L028b - Wed 17 Jun 1998 / Mer 17 Jun 1998 1
The House met at 1831.
ORDERS OF THE DAY
ELECTION STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI CONCERNE LES ÉLECTIONS
Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 36, An Act to amend the Election Act and the Election Finances Act, and to make related amendments to other statutes / Projet de loi 36, Loi modifiant la Loi électorale et la Loi sur le financement des élections et apportant des modifications connexes à d'autres lois.
Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex South): It's a pleasure for me to get up this evening to speak for a few minutes to Bill 36, the changes to the Election Finances Act. Part of what I'd like to say I'm going to try and personalize because I suspect that to some degree our constituents maybe don't know exactly what goes into an election, what the costs are, where the money is spent, how the money is raised -
Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): And the prayers.
Mr Crozier: The prayers that go into it; absolutely - and the pounds lost. I think back to the 1993 by-election. Some of us could well afford to lose some weight during an election, but we certainly get a lot of exercise during an election campaign. I happen to be one of those who think that exercise is good for you, but I'm not a fanatic about it. Consequently, oftentimes it's during those types of campaigns that we get our exercise.
I think back to the time that I was mayor of a town of 15,000 people, of course Leamington, the tomato capital of Canada. In those campaigns, being for council and then subsequently running for mayor, you get some feel of what an election campaign is for public office compared to what it was like when I was in an association, the Kinsmen Club, when you're in a group like that where they have elections too for their officers. But as you step into public life, those elections change, and as you come to the provincial level they become more partisan as opposed to municipal politics. I'd like, if I could, in my remarks to kind of personalize what the changes to the election expenses are going to mean to me and at the same time give those who may be watching an idea of what the cost of an election is, and I'll make some comparisons.
The last election I was involved in, the general election of 1995, my campaign expenses were $39,000, almost $40,000. In anybody's pocketbook $40,000 is a lot of money, and most of us have to raise that money because most of us, at least on this side of the House, are not financially independent where we can go out and simply spend that kind of money out of our pockets.
So $40,000 is a lot of money. Where does that money go? First of all, the evident part of it of course is the campaign signs. Come election time we see signs all over the place. If there were a fairer and better way to do it, and I point out that my comments this evening are strictly personal, I might be one of those who doesn't want to see the whole countryside, our beautiful countryside, plastered with signs. But that's part of an election and certainly signs are one big part of that.
Material that is sent to households so that we can introduce ourselves and introduce our platforms is costly.
Mrs Helen Johns (Huron): Thank somebody for that.
Mr Crozier: The member for Huron says, "Thank somebody for that." We're discussing a government bill tonight that effectively is going to raise the price of a seat in this Legislature. I don't know what this chair is worth in its material value, perhaps $100 or $200, but I'll tell you this before I get finished: It could cost as much as $100,000 in the next election. I don't know whether you can afford that or not, but it's going to be damned difficult for me to afford it.
Nobody ever said democracy was cheap, but I want to point out that in the last election - this is public information that can be found on the Internet or anywhere else; it's published after the election - my campaign expenses amounted to $39,000. I said at the outset I had to go out, along with my friends and supporters, and raise that money.
The stakes are going to be raised even more. Not only are our ridings going to change, but they're going to increase in size, and subsequently some might suggest that therefore the campaign expenses should go up. But besides the signs that we spend money on, besides the campaign material that goes to the households, there are campaign offices that have to be set up. Rent has to be paid on them.
Telephone expenses are extraordinary in a campaign. All of us know what it costs even to have a phone changed in our house or a location changed, and it was only a few nights ago that I was speaking to another bill where the provincial sales tax is not going to be charged on 25-cent telephone calls any more, and I said all it's going to do is put money in Ma Bell's pocket. The consumer isn't going to benefit from it. So we know the cost of telephone expenses.
There are some travel expenses, of course, that the candidate incurs, and in this case, at least under this legislation, and if my memory doesn't fail me even in previous legislation certain travel expenses didn't have to be included in your overall campaign spending limit, but you certainly have to have the money to do it. It doesn't matter in some instances whether it's in the limit or not.
You take that $39,000, and in the last campaign, in the 1995 election, the eligible spending limit for my riding of Essex South was $47,000, so out of a possible $47,000 I and my campaign committee saw fit to spend almost $40,000. Had we kept the same spending levels, only with the increased size in the riding, the increased number of electors in the riding, that spending limit would have gone from $47,000 to $53,000, a modest increase based only on the fact that rather than having some 89,000 electors or constituents, my constituency under this next election campaign will go to 110,000, a modest increase if we apply the same spending dollar amounts per voter this time as we did the last time.
But let me tell you what happens this time around. That spending limit goes from $47,000 to almost $74,000. Nothing says that I have to spend the total limit, but let me tell you this: If I'm the ordinary person who wants to seek public office and I don't have the financial resources that some have, not only was that $47,000 a significant figure, but certainly the new limit of $73,000 is even that much greater and more difficult.
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You get into an election campaign, and although one of the priorities is to watch that spending and minimize the spending, the dynamics of an election campaign kind of take over and sometimes you're forced to consider at least matching what the opposition is doing so that you can get your message out as well. The dynamics of an election campaign, believe me, are not only exciting but can be difficult to judge. It can be difficult to decide just exactly what you should do.
Just a week or so ago, I had a fund-raising brunch with many of my friends and supporters, as we have done for years and as was done for years before in the riding. At the end, when I was thanking those who had attended, I stood there and I had my wife, Joan, at my side and I said, "Joan will attest to the fact that there are two things I don't like to do: One is spend money and the other is raise money," because it's difficult to go out and ask your friends and supporters to contribute to your campaign - not an easy thing to do.
I want to point out to those in the Legislature who already know it, but also to those who may be watching who don't, that the minister, when he introduced the bill, said: "It is going to save the taxpayers of Ontario money. We're going to have a permanent list of electors. We're going to save administrative costs with this new bill." Let me tell the people of Ontario that the taxpayers of Ontario share that increase in the spending limit, if I go to it, from $47,000 to some $73,000. Contributions to election campaigns are tax-deductible. The limit that may be contributed to our campaigns now, where big business can give more money to election campaigns, has increased. There's a tax-deductible component to that.
I just took my own riding as an average because this government likes to look at averages when it comes to class size, don't they, my colleague from Sudbury?
Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): Yes, right.
Mr Crozier: They like to look at averages, so I just took the average. You know what it's going to cost the taxpayers of Ontario because of the increased spending limit and the tax-deductible portion of it? Somewhere in the neighbourhood of $50 million. As we know, we receive a subsidy that's paid to each candidate if we receive 15% of the vote. I don't argue with that philosophy and I suggest the reason it was brought in was to make elections more affordable to the average person. These subsidies that were paid to candidates were brought in not too many years ago. If you receive 15% of the vote, you then can receive up to 20% of what you spend on your campaign. Assuming that you spend the total amount, in my case some $70,000, you can receive $14,000 right out of the taxpayer's pocket.
For the minister to stand and say that this bill is going to save money - I want the taxpayers in the province of Ontario to understand full well that they're making a contribution to it. As a beneficiary of that, I'm certainly not ashamed to stand here and point that out. I don't know whether this bill is going to save money overall, but it's certainly going to cost the taxpayers of Ontario more money in that respect.
There are certain campaign expenses that need not be included in the limit. One of those is polling. Polling has become an integral part of campaigning. I know it goes on day by day. The government polls; the opposition parties poll. But in an election campaign there are what they call rolling polls. In other words, those who are out there in the electorate don't know it, but political parties are trying to determine day by day how you feel about the election. Polling is not going to be included in it. So you take that spending limit of mine, $73,510, and I can spend money on polling, if I have the money, but it won't be part of that overall limit.
When you take some of the exclusions that don't have to be included in the limit, it may be that some candidates could spend - I certainly won't be able to - upwards of $100,000. That's where I personally feel election campaigns are becoming too expensive, they're becoming too Americanized. That's mainly the reason I'm opposing this bill.
I think it would have been appropriate had we applied the same spending limits, notwithstanding that there are other opinions around the House, there are other opinions on this side of the House as to whether it should be the same spending limit as the feds or whether it should be something different than that. I happen to be one of those who subscribes to the fact that, simply, if there are more electors in the new boundaries, then apply the same spending limits as we had before and increase it by that amount, in which case, as I told you, the spending limit in Essex South, or the new riding of Essex, would have gone from $47,000 to almost $53,000, a manageable amount.
I obviously would have to increase the amount I spent in the last election, because I think the number of households in my riding goes from 28,000 to somewhere into the 30,000 range, and we have to contact each household. That would have been a better way to do it, to make the possibility of serving in this chamber more possible.
