Information & Ethics committee  Thank you, again, Madam Chair, and all the members of the committee, for this opportunity to talk [Technical difficulty—Editor] conflicts of interest in government decisions. Good afternoon. I'll be speaking mostly in English during the meeting. Although I do need to practice m

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you, to all the members of the committee, for this opportunity to present to you on this important topic of government ethics and preventing conflicts of interest in government decisions with regard to spending.

Information & Ethics committee  That's no problem at all.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  They would if they ever contacted me, but they don't.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm acknowledging that these gifts.... Yes, sure. I acknowledged this last time when I was here on Bill C-50. That's why they should be restricted. When you talk about restricting third party citizen groups with respect to how high a donation they could have as the Public Policy

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It was 0.5% in the last election in Ontario. None of the election agencies inform people that they have this right. We're about to take Elections Ontario to court for failing to do so.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's not on the ballot. You decline or refuse your ballot. You're handed your ballot, and then you hand it back. More people would likely do it if the election agencies actually advertised that you have the right to do this. Elections Ontario is once again, for the third election

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If we get to that point of getting “none of the above” on the ballot first, then we can deal with that issue. I think—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, well, I'm just saying, show me a process that's even moving close to that and we can talk more about what to do, but it's only happened once, and that was in the Nevada election for governor. Their rule is that the election still stands. Obviously it's a hit to the legitimac

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think it should be applied to media and social media. You could run a radio ad in a small market and not identify yourself as a third party or be registered, and Elections Canada might not find out about it. You could do that in a community newspaper possibly and Elections Cana

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm sorry?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In the upcoming election?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We're a third party, yes. We don't usually run ads, though. We release a report card on the parties' platforms through various news releases, and just rely on media coverage.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm sorry?