David Christopherson

[Senate Reform, December 9th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, upon introduction of Bill C-7, the government said with great fanfare, “The measures introduced today will go a long way in making the Senate a more accountable and democratic institution”.

However—

[Political Loans Accountability Act, December 8th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, does the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville believe that the only changes necessary to funding leadership campaigns is more accountability? Does the member believe that we should still allow wealthy Canadians to totally bankroll someone's leadership campaign, thereby allowing the person possibly to go right from the street all the way to the Prime Minister's Office in one move?

I will be very curious to hear especially on the second question just what the member believes in terms of the health of our democracy with leaving that in place. Is the member saying that we should still allow wealthy Canadians to bankroll single-handedly leadership campaigns? I have not even made the point that under the existing regime hundreds of thousands of dollars of that money may never be paid back.

[Political Loans Accountability Act, December 8th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, my macro answer is this. Bring in proportional representation and we could correct a whole lot of problems that exist in our democracy right now. That is the cornerstone of where we ultimately think we need to go.

We know the other two parties do not agree, but proportional representation would do more to advance the interests of true democracy, to have every vote really matter, to have the voices and opinions that exist in our country reflected in the House, to have more women, more aboriginal members, more minority groups, more disabled groups. There are all kinds of people who are either not represented here or not represented sufficiently. Proportional representation is the answer to that.

I suspect this bill will not take us far enough to do that, which is why whatever we do to the bill, it has to be in the context of recognizing proportional representation and getting rid of the other place. These are the kinds of things that will bring real democratic reform to Canada and to the House of Commons. Those are the things that we will push when we get over there.

[Political Loans Accountability Act, December 8th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I would answer the member this way. If the government was all that concerned about not wanting tax subsidies to go in, why did it not go after the other tax credit part? Why did it not go all the purist way? Why? Because if we look at the numbers, I believe, and I stand to be corrected, it got more money back from that than it did from the subsidies and what it got back was more than all of our subsidies combined.

Conservatives want to have subsidies as long as they works for them. What they do not want to do is leave subsidies in place that help all democratic parties. They do not want to be that democratic.

[Political Loans Accountability Act, December 8th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, the first thing I would say is that if my colleague wants to have that much influence on the NDP caucus, we could find him a seat here. Then he would be welcome to attend meetings.

I do appreciate and respect that the hon. member has said he supports 95% of what I said. That is a good start. However, if the member wants to ratchet things up a little, I am game for that.

The fact of the matter is we do need change. The Liberals are more interested in leaving things the way they are because that has worked so well for them over the years. They have lots of rich friends who can bankroll their buddies. The reason we even have this bill in the first place is that in their leadership campaign, there is an issue of hundreds of thousands of dollars that have not been paid back. We in the NDP do not accept that.

[Political Loans Accountability Act, December 8th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for staying, listening to my remarks and asking a question.

I am disappointed to hear that answer. What I heard was a defence of the bill. That is not the attitude we are looking for.

I was doing, for a moment, the kind of work that we do at the committee where we deal with these laws. I see my colleague has been working on a couple of the pieces of legislation and projects now for two or more years.

I enjoy working with the hon. member. He is very tough, but he is very fair. He is an hon. member and a good parliamentarian. However, when I give an answer like I did on the floor just now, I expect a response that says, “Well, I hear you on that. Is there a way we could tie it all in?” I may not have a perfect answer right now, but if I had all the perfect answers, I would not be here. I would be somewhere else.

Collectively, we can tie it all in. I am just disappointed the minister was being so dismissive. If the smart minds who want to work together rather than score political points on each other would turn their minds to that, we could find a way to solve our problem.

I hope the minister does not become so entrenched with, “It is my bill. It has to be my way or no way.” That does not get us anywhere. I really think there is an opportunity here, in talking about election laws, to come up with rules that are fair for everyone.