Again, from a personal viewpoint, I can recall very well the first day I arrived here. It was in December 1993. I had been elected in a by-election. I don't know whether the deputy clerk remembers this or not, but she walked me through what I was going to do that day. When we came into the chamber and looked at where I was going to sit, I said, "Could you leave me alone just for a few minutes because I want to look around." I'd never imagined in my life that I would be here. It wasn't an original goal of mine. But as time went on and I was involved in municipal politics, it became a possibility. I never imagined that I would stand in this House. That was a moment I'll never forget.
My point this evening is that I don't want it to be a moment that can be denied anyone. Everybody in this province should be in a position where, if they want to take part in the democratic process, they should be able to. Money should not be an exclusion. I'll do it. I'll run, I'll raise the money and I'll beat whoever the competition is, I hope. That's where the praying of my friend the member for Renfrew North comes in - a lot of praying. I want that opportunity to be available to every man and woman, young man and woman, in Ontario. Quite frankly, this bill makes that more difficult in that it raises the bar.
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Sure, it makes it easier for the government in power, because they can collect more money. That's just the way it has always worked: The government in power has more access to the funds that are available to support politicians. Again, I don't think that will ever change. It's my hope, of course, that when the next election is called we will form the government and someone else will have that problem to worry about when it comes to fund-raising. But it just seems to me that we're making money such an integral part of this that it may be out of reach for some. I would hope that as we go on and discuss this bill, some others give that the same consideration.
Interjections.
The Acting Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Order. Keep your voices down.
Mr Crozier: Well, they're the rich ones over there. They don't have to worry.
Interjections.
The Acting Speaker: Excuse me. Could you keep your voices down. Just keep it down.
Mr Crozier: I'm going to start charging you on my time, and that way I'll raise some money.
Sufficient to say that there are parts of this bill that I object to because of the fact that it's starting to put the most sacred part of democracy, that is, representation, out of reach of the normal person. Although I think it's a bit beyond hope at this stage of the game, since the government has introduced the bill and they have the numbers to go through with it, I just hope you think about some of the people out there who might follow us and who would like to have the opportunity of participating in democracy at a price they can afford.
As I said, that's my personal opinion. I know it varies among the 130-some-odd members of the House, but I hope throughout this debate we can keep at least some of the points I've raised in mind.
Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: Is there a quorum present?
The Acting Speaker: Would you please check if we have a quorum.
Clerk Assistant (Ms Deborah Deller): A quorum is not present, Speaker.
The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.
Clerk Assistant: A quorum is now present, Speaker.
The Acting Speaker: Questions or comments?
Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): I just wanted to commend the member who spoke on making a very important and valid point re this piece of legislation. This is a move by this government to take us further down that road towards an American-style democracy and political system. One only has to look at the situation of most of the people who occupy seats in government in the United States. I heard our leader, Howard Hampton, say the other day that there isn't a senator in the United States now who isn't a millionaire. That's not the Canadian way.
The Canadian way, as I remember it and experienced it, is that if you have aspirations to political life, if you have within you a desire to make change in the way we all live together and create community and support those who need support and work towards more growth in a particular region or province, you simply have to work hard at it and get to know a lot of people who might support you in an attempt to run for a particular party, perhaps even run as an independent. But you'd never for a second think you couldn't do that because you couldn't afford it, because that wasn't the way. You could run for a school board, municipal council, provincial office or federal office in this country without worrying too much about whether you had enough money to do that.
If we continue down this road being set by the government in the changes that are being made unilaterally under this bill, that's exactly where we're going. The first question people will ask themselves when they think about the possibility of a life in politics is, sadly and unfortunately, "Can I afford to do this?" That's really not the Canadian way.
Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent): It's a pleasure to comment on the speech by the member for Essex South. It has become very typical in our House for the Liberals to deal with every issue in terms of money. They believe that the challenges facing us in education are solved by spending more money; the challenges facing us in health care are best solved by spending more money; the challenges involved in dealing with social services, spending more money. They haven't told us exactly where they intend to get more money from, but our assumption of course would be that they would have to get the extra money in the same place that the third party has said they would get it from, and that is from raising taxes.
Now we get around to the issue of election financing. The member for Essex South tells us the only way you can win elections is by spending more money. Quite frankly, history will show us that this is really not true. If spending more money is what would be required to win elections, there are many cases - one that notably comes to mind for me is the mayor of London last time around in the municipal election in London, who, based on principle, spent virtually no money and still became the mayor of London. History will show us that spending money is not the answer to getting elected.
I believe the electorate in our province is very sophisticated. They understand and will reward performance. I believe those of us who demonstrate to the people of the province that we've made commitments and that we honour the commitments will be rewarded by the electorate. It will have nothing to do with how much money we spend.
The Liberals, on the other hand, may be in a position, because they don't really have any particular policy that they're standing on, that they may believe the only way they can stand to win is by spending more money. If that's the case, they can spend the money; we'll get the votes.
Mr Conway: I simply want to say that as one person who actually listened to the speech, I thought it was a good speech and a very poignant recitation of one person's run for public office at this level. I must say that there are few people here who represent electoral districts that appear to have the kind of political stability of the member who spoke, my friend from Leamington.
The previous speaker from Chatham makes a point about the spending of money. He's actually right: The spending of money does not guarantee results. The California Democratic primary of last week or two weeks ago proved that point. But the politicians get in trouble more often with the raising of the money. The Pacific scandal wasn't about how Sir John spent the money; it was about how he raised the money.
The difficulty here is we have a proposition before us that has the effect of substantially raising the spending possibilities of the central party. One of the real difficulties with this policy is that it strengthens even further the already too tight grip of the leader's office, of the central party office, on our electoral system. I don't think that's something to be encouraged. I think there's a balance there. Unlike some members of the government back bench, I don't have a problem with the leader of the party signing my nomination papers, but I do have a problem about what this policy does in terms of raising the spending levels for the central party.
Can I just make - I'm going to sound like a school-marm. I thought the member made a good speech. So many of you make good speeches, particularly at night. Can we please try to listen to the speaker? To the extent that we can't be polite, let's get out of here and let people who want to listen to good speeches do so, because there's some pretty rude behaviour here.
Mr Wildman: I would second the comments of the member for Renfrew North. I would just say that in listening to the member for Essex South, I found his expression of his own personal experience and the feelings on running for election here and getting elected to this place in a by-election really interesting.
I must say that I agree with the member for Chatham-Kent that the amount of money spent doesn't necessarily relate to whether or not an individual or a party gets elected. That's quite true. His logic seemed to be that if the Liberals, as he put it, wanted to spend more money, the Tories would get the votes. He was confident of that. If the member really does believe that the less you spend, the better chance you have of winning, then I would ask, why is it that this bill raises the limits? Why not lower them? It follows that it doesn't matter how much you spend, so therefore we don't need to have higher limits; we can have lower limits.
Mr Carroll: - keep the promises.
Mr Wildman: So your promise was to increase the amount of money spent in elections. Is that what your promise was?
Mr Carroll: The same as all the other provinces.
The Acting Speaker: That should not be an exchange.
Mr Wildman: The member for Chatham-Kent seems to say that the reason they are raising the limits is because they promised to do so. I don't quite understand that.
The point is this: If we raise the limits and we allow for unprecedented amounts of spending by the central party on advertising, polling and touring the province, we have to raise that money, and it's in raising the money that you run into problems.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Essex-Kent, you have two minutes.
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Mr Crozier: I want to thank the members for Sault Ste Marie, Renfrew North and Algoma. The member for Algoma may remember the first day I joined the Legislature. You were the minister I asked my first question to. That was a memorable experience.
To the member for Chatham-Kent, I wouldn't have thought you would give any other kind of answer. You talk about money. You're darned right money's the bottom line. You're tearing the guts out of education by taking money out of it. You're taking the health care system and saying you're going to spend more money in it. The reason you're going to spend more money in it is because you're going to pay off an awful lot of people you have to lay off. People who are waiting in emergency rooms don't believe you're spending more money.
You made my point exactly, member for Chatham-Kent. If money doesn't buy elections - and the member for Algoma said the same thing - then reduce the limit. I challenge you to spend half your spending limit in the new riding that you're going to be running in. If you believe what you said, you just spend half of what the limit is. I'll bet you won't do it. So you made my point exactly. You guys are raising these limits so that the ordinary person won't be able to run for office, and then you stand there, very holy, and say, "But money doesn't do everything." Then why are you raising the limits? I challenge you to stand on your word and go to your minister and say, "Minister, let's amend this bill and reduce the limit."
The Acting Speaker: Further debate? The mamber for Hamilton Centre.
Mr David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre): Thank you very much, Speaker. I'm sure you are aware that I'm now doing the deferred leadoff for our party.
The Acting Speaker: I am now.
Mr Christopherson: Okay, good. Here we go.
