Procedure and House Affairs committee  You can make an exception for that kind of thing. For example, people can be given notice in tax forms that this information is shared with political parties. There are ways of getting around that. I'm talking about other information that parties might have gathered from people—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't have a problem with that particular part. You were just saying that the party would have to notify every voter, but there is another way of dealing with that kind of thing, where parties are shared that basic information. I'm referring to the other information that's gat

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It addresses the pre-writ, which is a start, although I don't think July and August are going to be big spending periods for anybody. They'll save their money and spend it.... It depends, of course, exactly when the election is called, but I think you'll see all of that spending

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. The interim report that has to be filed will cover the pre-writ period or whatever period of time during the election campaign itself in which a party starts spending and crosses the threshold of $10,000, so there will be a disclosure if anyone participates. Some people ha

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The pre-writ period and the writ period. I'm not sure where those figures came from in the backgrounder. I would just make the overall point: how are these limits set? Why not look at what parties actually spent in the pre-writ period leading up to the 2011, 2015 elections. It's

Procedure and House Affairs committee  There's the Chief Electoral Officer. The ruling party can select that person now with just a majority vote in the House. No consultation is even required with opposition parties. As you may know, we have a court case right now challenging the Ethics Commissioner's appointment and

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you very much. Thank you to the committee for the opportunity to testify before you today. I am testifying here in my role as co-founder of Democracy Watch, which, if you are not aware, is a citizen advocacy group. We've been working since 1993 to make Canada the world's

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I didn't mention this in my complaint to the Commissioner of Lobbying, but I think I should follow up on it in that there is a requirement under the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct to lobby in a way that meets the highest ethical standards. I think sending out a letter like that would

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's a limit on ad spending during that 90-day period. Democracy Watch and the coalition's position is that a four- to six-month period is entirely appropriate. They're doing three months, and extending that even further is entirely appropriate. What B.C. has done is that if you

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Democracy Watch's proposal is that in between elections, there would be disclosure of how much each lobbyist or lobby group is spending on their campaigns. This is something we've proposed now for 24 years to the federal government. When we see that disclosure, if we see that o

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you for the opportunity, and I wish you luck in your deliberations.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The $100 donation limit would cost nothing.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If public financing were put in—and again, we think the case has to be made for it as well—our proposal is to start with a $100 donation limit and see where the parties are at after a year. I think you'd find they were just fine. Some of them will be suffering, but only because t

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't think very much at all. I appreciate that for some candidates it would be difficult, but leadership candidates do a disclosure every month leading up to the final week. If it were just one disclosure that had to be prepared a week before election day through an Internet