HAFF Committee Meeting

Notices of Meeting include information about the subject matter to be examined by the committee and date, time and place of the meeting, as well as a list of any witnesses scheduled to appear. The Evidence is the edited and revised transcript of what is said before a committee. The Minutes of Proceedings are the official record of the business conducted by the committee at a sitting.

For an advanced search, use Publication Search tool.

If you have any questions or comments regarding the accessibility of this publication, please contact us at accessible@parl.gc.ca.

Previous day publication Next day publication

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, April 29, 2003

1110

The Chair (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.))

Mr. Joe Jordan (Leeds—Grenville, Lib.)

The Chair

1115

Mr. Joe Jordan

The Chair

Mr. Dick Proctor (Palliser, NDP)

The Chair

Mr. Ted White (North Vancouver, Canadian Alliance)

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik (Brandon—Souris, PC)

The Chair

Mr. Michel Guimond (Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île-d'Orléans, BQ)

1120

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada (Brossard—La Prairie, Lib.)

The Chair

1125

Mr. Filip Palda (Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute)

1130

The Chair

Ms. Nancy Peckford (Member of the National Council, Fair Vote Canada)

1135

The Chair

1140

Mr. Tom Kent (Fellow, School of Policy Studies, Queen's University, As Individual)

1145

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

Mr. Tom Kent

Mr. Ted White

1150

Mr. Filip Palda

The Chair

Mr. Joe Jordan

1155

The Chair

Mr. Tom Kent

The Chair

Mr. Filip Palda

The Chair

Mr. Michel Guimond

Mr. Tom Kent

1200

Mr. Michel Guimond

Mr. Tom Kent

Mr. Michel Guimond

The Chair

Mr. Filip Palda

Mr. Michel Guimond

Mr. Filip Palda

The Chair

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga Centre, Lib.)

1205

The Chair

Mr. Tom Kent

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

Mr. Tom Kent

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

The Chair

Mr. Dick Proctor

Mr. Tom Kent

Mr. Dick Proctor

Mr. Tom Kent

1210

Mr. Dick Proctor

Mr. Tom Kent

Mr. Dick Proctor

Mr. Tom Kent

Mr. Dick Proctor

Mr. Filip Palda

The Chair

Mr. Geoff Regan (Halifax West, Lib.)

Mr. Filip Palda

Mr. Geoff Regan

1215

Ms. Karen Etheridge (Member of the National Council, Fair Vote Canada)

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Tom Kent

Mr. Geoff Regan

Mr. Tom Kent

Mr. Geoff Regan

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Ms. Nancy Peckford

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Ms. Karen Etheridge

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Ms. Karen Etheridge

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Ms. Karen Etheridge

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Filip Palda

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Filip Palda

1220

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Filip Palda

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Tom Kent

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

Ms. Karen Etheridge

Mr. Jacques Saada

1225

Mr. Filip Palda

Mr. Jacques Saada

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

Mr. Tom Kent

The Chair

Mr. Dick Proctor

1230

Mr. Filip Palda

Mr. Dick Proctor

Mr. Tom Kent

Mr. Dick Proctor

Mr. Tom Kent

Mr. Dick Proctor

The Chair

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

1235

Mr. Filip Palda

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

Mr. Filip Palda

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

Mr. Filip Palda

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Tom Kent

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Tom Kent

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Filip Palda

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Mr. Filip Palda

Mr. Rick Borotsik

Ms. Karen Etheridge

1240

Mr. Rick Borotsik

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

1245

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

The Chair

Mr. Jacques Saada

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

The Chair

The Clerk of the Committee

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

1250

The Chair

Mr. Rick Borotsik

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

NUMBER 035

2nd SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Tuesday, April 29, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Á (1110)

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.)): With respect to our guests, there are a few items of business, but we are here on Bill C-24, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act (political financing), which is the financing of election campaigns.

There are a couple of items to do with this brief that I need to raise with the whole committee. I was directed that with respect to union representation, we'll be having some representation from umbrella groups in Quebec, and the Canadian Labour Congress, as an umbrella organization, would be an appropriate witness. We've had a request now from the CAW to appear, and I don't like, as chair, simply to cut that off, but I want confirmation, if that's the right way to put it, that we had agreed that it would be an umbrella group, and this is not the only umbrella group, we have other umbrella groups coming whose members we will be refusing. I need some sort of indication in case anyone objects. My intention is to say we will go, for the time being anyway, with the umbrella group and see how the hearings unfold. Am I right in that?

It's agreed. Thank you.

Joe Jordan.

Mr. Joe Jordan (Leeds—Grenville, Lib.): I think you could indicate that they're fully able to submit a brief.

The Chair: We are doing that all the time. We're making it clear that people can submit written information, and as this is televised, I would say it now. If there are people out there who want to submit written briefs, the committee is more than willing to receive them.

Thank you, Joe, for that.

The second item is the question of visits to Queen's Park, the legislature of Manitoba, and Quebec City, because of the nuance in election financing there, particularly Manitoba and Quebec, where there are similar regimes, but the experience has been different. Some members didn't want to travel, some members did. As I have explained and will explain again, because we're on television, this is the senior committee of the House. We have all five whips on it, we have House leaders sitting here, we have various other officers of the House of Commons here. It is not easy for us to travel. In fact, in my time the furthest we have got is to the corner of Bank and Wellington Streets on a green bus to look at security arrangements. So we have not travelled very far, but the reason is practical: with the members we have, it is difficult to travel. I'd like to say to you all, the staff and I are getting overwhelmed by the list of witnesses you have suggested. We're trying to cope with those. We have a meeting tomorrow at 5:30, when we have two back to back panels of four or five people. We meet again on Thursday, and we have a substantial number of witnesses next week, when we meet three times. So I need some indication about this matter of travel, I really do. We can do it by teleconferencing, we can bring witnesses in from those jurisdictions. What are your views?

Joe Jordan.

Á (1115)

Mr. Joe Jordan: One of the discussions we had, sort of a peripheral discussion, was about the Manitoba situation, and Mr. Proctor and Mr. Borotsik, very briefly, because they understand what's going on there, talked about it. I'd like the panels. If the general consensus is that in Quebec it seems to be working and in Manitoba it doesn't seem to be working, I think it might be better, rather than going out and getting immersed in one view, to get them here on a panel and have them go back and forth a little bit. Really, that's where the value lies. I'm not a big fan of travel, and if you could get them on the same panel in the same room at the same time, we might be able to sort out what is working and what is not and the reasons, That, to me, is what is more important.

The Chair: Okay.

I have Dick Proctor and Ted, but I want to explain to Michel--you were here earlier, but you stepped out for moment. We're discussing the matter of travel to Quebec City and Winnepeg, and possibly Queen's Park.

Dick Proctor.

Mr. Dick Proctor (Palliser, NDP): I think Joe Jordan has said it all. I think it would be a very good idea if we had representatives from Quebec and Manitoba here at the same time to talk about it, so we could benefit from their discussions.

The Chair: Ted White.

Mr. Ted White (North Vancouver, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

That's an excellent suggestion from Joe. I would just make the observation that when we dealt with the Canada Elections Act, Bill C-2, a couple of years ago, an immensely more complex act and we spent a great deal of time on it, we didn't travel, we had people come to us. I don't see any necessity to travel for this bill.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Rick Borotsik.

Mr. Rick Borotsik (Brandon—Souris, PC): Mr. Chairman, I was the one who suggested that it wouldn't be that difficult to get to Manitoba, or to Quebec City for that matter, for an evening. Then we would have the opportunity of listening to perhaps more than just one or two interested parties in those provinces. I have no objection to having the witnesses appear before us, but who is it we're going to identify? Are we going to identify the parties that are involved in the two provincial jurisdictions? Are we going to identify the administrators of the particular legislation? Are we going to identify party members? We have to get the real story. It's true that we have one that doesn't work in Manitoba. It's not unlike what we did with conflict of interest, when we had the administrators in here. We learned a lot from them as to what's right and what's wrong and what they feel is necessary in the legislation. I think we would be remiss if we didn't get as much information as we can from those two jurisdictions. One doesn't seem to be working, and it may be as simple a thing. as Mr. Proctor's pointed out in the past, as not having a provincial contribution into the legislation or it may be something else we don't know about right now.