The first thing I want to do is comment, as I would have if I had been in the House on the day the bill was read and debated for the first time on second reading, on the opening statements of the government. In this case Mr Grimmett, the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay, filled in for the minister. Is the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay the parliamentary assistant? Yes. I suspected that. It seems appropriate to start by responding to a couple of things that you said, and then I'll move into some other areas.
In the second paragraph, after what a great pleasure it is for you to be on your feet, it's interesting that you state - this is from Monday, June 15 - "I think this is certainly a piece of legislation that is worthy of debate." Guess what? So do we, so does the other opposition party, and I suspect there are an awful lot of Ontarians who would like to see a debate.
But we're not having a give-and-take debate. What you're doing is providing the bare minimum time allowed under your new rules to talk about this in the House, and then you're going to ram it through. That's not debate; that's you barely tolerating the opposition.
In terms of the general public, it's downright insulting. It's insulting you would deny them their democratic rights. Might I say it's also insulting overall for you to believe that there are people sitting at home listening to this debate or following the Hansard the following day through the Internet - and believe me, there are a lot of people who are, growing numbers - who have watched what you have done to this province, to the most vulnerable in our society, all the things that you've done against those who have the least and for those who have the most, and that for one nanosecond you would actually think that those very people would believe you when you stand up and say: "This isn't about money. Money doesn't buy elections. That isn't what we're doing here."
Damn right it is. That's exactly what you're doing. You're changing the rules of running the election and financing the election in a way that suits you and your moneyed friends. That's what's going on here. I think all of you who are stupid enough, in my opinion, to be conned into standing up and debating this as government backbenchers ought to be thinking twice about what the folks back home are thinking about this new law that you're ramming through, this anti-democratic, pro-corporate, pro-money election bill, because if you don't answer those questions today, you're sure going to have to answer them on the doorsteps come election time. If you think they're going to forget, guess again.
Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I don't think there's a quorum in the House.
The Acting Speaker: Would you please check to see if we have a quorum.
Clerk Assistant: There is a quorum present.
The Acting Speaker: Thank you. The member for Hamilton Centre.
Mr Christopherson: I was talking about the comments of the parliamentary assistant on behalf of the minister who is carrying this file. He is saying that it's worthy of debate. My point again is the fact that there ought to be a real debate. There ought to be an opportunity to have the kind of input that this deserves and that it has traditionally had.
I think there are two parts to this, two key things that are relevant for people who care about this election that's coming up, how it's going to be run and who's going to be funding it. The first part is the process. The process around this is, again, unprecedented in terms of its anti-democratic nature. The second part of what's happening here is the actual substance of the bill. So I propose to speak to those two parts of what we have in front of us.
First, the process: There was a committee set a couple of weeks ago, with a representative from each of the parties. Minister Hodgson was one of them, Dwight Duncan from Windsor-Walkerville was the member for the Liberals, and I was there as our representative. From this point forward, I'm only going to speak on behalf of myself and our caucus. I won't say anything derogatory about the Liberals in terms of process, but I won't speak for their motives or how they position themselves.
I walked into that meeting and I made it very clear to the minister on behalf of our caucus that we were indeed prepared to sit down and negotiate. I've spent a lot of time at the negotiating table and I was quite prepared to roll up my sleeves and begin to talk about upgrading, updating and making some positive changes that would indeed reflect the changes that you've already imposed, mainly the larger ridings.
But the minister refused to accept and commit himself to the process that had always been followed, when the law was brought in in 1975 and when the law was last amended in 1986. That process, very simply, was a recognition that the election laws and the financing of elections are not the purview or personal domain of the government in power. That is something that affects every member of this House and, more importantly, affects every member of the province. We are all responsible for ensuring there is a fair and level playing field when we go out to elections, because without that we lose the very foundation of democracy.
When South Africa, for instance, held their first election where the franchise was finally granted to everyone, regardless of the colour of their skin, there were observers from around the world. Why? Because just saying you're having an election is not enough. We saw what happened in eastern bloc nations for decades. They pretended to have elections too. The problem was that there was only one candidate on the ballot. So there were observers from all around the world who went to South Africa to ensure to the international community that the rules were fair so that the expressed will of the majority had an opportunity to show itself.
That's why it's so crucial - was, still is and always will be - that there be a fair process whenever one attempts to change the rules for elections and the financing of elections.
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Once the minister took the position that, "Oh no, we're not going to follow that process. I want to negotiate with you, Dave. I'm all prepared to negotiate. I'm going to roll up my sleeves too. But oh, by the way, if I don't get what I want, I still reserve the right to unilaterally bring in legislation that reflects what I want," which of course is exactly where we are today, how the hell is that fair negotiation?
You walk in there and you attempt to negotiate something and you're using the usual leverages and quite frankly the brokering that takes place where you're trying to make a fair tradeoff so at the end of the day you can get agreement. That's how it happens. That's the real world. How can you possibly do that when one of the parties sits there with a gun behind their back and refuses to leave the gun at the door? So we said, "If you're not prepared to follow the democratic tradition of this place, wherein all of us agree or nothing changes, we don't have negotiations," and those negotiations broke off at that point.
Then it was interesting. There were phone calls over the weekend. I talked to the minister. He indicated to me that they might still be willing to listen to any amendments we might have. Of course, in my mind nothing like that was going to happen until we had the agreement the government wouldn't do what they're doing now, which is this massive power play. But I at least heard the message, said that I would talk to my House leader and get back to him at the beginning of the week.
On the Tuesday of that week, just before the House opened for the day, our House leader was approached by the minister again, talking about some kind of meetings. While my House leader in the lobby, right through that door, was telling me this and we were touching base on the issue, I happened to glance over his shoulder at the TV monitor that's in the lobby and shows what's happening here in the House and I saw Minister Hodgson on his feet. He was talking about election finances and about the election laws. I said to Bud, "They're doing something on this."
We had no notification, no notice - nothing at all. We come ripping in here, come into our seats and, sure enough, they're introducing this 36 with all these changes.
Then, to add absolute insult to injury, the minister didn't even have the guts to stand up and make a ministerial statement defending himself. They did it on the same day that the Hydro bill was brought in because they hoped that would provide the media coverage where this thing wouldn't generate the kind of headlines it should. Talk about low, sneaky, underhanded and gutless - absolutely incredible that a minister of the crown would attempt to introduce such a far-reaching bill as 36 in such a fashion and then not even have the guts to stand there and defend it.
Do you know why? First of all, they're trying to downplay in the media, but second, as people in this House and I suspect a lot of people watching know, when a minister makes a statement in the House about a major government policy initiative, there's an opportunity for the opposition parties to respond, but if they don't make the statement, we don't get the time or the opportunity to stand up and offer up what is our constitutional responsibility, which is loyal opposition to government initiatives and pointing out where we think they're failing the people of Ontario and failing to meet whatever promises they said they would keep.
That's why that's there. You will know that's even more vital now than it's ever been, given the fact that they've clamped down on the rules to the point where we only get a fraction of the amount of time to enter into so-called debate in this place in the first place. That kind of thing is crucial, and yet that's the way it unfolded. That's the underhanded fashion in which this anti-democratic bill, this election-fixing bill was introduced into this House.
I say shame on the government and shame on that particular minister. I've known him for a number of years and I would not have suspected that type of what I would call dishonourable activity. I was very surprised and disgusted that he would lower himself to conduct himself in that fashion. I really was, and on a personal level I really think he ought to be ashamed of the way he handled himself in this case. As for the government overall - well, typical.
Let me now spend a few minutes just reflecting very briefly on where we've been with this government in terms of their anti-democratic methods. People will remember Bill 26, the omnibus bully bill, the bill that, among a lot of other things, created the Health Services Restructuring Commission, that monster that moves across the province, closing hospitals in every one of our communities. That entity was created by Bill 26. Bill 26 was introduced into this House a couple of weeks before the Christmas break. Sound similar? This House adjourns next Thursday. There's a pattern here. They introduced that bill a couple of weeks before and said, "Under no condition are we adjourning here for the Christmas break until we've got that law, public hearings be damned."
At the end of the day, it took all of the opposition benches from both parties to physically stand around Alvin Curling, the member for Scarborough North, to prevent him from being bodily removed from this place. We held this House - yeah, it was hijacked. No question about it, there's no other way to describe it, but I would say it was one of those times when people have an obligation to do the right thing. You had to be stopped from what you were doing and at the end of the day you did cave - not much. We got a few more hearings into the new year. There was still no more than three or four weeks in total, split between two committees happening at the same time, very little time for preparation. People were scrambling. It was a huge, mammoth bill and we're still feeling the implications of that.
That was when we knew that we had a group of legislators and a government unlike anything we had ever seen in Ontario. No government had ever dared to act in such an undemocratic fashion as that, and yet you did. You did, and I specifically remember saying at the time: "You're going to live that down. You will regret that you've done this and it will haunt you forever." I still believe it and believe it more now than I did then, given the other things that you've done.
