Debates of Feb. 5th, 2018

Canada Elections Act

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it goes to show that some things do not change. We have a party in government that will use all apparatuses of government, whether it be personal jets or meal allowances, or the power of ministers to fundraise and cover costs for personal pleasure. Canadians expect better of their government, and they expect better of their Prime Minister. There was over $200,000 spent on security and jet costs, which is perfectly understandable, but we had $32,000 on a government jet and over $1,700 on booze and meals. The Prime Minister needs to pay this money back. It was an illegal vacation. He needs to pay the money back.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a privilege to rise and speak and contribute to debate in this place on behalf of the people of Portage—Lisgar.

It seems that too often these days I feel I am standing, whether in question period or during debate, and we are talking about ethical lapses that the current government is showing. I find it disappointing. I think that Canadians are disappointed. However, it seems that more frequently we are talking about some of these conflicts of interest and ethical lapses. Sadly, with Bill C-50, there is no exception to this pattern.

We hear the Liberals portraying themselves as being cloaked in virtue as they discuss the bill on political financing. What Liberals and especially the Prime Minister are very good at is talking a good game. Saying all the right things is the Prime Minister's forte. Doing the right thing, not so much. The Prime Minister, on so many issues around ethics, says one thing with his words and a completely different thing with his actions. Bill C-50 is no different, and the backstory to the proposed legislation is even more telling.

The House will recall how the Liberals were creating for themselves a big ethical crater, because literally the moment they got into government, they began setting up and holding their cash for access fundraisers. Members will remember the Minister of Justice being the guest of honour at a fundraiser held at a Bay Street law firm in Toronto, which was targeting members of the legal community, the very people she was making decisions for and about, including appointing to the bench. She was selling access to herself to these individuals. It was absolutely shocking. Members may also remember the parliamentary secretary, the MP who was the Liberal point man on legalizing pot, as the main attraction who was then lobbied by marijuana advocates and investors at a fundraiser.

Members will remember the Prime Minister himself travelling the land and appearing at more $1,500 fundraisers than any of us can count. These were not just one-offs; there was not just one fundraiser that he went to. The Prime Minister, as we all know, has gone to more fundraisers, and $1,500-a-head fundraisers, than any of us can count. Of course, there was the ultimate cash for access trade-off, where the Prime Minister and his wife called and asked the Aga Khan if they could use his private island for free while, at the same time, he was asking them for public money. Wow, a free island holiday for access to the Prime Minister, and a personal benefit to the Prime Minister. However, I will get to that one a little later.

The Prime Minister has done more cash for access events than any of us care to count, but we all remember the one that came to light where the Prime Minister sold access to himself when he met a wealthy tycoon who was the principal investor in a bank that was seeking federal approval to begin operations. That was a bad idea. He was at another one of these events when the Prime Minister met a Chinese billionaire who also was asking for some government favours. Lo and behold, just weeks later, he made a quarter of a million dollar donation for a statue of the Prime Minister's father, and a donation to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. It is “You give me this. I'll give you that. You give me cash. I'll give you access. You give me cash. You have my ear.”

On another occasion, a Quebec businessman in the vaping industry bought a ticket to speak to the Prime Minister about Bill S-5. In fact, the gentleman told Global News, “ I saw an open door and I walked through it – and I’ll walk through every open door I see.... I took $250 out of my own pocket to accomplish what I needed to accomplish..”. He got access to the Prime Minister.

What is the problem with Bill C-50? In a nutshell, it would formalize and try to legitimize these cash for access fundraisers. As I said, it attempts to confer a veneer of legitimacy upon them. What Bill C-50 would not do is make these fundraisers legally ethical. They are unethical. Changing the rules to allow deep-pocket individuals to meet the Prime Minister to bend his ear on government business is still wrong.

If the Prime Minister would like to shut down his cash for access fundraisers for the Liberal Party, he would stop doing them. He could tell his cabinet the same thing, to stop doing these fundraisers. He could maybe follow his own guidelines.

Let me read from the Prime Minister's own “Open and Accountable Government” document. He told his ministers, under “Fundraising and Dealing with Lobbyists: Best Practices for Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries, the following: “Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries must ensure that political fundraising activities or considerations do not affect, or appear to affect, the exercise of their official duties or the access of individuals or organizations to government.” Wow, everything I just described moments ago is contrary to what this “Open and Accountable Government” code does.

This does not require legislation; it needs conviction and integrity. It needs men and women and a government that is authentic and genuine and does not just say the right words but does the right thing. That is not what the Liberals and the Prime Minister seem to do.

