Dick Proctor

[Canada Elections Act, June 9th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in support of Motion No. 11 in Group No. 2, as have other political parties in the House this afternoon.

The reason this report has been permitted is to deal with some amendments that were deemed to be inadmissible at report stage, that the Speaker has ruled as being out of order and others that require royal recommendation.

When the committee studied the bill under the rubric of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, we decided that we should prepare a separate report to signal possible areas for legislative change and/or future study. I think this particular motion is supported by the majority of parties, if not all the parties, in the House.

It is important to note that this is the most significant reform of political financing in Canada since the Election Expenses Act was introduced 29 years ago during the minority government of Pierre Trudeau and when the New Democratic Party held the balance of power.

The legislation before us would ban political donations to political parties. It would allow minor contributions to candidates running for nomination, and to electoral district associations, but no more money would be allowed to be donated by corporations and trade unions to the political party of their choice.

It would also require additional reporting requirements for constituency associations. It would limit individual contributions now to $5,000. When the bill was first tabled it was $10,000 and I think it was a unanimous motion of the committee to reduce the amount to $5,000 per individual per year.

It also would regulate the nomination and leadership campaigns of some parties. As an aside, I would say that this is a matter of physician heal thyself because in fact the New Democratic Party, and I believe some other parties in the House, have very strict limits on leadership campaigns and on nominating campaigns. I know members on the government side do not and there have been some embarrassing results flowing from that.

For example, in the last New Democratic Party leadership campaign none of the candidates for election were allowed to spend more than $750,000. There was preliminary reporting of how that money was raised prior to the vote taking place. There was full disclosure. It can be done but the government has seen fit to, instead of operating on a party by party basis or doing it within its own party, bring it in under the election financing amendments.

Certainly, at the bottom of all this, or under the pillar of it, as a result of the absence of corporate and trade union contributions, there is enhanced public financing of the political system.

Some of the concerns some members of the committee had and which we want to see addressed in this special or separate report, had to do with administrative burdens and cost of compliance that would accrue to constituency associations. There is no question that there will be a greater burden of transparency and a need for better record keeping that will have to flow to the Chief Electoral Officer on a regular basis from riding associations.

There was also some concern expressed whether volunteers, with all the requirements that would henceforth be required and forthcoming, would throw their hands up and say that it was too much paperwork and that they were out of there. We need to look at that very carefully.

One of things the member for North Vancouver raised was a concern that the audit fee limit of $1,500 was too low and that some auditors, at the conclusion of an election campaign, or doing the report for a candidate or an electoral district, would be subsidizing the process. We want to look at that as well because I do not think there was anybody who thought that auditors ought to be subsidizing the process. If the figures are too low, let us amend it.

The member for Ottawa West—Nepean, as I recall, was concerned about non-monetary contributions, specifically people who have particular skills in an election campaign and volunteer their services, but because of their particular skills are prohibited from working on certain elements or aspects of the campaign. I think of someone who perhaps operates a phone bank in his or her day job and would, under the current rules, be technically prohibited from doing that as a volunteer in a political operation. We think that needs some examination and clarification. Hopefully this committee or the son of this committee will look at that issue.

One of the issues that has been dealt with in this go around was the matter of the $1.50 per vote per year being based on the results of the last general election. Certainly we heard from witnesses who were concerned that all those eggs should not be in that one basket, that perhaps it should be either a combination of rolling polls that have taken place since the election or perhaps based on a party's membership together with the vote that the party received in the previous election.

I must say that the notion of a poll leaves me stone cold because there are times when governments have to take difficult decisions. I would think it would be another excuse not to make a difficult decision if someone said, “We cannot do that because we have a poll coming up next week and it may do some serious damage in terms of the amount of money that we will have to fight the next election campaign”.

I think on balance the $1.75 per vote per year based on what was received in the last election campaign may not be the best but it is the best that the committee could come up with. However I do not support the increase from $1.50 to $1.75.

As the minister responsible made very clear when he was before the committee at the first meeting on this issue, at $1.50 per vote per year no party would be negatively impacted. All parties would be at least revenue neutral, if not slightly ahead of the game. I fail to see what has happened in the intervening couple of months that now suggests it should be $1.75, a raise of 25¢.

A couple of other issues were raised before in the first group of amendments: the differential treatment of franchises and corporate entities, and the need for equal treatment of union locals versus corporate franchises. This is something that I think is a fundamental flaw in the bill. Yes, it is true that trade unions and corporations have been restricted in the amount of money they can give and to whom they can give that money. However, having said that, there is no question that corporations will be able to give significantly more because the way the legislation is written trade union locals are generally excluded from making a contribution to a local candidate or a local riding association. I think that is indefensible and I fail to understand why that cannot be altered.