What are the other things you've done? We didn't just have a few amendments to the Ontario Labour Relations Act. We had a whole brand-new act introduced in here. It wasn't about revoking Bill 40, which was shameful enough now that you've made scabs legal again and given your corporate pals the balance of power at the negotiating table. That wasn't good enough. You completely rewrote the legislation. From what we understand, you started it before you even had the transfer of power take place, and it was written by outside lawyers, not lawyers here. It was written by your corporate pals for your corporate pals. Not one minute of public hearings on a brand-new Ontario Labour Relations Act - unheard of and shameful.
Bill 99, WCB: I had commitments from the minister -
Interjections.
The Acting Speaker: Order. I can't hear when you hold conversations. If you want to hold them, hold them outside, not inside. Do it like you're in a committee. You don't tolerate that in a committee and we don't tolerate it in the House.
Mr Christopherson: Speaker, you've got to be kidding. You can't hear me? That's never been a problem. I've had a lot of people disagree here, but can't hear me? My God, I expecting they're hearing me half a mile away from here. Given this issue, if there were a rooftop to scream from, I'd be on that too, given what's happening here.
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I was talking about Bill 99, when I got the commitment during question period from the Minister of Labour about province-wide public hearings on the stealing, quite frankly, of $15 billion from injured workers, and again a $6-billion gift to your corporate pals, that there would be province-wide public hearings - "Oh yes, don't worry, we're going to do that" - got that commitment on the record. What did that turn into? Six measly days in the dead of summer. We had four weeks of hearings on Bill 49 when they took away rights from people who don't have the benefit of a union in the Employment Standards Act.
Mr John R. Baird (Nepean): And I've got the scars to prove it.
Mr Christopherson: Yes, that's right. The member for Nepean has the scars to prove it.
That was a bill they said was minor housekeeping - no big deal. We got four weeks of public hearings and they were trounced in every community they went into. On WCB, which even they acknowledge was a huge bill, what did we get? A few days in the dog days of summer.
Ms Frances Lankin (Beaches-Woodbine): They want the condo act to go out to hearings when everybody agrees.
Mr Christopherson: My colleague from Beaches-Woodbine reminds me that as this bill is being rammed through, and Bill 31, another one of your union-busting bills, which I'm going to speak to very briefly, is also being rammed through and we can't get any public hearings on those, they've advised us, "Yes, we want public hearings on the condo act." What a sham.
Bill 22: Another anti-worker bill is going through a legislative committee right now.
Mr Jerry J. Ouellette (Oshawa): What's it do?
Mr Christopherson: What does it do? It just denies certain citizens in the province their basic fundamental human right of association and the right to choose whether they want to join a union or not join a union. If you're under their forced labour policy of workfare, you don't get an opportunity, you're denied those human rights. Let me tell you, on that one we're being flagged now by international bodies who are saying: "Dear God, what's going on in Canada? How can this be happening?" Canada and its provinces are held up as models of democracy. And on it goes.
Lastly, Bill 31 is the anti-union bill right now that's about to cause major disruption and chaos all across the province in the construction industry, and today they served notice that they're bringing in time allocation.
The Speaker is indicating to me to make it relate to this. I'm relating it to this because it very much talks to democracy and I'm pointing out the anti-democratic record of this government. With respect, I would say that's very relevant to what we're talking about here because our premise is that all of Bill 36 is undemocratic and goes against the traditional grain of what democracy is.
Bill 31: You've now advised us that you're going to shut down debate on second reading - no amendments, no public hearings - and you're going to ram it through in one day. I would say to anybody at home who's involved in the construction industry, or if you've got a spouse or a family member or neighbours, and you care, you'd better start calling your local MPP, particularly if they're a Tory backbencher, and tell them that this is outrageous and unacceptable, because if you don't, by Monday evening there's every likelihood that Bill 31 is going to be the law of this province.
Again, what happened with this bill? First of all, there's no all-party agreement, which we've always had traditionally. That didn't happen this time. No public hearings; I guess it's one thing to say to the opposition, "You don't get your traditional say any more," but by having no public hearings you've said to the public: "You don't have a say at all. You don't have a say through the opposition members and you're not going to get a direct say." This is not about you, Ontario citizens; this is about the Tories fixing the next election.
You don't have the guts to stand up and defend it when you introduce it and you don't have the guts to take this bill outside this place and let the public comment on it, because you know that you'd get your clocks cleaned once people got a hold of this and started to look at it and what the implications are for the next election.
You say this stuff about, "Oh, we're just following the all-party recommendations, the commission that has all-party representatives on it, we're just following what they say," and with that you sit down and think that's the end of the argument. Let's just take a closer look at that.
First of all, the commission's recommendations are important but they're only advice. It's just recommendations. At the end of the day, it's what happens in here that counts. If it weren't that way, then why not just give them the power to enact the laws themselves? You could create such a law that allows them to do everything by guidelines, by policy or perhaps by regulation, with the understanding that the cabinet wouldn't dare touch them and they'd just rubber-stamp them through. If that's the way we wanted to set up the commission, it could be done. It's not.
So yes, there was all-party representation on that. That is not the same as the kind of public scrutiny that a bill of this nature deserves or the parliamentary consideration that this deserves, recognizing at the end of the day that the commission doesn't change the law, legislators do.
Second, the recommendations of the commission are not all that's in this bill. There's a lot more in this bill - a lot more. As a matter of fact, there are at least 23 changes. My leader, Howard Hampton, and I held a news conference today and pointed out the fact that there were 23 changes that aren't in that report. They're not in there. They didn't make those recommendations. So this argument where you stand up and say, "We're just reflecting the recommendations of the commission that had all-party agreement in it so why is the opposition now upset?" - we're upset for a whole lot of reasons, not the least of which is that some of the most damaging things and some of the things that are going to help you as Tories more than others the most weren't recommended by the commission, yet you still feel that you have the right to ram this legislation through, deny the opposition parties their traditional role in reaching all-party agreement and, worst of all, deny the public any say. At the end of the day, only you had any say in what goes into this law. Nobody else is getting any input that matters.
Let me take a look at some of the things that are in here. Are these minor issues? I was reading Hansard and I've been watching some of this while I was in the House. Listening to the backbenchers, they all talk about some of the minor things and they say, "Why can't the opposition agree to these things?" I say that a lot of those things were the very things that I was prepared to roll up my sleeves for and say, "Yes, we can agree with that."
For example, when you stand up and say that your law has to be done right away - by the way, why did you wait so long? Why did you wait until certainly half the term has gone by? There's no reason to rush this. Here we are, the last two weeks of the House before the summer recess. Who do you think you're fooling? There's no justification. The only thing that comes close to even a minor resemblance to justification is when the minister and members of the government stand up and say, "It's going to save up to $15 million to implement this bill." Guess what? The lion's share of that money that's to be saved comes from a permanent voters' list. As I understand it, using the commission figures, it's between $10 million and $11 million of the $15 million you say the whole bill is going to save.
I'll tell you what. You withdraw Bill 36, introduce that as a separate bill, and on behalf of our caucus you can get unanimous agreement to put it through in one day, if you promise to take the rest of this and put it out to the public. You want to save that $10 million or $11 million? You want to be seen to be democratic? You honestly want to show that you care about the democratic process, you care about fair elections in Ontario? Introduce a separate bill that makes that change and I guarantee you we'll give unanimous consent to put it through in one day. Not a problem. In fact, if you pull back Bill 36 and pull back from this anti-democratic process, I'll tell you something else: There's more of those things that your backbenchers keep standing up and saying, "Why aren't you guys supporting this," that we will. We'll put that into the bill too. We'll identify all the things that are in agreement and we'll put them in that bill. I'm willing to bet that the Liberals would feel comfortable with this too. We'll do it in one day, and then the balance that's left over, let's just take it out to the public and see what they have to say.
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You already said there's not going to be an election this year. Huh. Like we're going to count on that. But you've said that. Your Premier has said there won't be an election this year. What's the rush? Do you want to save the money? Fine. We'll pass that bill. Do you want to agree to some of the other minor changes that should have all-party agreement? Fine. We can do that too and we'll pass that before we leave here. What is to stop you from doing that and taking the rest of the controversial issues, given the nature of how you've introduced it and how it's going to change the face of elections in Ontario, and putting that out for public consultation over the summer, and then bringing it back in the fall? How about that?
I'd like to hear a government member, as part of their two-minute responses that three or four members are entitled to after each of these speeches, point out to me where that is so undemocratic or so impossible or unreasonable that you can't possibly consider it. I'd like to hear those arguments. I can't imagine what they'd be. Because the one argument that's true, and you can't use, is, "But, yeah, then people would know that we're fixing the rules to help ourselves." That's the real reason you won't do it. That's why you won't do it.