Why could the Prime Minister not have said he would follow the rules like everyone else? Why could the Prime Minister not have just said this: “I put this out. It makes sense. I have asked my ministers to follow these guidelines. We're going to follow them.” Obviously, it is because the Prime Minister thinks that rules do not apply to him. We have seen this over and over with the Prime Minister. He thinks there is one set of rules for one group of people and another set of rules for him.

That brings me to another point, and it is with regard to a provision in Bill C-50 that I want to highlight for the House. Clause 2 in the bill would, among other things, enact a new section, 384.4, of the Canada Elections Act. I am going to summarize briefly what this would do.

Section 384.4 would basically put into legislation that if a registered party received a contribution that does not comply with the act, that party would have 30 days to either return that contribution to the donor or pay it to the Receiver General of Canada. The principle behind this is that in the event of a breach of the fundraising rules, the message is clear and the law is clear that the money must be paid back. That is in the bill we are currently discussing. If a party receives money that it is not entitled to, that party cannot just apologize and then smile. It has to pay that money back. That is not a revolutionary idea. Although we have some concerns with Bill C-50, this provision makes sense.

This is not revolutionary. If people are caught taking something that does not belong to them, they give it back, pay it back; they make restitution. We teach our children that when they take something that does not belong to them, they have to make amends, and that includes saying sorry. More importantly, and maybe the toughest part of saying sorry, is actually making it right.

These are rules and lessons that we as parents, as society, and certainly as leaders in this place should be adhering to. However, we are seeing a stunningly hypocritical exception to this principle, and that is with the Prime Minister.

When the former Ethics Commissioner handed down her report which determined that the Prime Minister had violated the Conflict of Interest Act, the House will recall that what he did cost taxpayers over $200,000. If the Prime Minister is truly sorry and wants to be transparent, if he truly wants to put action behind his words, then he needs to right the wrong he has committed. He needs to pay back the taxpayer. He also should look seriously at making the wrong right. He should make the wrong right by paying back the value of that holiday. That is one of the principles of making restitution. If somebody takes a painting that does not belong to that individual, then he or she has to give that painting back or pay back the value of that painting.

It is one thing to talk about legislation like this, but the Liberals are still having their cash for access events. This legislation would do nothing to stop it. We have good rules in place. All we need are men and women of integrity and honour to follow those rules and then show leadership. When they have done something wrong, stop doing it and make it right. That is what we are asking the Prime Minister to do. I would think that all Liberals would agree, as would everyone in the House. We are asking the Prime Minister to not only be sorry but to make right the wrong that he has done.

I expect that the Liberals will not be asking me questions about that, but I would ask them to think about that. In their own meetings with the Prime Minister, ask him to do the right thing: make this right.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let us look at the facts. As of right now, the Liberal Party already practises everything in the bill.

By actually adopting this and making it law, it will only become applicable, the openness and transparency, to two more individuals in the House. They are the leader of the Conservative Party and the leader of the NDP. Why would the member be against having that openness and transparency for her leader and the leader of the NDP, unless they have something to hide?

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, that is my exact point. We identified the problem a year and a half ago, that there were cash for access events going on that were wrong. Instead of Liberals of correcting it, they said, “Gee, what can we do? Oh, I know, let's advertise and invite the media. Let's put that into legislation, and then we will support it.” That is absolutely ridiculous.

When we were in government, and when we are in government again, we did not do cash for access events. In fact, we did the opposite. I remember what our former prime minister, Stephen Harper, told his ministers. He said that we were to stay away from lobbyists, the people in the our portfolios, and not go to fundraisers. Instead, the Liberals did fundraisers. Now they want to make a law that validates what they do.

That is not a good question.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on that point.

I look back at the summer. As people are aware, it was a horrific wildfire season in B.C.. Communities were devastated. The Prime Minister went up there, did a photo op, and, from my understanding, then went down to Vancouver and did a cash for access fundraiser.

I want to contrast that with our leader. He came up, did a community event, and did a fundraiser for the food bank to help people who were wildfire victims. That shows the difference between those two men and their sense of ethics. For one, it is cash for access for his party. For the other, it is to try to make things a little better for the people who were so devastated by the wildfire.

Could my colleague talk a little more about how this is a simple fact of ethics and doing the right thing?

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things we know about our leader, the leader of the Conservative Party, is that he really understands the struggles that everyday Canadians go through.

Our leader was raised in a very humble, average Canadian family. There is no family fortune. There is no millionaire's stockpile of money somewhere for him. One of the things this has done for him is that he understands what it means for Canadians to have to pay the mortgage, make a car payment, and maybe save some money for their kids. When he is thinking about what he can do to help Canadians, he wants to help with those kinds of things, whether it is putting more money in their pockets or helping with worthy fundraisers, like for the victims of the forest fires.

