Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm going to come back to the question I raised earlier. The contribution limit in Quebec is $100; it's very low. The question we have to ask ourselves to find a fair balance is this: how does the limit respect a principle of fairness in our electoral laws with regard to voter p

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I want to add something very quickly about what was just said. Indeed, the tax credit can help to reimburse the expense, but the very spirit and very reason why we were invited to appear is to discuss access in exchange for contributions. When the price of access to an event is

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would add that compensation mechanisms are needed to take into account the specific reality of each party, depending on its resources, in order to meet the obligations prescribed by law.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  There are many ways to contribute to public life. We can do this by offering our time, volunteering, becoming a candidate or being elected. We can also contribute by making a donation. It's a way of expressing a political position within a democracy. I would say that political pa

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you for the question. I'll come back to the principle of cartel parties, or the cartelisation of parties, which can be found in the bills on the reform of the Elections Act. Well-established parties will put in place measures that either favour them or make it easier for t

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't want to get into specific situations, but the smaller parties represented in the National Assembly, which are not caucuses, are much less institutionalized than the political parties that form the caucuses in the House. As a result, the administrative burden will be much

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's a big debate, which is raised by the exchange I just heard, whether political parties are increasingly becoming public organizations or if they are remaining private organizations. That being said, as I said, an electoral change like the one we have before us today moves in

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The primary purpose of the Elections Act is to ensure the transparency of funding contributions, and to fundamentally support a cause based on its ideas and values, and to engage in a democratic debate related to our own values within a political party. This is the essence of a p

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We've seen a drop in individual contributions in Quebec. This is less so at the federal level, but in Quebec it's now very inappropriate to contribute to a political party. So there is a negative connotation to political donations and, ultimately, it undermines democracy. If it's

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The Quebec legislation is recent. It was passed in 2012. That said, the chair I co-lead on democracy and parliamentary institutions is currently conducting a study among the various political parties on the impact of the legislation. We are comparing the federal government to th

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If he hasn't already, the Chief Electoral Officer will soon ask to manage the registry himself. We're putting in place an infrastructure that may seem lessened right now, but in the future, it will become increasingly important and increasingly bureaucratized within Elections Can

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We have two different opinions. You have to decide.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  This time, I agree with my colleague. We are talking about relationships of influence, and that's where the perception of a lobbyist registry comes into play. I repeat: if we want to solve the problem at the source, we have to think about lowering contribution thresholds. I'm no

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Absolutely. First, it's a matter of consistency. I see Bill C-50 as a first step. Clearly, people are always asking for more transparency. My concern is that the media or the general public will ask what we have to hide during an election period that we don't hide the rest of th

Procedure and House Affairs committee  As my colleague said, the opposition parties are actually trying to exercise power. But the burden on all the parties in terms of accountability or the number of fundraisers is quite significant. Time will tell, but the burden of the political parties may be very high. In this c