact, there is a Laurier Club event tonight in Edmonton. For those who are interested, I am sure there is still time to register for that event. My colleague from Edmonton West says that perhaps both Edmonton Liberals will show up at that event.
I find this interesting. Just last week, the chief of staff to the Minister of National Defence tweeted about the convention the Liberal Party is having later this year in Halifax. She said, “if there was a time to join Laurier Club, now is the time”. She was highlighting the Liberal convention.
I am sure we could all read different options into that, but I believe the testament there is very much that if people want to meet senior Liberals, they should join the Laurier Club and attend the national convention, and they will have access to senior decision-makers within the Liberal Party of Canada. That is accepted. It is exempted from this piece of legislation. The Laurier Club loophole allows that to happen.
There is another exception in this piece of legislation. I like to call this exception the Joe Volpe clause. It prohibits the publication of names of people under the age of 18. I know that all members of this House recall the 2006 Liberal leadership race and Joe Volpe's endeavours to raise money, including from those who were 11 years of age. In honour of Mr. Volpe, we should refer to that clause as the Joe Volpe clause.
I am not going to get into any clauses about those who have passed on. I believe that this would perhaps also be called the Joe Volpe clause, but it is not dealt with in this particular piece of legislation.
There is also a part of the legislation that requires five days' notice. The notice has to be placed on the website five days in advance. Publicizing these events is a positive step. It is not a bad thing. However, another loophole comes into place. There is no provision for a long-standing event to be sold to party members and encouraged, and then at the last minute, lo and behold, the Prime Minister is attending, under the five-day limit, or the Minister of Finance or another senior Liberal minister is attending the event within the five-day period.
There is no provision in the bill to remedy that. This is a matter that I brought up at the procedure and House affairs committee, and it was not dealt with in this legislation. While the minister and the government hold this piece of legislation out as a great step forward in openness and transparency, it is simply window dressing to cover up the Liberals' past cash for access events, their pay-to-play events, and their way of getting $1,500 out of senior donors and high donors to their party and giving them access to senior people within the Liberal Party, including the Prime Minister.
This is unneeded. We will be voting against this piece of legislation. I am sure hon. members will join me in doing so.