That is one of the challenges with the current Prime Minister. He really is not like a lot of average Canadians. He was born into a lot, and that is not a bad thing, but he does not seem to understand what the average Canadian goes through. It would appear that he feels very entitled to all of this money and all of this cash for access. Recently, he quite blatantly referred to himself as “The Prime Minister”. He likes to refer to himself in the third person.

He needs to realize that even though he is the Prime Minister, Canadians are concerned about his ethics and his lack of understanding. We saw his response to veterans recently. He needs to get back in touch with Canadians. I am so grateful our leader is doing that, because that is where he comes from.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my parents were both teachers. I certainly paid my way through law school and eight years of education.

I held a fundraiser, and the parliamentary secretary to the minister of justice at the time came. We made an agreement that we would not talk about cannabis. It was of interest to both of us and it was of interest to some in the audience, but we were not going to talk about it.

The ticket price was $150. It was $20 for monthly donors. Of the list of 80 people who came, I knew 78 people. The two people who I did not know bought tickets under a different name. When we found out who they were, we gave their money back.

Does the hon. member think that is inappropriate?

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, that is very responsible. If the Prime Minister and the Liberals would govern themselves to that kind of detail, that would show a real desire to not have a type of cash for access.

I recall when we would do the same thing when we were in government. If we did fundraisers, we wanted to ensure the stakeholders, those who were part of our departments, were not part of those. That shows responsibility. Certainly, we would understand if some fell through the cracks. However, I think all of us would want to endeavour to do that.

The examples I cited, and what we have seen, is the exact opposite of that. Here is a simple solution. The Prime Minister should not do those massive fundraisers and the ministers in turn should not do fundraisers with their stakeholders. That would, in a practical way, go a long way to cleaning this up. It is simple and we all should be able to do that.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am enjoying the minutia of this debate. Actually, I have a quick solution for this whole problem. Why do we not just lower the upper limit for donations? It is $1,550. Why do we not just drop it to $200? Then we would not have this debate at all. Neither of those sides are really interested in that.

This year, I think I had 1,200 donors through my fundraising efforts through my EDA. My average donation was $50. Most average Canadians are not able to give $1,550 per year to any kind of donation. They will give what they can to support their parties. However, we will not hear those kinds of arguments from either side of the House. For example, in Quebec, the limit is $100. We could end this whole debate if the Liberals would change their bill and lower the limit to be much lower than $1,550. We will not hear that. We will just hear a back and forth about who is more corrupt.

Also, this is a very minor bill. The big changes to electoral finance were really led by the province of Quebec. It brought it in the first limits on spending, then eventually increased transparency until we had some of the best finance laws in the world. Therefore, this is a minor bill in a Parliament of minor bills.

When we read books about the histories of parliaments, we will read about the the Parliament that brought in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the one where women were allowed to vote. The kinds of bills we are debating in this Parliament are nothing of that scope. I think any Canadian watching this today would say that this is a minor tweak to existing laws, and I would agree. That is what is going on here. This is what parliamentary time is being spent on. There are no grand ideas coming out of this Parliament, and I find that sad.

If students of democracy looked through the history of democracy, they would see these moments where things were done because within the House of Commons members had the imagination on how to improve the way decisions were made and how to govern themselves.

There is need for a change. Two great academics out of Harvard have now shown how democracy is declining around the world. What is most scary is that young people now are losing faith in their democratic processes. It is not only that they are not voting anymore, some would actually prefer authoritarian processes over democratic ones. This is a widespread problem. We know this from the World Values Survey that was recently released. It is quite concerning. However, we cannot get any data on Canada because we do not participate in that survey.

We can be bold about how great our democracy is, but we do not even measure it. We do not even pay attention to what is happening here because we do not participate in international surveys. This is a big problem.

Pardon me for yawning through these debates, but they really will not do anything at all to improve our democratic problems.

One of the problems we have, which I have talked a lot about, is under-representation in the House of Commons. About 28% of the seats in the House are filled with women, who make up over 50% of the population. We have had lots of back and forth about how we need to encourage more women to run for office. That is assuming this is a supply problem, which is ridiculous. It is ridiculous to think there are so few women in the House of Commons because of lack of supply.

We have anywhere between 50,000 or 100,000 each in our political parties. Are we saying that out of those 100,000 members, we cannot find 338 women, or even half of that, 170 women, to run for each party? That is ridiculous. The problem is demand. Parties block women from becoming candidates. Time and again this is what academic studies, published in referee journals, show.

