Procedure and House Affairs committee  Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to speak with you this morning on behalf of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, or CCLA. I know my time this morning is short so I want to highlight CCLA's two primary concerns with respect to

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I haven't said that I think third parties necessarily need higher limits. What I said was that I don't see the evidence for the existing limits.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't understand where these numbers come from, and I don't understand where some of the distinction—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Again, I'm not exactly sure where those come from, but given that we have at least some members of the Supreme Court of Canada saying that those numbers are so low that they effectively amount to a monopoly by political parties and candidates, I think that's something that needs

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's true that some groups don't get close to those limits.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We've been living with these limits for over a decade now, so it's hard to know what would happen if there was more space. Look at the Harper case and some of the facts that the dissent put forward. I mentioned one, that you couldn't run a single-day ad in national newspapers. Wi

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  There were three.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It was a six-to-three decision.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, I'm not sure. I don't have the decision with me, unfortunately, but I think they do use that term in reference to the ability of parties and candidates to monopolize the discourse during an election because of the way the spending limits are set.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, that's the idea, that third parties are just citizens who are trying to get out there and tell their fellow citizens what they think about during the election, and while recognizing that there may well be a need to make sure we don't...I don't think anyone wants to turn us i

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't want to suggest that it's an easy thing to solve. Our concern is that we've tipped the balance in the wrong direction and that's not to say that we should open the doors and say there are no limits, but we have to look carefully at what those limits are and what they mean

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't have an example. We discussed this yesterday in the office. It struck me that it's comparable in some ways to the fact that we do this with electoral boundaries because there's a vested interest, obviously.

Public Safety committee  Thank you. I'm going to try to talk a little about the model that the federal government could have considered as part of a truly meaningful effort to transform corrections and address some of the constitutional violations that were identified by the courts in Ontario and B.C. t

Justice committee  Thank you.