So I'm okay with doing it here, but who we identify as the witnesses who are going to appear before us, that's the big question.

The Chair: I've heard no one debate the value of this consultation. As chair, what I need is some direction on the matter of travel. I would be glad to deal with the committee and come back to you with suggestions as to who we might invite if we don't travel.

Michel Guimond.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond (Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île-d'Orléans, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

When I suggested visiting the two legislatures, it was simply in order for us to hear as many witnesses as possible from each.

I am not going to tear off my shirt to convince you that we need to go. I am ready to hear the witnesses here. I have many occasions to tear off my shirt, and I am starting to be short on shirts. It's really funny with simultaneous translation. You only hear the laughter when you're in the middle of your next sentence. I guess that's one of the benefits of speaking a language that is not that of the majority.

Mr. Chairman, I agree with Joe Jordan's suggestion. But I am informing our clerk and our research officers that I expect representatives of the Directeur général des élections du Québec, who is responsible for the administration of the Act to govern the financing of political parties, to be called, as well as elected parliamentarians. Apparently, the Quebec National Assembly will only sit starting June 3 following the elections, at least according to rumours. We may have time to receive these people in May. I am expecting elected representatives of the three parties of the National Assembly to come and tell us how they're living this reality. There is the Liberal Party, the Parti Québécois and the Action Démocratique. Thus, this panel should include representatives duly elected by the people. Had we gone to the legislatures, we would have been able, as my colleague Rick Borotsik said, to meet with party administrators, that is officers, permanent employees, those who manage receipts, contributions and so on. But we should at least meet with representatives of the Directeur général des élections and with elected parliamentarians. It would probably be easier if we went there to meet them but if that is not possible, I will not insist on it, Mr. Chairman.

Á (1120)

[English]

The Chair: Michel, I thank you for that, and we've made a note of your suggestions.

I'd like to be very brief with this, because my sense is that I have the answer to my question, that we do not travel, but we organize an elaborate and sophisticated panel.

Jacques Saada, briefly.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada (Brossard—La Prairie, Lib.): If I understood correctly, in cases where invited witnesses provide us with information that we feel is not complete enough, we can always call other witnesses. Thus, the door remains open.

[English]

The Chair: We're talking specifically of this one facet of our coverage of those involved with this legislation, which has to do with these legislatures. You have heard Michel's argument that we need a range of people from each jurisdiction. That's what it means, and if members have suggestions on that, I would be glad to receive them. Meanwhile we've made notes of what has been said, and I will come forward, if not tomorrow, by Thursday, with a rough indication of the sorts of people, as we won't be able to name the individuals by then, we will invite from each jurisdiction. We will not be travelling, and we will work on that panel.

To our witnesses, I apologize, but you understand that we do need to move this thing along in various ways.

Our witnesses today are, from the Fraser Institute, Filip Palda, who is the senior fellow; from Fair Vote Canada, Nancy Peckford, a member of the national council, and Karen Etheridge, who we have already seen from time to time, also a member of the national council; and as an individual, Tom Kent, who is a fellow of the School of Policy Studies at Queen's University in Kingston. We welcome you all. I regret to say that Professor Bakvis of Dalhousie University, who was supposed to be with us, advised us yesterday that he is unable to be here.

I would propose, if you are in agreement, to proceed in the order we have you on the agenda. I think you all have a copy of the agenda. Are you comfortable with that? My understanding is that you each have a short presentation. We'll go through all the presentations, and then we'll go through our system of questions and answers.

Filip, we're in your hands.

Á (1125)

Mr. Filip Palda (Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute): Thank you.

As well as being senior fellow for the Fraser Institute, I'm also a professor at the École nationale d'administration publique in Montreal. Thank you for inviting me to come and speak here.

The last time I was in front of a parliamentary committee was in 1993, and that was a special committee on election finance reform. The issue at that time was the so-called gag law, and it was a larger bill overhauling the Canada Elections Act. We've seen that act go through many iterations since it was written in 1974, and it gets bigger and bigger every time. It's become so that it's very complicated reading. The issue back in 1993 when I testified here was whether so-called third parties can influence elections, get around the spending limits in the Canada Elections Act. Are they a danger? The larger concern was whether money can exert undue influence in elections. That's been rather a bogeyman. I'm going to speak against against this notion that money is a corrupting influence in elections, that money exerts undue influence.

The term “undue influence” is vague. There was case in Alberta in 2000 before the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench, and numerous government experts were brought there to testify against the National Citizens Coalition. It was a case involving the gag law. They were asked what is undue influence, and they had a terrible time defining it. I've read the testimony from previous sessions here, and there's been this phrase “undue influence”, but what does it mean? Academics have had trouble identifying it. In fact, there's a recent article in a prominent American journal that shows that three out of four studies on the influence of money on politics show no result. It's very difficult to make a link between how much campaign contribution is given and the result that comes out. The mystery to them is not why there is so much money in politics, but why there is so little money in politics.

Look at this. Go to the website of the Chief Electoral Officer at Elections Canada. Look at the top 50 contributors to the parties. The top corporate contributor was, I think, Bombardier, with $140,000. Lower down the list you have the Royal Bank, with $80,000. Does this buy influence? If so, I'm going to sell my house, come to Ottawa, and get my share of subsidies. I can get millions of dollars of subsidies if you think these amounts here are related to what special interests get. I don't know if it's incumbent upon you, but I'd like to see parliamentarians coming up and telling me where the undue influence is. Who has approached you in the past? What is the danger you see in campaign contributions from corporations and from unions? I would suggest that these are constructive contributions and vital for electoral competition.

I'll just raise a few problems I see with the legislation, and then make one practical suggestion, I think.

One of the problems is what I call the problem of spreading legislation. We saw that with the gag law, where it had to go and define third-party spending as any kind of election advertising on an issue with which a political party has been associated, which was so broad as to include almost any kind of speech by citizens. What's going to happen in this legislation if you stop unions and corporations giving? Maybe they'll set up a think tank and speak through that. What are you going to do next? Are you going to say think tanks are not allowed? Maybe it'll be a newsletter. Is that going to be disallowed? So there's a danger in this spreading legislation.

I'm against subsidies to parties, because I think this cuts the parties off from reality. It cuts them away from having to go and find out what the concerns of unions are and of businesses. Why is giving by unions and corporations vital for political competition? Because we have a competitive political system. If one business or one union is getting too much influence, another can come along, make its case, and give to a candidate, give to a party. Corporate giving is very important for individual candidates. By cutting this off, we will be centralizing power in the parties and stifling the rise of new candidates. That's what elections in democracies are about, finding new ideas, innovating. This will be cutting that off, centralizing it, and making it more and more like those European parties, especially in Germany, where they have massive subsidies.

Á (1130)

Here's the one practical suggestion. I don't know if you've addressed this already, but in the 2000 election MPs were sending out to householders up until 10 days into the election, and in the year 2000 it was allowed. If you are concerned about regulating the flow of money in elections, maybe that would be something to address in this legislation, franking privileges, which in the year 2000 came to $28,000 per year on average per parliamentarian.

I think I'll just close on those points there. Thank you.

The Chair: Filip, thank you very much for that. We appreciate your being here and your point of view.

Now for Fair Vote Canada, Nancy Peckford.

Ms. Nancy Peckford (Member of the National Council, Fair Vote Canada): I'll start, and Karen will join in.

[Translation]

My name is Nancy Peckford. I am a member of the national council of Fair Vote Canada. It's a great pleasure for me to be here today and I want to thank you for the opportunity you gave us to make this presentation.

[English]

I live here in Ottawa. I'm a member of the national council of Fair Vote Canada, which is a citizens' group advocating electoral reform. Sitting with me is Karen Etheridge from British Columbia. She is also a member of our council. We've brought some documents along that you can consult later, and Karen will be taking questions.

