Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't think the committee is being given sufficient time to study such an enormously complex bill. There are some areas in the bill that I haven't commented on, such as trying to prevent foreign funding of third parties and the whole area of trying to prevent hacking and interf

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't have a figure to put in front of you today. I think it could be reduced by at least a third. I find there is a discrepancy between political parties and third parties; political parties have just 50% more room in the pre-writ period compared to third parties.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I indicated that I'm comfortable with the duration of the present limits. There's an issue that needs to be borne in mind, which is that, if you were to extend it further backwards, you risk running into a parliamentary session. That was an issue when British Columbia tried to br

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm not aware that it's created huge problems in Ontario. Some of that will come out during the election. I haven't been following the Ontario—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Of course.

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

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  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  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'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  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  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  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