Another area deals with free time broadcasting. The Broadcast Act was out of the purview of the committee and out of the purview of this bill because the amendments deal only with changes to the elections financing act and the Income Tax Act, but several significant witnesses, if I may put it that way, came before the committee and talked about the way that the cost of elections could be reduced if in fact there were more free time broadcasts allowed during an election campaign. They pointed to the British system as an example of that. We would hope that this could be looked at in a further go around by the committee that is looking at the impact of Bill C-24.

The third party spending on election campaigns is something that is fundamental. If the third party is defeated or overruled at the Supreme Court then all of what we are doing here on Bill C-24 stands for naught. Therefore we will have to pay close attention to that, as will the committee as it goes forward with the review of these procedures.

[Canada Elections Act, June 9th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I assume we are speaking technically against the amendment introduced by the member from the Alliance, that the amount be reduced to $0.01 from $0.4375. I certainly am speaking against that amendment, but I am also speaking against the increase from $0.375 that was originally proposed by the government House leader when he introduced this legislation.

The price of democracy has risen over the course of the weekend. What was to be $1.50 per vote per year to each of the political parties has now, according to the amendments that are in front of us in Group No.1 of this section, risen to $1.75.

I recall well the government House leader, when he was before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs and when he introduced this bill, saying that the government officials had looked very closely at the returns over the past several years of all the political parties as to the total global amounts of money they received from trade unions, corporations and other associations by way of donations and that he was quite confident in what he reported to the committee on that occasion, that at $1.50 per vote per year, no political party would suffer financial injury as a result of that.

What has transpired in the last three months that now we come back at report stage and the $1.50 has climbed 25¢ to $1.75?

I have only been around here for six years. I do not recall one occasion when an organization or a request for money has come to the government that the government actually has turned around and given more than was ever requested. I find it passing strange that on this occasion the $1.50 becomes $1.75. I can only assume, as we have heard throughout this, that there has been a lot of in-fighting in the Liberal Party. The president of the party, Mr. LeDrew, has said that this whole idea was as dumb as a bag of hammers. We know, as has been alluded to by other speakers ahead of me today, that the Liberal Party has a significant debt, and so to extract another 25¢ from the taxpayer is no big deal, except that the members opposite ought to be hanging their heads in shame.

The other part of this, which I do not think anyone has touched upon so far, is that of course this money will all be, what they call in labour management negotiations, front-end loaded for the first go around. In other words, when the $1.75, on which we will be voting at some point, comes into effect for the purpose of the first go around on the legislation, when the bill comes into effect on January 1, 2004, all the political parties will receive $1.75 in a lump sum payment, as opposed to quarterly payments of 43¢ which would represent $1.75 in four annual instalments. Each of the political parties will receive their full allotment based upon how well, or less well, they performed in the 2000 election campaign. The Liberals already would have received over $8 million, and at $1.50, we can do the math and figure out what that will mean for them. It will certainly mean more money and it will be the termination of the Liberal debt as it heads into an election, which we undoubtedly will have within the next 12 months.

Those are real concerns. I want to make it clear that this party supports Bill C-24, the election financing act, in principle. We believe there are many good features in the bill. We think it could be a lot better. It does not need to be test driven to find out where some of the flaws are going to be.

For example, we believe and have said repeatedly that there should be no opportunity for trade union or corporate financing in this legislation. The only group of people who should be able to donate to politics are those who will be or are eligible to vote. We think that is a good principle.

We fought the notion of allowing any donations from trade unions, corporations and associations. We note that the amounts are relatively small, $1,000 per year, and none of that money can go to a political party. It all has to go to a candidate or a riding association from corporations, trade unions and associations.

However a very unlevel playing field has been allowed to occur. We tried to address it with our motions but they were ruled out of order. We tried it at clause by clause. The issue is the definition of how corporations and trade unions are defined.

As I said, our first preference was to eliminate all of that money. However if we are going to have, admittedly, modest amounts of money, then we believe that trade union locals should be able to donate $1,000 per year. They have their own bylaws and elect their own officers. They have money at their disposal and ought to be part of the electoral process, just like a Tim Hortons franchise or a General Motors franchise could and would be allowed to do.

When we look at the facts and figures, there are about 16,600 union locals in Canada, but when we look at the number of incorporated businesses in Canada, there are more than one million of them. As I said, this is a very unlevel playing field. We have tried without success to have the government see this, to have the government even take the general definition of a trade union under the Canada Labour Code. If it applied that definition to this legislation, then the locals would indeed be able to participate in the electoral process, just the same as a doughnut franchise or a DaimlerChrysler dealership.

However the government has taken a very narrow definition where it lumps all the locals together. This to us is very unfortunate and I think it points out a fundamental flaw. As I say, the bill does not need to be test driven to find out where the flaws are. They stick out like a sore thumb.

