Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Legal and Constitutional Affairs
Issue 6 - Evidence, September 7, 2006 - Afternoon meeting
OTTAWA, Thursday, September 7, 2006
The Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, to which was referred Bill C-2, providing for conflict of interest rules, restrictions on election financing and measures respecting administrative transparency, oversight and accountability, met this day at 1:04 p.m. to give consideration to the bill.
Senator Donald H. Oliver (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, I would like to call this afternoon's session of the Senate's hearings on Bill C-2 to order. Before going into the introduction of witnesses, Senator Stratton has a point of order.
Senator Stratton: Honourable senators, forgive us for this slight delay. I would like to have the entire testimony for the session this morning printed off so that we can review the comments made by Mr. MacKinnon. During this morning's testimony, Mr. MacKinnon of the Liberal Party testified that during the hearings of the legislative committee on Bill C-2 earlier this spring, the Chief Electoral Officer stated that he wished for the provisions of Bill C-2 relating to election financing to be delayed until January 1, 2007. We have reviewed the statement of Mr. Kingsley from the legislative committee on Bill C-2 from Tuesday, May 16, 2006. We can find Mr. Kingsley made no such statement. The only statement he made with regard to this is as follows: ``The bill's provisions respecting contributions would come into effect on Royal Assent, which presupposes there is no need or opportunity for Elections Canada to inform the public of the change.'' This was taken from the transcripts of the legislative committee on Bill C-2 on Tuesday, May 16, 2006, in the morning session. I trust this will clear up any mistaken impressions left in the minds of honourable senators. I would like to have that testimony printed off so that we can each review it.
The Chairman: You ask that it be printed off. The normal practice is that the blues from committee transcripts will be available within 24 hours.
Senator Stratton: I think it is crucial for tomorrow morning. We are not sitting next week, as I understand it. If we do not have the blues for 24 hours, that means the committee will not have the opportunity to review it until tomorrow afternoon, when we will be gone.
The Chairman: I am instructed by the clerk that the blues from today will be available by tomorrow morning.
Senator Stratton: Will they be ready before we start the session tomorrow?
The Chairman: He cannot make a promise, but he will make an effort.
Senator Joyal: I wonder if we should have not only that statement, but the question, as well as any additional questions.
Senator Stratton: We need the entire testimony by Mr. MacKinnon.
Senator Joyal: Senator Stratton can come back with his point of order, and we will make sure it is printed.
Senator Stratton: Thank you. I will be able to provide the testimony from the Chief Electoral Officer.
Senator Joyal: If the blues are not available tomorrow, despite all due diligence, Senator Stratton can come back with his point of order when they are available. I would have no objection.
The Chairman: I would like to proceed now with the meeting as we continue our study of Bill C-2, providing for conflict of interest rules, restrictions on election financing and measures respecting administrative transparency, oversight and accountability. This bill is more commonly known as the federal accountability act. As senators, our witnesses and members of the public here in this room and across Canada know, this bill reflects a central portion of the new government's agenda, and it is one of the most significant pieces of legislation brought before Parliament in recent years. I know that the committee will give the bill the extensive, careful and detailed study it deserves. These hearings commenced in June, and this week the committee is focusing on more precise aspects of the bill. Subjects covered this week include accountability generally, ethics and conflict of interest and political financing. We are hearing today from different political parties. Our hearings will then continue in the next few weeks on other important aspects of the bill.
This afternoon we welcome representatives of a number of political parties, and we are joined by Jean Langlois, the Executive Director of the Green Party of Canada; Stephen Best, the Executive Director of the Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada; and, Will Arlow from Canadian Action Party.
Stephen Best, Director, Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada: I want to thank Senator Oliver for responding to my request to appear here today. I am pleased. . This is the second time I have been before this committee, and I am talking about money once again.
The Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada is one of Canada's newest and smallest registered political parties. It was founded so that people who appreciate both the need for strong, environmental and animal protection laws and the crucial role elected officials play in making those laws can participate fully and effectively in federal elections.
Third party spending limits in the Canada Elections Act mean that Canadians can now participate meaningfully in federal elections only through a registered political party or candidate. Therefore, legislation that further restricts their right to participate must be approached with suspicion and skepticism and only enacted if the government can unequivocally demonstrate that infringing individuals' fundamental democratic rights is indisputably warranted and no viable alternative exists.
The intent of Bill C-2, the federal accountability act, is to diminish individual Canadian's democratic rights, particularly the right to financially support candidates for federal office and the registered political parties of their choice. The right is implied in numerous sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and in the Supreme Court of Canada decisions. The rationales offered by the government for infringing this right by reducing from $5,000 to $1,000 the annual political contributions individuals are allowed to make to various political entities include «reducing opportunities to influence politicians with contributions.»
Bill C-2, in my view, is not a consequence of systemic failings of the Canadian government or the electoral finance system but rather the political environment and strategic opportunities created by the so-called sponsorship scandal. Public outrage over the criminal actions and ethical lapses of a few made it possible to politically spin the alleged lack of personal integrity of all politicians and civil servants into hot button election issues. Election promises were made, votes harvested and Bill C-2 was spawned.
The fact is that the Canadian government and the civil service are not rife with corruption nor is there any evidence that the current political contribution regime unduly influences politicians. Justice John Gomery found, after many months of investigation and sworn testimony during the commission of inquiry into the sponsorship program and advertising activities, that,
...the so-called sponsorship scandal was an aberration. The vast majority of public servants are competent individuals who serve the people of Canada with dedication in an ethical manner, respecting laws, regulations, policies and guidelines. We must not forget that only a handful of government officials failed to live up to those standards in the sponsorship program.
Even if there were widespread problems of corruption and undue influencing of members of Parliament with political contributions, as the government asserts, that Gomery did not find, the problem lies not in how much an individual was permitted to contribute annually in aggregate. The problem lies in the amount parties and politicians who control the government's legislation, spending and appointments are allowed to receive from an individual contributor.
There are two broad classes of political parties and politicians in Canada: those who now form or could form the government, and those who are unlikely or will never form a government, or, in many cases, as with our party, are unlikely to even elect an MP. If the government can demonstrate that limiting Canadians' political contributions is necessary to avoid corruption, the two classes of parties and politicians should be treated differently, just as the law differentiates between the parties that are eligible for public funding and the ones that are not.
Although it has failed to do so, the government may be able to demonstrate that a $5,000 annual contribution from an individual may unduly influence the Conservative Party of Canada, the Liberal Party of Canada or their respective MPs because these parties and politicians control or may control government actions. The same cannot be said about a $5,000, $10,000 or $20,000 contribution to one of the smaller parties.
Obviously, individuals do not contribute to smaller parties in order to unduly influence politicians or curry government favours, nor can the parties or politicians who receive good faith contributions be plausibly accused of the corrupt behaviour implied in Bill C-2. Consequently, there is no demonstrably justifiable reason to infringe the rights of people who contribute to smaller parties by arbitrarily lowering the limits of their political contributions.
The appropriate legislation response to the problem of political contributions that the government claims exists is not what is now proposed in Bill C-2, the indiscriminate and universal reduction to $1,000, an arbitrary and absurdly low figure that individuals can contribute annually in aggregate in political donations to various entities.
The appropriate response would be a graduated scale of limits on how much parties and their candidates can receive in aggregate from an individual. History has shown repeatedly that those most prone to corrupt behaviour are the parties, candidates and MPs who form the government. Therefore, if the problem exists, they should be strictly limited to how much they can receive from any one individual. The government recommends $1,000. Parties and candidates with little or no chance of being in a position to unduly influence government actions are rarely, if ever, tempted by corruption. Consequently, the limit on what they can receive from an individual should be much higher, perhaps $10,000 or more. As for individuals, there is no reason to limit how much they can give annually if registered parties and their candidates and independent candidates are limited to how much they can receive and how much they can spend.
To conclude, a regime of graduated contribution limits that a party or politician can receive from an individual based on the control that the recipients exercise over government policy and spending would serve all the purposes itemized by the government while minimally infringing the democratic rights of individuals enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
[Translation]
Jean Langlois, Executive Director, Green Party of Canada: Honorable Senators, on behalf of the Green Party of Canada, I would like to thank the members of the Committee for allowing me to appear before you today. Most of my comments will be in English.
[English]
By way of introduction, I wish to point out that those of you who are familiar with the Green Party platform from the last election will remember that there are notions in that platform about an accountability act for federal legislation. The Green Party of Canada is strongly in support of the measures in the federal accountability act that will bring fairness and transparency to political financing. However, there are a couple of details that we would like to comment on about Bill C-2. Our first comment deals with proposed section 43 of the Canada Elections Act, which repeals the section regarding contributions by corporations and trade unions. The effect of that proposed section is to take the current $1,000 limit and reduce it to zero for corporations and trade unions. The Green Party agrees in principle with that provision. It was, in fact, a plank in our platform. However, it is important to make a distinction with regard specifically to contributions in kind to electoral district associations. Our concern is that the effect of proposed section 43 as written would be to curtail participation in the political process for a simple matter like a local mom-and-pop coffee shop providing coffee and doughnuts to the AGM of an electoral district association. As stated, that would constitute an illegal, in-kind contribution to an electoral district association. The act really crosses the line when making that kind of welcomed informal gesture of support into some kind of corrupt, undue influence on the Canadian political system.
Our proposal is an amendment to that proposed section of the federal accountability act, rather than the elimination of that section of the Elections Act. Our amendment would permit in-kind contributions of up to $1,000 by corporations and trade unions, to cover off that type of contribution of services or goods, in-kinds, at the local level. ``In-kind at the local level,'' is the qualifier on that amendment.
The second real substantive concern that we have, that I know you have heard already, is around proposed section 46 of the Canada Elections Act and, in particular, the timing of the implementation. This proposed section changes the limit of individual contributions from $5,000 down to $1,000 per year. The Green Party of Canada supports that provision, in principle. The concern is around the timing of the implementation and the problems that would be caused by having that proposed section come into effect during the calendar year. Doing that would mean that some Canadians who contribute $5,000 to a political party in 2006 would do so lawfully, while other Canadians who make the same level of contribution, depending on the timing, find themselves inadvertently violating the act. There is no valid reason for putting Canadians in that position. We also feel that there is an added administrative burden associated with distinguishing between those two cases, for the purposes of income tax credits. It would require Revenue Canada to distinguish between someone who did monthly installments versus someone who made a one-time contribution, and whether that contribution was made before or after the date that the bill receives Royal Assent. We feel that is a waste of resources to make those kinds of distinctions, when the simple solution is to amend the bill so that that proposed section takes effect on January 1. We are presuming January 1, 2007 as the convenient date for that change in the limit to come into force. The technical wording in our brief is that it would come into force on January 1, following Royal Assent, allowing for the provision that it may not actually be this coming January 1.
We support the bill, in principle, as it affects electoral finances, and we are pleased to see such specific planks from the Green Party of Canada platform being implemented by Parliament, so we congratulate you on that.
Will Arlow, Representative, Canadian Action Party: I am here as a delegate for the Canadian Action Party. I have been desperately trying to get up to speed in the last few days. I was handed this assignment because our leader was away at convention in Victoria. I want to thank the committee for the opportunity to hear my concerns.
I have been able to read through the summary and look at the some 48 points that the bill appears to touch on. I have been through some of the speeches from some of the members of the House of Commons who had concerns about the bill. I have not been able to access the bill.
I am a four-time federal election candidate for the Canadian Action Party, running twice in Elgin—Middlesex—London, and twice in my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam. The Canadian Action Party has been monitoring reform concerning Canadian sovereignty, civil rights and parliamentary reform since 1997.
In going through the remarks of some of the speakers who have talked about this legislation, and I have had time to peruse it in detail, some things jump out at me. I notice that it touches on the access to information issue. I have the greatest respect for the spirit of an access to information law and have concerns about the way ours works. I am not sure that the bill is designed to do anything to improve that. I followed the Somalia inquiry carefully and watching what happened when people with something to hide used the access to information system to hide information was deeply disturbing.
When I look at the way this bill is designed, all the things that it touches on, I am struck by what I would call the accountability dichotomy of this Conservative government. I am concerned with the way the Conservatives approached the legislative agenda from the start. My concerns include accountability and child care. We monitor Aboriginal affairs, the softwood lumber issue and now, the up-coming live-fire exercises on the Great Lakes. The live- fire exercises will begin soon even though nobody in the last 200 years has thought that was a good idea. We are concerned with the coordination and integration of military command with the U.S. and the way we have taken over the mission in Afghanistan. We worry about the government's position on climate change and the way political appointments and lobbyists have been handled.
I see a very large bill with many elements in it that have me deeply concerned that the bill is a Trojan horse, and designed to shame people into going along with it, given that it is named the accountability act. After all, in a seven- second sound bite who could explain why they would be against accountability? That is the way our media system works, and the way people receive information. The public receives information broadly and not it detail. The media packages information into neat little sound bites.
I see the shame game as important for the Senate to look through, and be careful about, and be valorous in its actions in analyzing the bill and looking at all the detail and recognizing it for the Trojan horse that I think it is.
I see the elements about campaign financing as hostile to small parties. We have been concerned with and burdened with the audit system for election campaign financing reporting to Elections Canada. This does nothing to make it any better; it actually does things to make it worse. The new rules look to be more hostile to small parties, and I wonder about the confidence that our elected officials have in our democratic system if they are concerned about keeping small parties out of it. I wonder what that says about what they think of the state of democracy in Canada. Why is it so necessary to hold the small parties out?
The Canadian Action Party cheered when it got big money out of election campaign financing. That was a great step, but the second element of election campaign financing reform is starkly missing affirmative action. If the Supreme Court is right in its analysis that small parties do have something to say and do have something to add to the political climate, and are capable of working for the betterment of the country, then I wonder why election campaign financing rules are not designed to affirm the value of small parties, to give small parties a leg up. I wonder why the design was to hold small parties out, to punish them for participating. The new rules are even more punishing.