I was trying to suggest to the minister how we could approach that. I was disappointed in his response. I hope he will get back on his feet and indicate that that is not how he sees any kind of potential dialogue going on. I hope he will be a little more open-minded.

[Political Loans Accountability Act, December 8th, 2011]

I told you, Madam Speaker. They are a little slow off the mark. They should have been quicker on that one.

I want to say to the hon. members across the way that I participated in an election observation mission in Morocco in the last few weeks. What is one of the most important things to the people of Morocco? It is a struggling, emerging democracy in northwest Africa. One of the most important components they felt they needed was subsidies for political parties from the public purse to level the playing field.

When the government talks about a level playing field, it is often like we all have the right to live under the bridge, that old example. When we stand back and look at the macro picture, at the end of the day, money will play a bigger role in Canadian politics after the government than it did before. That is wrong.

I have given, at every opportunity, former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien as much credit as possible. I think the president of his own party used the expression, that was about as dumb as a bag of hammers. Why? Because the Liberals used to get all their funding from corporations. That was to be set aside, in large part, and replaced with the subsidies.

That was a good thing to do. It did make our democracy better. I have had the chance to participate in six or seven election observation missions. Anyone who is involved in elections around the world either has that component, or the one thing they desperately want is to get private money out of their political system and replace it with public funding. They are either doing this because they know it is important, or they want to because they know the damage and corrosiveness that money can play in a democratic system like ours.

My next comment will be on the same quote, when the minister used the word “accountability”. I love this. When the Conservatives say that word a lot, I want to bring into the broader discussion, to put the context of Bill C-21 in a more enlightened form, that under their new elect-the-senator bill, there is no accountability.

In fact, the senators would be prohibited by law from being accountable because they would run on a platform of promises, as we all do. They would serve nine years, which we do not. If we look at the model all of us here live by, if we want to stay in office beyond our term, we go back to the people and say, “Here are the promises I made. Here is what I did, what I said, how I voted. Now I ask you, my boss, how did I do, and do I deserve to get rehired or re-elected for another term, yes or no?”

However, elected senators, and I use that term loosely, would be prohibited by law from running again after nine years. Where is the accountability? There would be no accountability at the beginning, only promises. There would be no accountability in the middle. They would not even have constituency offices so they would not even be meeting Canadians, never mind being accountable. At the point when they should go back at the end of their terms, they would be prohibited by law from running again. Where is the accountability?

The minister also said in that same quote, “integrity”. That is pretty rich, coming from the party that gives us the current Minister of National Defence.

The last point is on the Conservatives' use of “transparency”. We do not need to look any further than today's question period and the Canada-U.S. border plan. We do not even know what is in the plan. It may be taking away massive amounts of Canadians' rights.

I raise all of that because the minister sets all these standards and uses these lofty words in his news releases. When we start to analyze piece by piece what the government is doing, it is undemocratic reform on a whole host of files. The words “accountability, integrity and transparency” are the last ones that Canadians are thinking of when they look at the actions and the agenda of the Conservative government.

I will end there. We are in support of closing the loophole. However, we think that there is some improvement needed to make our system stronger.

We have some serious concerns about having banks and other financial institutions as the only ones that can provide capital, with no requirement to actually provide it to all parties no matter what the circumstances. That is a huge problem, but it is solvable. I believe, if we wanted to, we could find ways to bring in conditions that would be acceptable to everyone concerned and make that aspect even fairer.

We hope that we can do something about the requirements for 20 or 30 people to get that initial line of credit. Here is one idea. One could be allowed to spend up to a certain percentage of the maximum. If one's limit were $100,000, one might be allowed to borrow up to $40,000 or $50,000 on the signature or collateral of the candidate.

I am sure we could find a regime that would still meet the goals of the government to level the playing field in terms of money, but also to make sure that our election laws apply equally across the country. The laws should not give an advantage or disadvantage to one's opponents in a general election or byelection.

If these concerns are not resolved, then there is no guarantee what position we will take at third reading. However, with those caveats, we are prepared to support the bill going to committee.

