Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, for inviting me to take part in your study of Bill C-50. My presentation will be in two parts. First, I will make some general observations about the purpose of the bill, intended to situate it in the context of the ongoing development of the regulation of

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't have any reason to disagree with his assessment. He has a lot of experience and has good people working for him, some of whom are my former colleagues. I might add, in response to my colleague, and disagreeing somewhat, that I think the bigger hurdle for a political par

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I addressed that in my comments. I think it is entirely reasonable. I don't see why you would target only the governing party. Let's say you were in a minority situation, which we were for almost a decade. Parties go in and out of government every 18 months or so. What they do

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't want to tread in a field where I'm not trained, which is law. I would simply say that I think it should be higher. It should remain a fine. It shouldn't be moved into criminal offences under the Canada Elections Act. It seems to me, as with the five-day notice, that it's

Procedure and House Affairs committee  You could do that with a longer notice. Let's say you have a 15- or 30-day notice. You can amend it. In fact, the bill is quite specific. I was surprised that it got into that level of detail, but the bill provides for updates. It didn't need to do that, because anybody who's org

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Well, the age of 18 is a reasonable one. Perhaps it might be lowered a bit. I wouldn't, however, go as far as Mr. Kingsley did. I think he talked about reporting on the presence of seven-year-olds. I may be wrong. I may have got that number wrong, but I know it was a single digit

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I give Mr. Kingsley points for creativity on that one. On the other hand, it seems to me to be an example of...well, to put it bluntly, interference in internal political party affairs. Yes, the act already regulates lots of party affairs, but.... Then there would be easy ways o

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We can leave it at that. I would put it on the record, though, that the point I was making was about interfering more than necessary, or interfering in an unreasonable way. But I would reiterate my point about the practicality of it, which is, I think, the more important one.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'll mention just two. Very briefly, two countries have a lot of influence on Canadian political culture. The U.S. has essentially no spending limits at all on anything. The only spending limit that applies is when a presidential candidate agrees to accept public funding. Incre

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't have any difficulty with the list of those who are within the umbrella in the statute as it now stands. It seems to me that the criterion of representation in the House is a reasonable one. It could have been another one. It could have been any registered party, but the d

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would make just a quick comment on this debate about $100 versus $1,550, which I think it is at the moment. The fact that there's a ceiling doesn't mean that anyone who wants to contribute to a political party has to get near that ceiling. They can give $100 or $200. The tax cr

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Chair and committee, for the opportunity to come before you today. You have a huge bill in front of you. I'm going to dig down or at least somewhat down in one area, the limits on the spending by third parties prior to and during the official election period. This is

Procedure and House Affairs committee  One could debate about whether it should be 50 or 55 or 49. The principle that I disagree with was allowing the governing party to prolong the election campaign based on its own decision. The principle that we've held to since 1974 is that of a relatively level playing field. If

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Well, yes. If you're going to limit the pre-writ spending, analogous with election spending, it needs to be during a defined period. The decision has been made that says “as of June 30 in the year of the election”, so it will vary by a few days depending upon when the election ac