You know that if we went out into the communities of Ontario and showed what you're doing here and how it affects you, the overwhelming majority of people, a lot of your own supporters I'll bet, who believe in the democratic process and who believe in fairness, would say, "This thing stinks." So I put that to the government. I offer that to the government. If all you care about is money, let's do it. And then let's let democracy take the rest of its course, and let's put the rest of your bill out to the public and see what they think.
After all - because you need to be reminded - it's not your province. You don't own it, and you certainly don't own the elections. At least you don't under the current rules. It belongs to the people of Ontario. You got elected under one set of rules and now you want to turn around and change those rules when you've got to go back to the public. And you think people won't pick up on what you're doing. That's so insulting to the people of this province.
I'd like to spend a little time now - that's half my time, talking about the process. I now want to move to some of the substantive items that are in front of us. I say there are at least 23 changes that are not in the commission report that are a part of your Bill 36. What are some of them? Because some people might say, "Well yeah, if they're just minor changes, Dave, you're making a big deal out of nothing." Let's take a look at what you put in the law that nobody gets a say in - nobody - that is different from the commission's recommendations, which you're using as an excuse not to give anybody a say. What are those recommendations?
Well, well, well. Look what we have here. "Increase corporate tax deductions more than 100%, and increase that amount every five years." From $7,000 to $15,000 for corporate tax deductions, contributions. Now I've heard the government, as they try to deflect this, talk about the Liberals. But that's not really the point. The fact of the matter is you're rolling in money, your party, and a lot of it is coming from corporations. Let me tell you, if it's not coming directly from the corporations, it's certainly coming from the wealthy people that run them. That's what this says, "Increase tax deductions more than 100% for corporations."
Our party spent probably the better part of two years travelling the entire province in our Dialogue for Change process, which culminated in a number of important policies being adopted at our convention in my home town of Hamilton, which will of course find their way into our election platform. We talked to thousands of people, and not just our own members. We reached out to communities. We talked to people who weren't active in any party. We talked to people who were members of all the parties.
Do you know what they did not ask for, anywhere, once? "Increase the amount of money, please, that could be contributed by corporations to political parties, because we think that will make a better democracy." We didn't hear that. We heard an awful lot about wanting more nurses, wanting more emergency room services, about higher-quality education, about a healthy environment, about fair labour laws and a whole host of issues. But not one person said: "Increase the amount of money that corporations can give in elections. Oh, and while you're doing that, increase the amount of money the central parties can spend." Nobody asked for that. The commission didn't ask for it. We didn't ask for it. I haven't had a single phone call asking for it. None of our people heard it out on the road. I wonder where it came from.
It came from the whiz kids in the Premier's office and the backroom folks in the PC Party. That's where it came from, and it's there because it's an advantage to the government. It really is insulting that this government thinks people won't figure that out, that they can't see past your political smokescreen.
I really think there's a chance - no guarantee; one never knows in politics - but I just have this feeling in my gut that this could be one of those issues like the early election call that former Premier Peterson made. The issue never went away, and it became one of the defining issues of that election. I just have a hunch that your gerrymandering the rules and financing is something that's just going to stick in people's craws, and I think you're going to have a real problem with this one. Maybe not, but I have a hunch.
What else was not recommended by the commission, the commission that you're standing behind, hiding behind, when you try to justify being so undemocratic? Increase the central party campaign spending from 40 cents to 60 cents. That doesn't sound like a lot, until you do the math. When you do the math, guess what? Another $1.3 million can be spent by central parties; an extra $1.3 million can now be spent by the central party campaign under Bill 36.
Interestingly, the government makes the argument that with these bigger ridings we need to have a little more money. You know what? To some degree, there's some validity in that. They are bigger ridings. Whether you just use the existing formula and extrapolate it or whether you do factor in that it has been a number of years and there has been some inflation that needs to be accounted for, all those things are valid and I think would have been part of the focus of real negotiations if the government had allowed them to happen. Certainly I was open to trying to reflect rules and laws that reflect reality and fairness, and some of those things, given what you've done to the riding sizes, may indeed have some legitimacy.
But in terms of central party spending, when did the province get bigger? The ridings may be a little bigger, but when did the province get bigger? Did we suddenly annex Manitoba? Is there something happening in the background that you haven't told us about in terms of redefining the size of the province? The central spending is meant to reflect just that: central spending for the overall campaign, whether it's ads, whatever you want to spend it on. But it's meant to reflect the fact that although there are riding campaigns, there is still an overall provincial campaign that is run usually out of a provincial central party office. This change gives the government, because they're the ones who have got all the money - money is not a problem. You've got to remember that the amount of money their friends are making from the legislative changes they've made makes the kind of contributions we're talking about look like pocket change. What matters here is power. That's what's being bought: influence of power.
1940
So $1.3 million more can be spent in the central party campaign - no justification, no larger province, not recommended by the commission. Where did it come from? It came from the whiz kids in the Premier's office; it came from the backroom folks in the PC Party. That's where it came from. Nowhere else.
You're going to shorten the campaign period from 37 to 28 days. It wasn't recommended by the commission. Oh, I understood that somebody said you could go that low as a result of making some of the technical changes. But saying you can do something from a technical point of view or from a practical, doable point of view is a whole lot different than having someone say, "This is what you ought to do to make democracy better." Two different things entirely.
The shorter writ period has real significance. It has to have a reason or they wouldn't do it. The commission didn't recommend it. We didn't talk about it. The public didn't talk about it. They wouldn't do it if it didn't mean something. You only have to ponder it for a moment. What does it mean?
Well, let's remember that the only people who know when the election is going to be called, under our parliamentary system, unlike the American system, which has fixed dates for their elections, is the government. The government is the only one that knows when the election is going to be called, and that's a distinct advantage. I accept it was an advantage that this government will have, it's an advantage the Liberals have had when they were in power and it's an advantage we had when we were in power. I'm not suggesting that that is so evil that it's only owned by the Tories. I think there's probably going to be a point in time where that does need to be looked at in terms of a permanent voting date, but that's not where we are right now.
What is significant is that we've gone to four weeks. Let's think about how this works on the ground. How does this affect the average person? How does it affect local elections? When you're a member of the government and you know when the election is going to be called, you have your central campaign operation in place, you have your themes set out, you've done all your polling - which, by the way, has no limits any more either, interestingly - you've got your signs printed, you've got your brochures printed. At the riding level, you've got your campaign headquarters open and you've got the phones installed.
There are some real practical issues here, Speaker. You know yourself, as a member of this Legislature, that it can take a few days, especially when the election is called and all the parties are scrambling to get phones connected, to get your phones installed. For those few days, it's tough. Nobody can reach you. You can't print your final brochure, because you don't have the phone number. You can't do your final candidate card, because you don't have the proper number in place. You can't start phoning people and starting the campaign. It takes some time to get those things geared up.
Government has the advantage of having all those things in place. Boom. The Premier's corporate jet lands, they pick him up in the campaign bus, they bring him over to the headquarters, and on the day of the election he cuts the ribbon, smiling away, and hits three or four campaign headquarters. Meanwhile, everybody else is out scrambling.
Yes, you can argue that everybody sometimes knows when an election is going to be, but you don't know for sure. For those of us who don't have the kind of money you have, it's expensive to open up a campaign headquarters believing there might be an election. That's a lot of money; it certainly is to us folks. The shorter campaign period also means the government is already away and running almost a quarter of the way through the election period before the opposition even have a chance to get into the game in any kind of a meaningful way. It matters.
It also matters that when we talk about the limits, the amount of money that can be spent, the government likes to say: "We've just raised those limits, the riding limits, to what they are at the federal level. What are you complaining about?" Again, it's another one of those things where you've got to scratch a little underneath to find out the true meaning. It's true that's very much a reflection of where the feds are, but the feds still have a campaign that has a minimum time period about the same as what ours is now. When you account for the fact that it's the same federal money over a shorter period of time, you go from $72,000 a day, in terms of the central party spending, to $143,000 a day. That's more money than the feds allow, because it's a shorter period of time. Therefore, it's more money per day, and that's where it matters. But we won't get a chance to explore that any further.
Anybody who's sitting at home listening, going, "I didn't realize that. Maybe there is reason to be worried about it," is not going to get a say. They're not going to get an opportunity. Whether they went to the public hearing in their community or not, there won't be the local media coverage of what was said and what were the key issues. None of that is going to happen. By the end of next week, all of this is in the history books - gone.
Abolish the election finances commission and replace it with a government-appointed chief election officer. That will be section 54. The commission didn't recommend that. I didn't get any phone calls saying, "Eliminate the election finances commission." In reading the Hansard, I know my colleague from Renfrew North commented on this at great length. I obviously will not repeat much of what he said, but I think it's very valid, for those who are taking the time to look at this and study the Hansards and what's being said.