I put forward a private member's bill that would help remedy that by using electoral finance law, something that could have been put into this bill but was not. Instead, after the next election what we will have is a Parliament that will look almost exactly the same as this one with respect to gender representation. Because we have taken no action in this Parliament, I bet we do not get anywhere near the 50% threshold. We will probably have around 30% of the seats in the House filled with women. How do I know that? Because both the major parties have decided to protect their incumbents. That basically means we have a gender freeze in the House, unless there is a massive turnover of seats, where one party, say our party, runs 50% women candidates and we take over all the seats in the House of Commons.

This means that if we stay the same, in terms of the percentage of seats and how they are distributed, we would not add any more women in here. It means that, when you come back next time and sit in that chair, Mr. Speaker—and I think you do a very good job—you will look out over the House and see the same gender distribution, because we failed to take action in the House. That is a terrible thing. With all the rhetoric we hear from the other side about a feminist prime minister and “because it's 2015”, there has been no action on that side, and there have been opportunities to take action, which have been dismissed and sneered at.

That is the side of the House that has to live with the lack of change. The Liberals are the ones who said they would do something, promised it, and did not do it. It is the same with proportional representation. The Prime Minister said 1,800 times that the last election would be the last one with the first past the post system. That change has gone by the wayside as well.

When all the dust clears from the 2019 election and we see what the House looks like in 2020, it is going to look exactly the same. The parties might switch around a little, but in terms of representation, it is going to be exactly the same. Also, we will not have proportional representation.

Let us go to another problem we are having, and that is with the nomination of candidates. We are having all kinds of problems with candidates not being screened correctly or slipping through the cracks in parties when their integrity is in question. We see it in Ontario. We see it all over the place in political parties. These parties are more concerned about electoral success than they often are about the integrity of their candidates. This problem is found all over the world.

The U.S. fixed this problem in the 1920s after the Tammany Hall disaster. There was massive corruption within that institution. What did it do? It let the state do its party nomination process. It had primaries. Why do we never consider that in the House? We have these little details of bills that really do not mean anything to Canadians, but what we could do is clean up our system and have primaries, not party-run primaries, but state-run primaries. Elections Canada would oversee how parties select their candidates. It would make sure that the processes are fair, and that the voting is fair and beyond reproach. There would not be stacked meetings. The nomination processes would be fair. More than that, the citizens could trust in them.

I have given members three ideas of things we could work on. We could work on bills, where we work on gender parity in the House. I have given members the idea of proportional representation, which the NDP has always fought for, and that side has promised but never delivered. I have also given an idea about how we could fix our nomination process by having primaries. This is all about taking democracy where it needs to go. This is not defending a system that has perhaps served us okay in the past and stacked up well against other systems.

As an example, when the Prime Minister took office in 2015, we were 48th in the world in terms of the proportion of women in our House. Since that time, we have dropped to 65th place, which means that there are 64 countries in the world that have more women in their legislatures than we have here in this place. That is the problem with “because it's 2015”. How can the Prime Minister be the world's most feminist prime minister, when we have dropped from 48th to 65th place in terms of the percentage of women, and we are doing nothing about it? I applaud the gender-balanced cabinet. It is a great idea, but it is only a symbol. It is not locked into our institutions. The next prime minister could come in and have no women in the cabinet.

We need to change our laws and our rules to ensure that we set a world example, that we set the tone and timbre for the world to follow, and not lag behind as we are.

I have listened to the minutiae of the debate, and I have heard the rhetoric, but this is a very minor bill, when we have major problems we should be fixing.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I did not get a sense, through the member's intervention, of whether he is actually supportive of the steps that would be taken in the bill to make political fundraising more transparent and to make party leaders, cabinet ministers, and all federally elected representatives more accountable in the way they engage party members and people within their communities to add a level of transparency and openness to the political fundraising system. I would like to know whether he supports the pieces in the bill that would improve transparency, as well as the process we are undertaking.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I support the bill, but I will not go home and brag about it, because it is so minor. If I am asked if I support the Liberals' bill, I will say yes, but no one will even notice it. It is going to be a very small change to our system. The Liberals have challenged me to support their bill and I would challenge the member across the aisle to come up with something more bold that we could debate in a way that matters. Members can say that some members took money for their fundraising and other members took money for their fundraiser, but we are only talking $1,500. It is not a huge deal.

I would challenge Liberals to do better, but I will support their bill.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It really does not have a whole lot to do with changing our democratic institutions, the way we elect members and have a functioning modern democracy.

There is a massive public subsidy of the $1,500, in that the first $400 is 75% of taxpayer money and then there is a subsequent decrease. I introduced a bill that provided the same thing for charitable organizations, which are tied to a much smaller amount. One would think there would be the highest degree of accountability, openness, transparency, and expectations for the result that taxpayers get when the mere fact is that for every $1 under $400, they get 75% back. It becomes a massive public subsidization for the parties in our current system.

