Mr. Speaker, I count it a great pleasure to rise in the House on behalf of the constituents of Crowfoot to debate changes to the way that we finance political parties in this country.
The Canadian Alliance has been at the forefront in advocating comprehensive reforms both to the Senate and to the House of Commons. We believe in parliamentary reform. We believe that we need to have systemic change. We strongly believe that the country needs a more effective system of direct democracy to enhance the voices of average Canadians. The only time that citizens of the country really get an opportunity to let their voices be heard is every four years at election time, and we want to change this fact.
Canadians have effectively been excluded from participating in the forum that decides how their daily lives are going to be run and how their daily lives are affected. What we have in the country is a system of government that rules from the top down. The tendency of this and previous governments has been to increase their own power by employing closed door polices, policies that close out the average Canadian. Only an exclusive few, namely the cabinet, the executive council of government, which is influenced by special interest groups and large corporations or unions, are deciding our policies and our programs.
Effective communication between citizens and their elected representatives has been diminished. Politicians are not accountable to their electorate on a day to day basis and, rather than seeking to gain public confidence through listening and accommodating public concerns, elected officials have spent their time selling the government's programs and legislation to the people. In other words, rather than representing their constituents in Ottawa, federally elected officials have become Ottawa's representatives back to their constituents.
My colleagues and I on this side of the House are committed to changing this sad reality. We are committed to changing the autocratic means of decision making by restoring power to its rightful owners, the people of this country.
In direct democracy we have a number of ways to allow Canadians to have a greater voice. Recall is a procedure that effectively allows voters to hold their representatives accountable. It is another procedure which we believe can help put power back into the hands of the people.
As it stands now, elected officials cannot be dismissed by the very people who elected them, except at election time. As we have already heard today, in some parties where nominees or candidates are appointed to run for that party, the people may never have an opportunity except at the time of an election. This leaves the impression that politicians are above the rules and regulations that govern the average Canadian worker. Allowing an elected official immunity for misconduct or incompetence is an absurdity that has added to the current level of political apathy in the country, as witnessed in the last election where we had a voter turnout of approximately 51% of the electorate. People are losing hope in what they see happening in Ottawa.
Author William Mishler states:
Political attitudes and behaviour are learned. The political apathy and inactivity characteristic of large segments of the Canadian public are not intrinsic to man's basic nature. They are neither inevitable nor immutable. The decision to participate in or abstain from politics is to a substantial degree a conditioned response to a political environment.
Our current political environment, our current political system, has produced a nation of cynics who hold politicians in contempt. The perception, and in some cases the reality, that politicians can be bought has only added fuel to the fire.
Therefore, we want to change the undue influence that large corporations, the unions, associations or individuals have on political parties and thus the government. It is for this reason that we support certain aspects of Bill C-24.
In the last couple of years, allegations and evidence have surfaced regarding certain companies receiving government contracts based on past financial donations to election campaigns. Just this past fall, the former solicitor general resigned after the ethics commissioner ruled that he should not have intervened in a funding request from a college that was run by his brother.
In the spring of 2002, it was revealed that the member for Cardigan had lobbied the RCMP and Correctional Service Canada for funds for a police training program proposed by Holland College, a provincially run institution headed by his brother. The ethics counsellor's investigation was sparked by revelations that the solicitor general's department had issued a contract in May 2001 to the political pal of the member for Cardigan for $100,000 worth of strategic advice. Mr. Wilson was seeking clarification on whether or not this contract was awarded without following proper Treasury Board guidelines or rules.
Just over a year ago in another incident, Mr. Paul Lemire was convicted of defrauding HRDC of almost $200,000 in HRDC grants. This man had travelled with the Prime Minister during elections. He had travelled on a team Canada mission in 1996. He had donated to the election campaign in 1997. Subsequently he received millions of dollars in grants in 1998 while under yet another investigation for fraud, against Revenue Canada, for which, I might add, he was finally convicted.
Again, we need to avoid any perception, whether real, imagined or perceived, that elected representatives can be bought for future financial favours. Bill C-24, by limiting the amount of money that corporations can contribute to political parties, would help eliminate this perception. Therefore we support parts of Bill C-24 that would restrict the amount of contributions allowed to political parties, riding associations and candidates, including candidates for nomination or party leadership.
We do not, however, support the portion of the bill that would compensate political parties by way of direct public funding for the anticipated loss of revenues from the donations of large corporations and unions. We will never accept that because some parties may lose dollars from unions or large corporations, we then must replace them with more taxpayers' dollars in funding.
In the words of the Leader of the Opposition, Bill C-24 “is simply an autocratic solution to a democratic problem”, in that it would increase taxpayer funded subsidies to political parties. In other words, Canadian taxpayers would have no choice to which party their hard earned dollars would go. An NDP supporter may end up backing the Canadian Alliance, whereas our supporters may end up sending their money to help fund the Bloc Québécois.
Many people probably do not know that taxpayers already heavily subsidize political parties. Donations to a party are subsidized in that a tax credit of up to 75% is provided. The money spent by candidates is reimbursed by as much as 50% of their eligible expenses, while parties get back 22.5% of their total electoral expenditures after each election. To put a dollar figure on this, in the 2000 election these so-called rebates cost Canadian taxpayers just over $31 million to refund candidates and $7.5 million to refund political parties' eligible election expenses. Currently, by this one measure alone, taxpayers are footing the bill for approximately 40% of the funding during elections.
As stated earlier, we support the portion of this legislation that would limit the amount of money that corporations may give to parties. It may help in restoring Canadians' faith in the integrity of their elected representatives. We believe that if people want to donate to a political party, if they believe in that political party, if they believe in the policies of that political party or in the individual who represents them at a constituency level, then their contributions and donations are the way that political party is funded.
We are, however, adamantly opposed to the enhanced public funding of political parties. In a democracy it is simply wrong to force hard-working Canadians or citizens to support certain political parties. Every voter in the country should have the right to choose which party they support.
In closing, I would like to quote the Leader of the Opposition, who said that “the true nature of the bill is simply the replacement by the [Liberal] government of its addiction to large business and union donations with an addiction to taxpayer funding”. He said that the bill simply forces Canadians “to pay for political parties they do not necessarily support”.
This is why we will not support Bill C-24.