I hope the minister will allow us the same flexibility and tone that we had when we reviewed the previous bill, which we are voting against. The process at that committee was certainly as fair as I could have hoped for. At no time did I feel that the government was using a hammer to shut down democracy. I hope that we can look forward to the same relationship at committee on this bill. I hope we can make the improvements we need as well as look at other improvements to make it even better.

I always say that on bills like this, the ideal would be if we could all be standing in support of it. Would that not say a lot about a good piece of election law?

That is our goal; that is our position. We will see what happens.

[Political Loans Accountability Act, December 8th, 2011]

I am thrilled that the member is applauding. Really, it just warms my heart.

We want to have a look at that. We think that is a valid point. There may be other points coming from the third party since it is the example we are using of why we need to have a loophole. That needs to be taken into account, but again, regardless of how many times he heckles me these days, I have the greatest respect for the democratic reform critic for the Liberal Party. I believe that when we get to committee and if the minister if open-minded, we can start to do something about this.

However, I say to the minister, leaving some potential political parties vulnerable to not being able to access enough capital to mount a campaign is as undemocratic as allowing people with tens of millions of dollars to bankroll their good buddy. We need to be talking about that.

There is another real problem and I am going to come back to it again. I heard the minister's response when I asked if the Conservatives wanted to make it fair and keep it on a level playing field, but, quite frankly, how fair is it in a riding like mine where there are not as many wealthy people? I know the difference. When I was an MPP, my boundary ridings changed for a while and my riding encapsulated a part of the city where the demographic income was much higher. Boy, did it make a difference. Now I am back to my old boundaries and the standard problem. I would not raise it as a complaint other than it is in the context of this debate.

Is it really fair for an individual candidate? For instance, I did this in the last campaign, and again I will use myself as an example so nobody will think I am playing any games. I bankrolled my campaign with my line of credit and my house. That was not an institution or an individual, that was me as the candidate putting up my house as collateral, whereas this bill would have me go out and line up 20 or 30 people, each one having to put out $1,100 and my riding association would be denied that $1,100 because it is tied up backing up the loan.

Our point at committee is going to be whether there is some way that individual candidates can back up their loans, as I did. Then, after the election, my books were cleared up and the loan was transferred over to the riding association, but still backed up by my home. We may have to talk about what would happen in the case where a candidate does not win the seat and may move away, but those are still issues dealt with in any kind of collateral arrangement with a financial institution. They should not be so overwhelming that we cannot get over it.

I am kind of arguing the opposite of where I am coming from, which is to stop money from having an influence, but is the democratic process really harmed in terms of the financing of elections by virtue of me backing up a $20,000 or $30,000 line of credit with my own home? Not everybody has a home. Granted, it still has problems, nothing is perfect. The circumstances may be different, but could a close relative do that? Is there a way that we can do this, so that it does not create an unfair disadvantage to those of us who do not have wealthy demographic ridings?

This law does not matter much if someone has $100,000 in the bank. I believe there are some Conservatives and Liberals that do. I would be shocked if any of my colleagues did. They may, I am not aware of it, but I do not think it is that unusual on that side of the House or for some of the Liberals to have that kind of money, and so it is not a problem. I bring that as an element of fairness for us to look at, to see whether we can come up with a regime that meets the standards that the minister has set out but still allows fairness for individuals running for office.

My last point on this is that it may sound like $1,000 from 20 or 30 people is not a big deal. However, this is real world stuff. Does anyone know how difficult it is to find 20 or 30 people who have that kind of money to spare? Again, it may not sound like a lot to members in this place, but for many of my constituents, that could be all of their savings. Then a candidate has to co-ordinate the timing. Those 30 people have to go in and sign the documents before the candidate gets the money, which means time is lost, time when the campaign is going on. The candidate's opponents are already up and running and the candidate is still running around trying to get signatures 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30, so he or she can get a line of credit and get his or her campaign up and running.