Could the hon. member comment about the fact that the public is so invested in massive subsidization?

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, most countries in the world move in this direction. They realize that if they allow unions, large businesses, or wealthy individuals to control the system, the laws and budgets favour those folks. I would be much more in favour of, for example, a much lower contribution limit at the same level of taxation limits, but also bring back the per-vote subsidy, which would, of course, eliminates a lot of this problem. It is practised in most places. I do not know why we are discovering it for the first time again and again here. We owe more to taxpayers than this, and we owe them better bills than this.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member has definitely been a champion for getting more women in this place, and commend him for his work on that. This is the first time in Canadian history that we have a gender-balanced cabinet, which is a major step forward. There are so many more things we could be doing to improve the balance of women and men in this room, and I look forward to working with him on that.

I want to seek a little clarification on one comment he made earlier in his speech, and that was about the limits of campaign contributions. Not that long ago, there was no limit. In recent memory, we have made some significant changes and have seen fairly restrictive limits starting to come in. I thought I heard him talking about having a limit in the area of $200. Could he expand on that? Is that his personal position or is that the position of the NDP? I am curious if he can build upon that.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this chamber is where we debate, so I am throwing ideas out for debate. I am bringing forward the fact that there are lower limits in other places. I have been listening to the debate all day. I have heard this going back and forth, and it seems to be stuck. My thought is that lowering limits is one possible way to explore that. It could be talked about in a committee. Why not have witnesses come in from other jurisdictions that have these lower limits?

In the last three years of fundraising, I have raised $500,000. Most years I had between $1,000 and $1,200. The average donation in 2015 was $65. It dropped to $35 in 2016. Now it is back up to $50. The vast majority of donations are around that level. I have a few around $1,500, but they are usually people like my mom.

What we are talking about here is something different. When there are $1,500-a-plate dinners, it is a way for the money to come in. If it were dropped to $200 or something, that would not be the case at all. I would argue that it should at least be studied at a committee. I do not think my party would object, but it is not official policy.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and join the debate today. I have 10 minutes to talk about the government's ethical challenges, which is far too little time for a topic like this, but I will do my best.

We are talking about the issue of political fundraising. Of course, this is a sensitive subject for the Liberals after the fourth quarter of 2017 results. It is surprising that they want to have a discussion about political fundraising, because the Conservative Party has done so much better despite being in opposition than the Liberal Party has in fundraising.

The Conservative Party benefits from fundraising that relies on smaller, individual donors, and people who believe in what our party stands for. Obviously, we are in opposition, so there is no conceivable benefit that they could get in terms of a quid pro quo type of thing. People donate to our party and, generally, people should be donating to political parties because they believe in what those parties stand for and want to express their support for the ideas that those parties represent. However, Liberal ideas are not so popular right now. Therefore, the government has had to rely on other ways of fundraising, and here we come to their dubious cash for access fundraising program.

What appears to have happened, and there has been a great deal of criticism about this, is that we have had ministers and the Prime Minister meeting with people, in the context of fundraising, who have done business or are looking to do business or to get some kind of benefit from the government at these very high-dollar fundraising events. In some cases, the maximum is $1,500. People pay this money presumably in the hope of being able to talk to a minister or to the Prime Minister about the specific issues that they are dealing with the government on.

This is very different from what was done under the previous government. I know the guidelines, because I was a candidate at that time. We had very strict guidelines in terms of how and to whom we could advertise any fundraising event. We could not even highlight the area that a minister was working. We had to simply advertise him as an MP. They were events that were not dealing at all with the specific subject matter of their ministry. Yes, we had fundraising events where ministers spoke, but they were open, low-dollar events, and provided opportunities for anyone to come. Specifically, they were not about trying to bring in people that were potential clients or people who had some kind of special economic relationship with the government.

As I recall, there was one exception, and it is the exception that proves the rule. There was one minister who made a mistake. Actually, it was not even the minister but somebody else who organized an event for, I believe, the heritage minister. As soon as the mistake was identified, an apology was given and the money was reimbursed. This was the only case, and it was immediately rectified. It was something the Conservatives recognized should not happen.

On the other hand, we have the current government that thinks this practice is acceptable. The Liberals think it is acceptable for, hypothetically, the justice minister to have a $1,500-a-person event where the minister is speaking about how to get a judicial appointment. “Come and pay $1,500 and hear the Minister of Justice speak about how to get a judicial appointment” or “Come to this $1,500 event with the heritage minister where we will talk about how to access art grants,” and it is only advertised to people who are in the artistic community. There are myriad other possible examples. The Minister of National Defence could speak to those involved in making defence equipment, and one has to pay $1,500. These are hypothetical examples, but the government does not see anything wrong with the idea of explicitly fundraising to people who are involved in doing business and want to pay for that preferential access.