I notice also that the discussion came up in the House of Commons about security certificates. I wonder who is guarding the guards, the powers and the secrecy of the government. I worry about the effectiveness, the accountability and the oversight of security apparatus in Canada generally. I wonder what the lessons are that are being absorbed about the Air India affair, the William Sampson affair, the Maher Arar affair and others.
The other element that I see in the legislation that is mystifying and confusing is this notion of paying whistleblowers. I cannot quite get my head around why anyone would think that is a good idea. However, I think it is an interesting window into the minds of the framers of the legislation. It would be interesting to explore that and see why anyone who is designing legislation would put in such an element to see if it would fly.
On a broader perspective, being politically active and aware, I am concerned about empire. I have watched the way empire works, both formally and informally. I have looked into and studied extensively the imperialism of free trade and since the Mulroney era, I have worried about moving Canada into the orbit of empire in terms of its legislative agenda. The Trudeau legacy is a legacy of steering a Canadian course in the world as opposed to the Mulroney legacy. That legacy seems to have crossed party lines. It seems to have crossed into the Liberal legislative agenda, too, and is moving Canada into the orbit empire, in particular the empire of the United States, which is an empire in denial at best, or a psychotic empire, given that it seems to deny its own imperial ambitions.
The Chairman: Are you ready to take questions now?
Mr. Arlow: Yes, I am.
The Chairman: I would like to thank all of you for three interesting presentations. The Green Party's suggestion about contributions in kind is well developed and interesting. I thank you for bringing that to our attention as well.
Senator Zimmer: Gentlemen, first, thank you for your attendance and for your interesting approaches in several different ways.
Mr. Best, you suggested a two-tier scale. Mr. Langlois and Mr. Arlow, what do you think of his recommendation? One level could possibly form government whereas the other levels may never form government.
Mr. Langlois: I will agree that it is interesting. I will not put myself in the position of inventing party policy on the fly. I think my colleague thinks deeply about such things and I would not want to give a flippant response to his recommendation.
Mr. Arlow: It is a good idea in theory, although my concern is who would draw the lines and just where the line might be drawn. In other words, who would declare which party had the least chance of electing representatives? That would give someone the power to decide the way that a party would be financed and how it could participate in the Canadian political arena. It is not a bad idea theoretically. It seems to me it would be difficult to make it work.
Senator Zimmer: If some day — and never is a long time — one of those smaller parties has a chance of attaining the level of forming government, would you make any adjustments to those levels? Or what levels would you suggest as far as donation levels are concerned?
Mr. Best: Going from $5,000 to $1,000 implies that at $5,000 our members of Parliament are corruptible and at $1,000 they are not. The Liberals put the $5,000 cap in a few years ago. It has already been reduced. Thus we have had three to four years of the $5,000 regime. I do not detect that a lot of corruption has been taking place because of what happened at the $5,000 level. Going to $1,000 seems to be a political statement as opposed to anything dealing with the real problem.
In terms of smaller parties which are unlikely to elect MPs, and even less likely to form the government, it is not difficult to look at voting history, much as we do in selecting electoral districts and independent commissions, and say, ``This party is unlikely to form the government.'' As they get more seats or elect people to the House and become an influence, then you can begin to put them into a different donation regime.
I do not think this is at all difficult. Even now we have in place terms for giving money to parties on the basis of the number of votes they receive. We have terms concerning the percentage of campaign expenses that must be paid back based on what they receive. Those are arbitrary decisions. Again, they are hostile to the smaller parties who are raising issues as opposed to, in many cases, trying to attain power and control public policy.
Senator Zimmer: Mr. Arlow, on July 10 your president, Connie Fogal, indicated that the new $1,000 limit on individual donations would cut out any of the handful of generous Canadians who gave the Canadian Action Party contributions of $5,000 in the past. She said that those contributions are important for your party and reducing the amount to $1,000 will kill you. Do you still share that view?
Mr. Arlow: Will we survive as a party technically? Will it be harder to be effective? You bet.
The Chairman: Mr. Best, could you tell us what the average contribution is and has been to your party?
Mr. Best: Our average contribution is in the $150 to $200 range. Like most parties, we find that more people give in smaller amounts. Now that we have become a party we have been able to encourage people to go to the $400 mark so that they can get the 75 per cent writeoff. They can give more money now. We find we have more money to spend on campaigns since we became a party.
What has come up is the smaller number of donors who are willing to give much more. I could not give you an absolute number but I would say that, perhaps, we have donors who number in the mid-hundreds who give $100 per month. That is $1,200 per year and we will be out $200 with the proposed legislation. As with all parties we have an even smaller number of donors who give larger amounts. We had a wonderful donor who cut us a cheque for $20,000. We had to tell her that we could only accept $500. This person is not interested in corrupting anyone; she is not getting any favours. She believes in what we do.
We are talking about political parties here, but political parties have no rights. We are not even in the Constitution. We are talking about individual people who are exercising democratic rights by saying, ``I support what you do.'' These are small parties. They just want their voices heard. For many of them, we are talking about older people who do not bang on doors and pick up phones. We have people who support us who go white at the idea of banging on a door. It is their way of contributing. These individual Canadians are saying that they want to be part of the system. It sends a terrible message to these people; they are lead to believe that all MPs are corrupt, which is not the case.
Senator Campbell: I congratulate you on the selection of a new party leader.
Mr. Langlois: We are pretty pumped about it.
Senator Campbell: I know. I hear her every day.
Mr. Best, I was quite impressed with your document, save for the part concerning who is in and who is out. I do not want any of the Conservatives here to take this as a slap, but, if you recall, at one point the Progressive Conservative Party was down to two people.
Senator Stratton: I was still a member.
Senator Campbell: I mean elected. We would have to go back to the 1860s to bar you from that. There were only two people elected. I am sure that, in some minds, that was the demise of that party. I wonder at what point we decide that the party has a chance of electing someone and when it does not have a chance.
Mr. Best: Those two seats were an anomaly of our electoral system, not of the votes they received.
Senator Campbell: Let us not get into how we vote. That is an entirely different subject.
Mr. Best: Senator, for example, in order to qualify for federal funding, it is how many votes, not how many seats. By looking at votes rather than seats, you begin to get a better indication of which party will be in a position to form a government or take power.
Senator Campbell: There is a bottom limit. You have to get X percentage of the vote; is that correct?
Mr. Best: Exactly. That is a totally arbitrary decision.
Senator Campbell: I think that is wrong. Whatever you get, that should help your party, but I think this idea that we are making a decision that your party will never elect someone is wrong. I do not see how we can decide this party has a chance and that one does not. I would prefer that we drop the bottom on it and if a registered party gets 10 votes, the party gets $4. If the party gets 10 percent and still does not elect anyone, it gets that amount.
Mr. Best: I understand the difficulties we have in deciding where things are in elections because of the very point you are making, but we do that all the time in elections. We decide where boundaries are around electoral districts by negotiation. We decide where the cut-off is of who will get $1.75 a vote every year. It is arbitrary. For people who give to the Green Party or the Conservative Party or the Liberal Party, their votes count more than people who give to the Canadian Action Party.
Senator Campbell: I did not say I agree with it.
Mr. Best: As a political strategist, I can tell you pretty closely from voting histories who will win and who will not. If you want me to do that, I will. Reasonable assumptions can be made from studying voting histories and patterns and so on. The point is, with all due respect to Mr. Langlois, it is highly unlikely that his party will be in a position to influence public policy inside the House of Commons and at the committee level or the government level after the next election.
Senator Campbell: Do not be too sure. They would be in pretty good shape right now if they had one person elected.
Mr. Best: I understand that, but even with one person elected, they would not be in the same class as the Liberal Party or the Conservative Party after the next election.
Senator Campbell: Do not be sure about that. Right now, one vote here could mean whether the House stands or falls. The same happened in the last election. I do not know how you would be able to make a decision on who will make it and who will not.
Mr. Best: It is not a matter of who will make it; it is who is in a position to be corrupted. We are not talking about can you have influence over legislation legitimately, but rather are you going to be unduly influenced in such a way that some contribution will be corruptible process. This all came out of the sponsorship scandal. We are not talking about legitimate exercises of power here. We are not talking about proper influence. We are talking here about undue influence. That is what this act is about. If the Green Party picked up six seats, it would not be in a position where people would come to them with thousands and thousands of dollars and ask for contracts et cetera.
Senator Campbell: I do not think that happens now.
Mr. Best: I do not either. I agree with you. I think $5,000 is an absurd figure. I do not believe that the Liberal Party or the Conservative Party will be corrupted for $5,000 or $10,000 or $20,000.
Senator Stratton: I think everyone is familiar with the Green Party, but could you briefly tell us about the Canadian Action Party
Mr. Best: A number of years ago, a number of groups, including the Animal Alliance of Canada, became very aware that politicians are important to move forward on environmental issues, animal welfare issues, or wildlife protection issues. The only real way to negotiate public policy is from a position of power. Politicians have the ability to sit down with a cabinet minister or a committee. You can say, ``Look, if you support this, we can support you politically and help you get elected, because you will lose votes over here, or if you do not do this, and if you are being unduly friendly to the petroleum industry in Alberta, we will try to deprive you of seats over here.'' Then you have power to negotiate public policy. We began doing that as environment voters. In fact, we made common cause with Stephen Harper in Harper v. Canada (Attorney General). We were an intervener on that third party spending. The government then slammed down third party spending and dropped the limit. They kept it to a very tiny amount, $3,000 or $3,500 in an electoral district, which is not enough to buy coffee for a few volunteers at the end of the day.
The Supreme Court took from one hand but gave with the other, and we were able to form a political party. Now, thanks to the Communist Party, rather than needing 150 candidates to be a political party, you had to have one. We found that we could form a political party, and where we wanted to campaign effectively, we could run candidates and make our point that way. Rather than having $3,000 to spend, we could now spend, if we could raise it, $80,000 in a constituency, and even more if the partly is in a position of spending national money. We can give tax incentives and receipts to supporters. We were forced to become a political party by legislation jamming these abilities to speak during campaigns.
Mr. Arlow: Paul Hellier, with whom some of you may be familiar, formed the Canadian Action Party in 1997. He was a long-time member of the Liberal Party. He had retired from politics and was doing well enough in private life, but became tremendously discouraged with the government's outlook on employment and infrastructure. As a result, Mr. Hellier formed the Canadian Action Party. We started a grassroots campaign and began to educate people about the monetary system and how the Bank of Canada could turn things around. We explained what the Bank of Canada was and was not doing. We became involved in the fight against the multilateral agreement on investment and the FTA and NAFTA. We were aware of the effect of those agreements on Canadian investments. They were not trade agreements at all, and the rate of foreign ownership in Canada was skyrocketing away from Canadians to mostly Americans and, essentially, it was a licence for transnational corporations to hollow out Canada at 60 cents on the dollar. We began to work to educate people about that situation. Lately, we have been deeply concerned about the power that is aggregated to the executive of the government as a result of September 11. We saw that happen in the United States. When you look into history, you see that any time there is a shocking event like that, power aggregates the executive. People surrender their privileges and their freedoms for the sake of perceived security, and, always, fair- minded governments and people regret that power grab. They always regret it in the long run. We see the steps taken with security certificates as a huge step in the wrong direction. It end runs our justice system and our Constitution. It is a huge step in the wrong direction.
The Canadian Action Party is about civil rights, trade agreements and investment agreements. We concern ourselves with monetary reform, and we have an agenda to push for parliamentary reform. We are seeking some more representative system of electing members to the House of Commons, whether that is pro-rep or some other kind of balloting that works best.
We have the deepest concerns over what happened to get the Free Trade Agreement through the Senate, which was that the Conservative Party of the day stacked the Senate to corrupt and pervert its purpose, so that it would not be able to fill its intended purpose of defeating bad legislation.
Senator Stratton: We are just looking for the philosophy; we are not looking for attack.
I omitted you, Mr. Langlois, because most of the world knows about the Green Party, at least in Canada. Forgive me. Do you want your two minutes?
Mr. Langlois: In the context of the current discussion, the relevant point is that three years ago, the Green Party of Canada was the largest of the small parties, and now it is clear that the Green Party of Canada is the smallest of the large parties. That colours our comments today; consider yourselves warned.
Senator Stratton: Mr. Arlow, when you talked about the whistleblowers, were you aware that the proposed section in Bill C-2 concerning paying whistleblowers $1,000 was unanimously removed on an amendment by the NDP in the House of Commons?
Mr. Arlow: I would certainly hope that would be the case. My concern is how a section like that got in there.
Senator Stratton: I am simply asking whether you were aware that the House on an amendment put forward by the NDP removed that proposed section unanimously. Were you aware of that or not?
Mr. Arlow: I was not aware of that fact..
Senator Joyal: Mr. Best, on the basis of the brief that you have tabled, I support the principle that each party should be treated equally under the law. There should not be any distinction between the amount of votes, the amount of candidates or any other distinction that would be based on the qualification of parties.
Before the decision in the case to which you have alluded, I was of the opinion that section 3 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is one of the key sections because it is a right that cannot be suspended through the notwithstanding clause of five years. When we voted and drafted the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, there was one set of rights that was, in our opinion, permanent to the nature of the country. Democratic Rights, section 3 of the Charter, reads as follows:
Every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein.
The Supreme Court of Canada, as you have said, has interpreted that right in favour of broadening the base of participation to the political process in the way of recognizing the status of «small parties.»
When we debated amendments to the Elections Act of Canada, we were keen to ensure that we would reflect the needs and the rights of the small parties. When the previous amendments to the Elections Act were introduced, the amendment that limited the contribution to $5,000, I raised objections based on the previous decision of the Figueroa case. I wrote him a letter that was published at the time. I have the same reaction with this bill on the basis of the concluding argument that you have put in your brief which states that the proposed contribution limits now proposed in Bill C-2 will minimally infringe the democratic rights of individuals enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
You might not be a lawyer by profession — I do not know if you wrote those words — but those words refer to what the Supreme Court of Canada calls the Oakes test.
Mr. Best: That is right.
Senator Joyal: When legislation limits the rights of a citizen, one of the three questions that the Supreme Court of Canada asks is this: Does it infringe minimally the rights of citizens?