Fair Vote, as you may know, held its founding convention in the spring of 2001 and has since reconvened for two annual conferences, most recently this past weekend. Karen and I were both elected at the second meeting. Fair Vote is a cross-partisan group that brings together members from across the political spectrum. Our president, Doris Anderson, is a well known feminist and a former candidate for the Liberal Party of Canada, while our retiring vice-president, Troy Lanigan, is an activist with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. We have a national advisory board, which includes, among others, members of Parliament Lorne Nystrom, Carolyn Bennett and Ted White, former MPs Ed Broadbent and Patrick Boyer, and a number of political activists, ranging from Judy Rebick and Ken Georgetti on the left to Hugh Segal and Walter Robinson on the right.

We recently gathered the names of over 100 Canadian political scientists from 34 universities who have endorsed our call for a public referendum that would enable ordinary Canadian citizens to design the process by which we elect our members of Parliament. Committee members who are interested in this public referendum can consult our documentation afterwards. Our interest in the current legislation, Bill C-24, is the way it would interact with a reformed electoral system should the people of Canada eventually select one, which we believe they may well be on their way to doing, and we'll tell you a little bit about that before going into our position and interest in this legislation.

There's now significant forward momentum in the country towards a modern democratic electoral system. In particular, there is the prospect that at least four provinces may have new electoral systems or modified electoral systems by the end of the decade. Some of the developments on this are extremely recent, and we wanted to share them with you so you would have this information as you make your deliberations.

In P.E.I. the government has commissioned and received an independent report on the voting system. In response to this, they have now appointed a commissioner, Mr. Norman Carruthers, who is a retired chief justice of that province, to begin the process of citizen consultation leading to a recommendation to the legislature. Mr. Carruthers will be initiating a series of public consultations around the island this summer.

In Quebec the previous Parti Québécois government held a similar series of public consultations on various aspects of governance, including, notably, the voting system, culminating with les États généraux, attended by nearly 1,000 ordinary Québécois citizens this past year. Subsequently, there's been a general election in Quebec, as we know, in which all three of the parties represented in the Quebec legislature announced a commitment to proportional representation as a form of electoral system. The États généraux demonstrated that there was strong support in Quebec for such a system. As much as 90% of the population have certainly stated, in one way or another, that they are in favour of such significant reform. This support includes a majority of the députés in the new Quebec Liberal government, as was revealed in a survey by Mouvement pour une Démocratie Nouvelle just recently.

In British Columbia the Liberal government has been committed to a citizens' assembly on the voting system. Just yesterday they nominated Dr. Jack Blaney, a former president of Simon Fraser, to chair that assembly. The assembly will be made up of 158 ordinary citizens, two chosen by lot from each of the province's 79 electoral districts. The attorney general of British Columbia released the independent report, written by Gordon Gibson, which lays out the timeline for this commission, and reiterated the government's commitment to this process. It will culminate with a recommendation in December 2004, and if that recommendation suggests changing the voting system, a referendum will be held in May 2005.

Finally, in Ontario both opposition parties, the Liberals and the NDP, are interested in changing the system. In particular, the Liberal leader has repeatedly promised that if his party forms a government, there will be a public referendum on electoral reform within the first mandate.

So there is a strong possibility that before 2010 we may see the first provincial election since the 1950s under a system other than first past the post, for example, one based on some form of proportional representation. As we were joking this past Friday night, the race is now on between four provinces that are keenly interested in examining new ways to vote in their provincial elected representatives. With a democratic voting system in one or more of the provinces I've just mentioned, in our view, it becomes inevitable that such reforms will at least be considered for the House of Commons itself and our federal election process. As a matter of fact, the Law Commission of Canada, an independent federal agency, is just concluding a year-long process of public consultation on electoral reform, and will be reporting its recommendations to Parliament in the coming year. Thus, there is a reasonable possibility that the time span of the legislation you are currently considering may outlast the first past the post system itself. We are asking you to bear this in mind as you frame the legislation.

Á (1135)

Fair Vote's interest in this particular piece of legislation is that the system of electoral financing should not become an institutional impediment to the right of Canadians to select a new voting system. It would be better if the electoral financing regime is, to the greatest degree possible, independent of the voting system. I'll give you an example of what we mean by that, in case it isn't clear. It has been suggested by a few members of this committee that the legislation might mandate a public funding regime per candidate or per registered electoral district association that would replace the moneys currently raised by parties, via corporate donations and union donations most significantly. In Fair Vote's view, it would be difficult to reconcile a model based on electoral district associations with some of the forms of proportional representation that don't use electoral districts at all. Even in those that do, such as the mixed system used in Germany and New Zealand, some parties might not want to contest constituencies at all, but would still have a full party list, so reimbursing per electoral district association simply wouldn't work.

There are other proportional representation models, such as the single transferable vote used in Ireland, where there are constituencies, but it might be of advantage to some parties to run multiple candidates in a riding, to others to run just one. If you had, for example, per candidate funding, it might lead to a trade-off between a party seeking electoral advantage and seeking financial advantage.

Obviously, some of the reforms being considered at the provincial level that may come to a head at the federal level include considerations on proportional representation in particular. Fair Vote would ask of this committee that as you go through the details of the legislation, you bear in mind that one day the financing regime may be applied to an election in which votes are translated into seats in an entirely different way. That's the substance of our concern and why we wanted to make this presentation to you.

Karen is here to answer any questions you may have.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Now we'll go to Tom Kent, who is here as an individual associated with Queen's University.

Á (1140)

Mr. Tom Kent (Fellow, School of Policy Studies, Queen's University, As Individual): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate being here.

I'm going to take advantage of my age in these very brief remarks I plan to make by pointing out that this bill is the most fundamentally important legislation to come before Parliament since the Constitution Act of 1982. If Bill C-24 emerges unscathed from your deliberations, I believe you'll have fostered the greatest improvement in political democracy since women gained the vote nearly a century ago.

Let me spend just a couple of minutes on the principle of the bill, which seems to be widely misunderstood. Democracy means more than universal suffrage, one vote per person. Nowadays you can get that in all kinds of regimes. Democracy provides for people who want also to play a more active role in politics. It means everyone has the same freedom as the next person to promote the candidate or party or policy he or she likes. That democratic equality of opportunity is mocked--and I used “mocked” deliberately--if organizations can fund parties and candidates. We then have a privileged minority of people who, solely because they're executives of corporations, unions, or what have you, can back their political preferences not only with their own money, not only with their votes, not only with their powers of persuasion, but also with the resources of organizations that are established for other purposes, organizations that are given legal rights to run their own affairs, not to be organizations that take part in running the country.

How far political donations, in fact, buy power is, of course, open to debate. Academics can produce all sorts of figures about it, and it may be largely true, as some people argue, that corporation executives are simply conned into feeling important by spending their shareholders' money on purposes for which it is not properly used, not to enhance the interest of their business, which is the only purpose for which they have their trust in that money, but for other purposes, to please politicians, apparently with no influence at all on what the politicians do. But you can debate that. I don't believe those executives are that gullible, but that's beside the point. Whether it's a delusion or not, the belief that money rules is incompatible with responsible government.

So I suggest we need Bill C-24. There were periods--I have some experience of this--when parties managed without a great deal of money. That, I think, was true for the half century between women getting the vote and campaigning being taken over so largely by TV. But since the sixties there's no question that big money has become an addiction, and it won't be broken without some pain.

Bill C-24 seems to me to handle the break as well as can reasonably be expected. True, the continuing $1,000 per business per year is entirely contrary to the principle of the reform, but I think it may be well judged as the continuing dose for people who can't quit cold from their old habit. Still, it is dangerously large, and to add any more would be to abandon the cure, to betray the democratic reform. At its present size, it's a barely defensible concession.