Let's face it: Why do they want to do that? They talk about the fact that it's going to save money. Give me a break. That's the same as when you cancelled and killed the Occupational Disease Panel when you rammed through Bill 99 and said it was to save $1 million, but you spent $1 million to change the name of the WCB. This is the same sort of thing. Yes, it's an expenditure. Democracy costs money. If all that mattered was the bottom line, why bother holding the election? You can save all the money. The fact is that in a democracy you spend money in a fair way so that you can hold fair elections.
Having a commission that has representatives from all the parties - granted, it's still this place that makes the final decision, but that is still much fairer, because there are some things, some changes that the commission has the power to do unilaterally. Now we're going to eliminate that and go to one appointee. Who makes the appointment? The government. Isn't that nice? Abolish the commission that has representatives from all the parties, eliminate it and have one appointee. Don't talk about why that might hurt democracy; just say it's going to save X number of dollars.
You did the same thing with the environment ministry when you talked about all the cuts you made there and all the regulatory changes. All you talked about was the changes. It took people like the Environmental Commissioner to report to the public what that meant to the public.
An updated version of the voters' list will be available from the commission. That sounds fair. The trick is that there's a user fee. This is not necessarily a huge item, but it is consistent with the fact that this government is ensuring that those who have money can work this process and this system better than those who don't have money. So out of nowhere - nobody recommended it; the commission didn't recommend it, it didn't come from either of the opposition parties that I'm aware of, it certainly didn't come from us - an updated version of the voters' list is available from the commission for a fee. As long as you continue to make everything money, you always hold the advantage.
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I just want to comment a bit on this question - and the media have asked the question; they did at our news conference - of: "Are you saying that money will buy any election? Is that a guarantee, that more money will do it?" Is it a guarantee? No, it's not a guarantee. Certainly, the California situation proved it. But let's just look again, scratch a little further. What else happened in California? The person who was leading in spending, who had never held elected office, never been accountable in any way, jumped into the political arena solely by means of money, their own personal money, spent $50 million and didn't win. Of course, some are saying: "See? That proves that money doesn't buy elections." Except the winner spent $20 million.
Mr Conway: No, $9 million.
Mr Christopherson: My friend says $9 million. I would accept his number and still feel that my argument is well made, given the fact that this was a primary. So it's $9 million. I'll tell you, at $9 million, I don't know about Tory backbenchers, but I know I wouldn't be in the business, I wouldn't be in the game. I don't have that kind of money, I don't know people who have that kind of money, and I'd hate to think of what the hell I'd have to do to raise that kind of money.
What else is interesting is that the incumbent senator didn't run because she couldn't afford the entry fee - the incumbent senator. Money makes a difference. Would anybody have ever heard of Ross Perot if he weren't a billionaire? I'm not faulting him for getting involved; he has that right. But think about it: Ross Perot is only known to us because he jumped into the presidential race, and he only jumped into the presidential race because he had the money to jump in at that level. Money does matter in elections.
The other thing that's important to remember: As you increase the amount of money being spent, one has to be reasonable. I want to keep coming back to the fact that one has to have limits. Yes, money is going to be spent, and yes, it's going to be raised from other people, so you need as many checks and balances and as much reasonableness and fairness in the process as you can have. All the more reason to be democratic about it, by the way. But we ought to reflect also, when we look at the numbers of dollars that are being included here, at the amount of time that members of the US Congress and, yes, state legislators, state senators and federal senators, spend out of their daily work schedule attending fund-raisers. Because they can't afford not to; they spend millions.
I realize that's not what we're dealing with here today. But we are dealing with $1.3 million and the ability of any and every corporation to double to $15,000 the amount of money they can contribute. Where I come from in Hamilton, that's real money, that's serious coin.
I can remember when I first ran in 1984, visitors up from the States - I really hadn't thought about this point much. When the person who was visiting came into the campaign - it was a friend of one of our volunteers - I talked with him for a couple of minutes. When they found out what I did for a living, which was work behind a parts counter at an International Harvester truck centre, they were absolutely dumfounded. They could not believe that anyone who wasn't a millionaire or tied very strongly to the world of millionaires would actually be a candidate with a chance of winning in a federal election. It was mind-boggling to them. I had never thought about it. I hadn't thought about it that way. I felt really proud; I felt really good about what that meant about our democracy, which is probably why I feel so passionately about this issue. Part of it is the undemocratic nature of it. I know, having sat with a number of the members who are currently on the government benches, if they were over here, what I'm doing and what other members have done with this bill is small potatoes to what those members then would have done. They'd have been apoplectic.
Part of it is the undemocratic nature of it, but part of it is my serious, heartfelt concern that this is the slippery slope, that if we continue down this road, particularly if they get away with it - God, it's bad enough to reflect on what you've already gotten away with in terms of ramming things through and changing the democratic traditions of this place. God, the thought of what you'd be like if you had a second majority government truly is terrifying. It honestly, honestly is terrifying. I worry that this is the slippery slope. If this party is given to govern for any longer than the one term they've now got, I worry about where we're going to be in terms of how elections are run in the province in five more, 10 more or, God forbid, 15 or 20 more years. That truly is terrifying.
One more item, because my time is rapidly winding down. It's interesting that the government is now removing the limits. There are three items I'm going to mention right now, and where they were under limits, they won't be under limits. It won't be decided by the commission in guidelines, which is now the way it is; it'll be entrenched in the legislation. The are three things on which the government - and all of us, but we don't have the money to do it, so it really matters to the government - can spend unlimited amounts of money.
Polling: Polling is not just about the reports we see in the media every few weeks about where the parties are relative to each other - who's in first, who's in second, who's in third, who's gone up, who's gone down? That's not the kind of polling we're talking about when we're looking at elections. We're talking about the massive, sophisticated type of polling that allows you to pinpoint with dead accuracy in most cases. It's not a perfect science, but boy, it doesn't miss very often. We don't see a lot of the Truman headlines any more; those sorts of things don't happen an awful lot.
When you do enough polling with enough people, you can have such a focused message - and of course what's scary is that this government believes in pushing a lot of those emotional hot buttons and negative advertising, that whole approach - that you have a distinct advantage over people who maybe have a quarter, a fifth, a tenth of the polling information. A lot of what they're doing is by their gut and experience: what issues really matter, how have people moved overnight, what words to use. That amount of polling is worth its weight in gold because as you go then to spend money on advertising and change your ads and change your messaging, you know the result you're going to get ahead of time.
If it was a fair fight like when it was under limitations, everybody was using the same calibre, if you will, of weaponry and then you had to put your best against their best, but when you take the limit off something like polling, we're out of the game. You're the only one that's in the game in a meaningful way. You could literally spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars on polling, research and focus groups, and you do not have a limit at all.
What else is included in that? Research: That could include anything, any amount of research you want to do, whether it ties to the kind of focus groups in polling I've mentioned or whether it talks about how many people you can put out in the field to respond in how short a time about an issue that broke open. That matters, and it matters when one party has the ability to do that so much more than any other.
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The last one of these that I'll mention, because my time is just about done, is travel. Travel doesn't count any more. It used to be under a limit, now it isn't. That matters. It makes a big difference whether you've got the ability to use a bus or a plane, and it matters whether you're using a propeller plane or a jet. Why does it matter? Comfort's part of it, but more important, it's how fast you can move the leader around the province because our campaigns are more and more leader-focused. What the leader is doing, what the leader is saying and where the leader is matters. If they're in your riding, that helps. If you've got the use of a corporate jet at your disposal to move the Premier and his entourage around the province - you can get as big a jet as your friends will lend you, there's no limit - you take the media with you and you just spin around this province.
That is a distinct advantage over other parties that are maybe struggling to be able to provide a prop job to do the same thing. You may only get to a half or a third of the ridings. You may not be able to get back to Toronto, which, whether we like it or not in other municipalities, is still the media centre, is the focus. It is obviously the capital of our province. That matters a lot. That's why you've made that change.
In the last minute, let me just be very clear about the things we would do. The first thing we would do is make sure that the undemocratic rules this government imposed on us are reversed and go back to the point where opposition members get an opportunity to have input, to have a meaningful say in legislation that matters to the people of Ontario. We would ensure that there's adequate time for debate and we would put in the rules that there have to be public hearings on legislation that involves major initiatives. No more of this ramming it through and only the Tory caucus gets a say. None of that; that's got to stop.
The last thing I want to say to you is this: Every one of you, when we ran against the Liberals in 1990 and we won, it was under fair rules and it was a fair fight. When we were the government and went to the people in 1995, we offered you a fair fight. You won it and that's why you sit on that side of the House, but it was a fair fight. We challenge you. Take us on in a fair fight. Don't tie our hands behind our backs. Let's have a fair fight and a fair election.
The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Questions and comments? The member for Durham East.