I totally share the views of my colleague Senator Campbell. You cannot qualify that 500,000 votes are more valuable in the eyes of the Elections Act than 50,000 votes. A vote is a vote. On the principle that the Supreme Court had decided in the Figueroa case, I supported small parties to challenge the sections of the previous act, the sections that limit the reimbursement on the basis of an aggregate of percentage of vote, which has been decided arbitrarily. If you say 2 per cent, why not say 3 per cent or 1.5 per or 4 per cent? Once you start qualifying, you fall into discretionary criteria, which then fall into this question: How can you minimally impair the rights of people?
Mr. Langlois, before you had the success in the polls that you are now registering, you supported the challenges of the bill. Now that you are close to the 5 per cent, I feel that you are moving in another direction. You are getting closer to the large parties. It seems to me that when we decide principles, we cannot start to measure and count. We have to stick to the principles. That is why I agree with the conclusion of your brief but not with that part of your brief suggesting that if you are a larger party, you will be more tempted to be corrupted than if you are a small party where you will never exercise or come close to power. If you are to establish a criterion, it should be an objective criterion.
The witnesses who will succeed you this afternoon will be the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada. The Communist Party of Canada is not testifying, but perhaps we will get from the other small parties the principle points that I am raising and that you raised in your brief very well at the beginning and at the conclusion. However, the logic of your reasoning on the basis of qualifying the parties contradicts the very principle that you want to propose in your bill.
Mr. Best: I think the solution is not to lower the rates at all.
There appears to me a certain confrontation taking place now between the government and the Senate and the other place that is pushing this thing through without careful consideration.
I think $5,000 is a figure that is too low as well, but as we get into higher numbers, towards $5,000 and more, it becomes almost irrelevant because there are very few of these kinds of contributions. The drop from $5,000 to $1,000 has a dramatic impact. Earlier I answered the question of Senator Oliver about how many donors we have. The donors that give more, there are fewer of them, but they account for a substantial sum of money. I suspect that if this drops from $5,000 to $1,000, it will cost our party something in the neighbourhood of $150,000 to $200,000, which is not a small sum of money. That $200,000 represents the voters that we are talking about who cannot fathom another $200,000 worth of ads or printed material et cetera.
My solution accomplishes two things. It is not a hill I would die on, but it points out in some cases the absurdity of this bill. There are parties and people being penalized that will never be in a position of power. I appreciate Senator Campbell's faith in our forming the government one day.
Senator Joyal: Or holding the balance of power.
Mr. Best: Holding the balance of power.
Senator Campbell: There is a voter sitting right here.
Mr. Best: If only I could be put in a position where I could be corrupted, it would be a wonderful thing.
Suggesting a graduated level points to a number of things. Many people involved in the system are highly unlikely to be in a position to be corrupted; there is no need for their protection. It is not so much my right. It is the people who do not have a corrupt bone in their body, who want to support these small parties, and are penalized for doing so.
There is a larger brief I submitted earlier where I extensively go into the Oakes test. I am not a lawyer, but I have done six Charter challenges. I have been reading all this stuff, so it will probably withstand a fair amount of scrutiny.
I think this bill totally fails the Oakes test because one cannot demonstrate that going from $5,000 to $1,000 will produce a public policy change that is so important; and one cannot demonstrate that is minimally impairing because we tested the $5,000 and it was fine. One cannot demonstrate that there is harm being done here. I think it totally fails the Oakes test.
If someone challenges it in the Supreme Court, I think that the court will find the same, particularly in light of Figueroa. The same thing occurred in Harper v. Canada, where the justices found that money is speech. However, in the third-party aspect of it, they upheld the government's position and restricted it because there were no third-party controls. Then you get to do it as a political party and then you have the controls on the spending. I do not think this is constitutional.
Senator Joyal: That is my feeling, too.
Mr. Best: Yes. I think it would fail, because we tested the $5,000 and it was fine.
Senator Joyal: Mr. Langlois has been called upon by me, and in all fairness, I would like to hear him.
Mr. Langlois: A simple point of information is that the Green Party of Canada is supporting a Charter challenge to the 2 per cent threshold, not because it is in our own interest, because we will never be at that level again, but in solidarity with the other parties. Unlike my colleague, I am prepared to make bold statements in the future.
Senator Joyal: I want to congratulate you. Maybe I will make a contribution to go to the court, because the principle is important. I apologize if I implied that you have changed your position of principles, which I think is a fundamental position. You were not part of the other challenges. Did you intervene with the Supreme Court of Canada on the Figueroa case?
Mr. Langlois: This is where I might close the deal on your donation. The lawyer we are using on the 2 per cent challenge is the same lawyer who won the Figueroa case. We are pretty confident. I should make it clear. It is not exclusively a Green Party of Canada initiative. A number of the other smaller parties are partnered in it.
Senator Zimmer: Mr. Best, regarding your comment about lowering contributions from $5,000 to $1,000, it is in the eye of the beholder; it is very subjective. Do you think we would be more accountable, open and transparent if we dropped it to $500?
Mr. Best: No. There is the old bumper sticker that justice must be done and also seen to be done. What is happening now is we are saying justice must seem to be done but does not necessarily have to be done. It is one thing to say we want it to be transparent and we want to see what people are doing, which is fine. I now have to produce names and addresses for everyone who contributes over $200 so that we know everyone who is making a contribution. Maybe there is someone who will be corrupted for $5,000 because they have an Amex bill they have to pay next month or something, but it will not impede government. Going to $1,000 particularly does not improve that situation. Going to $500 does not improve it any more. If we follow the slope, the way to do it is to say thou shalt not make any contributions to a political party. That is one way of approaching voters with a legitimate interest in the public policy of the country, to say thou shalt not participate.
Part of Bill C-2 and the rationale on the new government's website is that it is to promote the involvement of Canadians in the system. I am ambivalent about transparency because it is a price you pay, but on the other hand, it is like saying thou shalt not have a secret vote. The Supreme Court has upheld that if you become more politically active, you will be exposed. They have decided that is a privacy we will give up if we become involved politically, which we do. I do not think this lowering of contributions will change anything, particularly now, when there is so much public funding in it.
Senator Zimmer: That is my point. Whether the amount is $500, $1,000 or $1,500, it is very subjective.
Senator Joyal: I think that the right of citizens to contribute to a political party is part of the right to participate in the democratic process. If we are to limit that right to all the citizens, we must have objectives of public policy that supersede the rights of individual citizens, to a point where we almost negate that right. In this bill, it is close to negation because there is not even an escalation clause to adjust the $1,000, which means that five or ten years from now it will operate on $10,000 if we ever go into an inflation period. You know the argument.
I do not know of any country in the Western world whose registered legal parties do not testify to the public just how their money is raised and spent. There are benefits for income tax purposes. I do not know of any country in the world except the old Soviet Union. There is something there that harms the fundamental feeling of living in a democracy. I am all for regulations of opening the books, giving the names, having access to public sights through Internet, where everyone sits at home and knows every contributor to the party. I totally support that. However, when I stop at the gate is when I say, ``Okay, you like this party, but you cannot give more than $100 or, in this case, $1,000 because we have decided that you could be corrupted.'' When you say you would be more corrupted closer to power, you imply that power corrupts. I do not think that the court will ever buy that argument, because that is not the way that the system is based. The system is based on openness and openness is the key issue to preventing corruption. That is why the more I try to understand your reasoning I find your half-solution difficult to buy. I would much prefer to maintain the $5,000. That is clear to me. Once you start saying, if you are a larger national party you will be accepted while, in fact, you are questioning the special status of a national party. Do you understand the contradiction that you have in your position?
Mr. Best: I totally understand the contradiction. You are absolutely correct Senator Joyal. I would prefer your solution, absolutely. Bill C-2 and the communications material around it are about an implied corruption. I am responding to that implication. I agree with you. I do not accept this corruption thing. I have been dealing with politicians since before I was married and had grandchildren. I can only think of one politician that I did not find to be an honourable person, and I have been in some very contentious fights with people. I find that, as a class of people, generally speaking, civil servants are ethical people. As long as there is an openness, transparency, and access to information, you do not have this problem. However, this bill implies a corruption. How do I respond to a bill that implies corruption and has as a statement that we will be less able to use financial contributions to unduly influence politicians? The only people you can unduly influence are the people that can actually grant you favours, and those are the people in power, those people that control the government. Right now it would be the Conservatives. I am not suggesting that the Conservatives are corrupt, but they are the only ones that can provide the benefits of corruption.
To be absolutely frank with you, I think my proposal is nonsense, but it is responding to this concept of corruption. I agree with you entirely. I think $5,000 is too low. As long as it is open and transparent where the money is coming from and the people can see it, there should be a reasonable number. There is a dark side to these restrictions, and it is this: As we get more public money into political parties, they become less and less accountable to the people who support them.
Senator Joyal: And they become more accountable to government.
Mr. Best: We have this great idea called the vote, but in political activity the cheapest thing is the vote. The only thing less than voting is not voting. The least political act that a person can have is to vote. When we move up from that, people who bang on doors and give contributions, those are the people who are deeply interested in the community. When we take away their rights, the most politically astute people and politically caring people, by saying, ``You cannot do that anymore,'' I think we are saying terrible things to people. I think the Liberals are finding this now. This is a fundraising fault, not a Liberal fault. The fundraisers in the Liberal party relied too much on the large donations rather than grassroots donations. The Conservatives, because they could not provide benefits to people who gave contributions, and people always want access to government, they went and built up their grassroots. They become much more accountable, if you will, to the grassroots people who make up a party. They are the people who bang on doors. We loose the grassroots people as we get more public money.
Senator Stratton: We are doing the Liberal Party a favour.
Senator Campbell: I have never seen it that way.
Senator Joyal: I know, Mr. Arlow, perhaps you want to join in the conversation, but there is point I wish to add to Mr. Best's comments.
A citizen was very convinced about a cause and felt deeply about it, like some of the animal supporters; believe me, at this committee we have had an experience with that. Again, I refer to my colleague, Senator Milne, who was the chair of the committee. We understand the strong conviction of a person who wants to defend a cause. I do not put the one that you defend, let us say any cause. If you prevent that person from defending that cause through a political party, do you know what they will do?
Mr. Best: I do.
Senator Joyal: They will go on the other side and find a vehicle to express their conviction, because we are a free and open democratic society, and the purpose that they pursue is legitimate. They are not trying to do it outside the law. They will remain within the framework of our free and open society. What you will do, in fact, you will incite people to leave the support of a political party and move their convictions elsewhere. That is the unintended law of change that has an objective that we might want to support, which is to ensure that people in politics stay above any kind of corruption. However, by trying to achieve that objective we will create a diversion on the side, because people cannot feel that they can go in a party and invest money and knock on doors and get the money and organize the fundraising and so on.
The other side effect of it is the bureaucratization of the party. At a point in time, the one who pays is the one who calls the tune. We all saw the figures from two weeks ago. If the majority of the funds for political parties ends up coming from the taxpayer the parties will becomes extensions of government services and the government will have the right to regulate them. We will have removed the free association of people in trying to defend the cause. We will have bureaucratized them in a way that perhaps in the future we will have amendments to the Elections Act to ensure we control everything, because we find we did not get all the papers we want to get, and so on. We will even be in a conflict of interest with the people who govern the parties. We will come to that one day.
To me, there is something in that process that hurts the concept of freedom and the political purpose. For a purpose to be totally legitimate and have good, sound policy to ensure that the political process remains out of the touch of corruption, I totally agree with that. However, when you go beyond a border you create distortion in the system whereby, at one point in time, after five years you say, this is not what we wanted to achieve, there is something going on that we will have to address.
It is important to reflect on this, but the danger is that when a society is on the course of going in one direction, everybody moves in that direction, and then at a certain point in time you step back and say, where are we now? In which kind of world do we live? We will create something unique in Canada that no other free society on the globe has done. What is the problem we wanted to solve? Was it a big problem? I can give you an argument if you want to go to court to contest that legislation.
When you bring the level from $5,000 to $1,000, without having even one year of implementation, how can you prove that at $5,000 it was too high? You did not have even one year of implementation of the previous changes. How can you prove in court that you need to bring it down to $1,000? That is why I think there is something there. I tell you, as a free citizen, maybe a libertarian, I do not know, we will hear from the libertarians later. There is something there that, in my own sense, as a free citizen, that hurts me.
Mr. Best: Let me add something to that statement. I will take a moment, because it is something that I think is crucial to this issue. One of the purposes of Bill C-2 is supposedly to encourage people to participate in the political world. In my view, after air and water, politics is the most important thing in human society. I do not say that frivolously. It is. We are social animals. The way we decide everything, at the family level, at the agricultural level, at whatever level it is, is through a process of politics, of give and take, of negotiation and compromise.
What we have now in government is a great extension of the normal kind of relationships that social animals get into. Dwight Eisenhower said that politics should be the part-time vocation of every citizen. I agree entirely, but you do not encourage people to get into politics by creating a bill that implies that politics is a corrupt thing. It is not a corrupt thing; it is a noble thing. That ought to be the message. When you start saying that it is $5,000 to $1,000 to do it, then you are saying, ``These are not noble people. This is not a noble calling.''
Government funding of the political process and campaigning in reasonable amounts is a good idea. However, as you get more and more government funding into it, you divorce the citizen from the process. They say, ``Why would I have to be involved in a political party if they are getting all the money from the taxpayer?''
The Chairman: That is the point that Senator Joyal raises.
Senator Stratton has a supplementary on the point and then I would like to hear from Mr. Arlow and Mr. Langlois on the principle issue raised by Senator Joyal about section 3, the democratic rights and Bill C-2.
Senator Stratton: I could not help but respond because the primary reason for the bill is the public perception of corruption in politics. As you know, there has been a history of it over the last while. I do not want to go into the specific cases; I do not think that is important or critical to what we are debating.
If the public demands change, which is what they wanted, then this bill is the new government's position on how that change should take place. You may disagree with it but, nevertheless, the Canadian public demanded change. This is the new government's position on how to bring about that change.