There's another feature of the bill, though, that's harder to defend. Undoubtedly, there has to be some additional public expense in partial replacement of organization money, and of course, there has to be public expense for so important a democratic purpose as the process of deciding what democracy will do, but most of the additional money, in my view, could better go into direct equal party funding of information and discussion, TV etc. The proposed allocation of cash, in proportion to votes as much as four or five years earlier, is unfair between established parties and strongly discriminatory against new parties.

Á (1145)

I think many people hope the committee can settle on a better formula than that for the additional public financing. Up-to-date registered party membership would be the best, in principle, if there's a way to ensure that the encouragement of party membership is honest. That's difficult. Otherwise, one interesting suggestion is to have yet another line on our income tax forms inviting us to indicate which qualified party we would prefer for this year's public financing. However, I think there might be concern about the number of returns that would answer “none of the above”.

I don't want to end on that cynical note, so I offer one other comment. There's no doubt that ingenious people will attempt to get around the provisions of Bill C-24. That, however, though sometimes advanced, is not an argument against this bill any more than it's an argument against other provisions for law and order. All it means is that we need careful and fair enforcement to be just as necessary in politics as it is on the street or as it should be in corporate affairs.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Thank you very much, and thanks to all the witnesses. You've been very clear and very concise, and I hope we can continue in that fashion.

For your information, the way we proceed here is that we have roughly five- or six-minute exchanges between the witnesses and the member. It is, in fact, the member's time, and occasionally, I may have to cut you off, simply because the member has used up the time. We go from side to side of the table, and one of our purposes in doing that is to get around the table and, ideally, get back to the members for a second round. So we'll proceed in that fashion.

Ted White.

Mr. Ted White: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to the witnesses today,

I'd first like to thank Fair Vote Canada for pointing out the problems with at least one other solution that was proposed for the funding, that through the riding associations. I think you've drawn the committee's attention to a very important aspect of this legislation, its transferability to other voting systems, and I thank you very much for that.

Filip, I'd like to thank you for bringing up the franking privileges issue, because I think that's something worth looking at, and I'll certainly be looking at whether we need to try to amend the legislation to that effect.

I'd like to address this particular question, though, to Tom Kent. He mentioned in his presentation that whether it's a delusion or not, the belief that money rules is incompatible with responsible government. The feeling of the official opposition is that the real reason this legislation is here is that we have been able to provide links, delusional or not, between large corporate donations and contracts being awarded by the government. At least it's out in the open that these corporations are making donations, and it has given us an opportunity to investigate those situations. Once Bill C-24 is passed, there'll be no such opportunity. One of the roles of the official opposition will be completely wiped off the slate, because we won't have any way of linking the contract awarding ability of the government to their friends. You can hear the government side laughing. So I'd just like your comments, Mr. Kent. Don't you think this provision in Bill C-24 actually works against the point you made in your own presentation?

Mr. Tom Kent: No, I don't. The fundamental issue is not whether the use of corporate funds influences a particular government decision. It may well do so, but the fundamental point is its influence on the whole climate of politics, the idea that money is what counts in politics. That belief is deeply entrenched and will remain as long as politics, particularly, I may say, leadership candidates and so on, are so heavily dependent on corporate financing. I had experience of one leadership campaign. The expenses of getting Lester B. Pearson elected leader of the Liberal Party in 1958 were $3,000, not $3 million, not $10 million, or what you will. At that time that would have been almost as true for Mr. Diefenbaker and the Conservative Party; I'm sure his campaign for the leadership cost almost nothing by modern standards. The influence of money in politics was at one time relatively small. It has become very large, and that, I think has produced a very real deterioration in people's interest, belief, and faith in the democratic process.

Mr. Ted White: Okay.

I'll just address a short question to Filip. Would the Fraser Institute like to see this bill completely scratched, taken off the table altogether, or is it salvageable with some changes?

Á (1150)

Mr. Filip Palda: It's a complicated piece of legislation. The pieces I would like to see scrapped are any limits on contributions from unions and corporations. Again there's this question, what is the harm that comes from these contributions? The readings from the court case in the Alberta Court of Queens Bench in the year 2000 are very interesting. Peter Aucoin, the chief researcher for the Lortie commission, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, and some other academics were asked to define the harm from third-party spending during the elections. That's a slightly different thing, but it's money in elections. They had a dickens of a time doing it. They had trouble finding the harm from this.

Ed Broadbent mentioned, when he was testifying here, that in the U.S. senate many people are millionaires. He said everyone, but I don't agree with that, though it's close, there are a lot of rich people in the senate. Why is that? Part of the reason, American politicians say, is that their limits on contributions make it very expensive to start up a campaign. When you are an unknown, raising money in thousand dollar packets is very costly. So who's going to get favoured? It's going to be people who have their own funds. So perversely, this legislation may make Parliament more and more the preserve of the wealthy. Whether that's good or bad, I don't know, but you may want to think about that.

Your point, Ted, was to get rid of corporate contributions. Corporate influence and union influence won't go away. What are you going to do next? You will have to spread your net wider and wider.

The Chair: Joe Jordan.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I want to thank the witnesses.

I'll start on the whole idea of franking. I remember the controversy on it. It's the Board of Internal Economy, if I'm not mistaken, and I don't know, Mr. Chair, if we have the ability to make recommendations to them. In the absence of a set election date, you're always going to have things that are in the pipeline, and then the question is how much time you have to put something in the pipeline if you see an election coming. Clearly, we need some way, once a writ is dropped, of stopping that, I agree with you there. I don't think sitting politicians should enjoy the benefit of one more free piece of communication that goes out. I don't know what the process is, Mr. Chair, but I don't think it's this bill, I think it's the Board of Internal Economy. I think you would find that there's general support for stopping that, because you can't argue for that on any level.

As to the relationship between money and policy, which is a base level of what we're talking about here, my issue is not necessarily whether that can be empirically proved or not. If you're going to simply substitute money as some sort of medium in exchange for the value that goes back and forth between corporations and unions or individuals and their politicians, the problem I have is that not everybody has equal access to the money. Walter Robinson said something interesting when he was here. He said the system works here. You should be out there earning those contributions. I would rather think I was out there trying to earn votes, not contributions. The argument Mr. Broadbent made is that if we can, we should take the money out, but it's not an easy thing to do, and it's a rather complicated process we're trying to rein in here.

My question for all three is this. One of the things that occurred to me in the infancy of this bill and through the hearings is that we might also--Mr. Kent, you touched on this--want to look at spending restrictions. Unlike in the States, people can't spend their own money, they're subject to the same restrictions. So do you agree with spending limits, do you think we need to look at lowering them? I'll give you an example. I represent an eastern Ontario riding of about 98,000 people. I can spend up to $63,000 in a federal election. As somebody who's been in politics all his life, I think that's too much. I don't know what the limit is, but I think, if we deal with the addiction, we may have a better chance of reducing the real or perceived role money plays in politics.

As a final statement, the formula as to how any additional tax money is put into the system does need work. You've all pointed that out, that simply going on the last election's votes is not going to work at all, and we will have to give some serious thought to what our various options are.

Á (1155)

The Chair: This is a good example of a long question that will get a short answer, I'm afraid.

Tom Kent.

Mr. Tom Kent: I would be sorry not to see spending limits reduced, I agree, but I think the feasibility of it depends very much on whether or not the public cash is directed to general purposes, that's to say, as I've always argued, to ensure that there is much more free time, not only on TV and radio, but even in print, available to all the parties for information, discussion, opinions, debate, whatever. If that were available nationally, I think it would be reasonable to reduce the spending limits. But I don't think one wants just to reduce the spending limits, it's a larger reform.

The Chair: Filip.

Mr. Filip Palda: I'm against any form of spending limit in elections, especially when the incumbents are writing the rules of the game. The academic research and popular lore, when you talk to candidates, especially new ones, show that money is much more important for newcomers than it is for established parties.

The Chair: Before we do go on, I'd like to comment, in response to the point about franking privileges, that under the Standing Orders, we do have the power to do what Joe's suggested. That's just for the record.