Another area for which we feel very strongly is the whole area of trust funds. In the course of clause by clause analysis, clause 71 of Bill C-24 was deleted. This, in effect, would have allowed those members of Parliament who have trust funds now, some of which are very sizeable, to simply launder that money into their riding association over the next six months with no questions asked. Therefore, on January 1, 2004, when the legislation takes effect, none of the sources of this money will have to be disclosed. We find that extremely unfortunate. We believe that clause 71 should have remained intact and that those funds, which have been held by perhaps half a dozen or 10 members of Parliament who have trust funds that we are aware of through public knowledge and public information, should have been in the bill and should have had to have been reported prior to January 1, 2004. That will not happen. It is another shortcoming of the bill.

On the positive side, reducing the amount that an individual can contribute from $10,000 to $5,000, is good on balance, although I would concur with my colleague from the Conservatives where we have allowed wealthier candidates to be able to put in $10,000 if they are running for office.

We will be speaking more about these as we get into report stage further, but those are our initial observations.

[Emergency Assistance, June 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, with a $10 billion surplus, there is simply no excuse why the government should stand around and watch the western beef industry implode.

We have two quarantines in effect here in Canada at the present time. We have one in the beef industry, primarily in western Canada, and we have the SARS outbreak in Toronto.

Three months after the economic disaster hit, tourism workers and businesses are still looking for their first red penny in compensation. Why is the government now considering withholding $800 million, saying in effect that Toronto's economic disaster is not real?

[Agriculture, June 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the government's insistence that any help for the cattle industry must come from existing programs is simply not defensible.

The food inspection agency several years ago dismissed the possibility of mad cow disease in Canada, saying that it was a European disease. In other words, it could not happen here; except that it has.

Loan guarantees from existing programs are not the answer. The cattle industry needs an understandable, bankable cash advance and it needs it PDQ. When will it receive it?

[Agriculture, June 5th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, earlier today at the agriculture committee, there were groups from Saskatchewan concerned about Canada's current export customers. Eighty per cent of them say they will not buy genetically modified wheat.

Agriculture Canada continues to listen to Monsanto instead of Canadians and the world to have GM wheat licensed here. That would be a disaster because Canadian farmers will lose their markets. Saskatchewan's major farm and local government organizations are in Ottawa today. They are calling on the government to add a market impact analysis.

Will the government and the minister listen to this advice and commit to a market--

[Agriculture, June 5th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the HRDC minister. Carrie Sanford has worked on the kill floor of XL Meats in Moose Jaw for the past 12 years. She is a single mother of two children and she is making less than $30,000 a year. She has taken her vacation pay and despite the minister talking about her officials proactively, next Monday Ms. Sanford is going to be laid off as a result of mad cow without an ounce of help or compassion from the government and she will have to wait two weeks before collecting EI.

With a $10 billion surplus, why will the government not be helping Carrie and her children on Monday?

[Environment Week, June 5th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, as this is Environment Week I want to commend a group of Moose Jaw students who have just proven that young people can indeed change the world.

Andrea Fenton found out that the Saskatchewan Burrowing Owl Interpretive Centre in Moose Jaw had run out of money and would have to close its doors. Andrea put out the call to some classmates from St. Margaret Elementary School, Kandice Hébert, Stephanie Montpetit, Valerie Paquette and Keaton Doig. Together they drafted a petition and took it door-to-door in Moose Jaw. They also solicited donations. Within a few days Andrea and her friends had collected more than 400 signatures and raised $2,600.

As a result of their actions, they also secured the attention of the government and some private sector donors. Glenn Hagel, the Saskatchewan minister of community resources, and Moose Jaw Mayor Al Schwinghamer are both committed to keeping the centre open. The federal government contributes through the environment department, and we have asked the federal government to pay special attention to the centre.

Andrea Fenton and her young friends have reminded all of us what it means to care deeply, and to do something positive about it.

[Employment Insurance, June 3rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, there is another important aspect to this story, and that is that 1,000 packing plant workers have been laid off.

Recently the government agreed that workers quarantined as a result of SARS were immediately eligible for EI benefits. However packing plant workers have been laid off as a result of another quarantine, this one affecting beef cattle. Provincial governments and even employers are calling for the waiting period to be waived immediately.

Since the government does not put one red cent into the EI fund but simply creams off the annual surplus, when will it waive the waiting period for employees in the beef industry?

[Political Party Financing, May 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has been boasting for months that, this year, he is going to put an end to the perception that money influences politics. But while the cat is away in Europe, the Liberal mice are at play, because they are addicted to corporate money.

Will the government House leader commit to having the political financing bill in place before January 1, 2004—or is he going to give in to the demands of the provisional government from LaSalle—Émard for more corporate money?

[Agriculture, May 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the federal government is trying to force genetically modified food on farmers and consumers both here and abroad. Yesterday, Canada's eccentric uncle, the Prime Minister, was in Europe aiding and abetting the American multinationals while here at home his government has been assisting Monsanto in test plots for adapting genetically modified wheat to the Prairies.

The list of groups wanting nothing to do with GM includes farmers, the Wheat Board, the milling industry, international customers and most important, our own consumers. When will the government stop jamming genetically modified food down our throats and accept that what is good for GM is not good for Canada?