Mr. Best: I dispute the premise that the government demanded change.
Senator Stratton: The people demanded change, not the government.
Mr. Best: People expressed outrage about the actions of a small number of people, as Justice Gomery pointed out. The government's response was to appeal to that outrage. That is what occurred.
Senator Stratton: It usually happens in politics.
Mr. Best: I understand that, but when we are talking about fundamental rights, I think the government has an obligation to defend those rights, but not by curtailing rights. I give an extreme analogy just to make my point. There is a perception in the public that in the Muslim world there are extremists who are willing to enter into terrorist acts and destroy our country. If the government came along and decided to incarcerate all Muslims, or put them all on a curfew, or not let more than two meet at one time, that would be abhorrent. This is precisely what is happening here. The government is taking action on a misinformed public perception. It is expressing itself on talk shows and in rage and it makes up wonderful campaign ads. They are taking an extreme position to respond to that anger. In my view, that is irresponsible. We are not talking about where to put a Ford plant or a road. We are talking about fundamental democratic rights here, as set out in section 3 of the Charter, and other aspects which I think are being infringed upon.
I think the government ought to have done what it is doing on the point and said, ``We will not infringe people's rights.'' I refer to the kinds of things they are doing in regard to wanting more accountability from lobbyists. I think they could have done a better job with the provisions in the Access to Information Act.
If you follow Justice Gomery, for example, you would give more power to the committees and to Parliament so that there is more oversight, where people report not to the Prime Minister but to Parliament. There were some ideas put forward by Justice Gomery that were very thoughtful. I think they would have been effective. I think much of Bill C-2 is pandering to an anger when I think what was needed was a defence of politicians. I am not telling anyone here anything new. It is not a trivial thing to do, when a person puts his or her name on a ballot. I think we should be careful.
Senator Stratton: You see where they rank politicians.
Mr. Best: That just tears me up.
Senator Stratton: That is a fundamental problem. We could discuss this philosophically through the end of time.
Mr. Best: I think we should go with reality and not perception.
Senator Stratton: Perception is reality in politics.
Mr. Best: I understand that, but that is a communications problem now; that is not a rights problem.
The Chairman: I would like to hear from Mr. Arlow and Mr. Langlois on the principle issue raised by Senator Joyal about section 3 of the Charter and the fundamental rights as it affects smaller parties.
Mr. Arlow: Senator Joyal has hit it square on. My reaction to the 2 per cent limit and the 5 per cent limit was visceral. It is hostile to the small parties. This new adjustment to the limits is an act of further hostility. These issues did not escape anyone who is versed in the way government works and in the principles of democracy. It did not escape those who looked at what this would mean in terms of the arbitrary value that it assigns to certain classes of voters. I think it is a clear indication of a state of mind. The government has just decided to keep small parties out. They have found a measure to do it and they will do it. It is strictly hostile to small parties. I do not think it is for any lack of understanding about the principles involved. I think it is just straight power.
With regard to election campaign financing, I have knocked on doors. I have been in four campaigns. In my experience the public perception of financing in campaigns is that they do not have a clue. I bet you I did not meet one person in 100 who knew that we had significant rule changes the last time. They do not know the rules. They do not know what the changes are or how they affect them, and they do not care. This is not a corruption issue at all. I am onside with Mr. Best about that. It is not about corruption. It is not because anyone who is versed in the way democracy should work misses the principles Senator Joyal elucidated. It is a straight hostile act against small parties.
The Chairman: Mr. Langlois, do you want to respond to the issues raised by Senator Joyal on the Charter and democratic rights?
Mr. Langlois: When we are talking about democratic rights we must consider the rights of Canadians as voters as well as financial contributors to political parties. The ratio between those two is somewhere between 10 to 1 and 100 to 1. There are people who vote versus those who give cheques to political parties.
If we are to talk about democratic rights in the Canadian political system, let us stop talking about dollars and let us start talking about proportional representation in our electoral system. Quite honestly, it is a sideshow to be talking about $1,000 versus $5,000. We are one democracy that is going this route of fiddling with the dollar. We are one of the last few dying dinosaur democracies in the globe who still has this entirely unproportional system in our House of Commons. If that is really where our interest is, let us focus on that.
Senator Joyal: On that point, I think there is a case presently before the courts on the basis of section 3, the electoral system of Canada. I turn again to Senator Milne who will remember that we did not deal with that case specifically but we mentioned it in passing when we were discussing some other changes to the Elections Act. We are aware that there is litigation challenging the way the electoral system works in Canada based on distribution of votes.
Senator Milne: My colleague has been very eloquent on the theory behind some of the problems that we have with this bill, but I want to come down to a few practical matters. Mr. Best, I agree with you fully that politics is a noble calling. I grew up in a political family. I have lived with politicians and I have been a politician all my life. I have only run into in my entire life one individual who was borderline, perhaps lower than borderline.
I will see if I can get some agreement between the three of you on issues that you raised. Mr. Best, you spoke of the smaller parties suffering particularly from this $1,000 limit, saying that it is arbitrary and absurdly low. I gather, Mr. Arlow, you agree with that?
Mr. Arlow: Yes.
Senator Milne: Mr. Langlois?
Mr. Langlois: It is in our platform that the Green Party of Canada supported reducing the limit to $1,000 for individual contributions.
Mr. Arlow: I would support some kind of declaration about large donations from a single donor. In the case of the Canadian Action Party, certainly in the early going, Mr. Hellier provided virtually all the funding. As the years have gone by, he has been providing substantial inflows of money to keep the party something like solvent or afloat at least. I do not see any problem with a benefactor of that calibre or class making a declaration that the money that is coming to the party is in support of the party and is completely no strings attached and is a gift for the benefit of Canadians and the people who support that party. There is no problem with making that kind of declaration and making it a legal oath.
However, to take out that possibility for the small parties that have a large benefactor goes back to that question that someone asked about the average donation. We might say for the Canadian Action Party that the average donation is in the area of $5,000 because it is affected by the high, but the mean donation is $200.
Mr. Langlois: I want to clarify that our position on the dollar figure is one note in the section on democratic reform in our platform. That is important because we see that as a positive step in the context where we are actually addressing democratic reform. To take it out of context would not serve the party well. We see it as a step, as part of a package where we are actually addressing things like the control system, which is a much bigger problem.
Senator Milne: You see your $1,000 as a plank in the total electoral reform platform that you have.
Mr. Langlois: Precisely.
Senator Milne: In the context of this particular bill, you would see no problem with leaving it at $5,000 or reducing it to $1,000. We have two that prefer $5,000. This is the bill that is before us. This is what we can do.
Senator Day: They have preferred to not to reduce it to $1,000.
Mr. Arlow: I would say $1,000 is too low.
Mr. Best: I agree with John Crosby, who said that $20,000 was a good figure.
Senator Milne: I will give up on that one.
Senator Stratton: My whole point to this is that part of your platform in reducing the donation to $1,000 also includes proportional representation. That is really a fundamental element of your electoral reform, more or less, is it not?
Mr. Langlois: Absolutely.
Senator Stratton: I happen to buy into that completely.
Senator Day: Another part of your platform was $1,000 in-kind corporate and union contributions at the riding level.
Mr. Langlois: That was not in the platform. That was a level of detail we had not gotten into earlier. That was in response to Bill C-2, realizing the implication of that proposed section as worded.
The Chairman: Senator Day, before you came in, he said that one of the amendments they would like to see is the in- kind contribution.
Senator Day: I got that. I wanted to ensure that was tied in with the other aspects of it. That was after I came in.
Senator Milne: Mr. Langlois, you call this a ``side show'' in the form of a bill. I think it was Mr. Langlois, or was it Mr. Best?
Senator Campbell: No, Mr. Arlow.
Senator Milne: Because this funding is so harmful to the smaller parties, I wonder where you draw the line between a smaller party and a larger party. Should there be a line between them? Should it be the same for all? Mr. Langlois is now classifying himself as the smallest of the large parties.
Mr. Langlois: As I said, we are spending some of our money to have a case in front of the Supreme Court of Canada and eliminate that 2 per cent threshold. A vote is a vote is a vote.
Senator Milne: Mr. Langlois, you agree in principle with corporate limits, but you are very concerned about the idea of the mom-and-pop donation in kind, coffee to a meeting or something. I understand that you have great difficulty with proposed section 43 of the Canada Elections Act.
Mr. Langlois: Yes.
Senator Milne: You also have a problem with the coming into effect of this bill. You think it should be January 1 or the beginning of the year after Royal Assent to the bill. What about Mr. Best and Mr. Arlow?
Mr. Arlow: Obviously, the coming into effect has greater or lesser implications the more they tinker with the rules. There has not been time for the voting public to absorb the fact that we have had significant rule change. This cart is way ahead of the horse at best. The point of rushing it through in terms of any public perception that may be perceived to being influence is moot. It is not there. There is no public perception that will be influenced by this move at all because public perceptions have not yet been influenced at all by the last rule changes. What is the rush?
Mr. Best: I accept the premise that this goes through and it goes down to $1,000. It is now September. By the time this all goes through, we are into a situation where we may have weeks to communicate with all of our supporters and change all the accounting to make it January 1. If I were king of the planet and could say what it would be, it would be January 1, 2008. We communicate with our members maybe five or six times a year. When you say we need to go back to all the donors and incur that expense outside of the normal forms of communication, it just adds a burden. I do not know that it is so pressing that one more year at this $5,000 level would be a problem. That would give us a chance to go back, communicate comfortably and so on.
Legitimately, if it all went through as quickly as some would like, it is mid- December 14 you are still raising $5,000 and you have to go back to people. As you know, they are filling in credit card forms saying you can take out X amount, they are doing bank statements, and so on. I would prefer another year, not because it is 365 days but because that is the fiscal year that we are all dealing with because of the tax situation, Elections Canada software and all the basic nuts and bolts. I would prefer, if it is to go through, to delay it another year to allow all the parties the chance to communicate in the normal course of events and let people know what is being changed so we can get to those people in a timely way. I agree with Mr. Arlow that most people do not know anything about this change. They do not know the limits or what any of this means, so there is an educational process going on.
Senator Day: It is laudable and very much appreciated, Mr. Langlois, that you take some of these issues to the court system to have issues resolved. You indicated you spent some of your political dollars to do that, and it seems to me that going up through the court process — most of these are to the Supreme Court of Canada — any donations that you get will be counted as political donations, and knowing the cost of going to the Supreme Court, you should be concerned that donations for a court process will apply against the $1,000 limit. That will curtail significantly an important contribution that your party is making to Canada.
Mr. Langlois: All that is true.
Senator Day: That includes the fact that you are concerned.
Mr. Langlois: Naturally. I am essentially an administrator in the party, so I do not make party policy. I administer the finances and everything else. Obviously, cutting out a section of our revenue will cause me personally to have to come up with some creative solutions, and that is part of the reality of implementing that change. That is true.
Mr. Arlow: As Mr. Best argued, not only do these kinds of rapid implementations add effort and burden to what the small parties do, they add significant expense. To a small party, a national mail out is a big deal; just buying stamps is a big deal for a small party. We do not have staffers we can pay to do those kinds of things, none of that. It is all volunteers, and you can abuse your volunteers before they get too tired and go away. Those kinds of elements cannot be lost to the framers of this legislation. I cannot see it as anything but a straight, hostile act. They are just trying to grind us down.
Senator Zimmer: Mr. Best, would you agree — I have said this in previous testimony here — that open, transparent and accountable has nothing to do with the limits; they are totally separate. You can be open, accountable and transparent at $1 or $1 million, or you can be not open, not transparent and not accountable at $1 million or $1. It is not related. It comes from what you practise and what you do. Would you agree with that statement?
Mr. Best: I agree with that entirely and the evidence is in Gomery. It was not the transparency that was the problem. It was the non-transparent stuff that was taking place that was the problem. I agree. The solution to it is the openness and transparency. I think you pretty much cover it. I totally agree.
The Chairman: Thank you, gentlemen. You have been open and transparent with us, and you have been very responsive to our questions. We appreciate the response you had to the democratic rights issue arising from the Charter, and that information will be useful to the committee. Thank you for coming and sharing your thoughts with us.
Honourable senators, I would like to welcome the new presenters.
Ron Gray, Leader, Christian Heritage Party of Canada: Honourable senators, you have my presentation before you, but I want to make some introductory remarks. I and some of my colleagues here have sat for years on the Chief Electoral Officer's advisory committee of political parties. At those meetings I have pointed out that the focus of the legislation governing election financing has been and remains misdirected. The legislation focuses primarily on how electoral financing will affect the political parties. I submit that the focus should be on the need, and indeed the right, of the electorate to have access to adequate information on all of the options available to them in order to make an intelligent decision.
Nowhere is that implicit in the present financing arrangements. In fact, the financing arrangements put in place, beginning with Bill C-24, are backward looking and designed to perpetuate the status quo. Whoever got the most votes before will get the most money to campaign for re-election the next time around.
I would like to reintroduce a quote from Thomas Jefferson that I had previously brought to a Senate committee meeting. Thomas Jefferson wrote: ``It is tyrannical to compel a man to pay for the promulgation of ideas with which he does not agree.'' That form of tyranny is implicit in our election-financing structure.
Taxpayers have no choice but to send in their taxes, and then they are compelled to see their dollars used to fund parties whose policies may be anathema to them. I have proposed an alternative form of public financing that puts the decision of where that money goes into the hands of the taxpayers. It is a modification of what is known in labour relations as the Rand formula, whereby everybody has to pay the same thing. In labour relations this system is used to accommodate people whose moral convictions may prevent them from joining a labour union but who benefit from the work of the labour union.
Under this formula everyone pays the same thing, but no one is forced to send money to the union or to a particular political party. I suggest that at the end of the income tax form there ought to be a box that says that $2, or whatever arbitrary amount is decided, of your taxes will be used to promote the democratic political process in Canada. You, the taxpayer, may designate which party will get your $2. If no party is designated, your $2 will go into a non-partisan educational fund to teach students and new immigrants how our political process works. Everyone bears the burden equally, but not a penny of any taxpayer's money will go to a party whose policies are repugnant to him or her. That is the suggestion that I have tried to put forward. I want to put the focus on the interests of the voters.