Michel Guimond.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your presentations. First, I want to commend professor Kent for submitting a document in Canada's both official languages, French and English.

Last week, before the Easter break, we met with the National Citizens' Coalition, an organization headed by the present leader of the Canadian Alliance which has a budget in the thousands of dollars. They didn't have the courtesy to present their document in both languages. The document was tabled illegally. My colleagues will recognize that I have a good memory.

My question is to you, professor Kent. At the very end of your presentation, at the last paragraph, you mentioned that “ingenious people will attempt to get around the provisions of Bill C-24.“ I am convinced that you made a thorough analysis of the legislation and I would like you to tell us which clauses may lend themselves not to fraud but to some kind of manipulation or flexible interpretation. Which are the most vulnerable provisions? Is it the one that limits corporate contributions to $1,000? Could you tell us which clauses may be easy to get around?

[English]

Mr. Tom Kent: The danger is, I think, chiefly with sizeable corporations, is that they would find ways to put money into the hands of executives, for example, who would make it allegedly a personal contribution. That would be an expensive way to do it, because the extra money couldn't avoid being taxable income, but there are bound to be attempts, I think, one way or another, to get around these sorts of provisions. That's sometimes advanced as an argument against doing anything at all. My answer is that it is no more an argument against this legislation than it is against rules of the road or what you will. Sure, they're going to be broken, but you do your best to enforce them.

Â (1200)

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: So, you say that if a corporation decides that its contribution this year will be $100,000... Let's say I am the chairman of a pulp and paper company and I decided the company would make a $100,000 contribution. Since this is not legal, I would ask each and every vice-president to give $10,000. In other words, I would do indirectly what I can't do directly. Is that what you are concerned about?

[English]

Mr. Tom Kent: That's the kind of danger. I don't think it's a very big one, I think it can be dealt with easily enough, but it is there, and we have to be aware of it.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: Okay. My second question is to Mr. Palda, from the Fraser Institute.

The Institute's position on many issues are well known. To put it mildly, I will say that your organization is not known for its leftist tendencies. You honestly answered a direct question put by Mr. Jordan by saying that you think limits should simply be eliminated. In Quebec, René Lévesque wanted to put these limits mainly to preserve the independence of elected members and governments in relation to large corporations.

In the present system, the six big Canadian banks made contributions amounting to $200,000, $250,000 or $300,000. When the government wants to review the Bank Act, is it totally independent? Is it totally free? I am taking the banks as an example but it would be the same with oil companies. Don't you think this limit is useful to preserve the independence of our elected representatives?

[English]

The Chair: You'll have to be very brief, I'm afraid.

[Translation]

Mr. Filip Palda: I will answer this with a very simple question. Quebec has had this legislation limiting corporate and union contributions since 1966.

Mr. Michel Guimond: Since 1977.

Mr. Filip Palda: Okay. Let's compare provinces that have a limit to those that don't. Is corporate influence weaker in Quebec that it is in Alberta, for example?

[English]

The Chair: Carolyn Parrish.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga Centre, Lib.): I have two comments, first to Mr. Palda.

When you said banning election donations would result in think tanks and clubs and newsletters, my first reaction was, he's a wily character. Yes, there is always another way of doing something, but if you develop a think tank, it gets to be known by the public as right-wing, left-wing, centre, whatever, so the material coming out of there doesn't have the same impact as an anonymous flyer that goes out in the mail, where you have no idea who the source is, where it comes from, or whether it's true or not. That's just a comment on that.

As far as franking privileges go, I found it has a negative impact if you put a newsletter out right at the beginning of an election, it makes people angry, because they think you are taking advantage. So I stopped one before an election once. It was in the process, it was its normal time to go out, and I called printing and asked them to stop everything, because I found when I ran against the incumbent in my riding before that there was a lot of anger over that. So we are sensitive to that, and I think most of us don't do it.

I have two questions for Mr. Kent. The line on the income tax form you mentioned fascinates me. I like that idea, except that I think it continues the discrimination against poor people in this country. There are lots of people who don't file income tax forms. In municipal elections you get 23% voter turnout, and it's not the poor people and people who need subsidized housing. None of those people are considered by municipal politicians, because they don't get out, they don't vote, people don't pull them out. So that worries me, and I don't know how you get around it.

Also, you didn't comment on the $10,000 per individual, which I think is outrageous. I would rather see a company give $1,000 to 10 people than have one human being every year being able to give $60,000 in donations. I just find that outrageous.

Â (1205)

The Chair: Mr. Kent.

Mr. Tom Kent: First, I entirely agree on the objection to the tax form idea, and you might mention particularly aboriginal people in that connection.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Yes.

Mr. Tom Kent: I didn't advocate it, I just mentioned it as a possible alternative.

On the personal spending, to me, people using their own money is much less an offence to democracy than people misusing--and in my view, it is misusing--the money of shareholders, even if they're a small business, because they can put it down as business expenses and it's not part of their taxable income. I think the misuse of business money, corporate money, or for that matter, union money, is far more serious than the level of individual spending. I wouldn't disagree with you about the $10,000, it is high, but I do think the real problem is not the amount of money spent by individuals, but the amount of money directed by individuals when it isn't really their money, it's really corporate money or whatever.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Thank you very much.

The Chair: Dick Proctor.

Mr. Dick Proctor: Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Kent, thanks for your presentation--thanks for all your presentations. I want to come to the point you talked about at the summation of your paper, that ingenious people will attempt to get around the provisions, and relate it to the $1,000 donations by unions and corporations to riding associations, candidates, etc. We are already hearing suggestions that $1,000 isn't enough, that it may be $5,000, that it may be $10,000. It seems to me that this opens up the possibility of more ingenious people finding more ways around it, and I'd like your comments in that regard. Would we be better off if we said no to any kind of corporate or trade union donation to riding associations? I know we're close to eliminating it for parties, but what about just blanket?

Mr. Tom Kent: My simple answer is yes, but realistically, would you get the legislation through without some provision of that kind?

Mr. Dick Proctor: When the Prime Minister first floated this idea, there was none of this. Then it went to the Liberal caucus, and now it's come back with a bit of a change.

One other area is the $1.50 based on the last general election as being an unfair idea. You have suggested in a newspaper article, as well as again today, the notion of basing it on membership. Mr. Boudria, who is the political minister for this piece of legislation, when he was before the committee, refuted that and said, if you based it on membership, every political party would go out and get a million members, and that would be the end of that. But it costs all political parties contesting for seats and power money to run an organization, to turn the lights on, to hire staff, and all that. What about the notion that there would be an equal portion of money to cover the basic expenses all political parties have, then reducing the $1.50 per vote proportionately, coming at it that way as a fairer way of doing it, rather than basing it on the last election and what each party received?

Mr. Tom Kent: Certainly, I think the key is to reduce the $1.50.

Â (1210)

Mr. Dick Proctor: Right.

Mr. Tom Kent: In my view, a very good way to reduce the $1.50 would be to make direct funding available to everyone by funding much more free time etc., available to all parties, for information and discussion. I think your other way of reducing the need for the $1.50 amount is also a good one, but you're not going to eliminate it completely. The best way of doing that is certainly not the proposed way. I would have thought the membership way could be used if the inducement weren't so big, if it weren't $1.50, and if you had a provision, say, that it wasn't the membership this day, it was the membership six months ago or something. There is an awful lot of the phoney membership and so on. I think you could handle it.

Mr. Dick Proctor: You mentioned Lester Pearson and the $3,000 for the 1958 leadership campaign. What if we followed the British model, where political parties do get free air time? Is that something that would be manageable?

Mr. Tom Kent: In my view, that is the most fundamental reform that could be made within the context of this basic review.

Mr. Dick Proctor: Yes. Thank you

Mr. Palda, in 2000, right after the election campaign, Bombardier received loan guarantees for $2 billion in their contest against Embraer out of Brazil. Mr. Borotsik and I sit on the agriculture committee, and farmers were going through a very difficult time at that point. You would, of course, insist that the fact that Bombardier led all donors to the Liberal Party in the election campaign in November of 2000 was strictly a coincidence, and it had nothing to do with the fact that the Canadian Farmers Association, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, and the National Farmers Union made no such significant contributions to any political party.