Mr John O'Toole (Durham East): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It's good to see you back in the chair.
In response to the member for Hamilton Centre, I really have to sit here and ask if the people of Ontario are genuinely watching and listening. Fair hearings? May I call to mind the social contract? There were no hearings. None. Not one day. Certainly in this House over the next few days - we're discussing Bill 36 before the people here, people in the House and the people watching tonight.
You know, they make this inference. I'm an average person, five children, working. My wife and I are working hard. We're not expecting other people of Ontario to take care of us. We're more self-reliant and I think that's what the new generation wants, the young people of the future.
They imply this rich Tory friend thing. I've got before me the very election finance returns. What do we get? I'm looking at the Ontario Liberal Party. They're the richest party of all that went into the last election. We as a party went into the last election in third place, humbled by the people of Ontario, with less money than the Ontario Liberal Party.
What's the average individual contribution? I'm going to give it to the people of Ontario: to the Liberal Party, $169; to the NDP - admittedly you're humbled - it's $81; and for us, we're about in the middle - we're the people's people party - $121. Corporate donations: the Liberals, $930; $910 for the New Democratic Party; and the average person, the PC party, $522. Trade unions, $409 -
The Speaker: Thank you. Questions and comments? Member for Sudbury.
Interjection.
The Speaker: Member for Durham East, come to order.
Interjection.
The Speaker: Member for Durham East, I'm not warning you - thank you.
Mr Bartolucci: I'd like to congratulate the member for Hamilton Centre for what I thought was a very excellent presentation, and I thought he outlined his case extremely well. What he was talking about was a government unilaterally and arbitrarily deciding that they're going to change the rules of the game and they're going to get rid of the people who oversee the game, the referee. They're going to get rid of that unbiased referee and they're going to replace him or her with a person who is appointed, and all of a sudden no longer are the rules of the game fair for everyone.
I guess that's the essence of what the member for Hamilton Centre was talking about. He spent some time using examples that he would have hoped the government members would listen to, but I think they've fallen on deaf ears. I must suggest to you and to the members across the way that the people of Ontario who are listening heard what the member for Hamilton Centre was saying. What he was doing was outlining what could be wrong with politics in Ontario. You don't want to go to American-style politics. What is the definition of American-style politics to the people in Ontario? They think it's diseased, they think it's decayed, they think it's based on negative promotional programming, and I think the people of Ontario are right.
In reality, what the government is doing is trying to tell the people of Ontario that this is a normal deck of cards. In reality, it looks like a normal deck of cards, but on careful analysis, if you flick it over, you understand that the deck of cards is rigged. It is in fact a deck of cards that's weighted to the party in power.
I would suggest to you that the government would be wise to listen to what the member for Hamilton Centre said, listen to his advice, and make amendments.
Ms Lankin: I'm pleased to respond to my colleague's comments. I share his concern with respect to a number of aspects of this bill.
I was very disappointed to hear the tone of the response from the member for Durham East. I'd really like an opportunity in this House at some point to reach across and to try and engage the members of government in some rational thinking, to look at this.
When we talk about the process of three parties being involved in arriving at agreement with respect to this election law the way it has been done in the past and that you are violating that tradition, that's a very important point that I wish you would take a moment and look at.
Democracy is a fragile thing, you know. It's not strong and robust in and of itself. It must be nurtured. It must be tended to. It must be cared for. You can strike a balance in the approach you bring forward that undermines some of the basic tenets of democracy.
One of the tenets of democracy is that it allows for full participation. The changes that you are making here without involvement of the other parties don't allow for full participation. They ensure that people who have access to huge amounts of money can spend huge amounts of money, far beyond what is required for a decent election effort and mounting a decent campaign. The reason the tradition is that all three parties would be involved in those discussions is to ensure that it reflects the balance of those in government, those in opposition, those in the third party - that all those considerations are brought to bear.
When you bring unilateral changes and you don't allow for public debate, you lose that balance of democracy, and that is a sad day, my friends. It's a sad day.
Mr Carroll: I appreciate the opportunity to comment on the speech by the member for Hamilton Centre. He's certainly one of our more passionate people in the House. It would really be nice if he didn't have exactly the same argument about everything we do. He would be more credible if he would stand up and say there's some good and there's some bad. But everything is undemocratic; everything is being rammed through. He spent 59 minutes being critical, cutting the process up, and in the last minute - I watched on the clock - he said, "Here's what we would do." What his party would do would be to reverse everything and go back.
He spoke about slippery slopes. They love to use the terminology "slippery slope." The worst slippery slope this province ever got on started in 1990. We got on a slippery slope in 1990 that about drove the province into total bankruptcy. So when he speaks about slippery slopes, we've tried it their way. Their way did not work very well, so now we're trying it a different way.
I hear what the member for Beaches-Woodbine says. It would be nice to once in a while cooperate on something. But when the member for Hamilton Centre is so positive that absolutely everything we're doing is wrong and undemocratic, there's no possibility of extending an olive branch or working together on things with the member for Hamilton Centre. I admire his zeal; I admire his commitment and his passion. It would be nice once in a while to have him say: "You know, what you're doing is really not that bad. You could make it maybe a little bit better, but it's not that bad." Instead of that, he has the same argument about absolutely everything.
The Speaker: Response.
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Mr Christopherson: I want to thank all the members who took the time to comment: the members for Durham East, Sudbury, Beaches-Woodbine and Chatham-Kent.
In responding particularly to the last member, you give me something that is clearly reasonable and I'll acknowledge it as being such, but the fact is, I think I provided a litany of the undemocratic things. I did not offer up rhetoric. I said to you, "Here are the bills and here is why." I think also, to be fair, I didn't say that we had all the answers and I didn't say it had to be our way and I didn't say there couldn't be any changes. What I did say was that there ought to be the same process we used before where you have honest, legitimate, fair negotiations and you try to reach all-party agreement. I acknowledge that there were some changes that our caucus was prepared to make, that we were prepared to listen to what the government had to say, listen to what our colleagues on the opposition benches had to say and try to find rules that would be fair.
Further to that, I also said let's pass the stuff that we all do agree on, and particularly the big-money item in this case, which is the permanent voters' list. We'll give you unanimous consent to do that in one day. All I said about the rest was let's take it out to the public. Somehow I'm totally wrong for having said let's move on the things we agree on, let's save the money on the things that we know should be done, and for the rest of it let's give the people of Ontario a say.
I didn't hear any of you defend why you won't do that. I didn't hear any of you say I was factually incorrect in terms of the presentation. I didn't hear any of you say that the things that I said were outside the commission's report were in fact inside that, because you can't. What I offered up was factually correct. In terms of the process, all I did on behalf of our colleagues was say that someone else needs to have a say in what the election rules are other than just Tories in this province.
Mr Crozier: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I think before the next government speaker gets up they'll want to get their members in here to listen to him, and I wonder if we have a quorum.
The Speaker: Is there a quorum?
Clerk Assistant: A quorum is present, Speaker.
The Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Toni Skarica (Wentworth North): As a so-called renegade and rebel in this government, I think I can make some comments from a different perspective than anyone else in the House, and I intend to do so. I intend to do something that's somewhat unconventional. I'm going to talk about not what's in this act but what's not in the act.
The argument, as I understand it, from the opposition is that this bill is anti-democratic and that it's more evidence of bullying by the Mike Harris government. Maybe I could just refer to some of their comments that were reported in the debates of Hansard.
For example, David Ramsay from Timiskaming indicated: "Maybe democracy today only exists one day every four years, that being an election day, when people can actually go out and vote for whomever they wish. They can toss out a government, they can bring one in, but then after that, governments tend to do what they wish to do during that four-year mandate." I've made similar comments myself.
He goes on to add these comments, which I don't agree with: The Tories "are bullying the Legislature again, bullying the two opposition parties, and writing up election law the way they see fit, to their own advantage. That is absolutely wrong." He then goes on with a statement I agree with. "While I am here to represent everyone here in my riding, and I do that to the best of my ability, I feel I have a special responsibility to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves."
The leader of the Liberal Party, Dalton McGuinty, indicated at the beginning of this debate, "You may not understand this but democracy is a fragile thing. It may be something that you take for granted on that side of the House, but it is not something that we take for granted on this side."
When I look at the bill and compare it to the election reforms in Ontario, I find that the bill does not contain this provision. There was a recommendation, and I quote from the recommendations: "The electoral law of Canada, and in effect every province except Newfoundland and Ontario, provides for political affiliation to be listed on the ballot.... Candidates would have to be certified by the party leader or his designated agent as being authorized by the political party." That provision does not appear in this legislation, and I think it gives you a good insight as to how democratic or undemocratic this government is, as to why that isn't in there.