In my submission I point out some of the other burdens the Canada Elections Act places on parties, especially the smaller parties. Take for example some of the regulations concerning audit and accounting. I have no argument with the idea that parties should have their books audited and that their accounts should be verified. However, as a party we have to pay for the audit and the verification, and often we have candidates who spend less on their campaign than they do on the audit. In one case, five of our candidates used the same auditor — an auditor who had worked for our party since the 1988 election. At the end of the last election, for some reason that auditor's credentials were questioned, and we lost those five candidates because their audits were disallowed.
We would suggest that in the auditing requirements under the Elections Act there should be a minimum threshold below which the parties are not required to audit their own books. The parties could be required to send in the accounts and those could be audited by Elections Canada, but for the parties to pay more for an audit than they do for a campaign is an onerous and unjust burden.
The Chairman: Mr. Gray, those are fascinating points dealing with aspects of the Canada Elections Act. The one measure before us today is Bill C-2, which deals with aspects of the Elections Act. Parties have been looking at the new provisions for campaign contributions, limits, report dates, et cetera. I wonder if you have specific comments on Bill C- 2 that you want to bring to the attention of honourable senators.
Mr. Gray: I raised the Canada Elections Act generally because is it is my understanding that since Bill C-2 has opened the act and, indeed, the Parliament of Canada Act, the committee would be free to address anything within those acts. If that is not so, I apologize. I can present to you what we think would be an improvement to electoral financing as it has been dealt with in this bill.
The Chairman: If I may assist you, Bill C-2 suggests that the contribution that can be made will be reduced from $5,000 to $1,000. Have you and your party looked at that?
Mr. Gray: Since its inception 19 years ago, our party has always imposed a $5,000 limit on contributions. However, to reduce that limit while at the same time allowing the parties that are in the House to vote themselves $30 million a year of taxpayers' money seems to me grossly unfair. Again, I return to the idea of putting voters' interests first and their right to have access to adequate information on which to make a decision. Neither the act as it is nor the bill does that because the legislation is retrospective and is designed to perpetuate the status quo.
Jean-Serge Brisson, Leader, Libertarian Party of Canada: Mr. Chairman, I was surprised to see the senator call himself a libertarian. We are always reachable through our website.
Senator Joyal: I am mighty tempted.
Mr. Brisson: I will be blunt. The way the bill is set up, it does not matter whether there is a $1,000 threshold or a $5,000 threshold. There is definitely a difference between on the one hand political parties that have elected members in the House of Commons and those who reach the magic number of 2 per cent to receive automatic funding from the government and on the other hand political parties just getting off the ground or that cannot reach that magic number to have the $1.75 kick in.
If this bill is supposed to be fair to everyone, then all political parties should be treated the same way. If a political party gets only 10,000 votes nationwide, why not give them the $1.75 anyway? Otherwise, you make one party more equal than another. Parties that do not have access to the $1.75 are not being treated the same as other parties.
We do not mind if taxpayers are forced to finance political parties through this threshold. However, if the provision is there, it should be the same for everyone. If it is not there, then that is fine, too. At least treat us the same as everyone else. That is the big bone of contention our party has.
Right now candidates have to pay $1,000 to run in an election. It used to be $200. We had people who would run a whole campaign for under $1,000. Now it costs them that much just to be a candidate. When some political parties have access to government funding while others do not, the parties that have to raise the money to run candidates are put behind the eight ball right at the start.
Whether the limit is $1,000 or $5,000, it should be equal for everyone. We would rather have no restrictions because there is the issue of corruption. When it comes down to it, anyone can be corrupt at any time.
I fix cars for a living, and many customers have said, ``If you do not give me a bill, you will not have to charge me taxes.'' Some might say that a person who does not want to pay taxes is corrupt. It is a matter of perspective; a person can be corrupt at $1 or at $1 million. It does not matter. Restricting the size of donations will not address that. Rather, it is a matter of accountability. When it comes to the amount of donations, we really do not care, provided that it is fair and equal for everyone.
Anna Dicarlo, Secretary of Democratic Renewal, Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada: Thank you for inviting us to appear here today. We feel these deliberations touch one of the most serious problems in the country now, the lack of trust and confidence that Canadians have exhibited on many occasions and their distrust generally speaking of politicians, political parties and Parliament. With the Spicer commission, when Canadians were given the opportunity to articulate their feelings and desires, they did it clearly, loudly and actively. Since that time we have seen several pieces of legislation, several government initiatives, all of which have claimed that they will address this problem. Many years later we are sitting here thinking that the problem has not been tackled. We think that the problem has not even been properly posed yet.
Bill C-2 has been presented as something that will help rebuild Canadians' confidence and strengthen accountability. I do not have to reread all the claims that have been made.
Our opinion is that Bill C-2 will not do this. Look, for example, at the funding provisions; the idea that a $4,000 difference in contributions will solve the serious problem we are facing in Canada is ludicrous. During the sponsorship scandal, Canadians were shocked to hear the stories about bags of money being transferred in restaurants and so on. The suggestion now that a $20 prohibition on cash contributions will prevent that kind of thing from happening makes a mockery of the word ``reform.''
One of the sections in the accountability bill says that there will be a ban on secret donations. By definition, secret donations are not known. The idea that we can legislate things that are not known is absurd. In my opinion, it is laughing at us.
We have outlined in our brief our views on the specific provisions. We are opposed to any contribution limits. We think it is a violation of freedom of association. We expressed this opinion when Bill C-24 was being reviewed and we would like to reiterate it now. We think that the distinction between regulating elections and regulating political parties has been obliterated in Canada at the expense of political freedom.
For example, our party is very interested in building institutions across the country. We would like to build educational institutions to educate people on how to participate in the political process. We would like to build institutions to train workers how to participate. According to this bill, we would not be able to launch an appeal to ask workers in the country to raise significant amounts of money to help build these institutions; we would be breaking the law.
Similarly, when we go door to door, which we do on a regular basis, if someone at one of these doors says, ``Here is $30,'' I would have to say, ``No, I am sorry. That is against the law.''
This is called encouraging Canadians to participate in the political process? In our opinion, it is actually marginalizing Canadians more and more. We think there are aspects of the regulations that will further strengthen the concentration of power in the upper echelons of political parties and further disenfranchise constituency associations, and we are opposed to those aspects. It is not that we are opposed to $1,000 versus $5,000; we were also opposed to $5,000.
We would like very much to elaborate our views on this issue. We think it is the electoral process that should be regulated and funded, in much the same way that Mr. Gray is pointing to the need to keep the electors in consideration.
Political parties, in our opinion, are private institutions. They are recognized in the Canada Elections Act. It has been presented that they are the primary organizations through which Canadians are supposed to participate in political affairs.
We know the facts, namely, that less than 2 per cent of the population participates in a political party; yet, it is continually presented to us that political parties should be funded to the hilt because they play such an important role. How do we reconcile that with the great discrediting of political parties that has taken place? If the electoral process rather than political parties were funded, we could start discussing the problem of why Canadians have such big distrust, why they think politicians are just out for themselves, and why they see that when electoral reform is introduced, nothing seems to change.
I would like to address an issue that I think is extremely important, and that is the question of deliberation. I strongly believe that Canadians have no conviction that anything will change. It takes a humungous amount of research and dedication just to read the accountability bill and to try to grasp what changes it proposes. The media has not presented comprehensive coverage of the bill, probably because discourse on the bill has been reduced to political bickering or because whenever it looks like some light will be shed on the problem, the discussion stops.
I have read the minutes of the Senate. Very important questions have been raised, such as the constitutional issues around the separation of Crown and police authorities and questions about the proposed director of public prosecution. What difference would that position have made during the sponsorship scandal? Would we have seen politicians actually held to account? That question was posed but there was no discussion on it, from what we could see. No answers were provided.
We have also noticed that deals are being struck in which you can have 70 witnesses but the bill must be passed by September 29. Does such a deal really mean that the matters that the witnesses raised will be addressed? We do not see how it does. Who will take responsibility for whether the proposed accountability act will change anything? Will the Senate be accountable? Will the Senate be able to say, ``Yes, we have seriously deliberated on these matters and we can say with conviction that this will change things in Canada,'' or will it be just an exercise in propaganda?
We would be very pleased to answer questions about what we think would improve the situation in Canada. This is not the time for motherhood statements or declarations that the bill will obviously change things and that, if you do not like it, you are against accountability. Yet we see that kind of atmosphere being generated.
Finally, we would like to speak to issue of the criminalization of politics in Canada, which is a serious development taking place. When Bill C-24 was introduced, Diane Davidson, who is the legal council at Elections Canada, made this point:
Lawmakers must anticipate that parties and candidates will seek ways to get around limits and disclosure requirements.
In other words, we are all suspect criminals. The accountability bill strengthens this perception. It is poses the problem that we face in Canada in terms of the political process not functioning, not providing people with mechanisms of accountability as a matter of law and order. In Prime Minister Harper's words, we have to toughen the laws.
The notion is that if you hire more accountants, more auditors, a public prosecutor, and have policing day in and day out, that somehow will solve the problem. We think it creates a very bad culture of refusing to actually provide mechanisms in Canada that would allow people to hold politicians accountable and to do it such that people can say with conviction that this has changed the situation in Canada. Conviction can only come from discussing what is actually being proposed through to the end. That is not taking place. I hope that the Senate will take responsibility for examining this legislation and whether or not it addresses the serious concerns that Canadians have about politics' being out of control.
The Chairman: Thank you for that introduction. You have certainly raised many issues that honourable senators will want to expand upon with questions.
Marvin Glass, Representative, Communist Party of Canada: I have one minor correction to make to your introduction. I am not leader of the Communist Party of Canada. I am not sure if that would be a blessing or a curse. I am a mere mortal member authorized by the party to come before the committee today.
We have a number of major concerns about the bill. I would like to read our submission. I hope honourable senators have copies in front of you.
Our main concern with the bill is that with the introduction of steep new limitations on annual financial contributions from individuals to political parties, their associations, candidates and leadership hopefuls, the financing of registered political parties will shift further from the realm of donations from the public to an even greater state support through per-vote funding.
Further, Bill C-2 completely eliminates all contributions from trade unions, which will significantly tilt the electoral playing field against the working class and progressive political parties that already face serious financial discrimination.
Further, Bill C-2 flies in the face of the court decision of Figueroa. Miguel Figueroa is, in fact, our party leader. In this case, brought by the Communist Party of Canada in 1993 to challenge undemocratic sections of the Canada Elections Act, two courts agreed that the act must make political activity in Canada accessible to all, including small parties and parties without representation in Parliament, and to all electors who have the right to join, campaign and vote for the parties of their choice.
Bill C-2 will make it even more difficult — I repeat, more difficult — for parties not currently in Parliament to be seen and heard between elections and during elections and will set back the democratic rights affirmed and reaffirmed in the Figueroa case.
Bill C-2 follows earlier legislation that significantly reduced the contributions of trade unions and corporations to registered parties and that provided for the transfer of public funds to political parties receiving over 2 per cent of the vote. Currently, five parties receive more than $1.75 per vote. They are the parties currently represented in Canada plus the Green Party of Canada, which struggled mightily to overcome this undemocratic and discriminatory threshold only to run into the Broadcast Act, which does not guarantee access to small parties or even medium-size parties such as the Green Party to media and the public. Except for the Green Party of Canada, all other registered parties, that is, more than half of the registered parties, receive no funding at all under the 2 per cent threshold. In consequence, those political parties that enacted the legislation are the main beneficiaries of that legislation — that introduces the cynicism that Ms. Dicarlo was talking about — which gives them an enormous and unfair financial advantage over their competitors and further tilts the playing field against the majority of registered parties, which do not receive any financial benefit.
The main point here is that we think this makes small parties a self-fulfilling prophecy. The proposals you make are almost guaranteed to keep us small.
Further, the public interest is also subverted as the enormous financial benefit in the form of annual transfers of public money to five political parties completely discounts the votes and the support of all those voters who gave their votes to one or other of the registered parties receiving less than 2 per cent. The result of this is the current legal challenge to the 2 per cent threshold which the Communist Party and other registered parties have placed before the courts.
As with the previous legislation, Bill C-2 purports to make the Canada Elections Act and activities of political parties more transparent and democratic, but by reducing the annual contribution of individual donors from $5,000 to $1,000 and by eliminating all donations from trade unions and corporations, the new legislation will further tilt the playing field against those parties without representation in the House of Commons and in favour of those who currently dominate the House. In other words, the previous amendments ensured that the four parties in the House of Commons receive millions of dollars of public money annually without having to ask for a single donation from supporters, and they bar their competitors and critics from receiving even a nickel of public money by adding the 2 per cent threshold rule.
The Chairman: Mr. Glass, you are going a bit quickly. What you are saying is being translated. We will not cut you off, but we do have your paper and have had an opportunity to read it. If you want to summarize we will then open the floor to honourable senators.
Mr. Glass: I apologize. As you say, you do have our submission. We have seven major points on the last page of our submission. I will focus on those and refer your committee to the arguments for them in the earlier sections of our presentation.
First, we join with most of the smaller political parties in, first and foremost, calling for the removal of the 2 per cent threshold for public funding, which would make competition in elections a level playing field. It does not penalize parties who get a smaller number of votes than other parties. It says that we are having an election, everyone is on a level playing field, and everyone gets $1.75 or whatever the case may be per vote.
Second, we are particularly concerned about the proposal to disallow trade unions to contribute to political parties. We would like to see that changed.
Third, we want significant cuts in the spending limits for parties and candidates during and between elections.
Fourth, we want the Broadcast Act to be amended to allow all political parties equal access to free time and paid political broadcasts and advertising, as well as a guarantee that the leaders' debates include the leaders of all political parties and to require all candidates' meetings during an election to include all candidates.
