Mr. Speaker, that is a great question. However, I do not agree that the public should be subsidizing political parties through a per-vote subsidy. My reason in opposition to that is that we already have very robust Elections Canada returns, which are in fact subsidies already.
I believe our political parties are best served when grassroots members are willing to put forward their own dollars, with the receipt of a generous tax credit, to show that they really believe in what a political party stands for. It takes effort and it takes engagement on the part of all of us in here and all of the candidates who run in every election to gain public support in a way that is often the hardest: getting people to give us money. However, I think it makes our democracy more accountable when there is no broad-based political subsidy. I believe we are best served when we, as individuals, and our political parties have to fight and justify our roles to the Canadian public.