Moving from a situation where I back up the loan with my home, and that is the way I have done it since I got here, versus the other way really is a huge disadvantage for some of us. I am hoping that we will be able to take the time to look at that.

I know my time for debate will expire, as it goes quickly. I do want to get my dibs in on the discussion about electoral reform. The minister used some very lofty language in his news release:

The current rules on political loans do not meet the high standards of accountability, integrity and transparency that Canadians expect in their political process.

That is all well and fine, but one of the most progressive steps, and government members should get ready to howl, that was ever taken in this place toward making elections fairer was providing the per-vote subsidy.

[Political Loans Accountability Act, December 8th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to enter the debate. Let me first of all say that the reason why we are supportive of this is because there is a problem. We see the problem and I am not going to make this any more partisan than it sounds, that is not my intent, but merely the reality.

The leadership race that the Liberal Party had left huge debts. It would seem that some of those debts are not going to be paid off. If that is the result and a candidate was backed by individuals, effectively right now those individuals bankrolled a big part of the candidate's campaign and by virtue of just never paying it off, put that money forward, and did exactly what we are trying to avoid which is single individuals, single corporations, and single unions from providing tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars to one candidate.

I agree with the minister in acknowledging that there is a problem. We accept that the minister is going in the right direction. That is why again, as always, we say we need to see the details at committee. We do have some concerns. It has been raised once and it will be raised again by both opposition parties. The minister is saying that there is no need to put any regime around banks or credit unions in terms of who they will loan to and who they will not. That could create a serious problem. If we are only allowing the money to come from one or two places, and those places are not democratized in terms of what the rules are, in terms of who they will lend money to, one does not have to be a political scientist to see the problem.

I would hope there would be some room and latitude to talk at committee about what kind of regime might be in place, what kind of safeguards could be in place, and maybe there is a backup by the government, maybe there is a role there. But any possibility where we are narrowing how Canadian citizens can raise money to participate in our electoral process, we need to ensure that not only is it fair but that we can actually access the money regardless of our political platform.

For the most part the platforms here are not scary. Some might argue the point from our different perspectives. But in a world view, I think members know what I am saying when I use that phrase.

If there is a legitimate, legal party that might have policies that scare certain segments of the population and part of that segment of the population could be the banks. It does not take a whole lot of analysis to realize that if a bank can find a way to legally, legitimately and free from harm say “no”, it is probably in the bank's interest to ensure that a party that has a platform that would hurt the bank would be helped by that bank to get more votes, and ultimately become the government that is then going to bring in rules and a regime that the bank thinks is not in its interest.

[Political Loans Accountability Act, December 8th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, for the most part, the official opposition is generally supportive of the general direction of this legislation. It is our intent at this point, unless we have reason to change our opinion, to support the bill at second reading and send it to committee. It is at committee where I would like to pose my question.

I do not know whether the minister knows or not from talking to his predecessor, but discussions were held in the last minority Parliament when the government was looking for our support to carry this legislation. One of the areas that was a problem in that draft legislation, and it remains a problem in the bill, was the treatment of loans for riding associations once they had a candidate, and I will use myself as an example.

Mine is not a rich riding in terms of demographics. We always have to borrow money through a line of credit and it always takes us the whole term to pay it back. We seem to pay it off just in time to get another line of credit for the next campaign. That is just the nature of my riding, because it is made up of mostly working people who do not have a lot of money to contribute to politicians. They contribute what they can but it is not a lot.

If I am interpreting Bill C-21 correctly, we will be in a situation where to get a $20,000 line of credit, after a candidate has been chosen and the election is either about to be called or has been called, it will take 18 to 20 people at a contribution of $1,100 each, because that is the maximum, to back it up. Given that it is a political loan, banks often want dollar for dollar collateral. Using the round number of 20 people, that is a lot in terms of contributions. That money is then tied up for the campaign and cannot be contributed.

Is the minister willing to roll up his sleeves and look at making some changes in this area?