I have run in four provincial and four federal elections. On many occasions — too many, I regret to say — I have had to call up organizers of all-candidates meetings and ask if I could speak to the electorate at their all-candidates meetings. I was told, ``We already have too many candidates on the platform, Mr. Glass, so we are only inviting the big four.'' I reply, ``But you are denying us our chance to be one of the big five or the big six. You are making it a self- fulfilling prophecy.'' Other points that we are addressing here do the same thing. I get their sincere apologies and a refusal, of course.
It is similar with our leader. We have a distinctive political program. No one ever accused us of repeating the election platform of the NDP, the Liberal Party or the Conservative Party of Canada. Our leader is as eloquent, I may say, if not more so than any political leader in Canada. He deserves an opportunity to appear before the media in the leaders' debate. We may need to have three or four leaders' debates in order to accommodate all political parties. So be it.
Fifth, we want the committee to seriously consider recommending introducing proportional representation. We think the first past the post system that we have had for years and years is becoming a political dinosaur in the world. More and more countries are instituting proportional representation. It is conceivable that in Canada one party that got 51 per cent of the votes in every riding would be the only party in the House of Commons under the first past the post system, so, in theory, 49 per cent of the Canadian population could be excluded from the House of Commons the way elections are currently organized.
Finally, it seems that crossing the floor has become a more and more popular occupation with politicians in the last five or ten years. That is their right. We would never suggest that a person's conscience might not lead him or her to sit as an independent or join another political party, but we are concerned about that MP's constituents. We would like some legislation requiring MPs who cross the floor to stand in a by-election.
The Chairman: I think you left out your sixth point. Do you want to say something about introducing right-to-recall legislation?
Mr. Glass: That call has been made by a number of other political parties, and we join the chorus of those who think that when the electorate of a particular riding believes that their MP has deviated from the platform he or she stood on or has disgraced him or herself, the electorate should have the right to recall the MP. It would require a significant number of signatures. It is not a frivolous thing to recall an elected member, but we think that the electorate should have that right.
The Chairman: This is right-to-recall legislation. Do you mean ``legislation'' or ``legislator''?
Mr. Glass: The legislation.
The Chairman: A number of senators have questions arising from your four excellent presentations.
Senator Zimmer: I found that with the major parties and their presentations we could predict what they were going to say, but the last three witnesses and now you four have expanded new ideas and have been very refreshing. For that, thank you.
I will touch lightly on three or four main issues that have come up in these discussions. First, the date of implementation for this proposed act. The date of implementation could have a dramatic effect on the donors, because if the provisions come into effect too early after the bill is passed, donations may be made that will have to be given back, and that would create an administrative nightmare. I ask all of you: What do you think the proper date of implementation would be?
Mr. Gray: I concur with the three party representatives who spoke before us, who generally agreed that January 1 of 2008 would be much preferable to the date in the bill. If changes are brought in, the burden falls on us to communicate those changes to our supporters and members before they make donations that might have to be returned. Communicating with our members is an expensive business for us.
The Chairman: Some of the witnesses before you did not say not January 1, 2008, but January 1, 2007, and one of the last witnesses said 2008.
Mr. Gray: I would concur with January 2008. It imposes a burden on us if we have to communicate this new structure to our members and have to do a special mailing for it. It is a real burden because we do not have any public funds at all.
Mr. Brisson: I guess you are asking me if I want to be shot now or later. Make it as late as it can be. As Mr. Gray just said, we have funding that is ongoing, and if some donations come in and we come under an infringement of the new bill, it will be hell on us because we do not have the same resources as the large parties. If it does not come at all, it will be even better.
Ms. Dicarlo: Even though we are a small party, we do plan ahead. These things come like a kick in your stomach when you are planning to raise funds. We are now in abeyance in terms of what we say. For example, in our party we ask people to contribute regularly on a monthly basis, based on their financial ability. We are now on hold, waiting to see what happens with this proposed legislation.
As we have said, we do not agree with limits at all. Already, from Bill C-24, the parties are reeling under their administrative responsibilities — and not only the small parties. We hear in discussions in the advisory committee that it is becoming harder and harder, especially for the bigger parties, to find volunteer workers who will take on the level of responsibility that is demanded of a chief agent.
We could probably spend all day telling you stories about the nightmares in dealing with Elections Canada for the tiniest things, and we are talking about a small amount of money in our case.
We would prefer that the bill not be passed. If it is passed, we would like the implementation to be delayed as long as possible.
Mr. Glass: I would find 2008 acceptable but not optimally desirable. Our concern, as Ms. Dicarlo voiced it correctly, is that most people in the electorate do not know that hearings like these are going on and that Bill C-2 is being discussed. The media seem to feel they have more important things to cover.
We support public hearings throughout the country as per the Romanow commission. This is an important topic before the Canadian electorate, and the electorate should be allowed the opportunity to hear the issues and options. Ordinary Canadians should have that opportunity, not just people who are in the leadership of political parties. That would take some time to organize and to advertise. For that reason and for the other reasons that have been mentioned, we would not want to see implementation any earlier than 2008.
Senator Zimmer: Other witnesses have raised the issue of convention fees. Interestingly, one witness suggested that there should be a cap. What are your thoughts on that?
Mr. Gray: I would like to remind the senator that until our last convention, convention expenses were allowed as tax deductions, as donations to the party. That has been denied us now, which has seriously impaired participation of our membership in the conventions. I would like to see that exemption restored.
Mr. Brisson: I fully agree with Mr. Gray. Again, the act is constantly being changed to hamper or handicap smaller parties. The convention is a chance for us to bring in new members. We will go through it next year. Already some people are interested in coming in, but when they find out that it is excluded as a tax donation, we will lose them. The legislation is constantly being construed to put down or prevent the smaller parties from flourishing.
Ms. Dicarlo: We address that issue in our brief. It illustrates the problem we raised regarding regulating elections versus regulating political parties.
No one could convince me that funds raised at a convention where people get together to deliberate policy have anything to do with elections or politicians being held accountable and not being viewed as being corrupt. A political party should be able to have its convention, and if it wants to charge $10,000 it should be able to do so. Somehow the question of convention fees has become linked to the issue of whether elections are free and fair. What does one have to do with the other?
When Mr. Baird spilled his guts, so to speak, the Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Kingsley, said that the law is very clear and immediately asked for the books to be handed over. That alarmed us because it is more of the same, more internal regulation of political parties.
Mr. Kingsley said the law is very clear, meaning the Conservatives should have reported those fees as contributions, which they did not. However, during the discussions in Parliament, it was said that those fees are not contributions. That a law could be so open to interpretation is in itself a concern to us; anyone could be turned into a criminal at any moment based on an interpretation of the law.
We frequently encounter that problem with Elections Canada regarding the forms that have to be filled out for returns and so on. You think you have the right method set up, and then you find out that you do not.
Mr. Kingsley's desire to expand his policing powers was also a concern for us. He used the occasion of the convention fees to say, ``This proves my point that I should be able to have search and seizure power.'' That reeks of moving in the direction of a police state, without even thinking. Countries do not wake up one day and say, ``Let us become a police state.'' Rather, laws are passed without rhyme or reason and, all of a sudden, we find ourselves in a quagmire where we cannot turn right or left without being suspected a criminal.
No one in the Conservative Party had any intention of breaking any law when he or she registered to go to a convention, and I do not think the Conservatives who collected those fees did either, but now it is being debated in that way, as though they are potential criminals. We see the accountability bill moving us more in that direction.
Mr. Glass: I guess I will be the odd person out here. We call on the third point of our seven-point recommendation for spending limits for parties and candidates during and between elections. That would include limits on conventions. Large parties, almost by definition, have more wherewithal for conventions and are more likely, therefore, to attract the mainstream media. We believe that conventions and elections are not a matter of how much largesse you can display on television to the CBC or to other reporters, so we would have proposed limits on convention spending.
Senator Zimmer: Mr. Chairman, I have a question about Ms. Dicarlo's comment on distrust and transparency, but I will wait for the second round.
Senator Stratton: I would like to go back to the issue of the smaller parties; fundamentally that is a problem. Do any of you have any idea how many small parties there are?
Ms. Dicarlo: There are 12 registered political parties in total.
Senator Stratton: Beyond that, who knows, in an informal way?
Ms. Dicarlo: Three have been accepted for registration, and many political organizations in Canada are striving to be political parties but do not necessarily participate in elections. Those would not come under the registration system.
Senator Stratton: As I understand it, the Green Party is challenging, in court, the floor of 2 per cent?
Ms. Dicarlo: Actually, we are the only small party that is not participating in that challenge. We withdrew from it, but everyone else is participating.
Senator Stratton: I was in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in July for their first election in over 40 years. There were 33 presidential candidates. In one riding, there were 250 candidates for the House of Representatives. Mr. Glass, you say that every political party should be on the stage at every all-candidates meeting, but you see what can evolve. You can see the potential for the democratic process in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We Canadian observers concluded that it was an open and free vote. They say that in future elections the number of presidential candidates will drop and the number of parties will drop and consolidate in order to achieve power.
Nevertheless, there were 250 candidates, some independent, some representing parties. My concern is this: If the 2 per cent threshold is removed, what will happen to the number of political parties? Also, how to you deal with the demand of each of those candidates to be in every debate on television and on the stage at every all-candidates meeting? You can see what is likely to transpire. I am presenting the other side of the argument for you to consider.
Mr. Gray: Senator Stratton, I agree with you that that number of candidates would indeed be intimidating. However, I would refer you to the March 2004 report of the Law Commission of Canada in which they recommended mixed-member proportional representation for Canada. In that recommendation, they dealt with what had been called the ``pizza parliament.'' They noted that, while those who oppose proportional representation often point to places like Israel or Italy as almost unworkably complex, examinations by the Law Commission of Canada and other scholars have found that the factors at work were more cultural than political.
As you yourself said, for 40 years they have not had democratic elections there; suddenly elections are introduced and, without the experience of coalescing, people are rushing to the polls. The 2 per cent threshold, as it came to us in Bill C-24, does nothing to diminish that kind of rush to the polls or rush to stand on the hustings. All it does is impose a barrier that prevents the smaller parties from participating.
I would like to disagree with Mr. Glass, who called for a killing of the 2 per cent threshold. The problem is not the 2 per cent threshold. The problem is the focus on funding the parties out of the public purse rather than funding the access of the electorate to adequate information about the options available to them.
The registration process we have has curtailed the number of parties without that threshold being there. We have had a dozen to 15 registered political parties for about the past five years. Some come, some go. We lost the Natural Law Party and gained the Animal Activist Party. The number has stabilized. That is our political culture. There is a rough spectrum of about 12 to 15 major areas of political opinion that seek to be articulated.
The proportional representation recommended by the Law Commission of Canada, which said we should have mixed-member proportional representation like what is used in Scotland or Germany, would resolve that because the parties would gain representation based on public support, and that would encourage coalitions within Parliament, as it does in almost every other parliament in the world. There are only three nations with a population over 8 million in the world that have not moved into some form of proportional representation, and we are one of them.
Mr. Glass: First, I will agree with Mr. Gray. In the abstract, the spectre of 250 candidates is a daunting one, indeed.
Senator Stratton: There would be pages to the ballot. One person took over an hour to figure out whom to vote for. Other people had similar difficulty. It was a staggering number of candidates.
Mr. Glass: Mr. Gray's point is the important one here. That has never been part of Canadian culture. Our culture is to have somewhere between 10 and 15 political parties. There is no evidence of party inflation. If there were, I might share your concern.
Parties come and go. The Communist Party of Canada has been around since 1921. We will be around; we are not dropping out. Other parties, like the Marijuana Party and the Natural Law Party, come and go. We have a manageable number.
I run in Ottawa Centre usually, which often has more candidates than other ridings — 12, 13 or 14 candidates. You can count on my buddy John Turmel, if that name means anything, to be there. I asked to be on the platform and they said, ``If we give every candidate five minutes to say something and then there are questions, we will be here until tomorrow morning.''
I suggested that we put the names of all the candidates in a hat and draw out six for each evening. That was vetoed. The compromise suggestion was to have all the main parties one night, when 98 per cent of the electorate would come out, and then my party, the Marijuana Party and the Rhinoceros Party the second night. I said that was not fair.
The same applies to the leaders' debate. For two nights of debate the leaders' names are put in a hat, six are drawn out each night and they debate two nights, one in English and one in French. That takes account of the reality of the Canadian culture and accommodates small parties, giving them a level playing field with the major parties.
One cannot say that 250 parties could not happen in Canada. When that becomes imminent, it seems to me that electoral reform of one sort or another would be in order, but to be honest I do not see that in the coming decades.
Mr. Gray: I would like to clarify my remark when I said that I disagreed with Mr. Glass about killing the 2 per cent threshold. It is not that I disagree with killing the 2 per cent threshold. I disagree with his statement that that in itself would level the playing field. It would not. The idea of awarding about $1.80 per year per vote gained in the last election is retrospective. It is a formula for preserving the status quo. Certainly, we should abolish the 2 per cent threshold, but that in itself will not level the playing field.
Senator Stratton: I am in favour of proportional representation, although perhaps not as you describe it. I like the Australian system.
Senator Milne: As I did with the last witnesses, I will try to come back to the specifics of the bill in front of us. We have explored the question of the coming into force date of the legislation, once the bill is passed, which will happen. What about the specifics of reducing the individual contributions to your party from $5,000 to $1,000? What sort of impact will that have on you?
Mr. Gray: As I have said, we have always had a $5,000 limit. Further reducing the limit at the same time as the parties in the House have voted themselves $30 million per year of taxpayers' money to fund their re-election campaigns is manifestly unjust. I would say leave the $5,000 limit where it is.
Mr. Brisson: As I said in my opening remarks, there is not a level playing field among the parties because they fund themselves out of taxpayers' money. Make it equal for everyone. Take away the funding that is given to all political parties that have reached a certain threshold. Make us all equal. Again, allow us to go and get the money from the people who wish to support the party. If you put in place restriction after restriction, eventually you will have only four parties to play with. Political parties exist to allow people to express their points of view. If only 50 people in this country want to support a particular political party, they must have a chance to express themselves. The concepts they promote might give one of the major parties a good idea.