Mr. Filip Palda: I wouldn't insist that it's pure coincidence, but I'd say, wow, the government is easily bought. A $140,000 contribution to the Liberal Party, according to the figure from the Chief Electoral Officer, and that gets you a $2 billion loan guarantee? As I said, I'm selling my house, I'm coming here, I'm going to get those subsidies. The point is that there's a lot more than just campaign contributions.

The Chair: Geoff Regan.

Mr. Geoff Regan (Halifax West, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Palda, you responded to a question of Mr. White by suggesting that an individual who was trying to get elected could essentially buy their own election, could pay for it themselves, because the real obstacle is getting elected the first time. The problem with that is that under this bill, if I want to become a candidate and I want to run in an election, I can't pay for it all myself. In fact, I'm limited in how much I can give to my own campaign by this bill. Did you understand that? I guess that's the first question.

You said, if a union approaches the government to make a donation, another union can compete also on the same level. That's assuming that the only other interest that should be represented in relation to this particular issue, whatever it might be, would be another union, as opposed to an ordinary citizen, who wouldn't have the power of the union. Shouldn't the currency of democracy be votes, not money? In the case of a vote every Canadian has equal power, in the case of money they don't. So why shouldn't the currency of democracy be votes?

Mr. Filip Palda: Let me take your last question first. I don't see how you can separate the two. How can you separate the money from the votes? Look at Marx and Engels. Engels subsidized Marx for many years. The women's movement of the late 19th and early 20th century was subsidized in part by wealthy interests in the U.S. Money is a fundamental part of going out there, finding out what people want, and having lots of different people, or maybe one eccentric, fund you, rather than having government control the purse strings of its opponents. You guys are writing the rules of the game here to regulate entry into politics.

Did I understand that the individual will not be able to use his own funds? No, I wasn't aware of that.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Thank you.

My next question is for Ms. Peckford and Ms. Etheridge from Fair Vote Canada. You may have said this, but I'm going to ask in case I missed it. Do you favour a ban on corporate and union donations or not? What's your view on that?

Â (1215)

Ms. Karen Etheridge (Member of the National Council, Fair Vote Canada): We have no opinion on that subject.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Okay.

Mr. Kent, you mentioned in your comments originally that most of it could better go into direct equal party funding of information and discussion. On what basis would a party qualify for this? Would this be any party nationally? How would you do that?

Mr. Tom Kent: It has to be a qualified party, obviously. The conditions of qualification for free TV time etc. would have to be some percentage of votes before, current membership, or recent membership, and so on. You'd need to have some control over what is a qualified party. There is now. It might not be the right definition for this purpose, but you can't have it apply to anybody who claims to be a party.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Would you see Elections Canada, then, getting into the business of verifying memberships of political parties?

Mr. Tom Kent: If that is the formula that's used, Elections Canada would have to do so, and it would be a nasty job, which is why I raised questions about that solution to the problem. But it's got to be done one way or the other. You can't have unlimited access for anybody who says he's a party.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Geoff.

Rick Borotsik.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As we always find out, there are many sides to every issue and many opinions. We have three divergent opinions sitting at this end of the table, and I thank you for all of them, although what it tends to do is confuse me even more.

Ms. Peckford, I appreciated your comments on proportional representation, electoral reform, though that's beyond this committee. Then you focused it and said, if we're going to do it, it has to tie into the financial contributions that we're talking about right now. In your organization's opinion, would it be better not to have this legislation, as opposed to going forward with what you see now and perhaps affecting that future change to proportional representation?

Ms. Nancy Peckford: I'll let Karen pick up on this, but we have a very specific mandate on pushing for a national referendum on electoral reform. Our members haven't specifically weighed in on--

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Okay, but would this legislation affect that, in your opinion? If this went through the way it is now being proposed, which it may well if you look at that side of the table, would it affect your future discussions on the electoral reform of proportional representation?

Ms. Karen Etheridge: The way the bill is written now, it would not. The way the financing proposals are in the bill as it is written currently is fine.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: It's fine. It would not affect your future discussions on proportional representations.

Ms. Karen Etheridge: Obviously, the Electoral Act would have to be overhauled later if we changed the electoral system, so we would need to address various clauses that may be changed by this bill, but you would not make it any better or worse.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: You also said you have no opinion with respect to the contribution limits that have been set. Do you have a personal opinion, forgetting the organization? You've heard some discussion.

Ms. Karen Etheridge: I'd be happy to give you an opinion out in the corridor, but not here.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Okay, thank you very much.

Mr. Palda, I appreciate what you've said, and perhaps I subscribe to more of what you said than to what you haven't. Mr. Proctor talked about Bombardier and corporate influence. You're saying this is not in fact the case. You're saying, if this legislation goes forward with the restrictions that are anticipated, that's not going to change, untendered contracts, political partisanship, political friendships that are developed between governments and corporations. So it doesn't matter what kind of limits you put on, because that aspect will remain even with this legislation in place. Is that correct?

Mr. Filip Palda: That's right. The problem is that government is too big, has too much discretion over its budgets, and you're going to have interest groups trying to cut up the pie one way or the other. The pie isn't going to disappear just because you get rid of corporate contributions.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: The only thing is, those corporations now won't have to spend money to get the largess, correct? So it's better.

Mr. Filip Palda: It's like a peace treaty in a way. But I'm also making a slightly more forceful point, that we need corporate contributions to enhance competition in elections. If you are a small corporation, let's say, and some big corporation is getting subsidies or is doing something illegal, it's in your interest to finance and fund a champion. You may not have the public interest at heart, but you'll find an MP or someone to give an opposite point of view.

Â (1220)

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Do you believe there are other ways of dealing with transparency and accountability with the corporations? I could give examples, but I won't do it at this table--maybe in the corridor. Are transparency and accountability better solutions than simply campaign contributions?

Mr. Filip Palda: Transparency can be a very costly business for riding associations and candidates. I have a feeling that the best transparency is the one candidates themselves are willing to propose.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Mr. Kent, you had a very interesting presentation, and I appreciate it. It is obviously different from other views presented today. We talk about democracy providing people with an opportunity to play a more active role in politics, and that, philosophically, is very sound, but we've found that in subsequent elections we had less participation from the public, smaller voter turnout, less participation in political parties. Can you tell us why this shift, why the change, why the apathy, why people are not getting involved? We can talk about financial contributions, and that's one thing, but I'm thinking more of a personal contribution into the electoral process.

Mr. Tom Kent: Financial contributions have helped, I think, to increase voter indifference, as they feel that they don't really make any difference, it's the money that settles things anyway. There are other factors that have reduced voter participation. Essentially, in my young days, if you were interested in public affairs, you got involved in a political party. Now you probably would have far more influence by joining the women's something-or-other or what you will. This is the failure, and I have to say, the failure of the political system. I would say the corruption of it by money is an important factor in bringing about that failure.

The Chair: Jacques Saada.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: Mr. Chairman, I have questions to ask but I also want to mention to you that I would like to have a minute at the end of the discussion to deal with the question of inviting one of my—

[English]

The Chair: That was the end of business I referred to.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: Thank you very much.

I want to thank you all for being here today. It is very interesting because we're all talking about democracy and implementing democratic procedures. Some people want to do away with expenditure limits and political party revenues. Others want to strictly limit these expenditures and revenues. Others still want something in between. Obviously, what we will decide won't please everybody. This is the nature of democracy.

I have a comment to make and a question to ask of Ms. Peckford or Ms. Etheridge.

You spoke with passion of your desire to see a reform of the Canadian electoral system that would allow some form of proportional representation. But does Bill C-24 allow this? The bill sets public financing of political parties at $1.50 per vote, based on the number of votes obtained and not the number of elected members. Does that mean that you are in favour of this provision of Bill C-24?