Very clearly, it is legitimate for government to be meeting with industry, to be sharing information with key stakeholders, but it needs to do that outside of the context of party fundraisers. These things have to be separate. This is the position that we have taken. It is what the Conservatives did when we were in government. As I have mentioned, we were able to have a very strong fundraising program, because we asked people to donate not because they were getting something in return, but because they believed in the ideas that we were standing for. However, the Liberal Party has a different approach to how they have done this, and I think we have seen time and time again that they have a lack of concern for conflict of interest.

Whenever issues of conflict of interest are raised, they will say, “Do you not trust the Ethics Commissioner? Let us leave it for the Ethics Commissioner.” Then when the Ethics Commissioner ruled that the Prime Minister broke the law, when the Ethics Commissioner ruled that the finance minister had to pay a $200 fine because of his failure in terms of his disclosure, when those things happen, they say, “Let us just move on, and by the way, trust the Ethics Commissioner.”

However, voters of this country are going to hold the Prime Minister, the finance minister, and other members of the government accountable for the choices they have made in those cases where the Ethics Commissioner has shown in reports that they have behaved inappropriately.

The government, in response to its problems with ethics, came forward with Bill C-50, the political fundraising bill. This is an insubstantial public relations exercise, and I might add, not a very effective public relations exercise. Conservatives and New Democrats have spent all day speaking about and highlighting the government's ethical problems. Next time the Liberals try to devise a public relations exercise to cover their lack of ethics, maybe they should go back to the drawing board.

Nonetheless, this is a public relations exercise, a very insubstantial bill that aims to deal with cash for access fundraisers, but it does not in any way prevent the government from continuing with the practice it has been doing. Instead, it requires some greater degree of financial disclosure in the context of these things, but it still allows them to happen. It still allows for situations where the Prime Minister or ministers can charge $1,500 to people that are directly dealing with the government, with their department, and then discuss issues related to the business of government in the context of fundraisers. There is nothing in this law that in any way changes that. It just requires some marginally greater degree of the release of information.

The government has been saying that there has been criticism of its practices, so it will continue with those practices but it will pass a law that does not in any way materially change those practices and hope people will think that something has changed. I have a suggestion for the Liberals. Rather than put forward this public relations bill that does not substantively change anything, why not focus on changing their behaviour to bring it in line with the standards that Canadians would expect when it comes to conflict of interest? That is the problem. The problem is not the law. The problem is the actions of the Prime Minister and members of his cabinet.

If the government members are going to try to respond to their own ethical failures with new legislation, frankly, they can do a lot better. Here is a proposal that I would have for a change in the law to deal with ethics. Why do they not introduce meaningful sanctions for people who break the law? That is the biggest question I get from Canadians with respect to the Prime Minister's behaviour. They say if they drive too fast, if they park illegally, they have to pay a fine. However, the Prime Minister cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in security costs that should not have been incurred, as a result of an illegal vacation that the Ethics Commissioner found to be illegal, yet there are no sanctions.

Most of my constituents think that if we are going to change the law with respect to the government's ethics in response to these issues, let us have a law that introduces meaningful sanctions for those who break the law, especially for the Prime Minister and cabinet ministers. For his troubles, the finance minister was fined $200 which, not to delve too deeply into his personal finances, does not seem like a lot of money. It does not seem like it is going to have a big deterrent effect in terms of future behaviour. Maybe that is something that the government should consider in future legislation.

Certainly with respect to the problems around the fundraising, the government's cash for access program, the bill absolutely changes nothing. It does not address the fundamental problems and the government has clearly indicated that it does not think there is a problem, that it will persist with the kind of behaviour it has undertaken until now. This is completely different from what we saw under the previous government and it begs the question, why does the government not think that people who are not paying for access would be willing to donate? Why do people think it is necessary to engage in these shady types of practices?

We had one suggestion at least from an NDP member musing about the possibility of a return to the per-vote subsidy. I want to say that, on this side of the House, we certainly do not support having taxpayers subsidize political parties.

Let us be very clear. It was the Conservatives who lowered the contribution limit substantially and eliminated corporate and union contributions. We did that as part of the Federal Accountability Act, one of the first pieces of legislation that was brought forward by Stephen Harper. Also, we eliminated the per-vote subsidy. Our democracy is doing fine. We are well-served by the present system and there is no need to return to taxpayers giving money to political parties.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed my colleague's speech. “Myriad”, it was a good use of that word.