Politics is not for the politicians but for the people. That was said in the Figueroa decision. I made the same comment in 1999 to a committee. If we tell people that we will restrict how they can support a party, then politics is for politicians again.
Any financial restriction that becomes a hardship on a party goes against that judge's comment. If it is at $5,000 now, leave it there. At some point political parties will be forced to become creative and use trickery to raise funds, but that is when it comes down to corruption. If you wound an animal and back it up against a wall it will defend itself. Many people have a political point of view they will advance. If you start restricting the advancement of political points of view, then that is what you will cause.
Senator Milne: Ms. Dicarlo, you said you do not agree with any restrictions whatsoever on fundraising; is that right?
Ms. Dicarlo: No, we do not, on principle. Regarding how the proposed restriction would affect us, the base of our support comes from small contributors; therefore we would not be seriously affected. However, it would affect various projects that we would like to launch.
Mr. Glass: We oppose the restriction from $5,000 to $1,000. If that happens in conjunction with eliminating contributions from corporations and trade unions, we feel that it further tilts the playing field in favour of those who are already represented in the House of Commons. We do support some limit on individual contributions but we do not think it is beneficial to the process and to the small parties in particular to reduce the limit from $5,000 to $1,000.
Senator Milne: When my husband was a candidate several times for the House of Commons, I believe there were 13 candidates. They all got up on the election stage, including the Marxist-Leninists. It was always a woman running for them. The transcendental meditation party was there and so was the Rhinoceros Party. It was quite a free-for-all on the stage.
Senator Joyal: If Canadian citizens have an opportunity to listen to the testimony we have heard this afternoon from the so-called small parties they will be very much impressed by the level of arguments and the demonstration you put forward this afternoon, as well as what you set out in your briefs. It illustrates the dynamics of public life in Canada. If any candidate were allowed to come forward in an election and debate freely with other leaders of the so-called national parties, public debate would be enriched. I mention that because I believe all of us around the table, regardless of our personal preference, would share that comment.
I want to come back to the issue of the democratic rights that all of you call upon directly or indirectly in your presentations. I understand that the Canadian Action Party, the Christian Heritage Party, the Communist Party, the Green Party, the Marijuana Party from whom we did not hear, along with the Marxist-Leninist Party and others joined in challenging Bill C-24 with regard to the threshold. As Senator Milne mentioned, the Marxist-Leninist Party has withdrawn from that challenge as of February 18, 2006.
Based on the point of view presented this afternoon by Mr. Stephen Best of the animal rights party, would you conclude that this reduction and the additional constraints that are included in Bill C-2 would hurt your freedom to exercise your democratic rights as a party? Do you feel that you would have a basis upon which to challenge before a court of law the impact of the bill on your activities?
Of course, I am looking at Mr. Glass first because Mr. Figueroa, as the leader of the Communist Party, is such an achiever of establishing the rights of the small parties that I do not want to get to your commitment. Is it your conclusion that it would hurt the small parties as much or the comparable level than Bill C-4 that you feel it would open a challenge of the bill in courts?
Mr. Glass: Indeed we would. It would be an example for us of a cure worse than the disease. The constraints would be so onerous than in our opinion we would actually be worse off than before. We obviously had trouble with the legislation in the past and that is why we brought our court challenge, but the reduction from $5,000 to $1,000, the elimination of funding by trade unions and so on, we think would be an even greater burden and hardship on small parties. Some of them — not ours but some of them — might actually disappear because of this proposed legislation, so we consider it to be a retrogressive step and would challenge it.
Senator Joyal: I ask the same question of Mr. Gray, because you still appear, as I understand, in the challenge of Bill C-4.
Mr. Gray: We participated in that challenge, or at least in funding that challenge. However, the kinds of restrictions being brought in on fundraising will impair our capacity to go to court if we need to. Let me give you an example. We have one candidate in British Columbia, who, when he began to organize an electoral district association and began enunciating our party policies, was punished by his employer with suspension without pay for a month.
I went to Elections Canada and asked Mr. Kingsley if would please launch a Charter challenge, a suit against that employer, because I feel if any employer anywhere in the country can punish a citizen for exercising their section 3 Charter rights none of us has those rights. However, Mr. Kingsley said he is not authorized to act under the Charter; he is only authorized to act under the Elections Act. Therefore it falls to us to try and defend our candidate's right to exercise his Charter 3 liberties, but we have to raise funds to go to court for that. It will probably cost $250,000. Every cent that we raise will be raised under the limitations that are about to be imposed and will be taken away from our participation in future campaigns.
We are being strangled by the legislation and inhibited from protecting citizens' Charter rights because we are not funded to do a Charter challenge. To be funded to do a Charter challenge you have to be trying to destroy the moral fibre of the nation. Those are the only people who get funded. This limitation is very severe. We want to defend every Canadian's section 3 Charter rights, and we cannot because we are inhibited by the regulations in this act.
Ms. Dicarlo: I would like to make a point but not in terms of how it affects us. That is one of the maladies in our society that there is too much of ``what is in it for me, how does it affect me.'' I am talking about the new limits, and even when Bill C-24 was introduced, it immediately made me think of the fact that when the Reform Party came into being, and probably if we look at the history of all the parties, large sums of money were solicited. In the case of the Reform Party the oil industry in Alberta was one of the key factors in terms of seed money to get the party off the ground. I have a hard time envisaging how a political party, even if it had the support of the mainstream in Canada, the establishment in Canada, and someone who said that the Liberals, the Conservatives, the NDP have done a lousy job, it is time for a new party that takes over Parliament, how would it get off the ground?
This stifles the emergence of new political opposition. It affects the existing parties that have had to play the game facing the sun for a long time. When I talk about political freedoms and democratic rights, I am not looking at it just from our standpoint. I am talking about the effect on the entire polity. I am talking in terms of what it says about the right of people to get together for political purposes.
[Translation]
Mr. Brisson: That is the first time that I have heard that an association of political parties is challenging this bill.
I guess that when they realized how much money we were raising, they decided that it would be of no use to approach us. Our party is in no way involved in this. It is the first time that I have heard of it.
[English]
Senator Joyal: My other question is about an element of unintended impact of the legislation, and over-legislation on parties. At a point in time, it bureaucratizes the process to the point whereby parties become more or less an extension of the Elections Act of Canada. In other words, the more you open the financing of parties to public money or taxpayer money the more you invite controls and interventions in the parties' affairs. The idea of now ruling the convention, regulating the convention, regulating the nomination meeting, regulating everything, at one point in time we will be a country whereby the level of discretionary initiative in terms of political party life will be minimal.
We could have the best intentions in proposing legislation, but we have to measure the impact of that legislation. Sometimes it is difficult to measure it on the immediacy of proposing the legislation because you cannot see all the little points that it will trigger down the road. Over a period of time you will end up with a result that will not be exactly the kind of democratic life we would like to have in Canada. Therefore to correct some identified system defects, and we all agree that something should be done, we might end up finding a cure that is worse than the disease. We should be conscious of that problem.
I would like to have your comments on what you measure as the impact of the legislation in terms of your daily life and how you think you will continue to grow within that legislation.
Ms. Dicarlo: I can give you a concrete example of one of our concerns. We are very active in organizing Canadian youth. There is nothing more important for our party that having our youth active learning how to politically organize themselves. Right away Bill C-2 poses a problem to university students who might just want to donate a $20 bill to a political party. This bill will make it necessary for the student to write a cheque while all she or he wanted to do was carry out the most innocent political activity. Now this thing has been stuck on their heads. If they are doing it as a party club, everything is being so regulated that it is creating a bureaucratic nightmare to make sure that they are in order in Canada, in order in terms of not breaking the law. That is where I see the danger of these things going.
That is how it affects us in our daily lives. Every single piece of paper you fill out you have to worry about now. We are not talking about a party that deals with a lot of money. I cannot imagine the problems a large party would encounter.
This is not why I entered politics. I do not want to have to turn into a bureaucrat who worries about whether or not I am breaking the law because I take a contribution that is $1 over $20 too much.
Mr. Gray: The one and only aspect of the regulations in the bill of which I would approve is the restriction on unions and publicly traded corporations. Here, I refer to the Jeffersonian dictum about the tyranny of compelling people to pay for something they do not agree with. The money that the managers of unions and the managers of publicly traded corporations put into politics is not their own money; it is the money of their members or their shareholders. Other than that, I cannot really see any justification for any restrictions on fundraising by parties. If someone wants to respond to an appeal by a political party for the donation of funds for either the amplification or the promulgation of its policies, it is the right of those citizens so to respond. It is only that one limitation that I would endorse. The rest is pure bureaucracy. It is, in fact, in my eyes, a case of the four parties that are in the House trying to pull up the draw bridge behind them and shut out any new ideas.
The Chairman: Senator Joyal, is that sufficient?
Mr. Glass: I agree with the comments that have come before. The main point I want to make here is that small parties, by definition, have a tougher time of things than larger parties. This set of extra regulations will mean that we will have to spend more money than we previously did on accountants and on lawyers. That «less money» on campaigning will be a bigger burden on us than it will be on parties whose coffers are filled with hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars. Whether intended or not — it has been suggested that it was deliberate— this, in the name of strengthening and expanding democracy, actually works, in our opinion, in favour of the dominant parties in the House of Commons.
Mr. Brisson: We were a strong, vibrant party up until 1997, at which time we lost our registration because we could not run 50 candidates. We disappeared off the political map. Many libertarians were disappointed that we were gone. The party revived itself after the decision in Figueroa. In fact, many political parties had a chance to come back.
However, many accounting and paperwork restrictions have been placed on us. As Ms. Dicarlo said, I did not join politics to be a bureaucrat; I wanted to advance a political idea. Every time I turn around, there is another piece of paper, there is another obligation, and there is another restriction. When I am speaking to volunteers or potential volunteers, they are put off by the amount of paperwork that is required. We need full-time personnel to do the paperwork. It is discouraging. It makes one wonder whether putting forward a political idea is worth it. The required paperwork, et cetera, leads us to wonder whether it is all worth it.
It is as if they want to coral us — and I have been told this many times — to join the major parties. Well, yes, but my voice is extinct. I cannot express myself, because unless I toe their party line my voice will never be heard. That is why we are here. We want a chance to express ourselves.
The Canada Elections Act, the way it is being developed, is more and more complex and convoluted and discouraging. Every time we turn around there is another hurdle we have to get over; what do we have to do? I was here in 1999, and I expressed one thing. I have seen some changes, but the minute you bring down one barrier, 10 more go up. I do not know how it will finish.
Ms. Dicarlo: I think it is important to try to understand the purpose of the proposed legislation. I have not been able to find even one argument that explains the logic behind this. There is the point about political parties being able to engage the electorate more broadly, but that does not make any sense to me. There was a phrase about how the proposed legislation would equalize political contributors, the notion being that everyone can afford to contribute $1,000 while not everyone can afford to contribute $5,000. I am concerned that the bill in front of us will be passed without even one coherent argument as to why we need it. There is no way that reducing the contribution amount of $5,000 to $1,000 will eliminate «influence in politics.» There is no logic there. We know that the influence of wealth is exerted not only through contributions. It would be lovely if that were how life worked, but that is not the case.
In my mind, it is important, in terms of deliberations here, to establish whether the proposed legislation will be effective or whether it will be eyewash only and cause a lot of problems to boot.
The Chairman: Thank you for that.
Senator Campbell: I have been pretty quiet. I find myself coming back to my roots, as I am sure Mr. Gray is aware. I never belonged to a political party until I was 53. Within that political party that was elected with me were Communists, Marxist-Leninists, and a Libertarian — and for some reason we held the door at Maoists, the reason for which I have not figured out yet. From that, however, I gained a knowledge of different ideas that, prior to that, I would have never, ever considered listening to, quite frankly. I embrace, with Senator Stratton, proportional representation, which I would never have put my mind to. I have belonged to a federal political party for just over a year now. I have supported a myriad of political parties over the years — and sometimes simply because of one idea.
When I ran for mayor of Vancouver, there were 15 to 20 candidates, including one for the Nude Garden Party, which definitely could have made the evening a lot more interesting had the person not been 58 years old and slightly out of shape. With respect to all those people, at any given time, and given the right opportunity, there was an idea, something that was good that could be taken away. My philosophy has always been that I do not care where the idea comes from. If it is a good idea, it should stand on its own and it does not matter where it come from.
This morning, we heard from the two major political parties; we went for three hours. This afternoon, we have before us what could be described as the minor political parties and we have gone for four hours.
My biggest concern here is the effect this proposed legislation will have on democracy within Canada. I am reiterating what you already said, but will this bill put you out of business? I would like to hear from each one of you. Mr. Gray?
Mr. Gray: God willing, no. I must point out to Mr. Glass that the Figueroa case was the only time in my life that I actually prayed for the Communist Party.
Senator Campbell: There is hope.
Senator Joyal: The fundamental Christian prescription is to love your neighbour, whoever he is.
Mr. Gray: I love him, but it is the only time I prayed for their success.
We intend to continue trying to offer this option as long as God allows us to be in the field. We lost our registration, as did the Libertarians, and it was the Figueroa decision that allowed us to come back. We will continue to try. We have something to say. Not everyone agrees with us. Unlike some of the major parties, we do not insist that everyone in the country agree with us. We just want to be able to say the things we think are important to say in the public arena, and we will continue to try to do that.
I would remind you of something that John F. Kennedy said. He said those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable. If the Parliament of Canada persists in suppressing democracy, it will die. None of us wants to see the consequence of what happens after that.
Mr. Brisson: If tomorrow you were to increase taxes 10, 20 or 30 per cent, you would force the economy to go underground. If you put a financial burden on political parties, we will seek ways to finance or support ourselves without letting you know how we are doing it. Volunteers will come forward. They will do something for us. We will just not say they are working for us as volunteers. That is one trick. They can go door to door doing stuff. They can raise funds and pay small bills that will never be reported to Elections Canada. You are forcing us to become creative on how to survive. If it means trickery — and I will use the word «trickery» — then we might have to resort to that. As I said before, if you push us to the wall, as Mr. Gray said, we will survive. How? We do not know, because we do not know what the effects of this bill will be if it passes, but we will find out as we go. The economy survives because it goes underground. Political parties will survive because we might have to do the same thing.