[English]

Ms. Karen Etheridge: As an organization, we do not have an opinion about whether public subsidies are good for parties, but we recognize that putting an economy on the number of votes is very democratic compared to other ways in which you can make a measurement. It's a recognition that the number of votes you get in an election, whether or not you win, does matter, whether it's 1 vote or 100 or 1,000. We are happy to see this in the bill.

Also, we think it's a good thing that the House of Commons is used to revising the Electoral Act, that it does not feel this is a document that stays as is, but it can be revised from time to time. We welcome that.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: Thank you.

I have a comment about what Mr. Palda said and also about my colleague Proctor's allegations or insinuations. Banks, for instance, are among the largest contributors to political parties electoral funds. However, bank mergers were rejected.

In the case of Bombardier, I think neither Mr. Proctor nor anyone else will challenge the right of a government to promote its businesses abroad as well as employment security for its own citizens. When you try to make a connection between financing and decisions made at Bombardier, it seems to me that you're getting on slippery ground and very close to demagogy. I for one will resist that.

Mr. Palda, you said it's very difficult to define undue influence. However, even without a scientific definition, people feel that money has a direct bearing on decisions made by governments or on the political process. Don't you think that the more an individual contributes to an election campaign the more he increases, not necessarily his actual influence, but people's perceptions about the influence he might have? Don't you believe that the bill deals at least with the perception problem if not with the influence issue?

Â (1225)

Mr. Filip Palda: When I want to kill a discussion with my friends, I only have to start talking about limiting election expenditures and about the whole issue of election funding. Not many people are really interested in this. I think the legislation is fascinating to many politicians, much more so than it is for individuals. That deals with perception.

In the case of undue influence, I mentioned that it's not only about giving money to a political party. There are many other factors. For example, in the United States, very rich people like Forbes and Huffington in California spent tens of millions of dollars and were not elected. On the other hand, you have Bill Clinton, who came ahead although he was from a disadvantaged background. So we have a competitive system that—[Editor's note: Inaudible.]

Mr. Jacques Saada: I appreciate your answer.

The Chair: Very briefly, please.

Mr. Jacques Saada: Mr. Kent, you say on page 3 of your document that people's participation should be based on direct equal party funding. But you gave an answer that opens the door to distinctions between those parties that are qualified and those that are not. How do you reconcile the equal funding idea with the democratic concept we were just talking about, that is every vote and not every party counts equally?

[English]

Mr. Tom Kent: I was suggesting equal funding of qualified parties for the public discussion process on TV, on radio, in the newspapers. Everybody can read all of it, whichever party they're eventually going to vote for, and so on. It's not an influencing of the vote in the narrow sense. It seems to me to be an entirely different issue from the provision of money to the party to spend on its propaganda. I'm not opposing some cash provision, but I think the two are quite distinct. I don't see that there's any inconsistency between equal funding of discussion and cash funding of parties on some formula basis.

The Chair: Thank you, Tom.

Dick Proctor.

Mr. Dick Proctor: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Let me just say to my good friend Jacques Saada that I agree about jobs, and some of us would like to see jobs remain in the agricultural industry. We've been fighting very hard on that, but we have not been seeing money forthcoming on that front, and we're seeing a lot of dislocation. That was the contrast I was trying to draw between Bombardier and money for the farm community.

Somebody mentioned--it may have been Mr. Palda, it doesn't matter--third parties, and I would like to get people's opinion on this. Let me put it in this context. These are amendments to the Elections Act and there's no reference to third party, because Mr. Boudria, the minister responsible for this legislation, is confident that he's going to win this at court, that we will eventually persevere and there will be limits placed on third-party advertising. I think everyone around this table agrees that the proposed legislation will be not worth a tinker's damn, frankly, if Mr. Boudria is wrong about third party. So I would like to have the opinion of each of the witnesses on third-party advertising.

Â (1230)

Mr. Filip Palda: I think the third party limits comprise one of the most shameful pieces of legislation I've seen. In 1983 it took the three parties 45 minutes to read that into law. What are we saying here? We're saying private citizens can't express themselves any more. This is an example of the cancerous spread of campaign spending limits to all sorts of other things. In the 2000 court case in Alberta some of the witnesses were asked, supposing we do get these third parties under control, what about newspapers? Maybe newspapers will start to be another uncontrolled form of information. Should we regulate them? Some of the witnesses were actually thinking, yes, that's quite possible. Where does it end?

Mr. Dick Proctor: Mr. Kent.

Mr. Tom Kent: I would say allowing third-party advertising with corporate money is the most shameful denial of democracy you could ever encounter--just to try to draw the contrast. One must, I think, distinguish between third-party interventions by corporations, by the national executive, whatever it calls itself nowadays, and its partners and third-party advertising by individuals. Within limits, third-party intervention by individuals is an entirely different thing. It's people spending on the political process money that is not theirs, the money of corporations, or for that matter, unions, money they legally have in virtue of their being allowed to conduct certain kinds of business. They do not have it in order to influence the political process, and indeed, I would argue that all corporate contributions to the political processes are inherently illegal anyway. The destruction of the legal system has stemmed from the idea that a corporation is a person, in the sense of being able to make contracts and so on. It's not a person in the sense of being able to influence votes.

Mr. Dick Proctor: If this legislation goes through, effectively, the political parties will have restricted their ability to raise money from certain groups in the community. Will that help the courts come to the conclusion that there should be strict limits placed on third parties as a result of that change?

Mr. Tom Kent: It's difficult to predict what some courts, particularly counts, I gather, in Alberta, will do, but I would think it ought to.

Mr. Dick Proctor: Yes.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you.

Carolyn Parrish, for Marlene Catterall.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Well, Carolyn Parrish for Carolyn Parrish first.

I just want to correct a misconception. There is third-party advertising allowed. I sat on that committee, I was one of the ones who passed the rule. I think it's a $3,000 limit per person per riding or per organization. So you can get 10 organizations to put out $3,000 worth of material against me in the next election, and that's quite acceptable. The rule is that you must have your name on it, you must have your organization on it, you must have a contact number, and you can't exceed a certain amount. I think that's pretty reasonable. Three days before the end of an election somebody with no name can spend $50,000, throw out a pamphlet through my whole riding, it's in the right colours, it has my face on it, and I tell every voter in that pamphlet that I don't want them to vote for me, and they think, oh, Carolyn sent this out, I guess she's changed her mind. It's a very bizarre situation. There is a rule that you can spend, you can put out as a third party, but you're subject to some regulation.

That's not the question Marlene wanted me to ask you. She reminded me that you said, Mr. Palda, money is much more important for new candidates and you don't believe in spending limits. She wants you to comment on the fact that U.S. congressmen, where there are no spending limits, tend to get re-elected for 20 or 30 years, whereas in Canada we have a very high turnover. As a matter of fact, until the class of 1993 very few MPs in Canada made the six-year point that qualified them for pensions, less than 20%. So we have high turnover with spending limits, the Americans, without spending limits, have very low turnover. How do you explain that, if you want to really get lots of new people and lots of new parties into politics in Canada? I think I'm doing what Marlene wanted me to do.

Â (1235)

Mr. Filip Palda: Turnover is low and has been falling in the U.S. It's a big subject for research. People don't quite understand why. The only comment I'd make about the U.S. is that proposals for spending limits in the Congress come in at something like $600,000, just the point at which challengers start to become dangerous. So critics in the U.S. say this is legislation being crafted to stifle newcomers.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Okay, but given that you want to have lots of turnover, lots of new people, lots of new ideas, why don't you want spending limits here?

Mr. Filip Palda: I didn't say I was in favour, necessarily, of high turnover. What I'm in favour of is someone being able to enter the political market without facing barriers or without the opponents having some government privilege. I forgot to raise this point, but government-paid advertising just before elections might be an example of this tilted playing field that makes it hard for newcomers. It doesn't matter whether someone is there for one term or for 20 terms, provided that the public is informed and there's competition.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: So you wouldn't agree with Mr. Harris's government and Mr. Eves' government in Ontario spending all that money on advertising before an election.

