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.