The member does not agree with me on the per-vote subsidy. However, I am wondering if he could perhaps comment on lowering the limit of contributions from $1,550 to $500. Does he think that would solve the problem and would he support that?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not personally see an immediate need for that. The issue here is around conflict of interest. Frankly, we will always see cases, regardless of what the contribution limit is, where people try to get around these things. I know that when limits were first set on contributions we had a case involving a Liberal leadership candidate where two members of the same family, as well as their very young children, all happened to give the maximum. Obviously, it is important to make sure that the person giving is actually the person giving and that there is not an effort to circumvent this.

Whatever rules we put in place, we always need to be sensitive to the fact that rules are not enough. It is a question of character. It is a question of the willingness of cabinet ministers, the Prime Minister, and others to abide by the principles behind the conflict of interest laws. That has been the problem in this case.

It is an interesting proposal from the member. However, I do not think changing exactly what that contribution limit is would be a panacea, rather we need to see better behaviour from those who are supposed to be leading this country.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am following up on the question from my hon. colleague from Burnaby South to my friend from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan. The claim that he has just made that his party does not support taxpayer money going to political parties flies in the face of the reality that the taxpayers of this country, like it or not, and I think many of them would not like it, have to pay for the horrible attack ads that are on our televisions.

The per-vote subsidy allowed a voter to say, “I'd like a token amount, less than $2 a year, to go to this party that I am voting for. They're the party of my choice.” However, with respect to the generous taxpayer support, if they donate $400 to a political party, it costs them $100. I would love my church to get that kind of rebate on the donations made for charitable purposes. However, even more amazing is the amount spent in campaign, so the more that is spent on terrible attack ads on our television sets, the more money that party gets back. Specifically, Stephen Harper changed the rules so that by having a longer writ period, Conservatives got even more money back.

I know this is a place where everybody lives in glass houses. However, let us not forget that the Conservative Party has done a lot of fundraising that was somewhat sketchy in the past. The Conservative Party has been taking the laws and twisting them to get more money back from taxpayers, not less.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in this case, I think my house is made of bricks.

The member spoke about other mechanisms by which political parties get money. Let us be very clear, with the removal of the direct subsidy to political parties, the mechanisms that exist are, first, when a contribution is made to political parties, there is a deduction, and second, there is also a rebate for money spent during the writ period.

If memory serves, there was actually a Conservative private member's bill in this Parliament that sought to equalize the deductions for charities with political parties. I think the member has a good point that there is some unfairness in the process.

[An hon. member]

No, that was my bill. It was an NDP bill.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

An NDP member may have had this in a previous Parliament, but my memory suggests that it was this Parliament. The member for Provencher had a private member's bill in this Parliament. If the member for Windsor West would like to endorse this Conservative idea, then that is great.

In terms of what the member said about attack ads, I just want to be clear that of course political parties do run attack ads. I do not know if the Green Party ever has, but there are also not-for-profit organizations that run ads critical of political parties. Not-for-profits, as well as political parties, engage in different kinds of political speech.

I do not think we should get into micromanaging deductions that different organizations get just because of the level of criticism that they levy. However, a mechanism that has a deduction for contributing to a not-for-profit organization, a charity, or a political party is very different than a direct taxpayer subsidy. A deduction simply says that if I am giving money to an organization, I should get some of that back because it is a not-for-profit. That is different from a direct subsidy to that organization.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have to admit that when the topic of political financing reform comes up, many Canadians' eyes glaze over. It is not the most exciting subject in front of this Parliament, and yet we have heard about 18 or 19 speakers on this topic pointing out both the strengths and the weaknesses of the bill.

I wish the House rules permitted the same level of debate on some of the very important private members' bills that come before the House. Perhaps we could work together to see that happen in the future.

Bill C-50 is important. We only have to look south of the border to see what happens when there are no controls over who donates to elected representatives or how much they can donate.

During the recent U.S. debate over net neutrality, another exciting subject, companies and groups on both sides of the issue lobbied with their wallets. According to OpenSecrets.org of the 535 members of Congress, 495 received campaign contributions from groups who lobbied the Federal Communications Commission on net neutrality. The telecoms, opposed to net neutrality, donated millions and the Republicans fell in line. The result will be a more limited, more expensive Internet experience for Americans. Thankfully, here in Canada we have largely constrained such obvious vote buying, but that has not always been the case.