Mr. Filip Palda: No, I wouldn't, because this is tax money to express their opinion. They are taxing me to explain themselves, just like the so-called free advertising on television, which is not free. The Marxist-Leninist Party got eight minutes in the last election. Why should I be subsidizing this through indirect means?

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Okay. Thanks.

The Chair: Rick Borotsik, to conclude.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Obviously, you've left no misunderstanding, you're passionate in your opinions on this legislation, Mr. Kent and Mr. Palda particularly. You've been around the block, you've researched, you've analysed. Is there any other jurisdiction out there that perhaps is a better example than what we're presented with today, than the American practice we talk about so much, and than the Canadian as we know it today? Is there any other jurisdiction you've found that perhaps has a better handle on campaign contributions?

Mr. Tom Kent: I'm not a researcher. I certainly have lived through times when political participation was a lot freer and less influenced by money than it is today.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: The Internet, Mr. Kent, may well make that access available to a lot more people, it may be freer. It's one thing we haven't talked about, but that's a whole different issue with respect to financial matters.

Mr. Tom Kent: I don't see the Internet making that particular kind of difference.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Mr. Palda, do you know of any jurisdiction? Do you have any examples we can follow? We're looking at two provincial jurisdictions right now, one that's fairly reasonable, one that's not working, so we can look at that. Do you have any international jurisdictions?

Mr. Filip Palda: Maybe have a look at France, which has very severe legislation. They brought it in, I believe, in 1993 or so, and France is awash in scandal, the corruption, the big Elf thing going on right now.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: This doesn't stop any of that scandal, doesn't put a stop to any of the potential corruption.

Mr. Filip Palda: No. So go to the more severe legislation they have in Europe and see what the result is.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Do you have any comments, Karen?

Ms. Karen Etheridge: I would just like to remind the committee that Elections Canada had a survey of various systems used around the world for financing and how they worked.

Â (1240)

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you.

Colleagues, on your behalf, I'd like to thank our witnesses today, for the Fraser Institute, Filip Palda, for Fair Vote Canada, Nancy Peckford and Karen Etheridge, and as an individual, Tom Kent. We do thank you all. It's been a very useful session for us.

Colleagues, we continue with this tomorrow at 5:30, and again at 11 on Thursday.

Jacques Saada.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: Mr. Chairman, in the draft list of witnesses who will be invited to talk about Bill C-24 that is before us now, we have spokespersons for registered political parties that are represented, etc. I understand that there was a process to invite political parties to submit names of their representatives. First, can you confirm that the national director of the Liberal Party of Canada is invited to appear before us tomorrow evening?

[English]

The Chair: To the best of my knowledge, yes.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: Our party has an internal structure that calls for the president to be elected by the grassroots. The national director is responsible for implementing policies approved by the national executive under the leadership of the president.

I find it a little strange to hear our party's national director as a witness when we won't be able to see the president until much later in the process. I wish to recommend that our party's national director be invited to appear before the committee at the same time as the party president, who is elected by the membership, or later. It's simply a matter of respect for the internal democratic protocol of our party. So I recommend delaying Mr. Terry Mercer's appearance to a later date.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you.

Let me explain the procedure we went through. You all have this draft list, and it's still not final. We contacted all the official federal parties. Not on your list is the Marijuana Party, which has now agreed that it will be represented here. The way we dealt with this range of parties you see, the National Alternative, the Green Party, which is represented here today, the Marxist-Leninists, the Communist Party, the Christian Heritage Party, the Canadian Action Party, and so on, was to deal with the party leaders. We contacted the party leaders and asked them to provide us with representatives. The NDP leader will be appearing, and he mentions the federal secretary--I'm not sure what the federal secretary does in the NDP. The National Alternative leader is coming. In the case of the Liberal Party, as you have correctly pointed out, Jacques, we have the national director. In the case of the Green Party we have Julian West, who is the organizing chair. From the Communist Party we have Miguel Figueroa, who is their leader. So we contacted each party through its leader, because that was the best way we could do it, and the leaders have suggested these people. So the national director of the Liberal Party is coming at the suggestion of the party, as far as I am concerned.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: Mr. Chairman, I was president of the Québec section of the Liberal Party of Canada for two years in the early '90s. I think democracy within our party is extremely important. I do not challenge the process that you have followed, the decision you made or the recommendation given by the officials that you contacted. I'm simply saying that out of respect for the party grassroots and for the democratic process of our party, we should first hear the highest authority of the party, that is the president, and that the national director who represents the party executive—an extremely competent man—appear at the same time as the president or later. I think the protocol calls for the party president to appear first.

Â (1245)

[English]

The Chair: Rick Borotsik, briefly. I'm quite prepared to rule on this.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Mr. Chairman, I would like a ruling, because it's the decision of the party apparatus itself as to who they send. We could discuss this. We're not going to be able to allow Mr. Saada--

The Chair: Jacques, I've been associated with the party for a long time, and I understand your point, but as chair, I proceeded in the best way possible for this range of parties. It's not a matter of meeting someone in question period here. We have a range of parties that very legitimately should be here, and as a result of that exercise, we have quite an elaborate meeting tomorrow, a double meeting with two panels, where they're going to appear in alphabetical order, simply to give some fairness to the process.

I can only urge that you and your colleagues act through the party, and if, through this process, we get other names, we would be glad to deal with them. We contacted the leader of your party, who is the Prime Minister, and we received from the party this name, and that's where I am today. So I would urge you and any other colleagues to pursue it through the party. It's a day early, and I do understand you're going to say, well, we only just came back from the break and we only just saw the list, but it's very difficult for me, as chair, to change that now. I think the parties should sort it out for themselves.

Feel free to comment.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: Mr. Chairman, I have no intention of opposing the process or the recommendations made by various party leaders. I'm saying that we should respect a fundamental principle of democracy. If we can't resolve the issue here, around this table, I agree with you that we will find other ways of doing it. But it's obvious that this fundamental principle should be observed. Otherwise, I will have to make my objections known in an adequate way.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Rick Borotsik.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: When can we have a list of the witnesses who are going to appear tomorrow, the timelines, whether we're going to have two or three panels?

The Chair: I can give you an idea of that now. We begin at 5:30 tomorrow, and for roughly an hour and a half the panel is the Bloc, Canadian Action, Canadian Alliance, Christian Heritage probably, the Communist Party, and the Green Party. At 7 o'clock or so we have the Liberal Party, the Marijuana Party of Canada, the Marxist-Leninist Party, the NDP, the National Alternative, and the Progressive Conservatives. Each of the people representing those parties has been told of this arrangement, and the ones in the second group have been told they're more than welcome to come at 5:30 if they wish. We will be providing some light refreshment, and I urge members of the committee to refresh themselves early in the meeting, because I think the witnesses should have access to the refreshments as well, and they may be quite limited.

Does that answer your question, Rick?

Mr. Rick Borotsik: May we also know about our future meetings?

The Chair: The next meeting will be at 11 on Thursday, and someone here will tell you roughly who will be there. Next week we will again have three meetings, Tuesday at this time, Wednesday at roughly 5:30-- we'll work it out depending on the numbers--and the following Thursday. We're going to keep going at that pace if it's possible.

With regard to Thursday now, Thomas, you'll give us an indication.

The Clerk of the Committee: We have the Canadian Labour Congress, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, and then some others I have to confirm still. So it's still a little fluid, but we're trying to have some donor groups on Thursday.

The Chair: Tomorrow morning we'll give you a much clearer indication of Thursday's meeting.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Do you have a calendar?

Â (1250)

The Chair: Tomorrow morning we'll give you a calendar if you like, but it's going to have things like two hours with donor groups or two hours with academics, because there's been a lot of toing and froing. You heard that one of the witnesses today couldn't come.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: I appreciate that. It's basically setting our own schedules.

The Chair: All right. We will circulate a generalized calendar tomorrow and we will tell you as closely as we can who will be here Thursday.

The meeting's adjourned.