Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. Third parties have always had a slightly different.... Within that balancing act between freedom of expression on one side and the public interest and a level playing field on the other, that's a balancing act that Parliament and the court, I would say, have had a kind of dialogue about to try to preserve.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If your goal is to influence government, you have to parse the definition of election and political advertising in such a way that there's still a possibility for third party organizations to receive contributions and do the work they do to lobby government on particular bills, but then carve out a special area that is particularly for election advertising.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  So the question is—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Not at all.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would say half, maybe less.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think that's right.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Okay. In some way I think this connects to having only individuals being able to donate, because an organization is able to donate to itself. An organization is able to get donations from other organizations. Then, yes, once that magic period starts, they're still able to get organization donations but they're not supposed to use foreign money, but if it's already in their account, then—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Exactly.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, any that are registered.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If it were during the writ and pre-writ, I'd be happy. I think that would be enough of a way to make a substantive difference to levelling that playing field, which is what I want to achieve. Parties and other entities have to accept those limits annually, even in non-election years.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In that case, I agree with your logic entirely. To me, any time you say, “Here's the drop” or “Here's the start time for the limits,” on some level it's arbitrary, because we're campaigning all the time. I can see there being a different formula applied to third parties, because their behaviour is not necessarily campaigning all the time in the same way that a political entity does.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'd be happy if for political contributions that are kept in a separate bank account, like the bill is advocating, those limits applied all the time. I fear that's not going to survive a court challenge. I'm willing to accept a kind of lesser scenario.