In advance of the1872 election, Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald and his colleagues sought out campaign contributions from a Montreal shipping magnate named Hugh Allan. Allan donated what would have been a fortune back in 1872, $350,000, to Macdonald's Conservative government and he was rewarded for that donation. The Canadian Encyclopedia says:

After the election, a railway syndicate organized by Allan was rewarded with the lucrative contract to build the Canadian Pacific Railway — the trans-continental railroad promised to British Columbia when it joined Confederation.

More recently, former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was implicated in a scandal that became known as the Airbus affair.

My own province of British Columbia used to be the case study for what happens when there are insufficient campaign financing laws. In fact, a year ago The New York Times called British Columbia the “wild west” of Canadian political cash, citing the former provincial Liberal government for its many conflicts of interest and describing the “unabashedly cozy relationship between private interests and government officials in the province”. It cited B.C. for having no limits on political donations, and repeated criticisms that under the Christy Clark regime, the provincial government “has been transformed into a lucrative business, dominated by special interests that trade donations for political favours, undermining Canada’s reputation for functional, consensus-driven democracy.”

Thankfully, the new NDP government under Premier John Horgan immediately brought in political finance reforms, including bans on corporate and union donations and limiting individual donations to $1,200 per year. It is good to see civil reforms brought to the wild west.

Meanwhile, with the current federal Liberal government we have seen the cash for access scandal, where lobbyists were sold exclusive access to the Prime Minister by simply buying high-priced tickets to Liberal fundraising events. During the last election, the Liberal Party made a promise to "close political financing loopholes altogether”.

As we look at Bill C-50, the legislation before us today, we see only a timid attempt in that direction. This bill would force some party fundraising events to be advertised five days in advance, and it would ensure that the names of those attending the function are published.

The new rules apply to events attended by cabinet ministers, party leaders, and some leadership candidates. The NDP offered amendments at committee to include parliamentary secretaries and senior political staff but the Liberal members voted down those amendments.

Observers should note that the Liberal government's parliamentary secretaries are subject to the Conflict of Interest Act, but with Bill C-50, they are exempt from the transparency rules aimed at cash for access events. At the end of the day, cash for access events will still go ahead; we will just know a little more about them.

Is the government closing political financing loopholes and meeting its campaign promise? Not at all. What should this bill contain? A 2016 Globe and Mail editorial titled, “Money and politics: How to end the corruption and conflict of interest” said:

Individual donation limits should be low – possibly as low as $100. These rules should apply at all times, including election years and during party leadership campaigns.

While I am not sure about the amount, lowering the limit would absolutely take big money out of the political picture. No longer could wealthier Canadians expect to meet with cabinet ministers or the Prime Minister because only they could afford the steep price tag.

On another issue, a 2017 Senate report titled, “Controlling Foreign Influence in Canadian Elections” found that current law “does not sufficiently protect Canadian elections from being influenced by foreign entities, whether through direct interference or by providing funding to third parties.” Its recommendations, well worth the consideration of this chamber, include a “provision that more clearly states that any attempt made by foreign entities to induce Canadian electors to vote in a particular way is prohibited”, removal of the “six month limitation on the requirement to report contributions made to third parties for the purposes of election advertising”, and “require that Elections Canada perform random audits of third parties’ election advertising expenses and any contributions they have received”. These are provisions I would like to see examined further.

Currently in my riding of Kootenay—Columbia, I am often asked about issues that constituents have learned about through media websites. Unfortunately, in many cases, these news websites turn out to be politically prejudiced, are often racist, and in some cases are heavily influenced by foreign elements. They mislead, scaremonger, and prevent fact-based political discourse.

Finally, I would like to point to Bill C-364, introduced by the member for Terrebonne. His bill would sharply restrict individual donations while bringing back a formula for public subsidies to campaigns. While Bill C-364 has not yet had a rigorous review by this House, it is certainly raising some excellent issues that I would like to have seen considered within Bill C-50.

Too often money equals power, but in this place, money should have no influence. While I will be supporting this bill as at least a first baby step in the right direction, I am disappointed that the Liberal government has missed this opportunity to truly strengthen Canada's political financing laws to truly prevent influence peddling and cash for access.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed and agree with my colleague's speech, as I often do.

I was wondering if he wanted to elaborate more on why the Liberals and Conservatives seem to be so scared of even contemplating lowering the maximum donation limit from $1,550 to a lower limit.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the question actually has a fairly obvious answer.

When political parties are looking for money, $1,500 as a maximum donation, or $1,550 as it currently is in Canada, sounds a lot more attractive to parties than a $200 limit, depending on who is doing the supporting. I am quite comfortable, from an NDP perspective, and again this is not a party position, but I very much appreciate donations of $200, and I appreciate donations of $25. I would not be at all averse to seeing lower limits to the maximum that can be contributed.