Ms. Dicarlo: I do not think it would affect our functioning in the same way. No, it will not affect our functioning. It certainly does create the situation where there will be efforts to circumvent the law. I was not thinking as much of the small parties as the large parties, to be honest. We have already seen, since Bill C-24, that the $5,000 limits have been very creatively circumvented. In some cases, people were caught and they had to give the money back and so on.
I should like to go back to the starting point. This bill is supposed to restore accountability. In terms of the small political parties in Canada, there is no problem with accountability — none whatsoever. We are doing quite fine. People who know us know we are very honest. We have not had any big scandals. The problem of accountability is with the big parties in the House of Commons. This bill will not resolve that. That is what I am most concerned about.
My interest in coming to the Senate today was not to say that this bill will hurt us. We are saying that it will hurt the polity, that it will hurt democracy in the broadest sense of the word. The proposed legislation will not convince anyone that life will change. What we need in Canada is conviction that there is some change taking place.
Mr. Glass: It would not put us out of business, but it certainly would hinder our ability. It is already difficult, with financial and other limitations, to spread our message. We were declared illegal in Canada. It was not bureaucratic repression or financial; it was political repression. We have been around every year since 1921, and we would continue if this legislation were enacted, but it would harm all small parties and, thereby, democracy, as Ms. Dicarlo said. It would force us to do things that we have not done, namely, use trickery and imaginative ways of circumventing the law.
We do not get bags of money delivered in restaurants; if the legislation wants to deal with that, fine. However, we should not be here having to suggest that the legislation be overturned because it is really harming us and is not doing anything about the bags of money. It would harm us, but it would not be fatal.
Senator Campbell: Finally, I do not believe there should be a threshold. I think it is undemocratic. It says that what people have to say is not important and that we can then ignore people and ignore ideas.
I thank all of you for attending here today. At the start of the afternoon, I was a little wary. I am from Vancouver, and you know what our city councils can be like. This has been very educational. Your ideas have been open, and I think they will give us much to think about as we deliberate on where we are going with this bill.
Senator Day: I join with my colleagues in thanking you for being here and for your frankness and directness in answering questions. That is very helpful to us. You have helped us with a much broader situation with respect to the Canada Elections Act generally, which we will want to think about. With respect to Bill C-2, the proposed accountability legislation and the portions of that that deal with amendments to the Canada Elections Act, which is what we are really focusing on now, you have given us a broad picture that will be very helpful in that regard.
Could you, first, tell me if you appeared on Bill C-2 before the House of Commons?
Mr. Gray: No. I have been invited to speak before committees three times — twice before the Senate, and both those times I have been heard, and once before a Commons committee, and it was cancelled. It was not on Bill C-2, though. I was not invited to speak to that.
Senator Day: Were any of you invited to consult on Bill C-2 before the House of Commons?
Mr. Langlois: No, not me.
Ms. Dicarlo: No.
Mr. Glass: No.
Senator Day: Then I will not ask you how much time you had there because you had no time there.
Mr. Glass, I thank you for your written presentation. We all make notes, but it is helpful to have a written presentation to refer to afterwards. In third item on page 5, you state: ``Deeply cut spending limits for parties and candidates during and between elections.'' There are limits on spending for political parties and candidates who are members of those political parties and other candidates during an election period, but I do not believe there are limits on a political party's spending between elections. Are you suggesting that there should be limits between election times?
Mr. Glass: Politics is a 365-day a year activity, or almost that. You can win or lose an election as much by what you do in between the actual election as you can in the 30 days of a campaign. For smaller parties, their ideas may fall on even less fertile soil than they do normally if other groups and political parties are allowed to spend huge amounts of money in between elections, the result of which is that by the time you come to the election your idea already has two- and-three-quarters strikes against it.
The simple answer is, yes, we think it democratizes politics if there are limits both during elections and in between elections.
Senator Day: In a philosophical sense, you believe it makes sense to have limits of expenditures on political parties generally.
Mr. Glass: I do not think my colleagues agree. That is our view.
Mr. Gray: I would say no restrictions. I would remind Mr. Glass that for us, it is only 213 days a year, because there are 52 days we do not campaign.
Senator Day: Every Sunday.
Ms. Dicarlo: I just figured that one out.
Senator Campbell: I am liking your party more and more.
Mr. Gray: It is very restful.
Senator Day: Ms. Dicarlo, do you have any comment on the limiting expenditures? Some say that this is a hand-in- glove thing, that if you are to limit contributions, then you should limit expenditures.
Ms. Dicarlo: That is how it is supposed to work. We think it has become a joke in Canada, though. There is year- round campaigning. A week before an election call, it seems to me that the political parties that have a lot of money are releasing their documents and making their election campaigns, but somehow, because it does not come within those 36 days, it is not considered election spending.
The Chairman: That is pre-writ spending.
Ms. Dicarlo: Yes, pre-writ spending is what it is called.
Our analysis of the situation is that the whole electoral law has become completely incoherent. Even if you want to look at the example of the convention expenses, it is useful. The ruling that the portion of the fundraising event that goes to meals and accommodations et cetera — as Elections Canada interprets it — has to be deducted makes immense sense to me. It means that 11 people cannot get together, have a $200 steak dinner and a $50 bottle of wine, say it is a political contribution and receive their tax deduction. The ruling was introduced during the period when there were no limits on contributions. It was to protect the taxpayer.
However, the same provision is now being looked at from the angle of having contribution limits, and someone is trying to make sense out of it. Sense cannot be found in it because it was devised in a period before we had contributions. There are many different provisions in the electoral law that fall into that category. The coherence has been completely lost. Election spending limits, in my opinion, are one of them. It does not protect us from being subjected to the unequal distribution of wealth.
The Chairman: Senator Day, could I remind you that on page 5 in Ms. Dicarlo's written submission to the committee, she deals directly with the question you asked about spending limits. I quote what she states:
This regime is out of control and anathema to political freedom because (1) election campaigning has no beginning and no end; (2) the amount of money required to compete in an election, even with «spending limits,» is out of reach for anybody who is not independently wealthy ...
That was her response. Earlier, she had said that the whole political process should be funded to bring equality.
Senator Day: I appreciate your comment in that regard.
Your comment just now about convention expenditures has led me to my next question.
I understood first from Mr. Gray and then from Mr. Brisson that one can no longer issue a tax receipt for convention expenses.
My understanding is otherwise. There is a bit of a disagreement between the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party, as we heard this morning, in terms of that issue and Mr. Baird's comment in June. I understand that the elections commissioner will make a ruling on that, which will give us some guidance.
However, there is nothing in this bill, at this stage, that deals with the issue of election expenses being tax receiptable. It does not cancel that, if it existed previously. Both parties agree it existed previously: The Liberal Party felt it existed all the time and the Conservative Party believed it existed only if there was a profit. That is the issue that must be sorted out and it will be sorted out. Perhaps we will have to propose some amendment to this bill to clarify that issue if we get a ruling from Mr. Landry, the elections commissioner, that says that it is not clear.
Mr. Gray: Before our last convention in October of last year, we were told by Elections Canada that the expenses of the convention, namely, the cost of accommodation, the cost of registration were not receiptable. A divergence exists between their interpretation and the interpretation of the two biggest parties.
Senator Day: Do you mean individual accommodation?
Mr. Gray: Yes.
Senator Day: That has always been excluded.
Mr. Gray: There was also registration.
Senator Day: What did registration cover? That is always the issue.
Mr. Gray: It covered participation in the meeting, and so forth.
Senator Day: The rental of the meeting hall and screens, microphones and sound systems is receiptable. That is a registration fee that is receiptable.
Mr. Gray: We were told it was not.
Senator Day: That is interesting. We may well have to sort this out.
Mr. Gray: In that case, you are quite right. It would be beneficial if you were to propose some clarification on this matter.
Senator Day: Absolutely, it will be clarified. That is helpful. I heard your comment, and made note of it, regarding how important conventions are to building your parties and your team and developing your policy. Therefore, this should be something that we review.
In the event that it is considered to be tax receiptable — a legitimate political donation for which a receipt is given — should that be part of the existing limitation that is being reduced from $5,000 to $1,000? Should the convention amount be included as part of the overall annual allowable party donation, or, in your view, should it be a separate item, a convention item?
Mr. Gray: If Bill C-2 as proposed goes through and the limit is reduced to $1,000 a year, then in the year of a convention, that will be the only donation you can make as it costs $1,000 to attend a convention, unless it is given a specific exemption. Therefore, I would plead with you: Please do not let that reduction go through. That is an intolerable burden on us at the same time as the parties already in the House have voted themselves $30 million a year of taxpayers' money. That is wrong.
Mr. Brisson: I must agree with Mr. Gray entirely. I do not know if it is $30 million, but what he is trying to say is the $1.79 they get per voter.
Senator Stratton: It is $1.75.
The Chairman: Is that what you mean by the $30 million?
Mr. Gray: It is indexed. It is now $1.80.
Mr. Brisson: That is what he means. If the deck is stacked ahead of time, Bill C-2, as we have said for the past two hours, is just another way of giving us another nail in our coffin. They give themselves an advantage by giving themselves funding automatically by the amount of people they get to vote for them. If the $5,000 is reduced to $1,000, then take away the threshold, at least, to make it equal. If the threshold remains, again, it will come down to what I said before.
Senator Day: Thank you. Do either of you have any comment?
Mr. Glass: No, I completely agree.
Ms. Dicarlo: I have a hard time finding the logic in it because a convention is a political activity like a lot of other political activities. If there was some distinction made strictly between what is spent in an election and all other political activity, there might be some reason there because then you are talking about the aspect of controlling electoral discourse. In this case, it could be separated from everything else, I suppose, but it is getting into a real quagmire again. The conventions part does not make any sense to me.
Senator Day: I was asking you to assume that a convention expense is a political donation. Now, should that political donation be included as part of the overall limit that an individual can contribute to a political party in a year, or should it be something separate?
Ms. Dicarlo: I suppose there is some logic to having it separate. I really cannot get my head around that one because it has come up due to the fact that the Liberal Party is concerned about its convention. Now this matter is being imposed as an issue on the whole polity.
It is not. It is not, really, other than the problem that the Liberals will have if this law goes through before their convention is held. That is my understanding of the problem.
Senator Day: That helps to highlight the problem. You are quite right.
Mr. Glass: We invite people that we meet to come to a convention because then they see a cross-section of members of our party from various provinces and occupations. In many cases, they would not see themselves as making a donation to the party by coming to our convention and paying a $50 or $100 observer fee. We need the fee. We will have more people, so we need a bigger room. Many of them would not see that as a donation. In fact, those who come and do not like what they hear certainly would not see it as a donation. They would not want that deducted. They may say, ``I do not like the Communist Party.'' They may say, ``I went to the Christian Heritage convention and do not like them, so I will give my money to someone else.'' They would not see it as a donation. They are somewhat interested in what is going on, which is why they are paying the observer fees, but it is a mistake from the start to see it as a political contribution.
I do not see how an observer paying a registration fee helps the party. It does not help us particularly. My main comment would be that it is in an unusual category of contribution. Obviously, for delegates, members of the party, that is a contribution in some sense, but for observers, I would not restrict how much they can contribute by including what they pay as an observer.
Senator Day: You are drawing a distinction for observers, but for party members who attend, would you treat that as a political contribution?
Mr. Glass: I do not see how you could not. Sure, it is a contribution to the convention. We have to make a distinction between observers and special guests who pay money to be there, but it is not a contribution to a party.
Ms. Dicarlo: Let us say that we have a national convention of our people across the country. Just the act of flying to that convention, if we are really to be true to the law, that plane fare would be part of a political expense. For some people, depending on how they are flying, it would put them out of commission in terms of political activity after one trip. They might not be able to get there without breaking the law.
We would not include those fees because the law has not touched the airfare that one must pay to get to a meeting. It is becoming nonsensical. It is idiocy, if you ask me. Can you imagine that we are sitting here deliberating whether it is considered a contribution for someone to go to a convention, when the problem in Canada is so profound that people say, ``Who the hell are these politicians and what are they doing?'' You know the litany of comments. How have we been reduced to the fact that this has become our cause, when we are talking about accountability, about what Canadians think of the people they elect and whether they have any control over what they do? I am not trying to minimize the fact that this issue is being raised. It is a legitimate problem. However, this is not the problem in Canada. When Canadians hear that these are the kinds of things being hashed out in the name of accountability, it really puts a bad light on us.
Senator Day: You will appreciate that we in the Senate have been given this document. If we do not do the right thing for Canada with respect to this document, it will become the law of the land. That is why you are here to advise us.
Ms. Dicarlo: True, but within that scheme of things, how did this convention fees issue get turned into what it is? If we do not put it into context and ask ourselves why this kind of regulation of political parties is taking place, I do not see how we will make sense of it. That is the point I am making. Someone said maybe we should isolate political party programs and say that that is not a political contribution.
Mr. Gray: I just wanted to highlight what Senator Day was saying. Honourable senators have graciously invited us here to discuss the bill that has been put before you. The House of Commons committee did not seek the opinion of any of these parties. That is why we are so grateful that the Senate has given this sober second look and that you are inviting us to participate in this process. To us, this is profoundly important. We consistently find more of a channel for input into the public policy process through the Senate than we do through the House of Commons.
The Chairman: Others have said the same thing.
Senator Zimmer: Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the witnesses for coming today, for not only their clarity of opinion but also for their free-thinking and refreshing ideas. When we heard the major parties, they were boring; you are exciting.
The Chairman: Witnesses, I cannot say it any better than my learned colleague Senator Zimmer. On behalf of all of us, I want to thank you very much for attending today and for taking the time to help us understand some of the complexities of this important bill.
The committee adjourned.