Before I get to that, I'd like to talk about how this provision works. We've seen how it works with the federal Liberal Party. Just before the last election, Mr Chrétien used it for two reasons. One, he picked his own slate of candidates in a number of seats across the nation. As well, he denied a member who spoke out against the government, Mr Nunziata, from running for the federal Liberals. I suggest to you that that was a very undemocratic exercise of his power.
We have another recent example of how this provision works, which again is not in this legislation. If you wanted to be undemocratic, if you wanted to be bullying and if you wanted to be dictatorial, surely you would have put it in. We have a very recent example in the hepatitis C debate. We saw how 90% of the public in Ontario supported compensation for all victims of hepatitis C. Everyone in this House knew that. I knew that; my constituents had told me that. The members for the NDP knew that; their constituents had told them that. The members for the Liberal Party knew that as well, because their constituents had told them that.
Meanwhile, the federal Liberals, the same party as the provincial Liberals, who I assume have ears and can hear, knew as well, many of them, that their constituents did not want the federal government to deny compensation for a vast number of hepatitis C victims. But what happened there? Mr Chrétien basically said, and it was a whipped vote, that they had to, that it was a confidence motion. So a number of Liberals who had publicly expressed that they did not want to deny anyone compensation voted the opposite way. They voted against their conscience. They voted against what their constituents wanted. Ultimately, they lost all credibility in the public eye. I have numerous articles here where they were called the "cowardly Liberal back bench." It was said that they were gelded. Personally, I don't want to be gelded; even Viagra won't help you in that situation. Chrétien was referred to as a "leader of lemmings."
Going back to what occurred here, I went through the Hansard very carefully and I noted that the Liberal leader, Mr McGuinty, criticized the government on this bill. He said it was bullying. He said it was undemocratic. He said we were buying the election and so on and so forth. But at no time did he have any concern with this section that has been used in a most anti-democratic way by his federal brother and leader. I can only assume from that that it was deliberate, that he wanted this power. It seems to me that this power, which is not in our legislation, is the most undemocratic suggestion in all of the recommendations. In fact, I suggest it is the only undemocratic provision, and it does not appear in the bill.
Why doesn't it appear in the bill? A number of caucus members on our side of the House, Conservative members, expressed concern, not because we didn't trust Mike Harris, not that we thought he was a dictator, but because we saw how this provision was being used in the federal forum. It forced members not to be able to vote their conscience. It forced members, even though they had said something completely different, to vote an opposite way within hours of publicly expressing what they really thought.
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What this provision does, and has been used for in the federal forum where it appears, is allow the leader to intimidate the members; it allows the leader to tell their members to vote against their conscience and what their constituents want. Ultimately, it defiles the entire democratic process. This provision has allowed Mr Chrétien, one man, to control how all the federal members, all the Liberal members, vote throughout the entire country, regardless of their conscience, their credibility or what their constituents demand.
There have been numerous comments, and I've heard them for days, regarding how undemocratic this bill is and how undemocratic our government is and all those types of things. I'm one of two members who has voted against the government. That would not be possible with the Chrétien Liberals. If that happened there, I am confident that those members would no longer be members of that party. I can tell you that before I voted against the one piece of legislation, there was no pressure put on me to do so. In fact, the only thing that was said to me by the House leader was that he thanked me for letting the government know my intentions before the vote. There was no pressure put upon me, and I was allowed to vote my conscience and I was allowed to vote how I thought my constituents wanted me to.
This provision would severely hamper my right and other members' rights in this House to do that, and it's not there. It's simply not there, because a number of us expressed the desire, the feeling that we did not want this type of provision in Ontario legislation, because it would deny not only Conservative members but NDP members and Liberal members down the road the right to vote their conscience. It would truly allow the bullying we've seen from the federal government of their members to occur.
This was a situation where the government did listen, did not just do whatever they wanted. They listened to the members, we were consulted and the provision did not end up in the bill. I personally am very grateful for that, and I think it's a giant step towards democracy not only for our government but for the members of the opposition as well.
In the last minute that's accorded to me, I'd like to talk about buying the election. I've heard rumours in my riding that the powerful unions that oppose us - and they've not only opposed us, but they opposed the NDP and the Liberals before them when they were in power - are going to spend vast amounts of money to defeat us. I've heard $25 million, I've heard $50 million. Talk about corporate jets. I'm sure the teachers' unions have two available for loan to the Liberal Party for the next election. They have a mammoth surplus in their pension fund.
So, when you talk about rich individuals who are available to support political parties in the next election, I'm looking at the Liberals, and I'm seeing that kind of money and that kind of willingness to spend it against the government of the day. There are no limits with reference to not spending it.
In conclusion, I suggest -
The Speaker: Thank you. Questions and comments?
Mr Conway: I have three comments. First, I think the member makes a very powerful argument about the damage that has been done to many members of Parliament in the other place, in Ottawa, by virtue of what they said they were about and what they actually did when the vote came on the hepatitis C business. I think he's absolutely right. I think the long-term consequences of that whole debate will have more to do with the continuing debasement of the integrity of Parliament as an institution and many members in it.
Second, and again that's one of the reasons why I like these debates, I find interesting the point the member made - and he's not alone; there are several others who feel very strongly that a party leader ought not to have the right to sign a nomination paper. I'm one who has a concern. On the financing aspect of this, I know your concerns in this connection, Mr Speaker, and you're not alone. It's at least a bipartisan concern. I don't share it. I am one who is concerned about this kind of financing measure strengthening the power of the party leader and especially important when it comes to my particular riding. There always has been a great deal of confusion, especially in regard to, for instance, North Dumfries, which is part of our federal riding but not part of our provincial riding. The individuals who live in that particular part of our country found this terribly confusing, and now, for the first time, since they do associate themselves with Cambridge, they will be voting for the same boundary and the same group both federally and provincially, and I think that is important.
When we attempted to pass that act, and did pass that act, we heard the argument which I can only construe as, "We don't want to work as hard as our federal brethren," or, "We're not capable of working as hard as our federal brethren." I can't accept either of those, but I understand it's the position of the opposition to oppose.
But now that we've increased those ridings and now that the boundaries have increased, it's obvious that, taken that there has been no increase since 1986, we have to catch up with inflation, number one, and we have to reflect the increased population of these boundaries. It just seems very natural that, accepting the federal boundaries, we would accept the federal formula of 96 cents per individual to fund elections in the future.
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Mr Bartolucci: I'd like to thank the member for Wentworth North for his very good address. Although I don't agree with everything he said in the address, I certainly appreciate his point of view. He is right that he is considered to be one of the renegade members on the Conservative side. I might say that he's a renegade member because, in my estimation, he has a brain, he has a sense of compassion about him and he certainly has a sense of fairness. Maybe that's why he has had to struggle with many of the decisions his government has made.
Because he is a person with compassion and a brain and a sense of fairness, I wonder, does he consider it a good way to introduce legislation, trying to sneak it in behind another major piece of legislation, doing so without a ministerial statement, sliding the legislation in without making any comment on it, hoping it will slip by?
When the Chair of Management Board is challenged by the opposition, he and the Premier run and hide until the House calms down. I don't know that that's the type of fairness the member for Wentworth North has shown us in the past. I think he would have trouble agreeing with the way the government has done this, with how the government has introduced this legislation and why the government won't bring the legislation on the road so that the people of Ontario, the people who are affected the most, the voters of Ontario, will have an opportunity for some input.
I suggest to you that the member for Wentworth North would have very little trouble supporting this in the final analysis if that sense of fairness which he's about was applied to the government and we took this on the road.
The Speaker: Response, member for Wentworth North.
Mr Skarica: I thank the members for their very kind comments. To the last comments about my not supporting the bill, I can say candidly that I have no trouble supporting the bill. The only concern I had was in the recommendations in the section I alluded to, and that isn't in the legislation any longer.
One comment with reference to the comments of the member for Renfrew North is that if there are people running for a nomination who do not subscribe to the party philosophy and who are there to undermine or sabotage the party, whether it be this one or the Liberals or the NDP, that can be done by the party constitution. I just think that if it's in legislation, it is then very difficult to get it out. It legitimizes in law absolute power for the party leader, whether he be the Premier or the Leader of the Opposition or the leader of the third party.
I don't think it's desirable in the name of democracy to have that. When we have seen it used the way Mr Chrétien has used it, it's very disconcerting that it would be in law in Ontario. In fact, it's not there. I wasn't the only person who was concerned with it. A number of our backbenchers were very nervous about that provision, not only for our government to use it but for future governments going on into the future.
I want to thank everyone for their kind comments.
If I could just say one thing in closing, Mr Christopherson thanked me. Numerous times in Hamilton he has made very kind comments to me and I find him a person of complete integrity, and I'd now like to officially -
Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): Is that the Speaker?
Mr Skarica: No, I'm talking about the member for Hamilton Centre. He's a person of complete integrity. I'd like to thank him for his comments.
The Speaker: He meant that about me as well, I'm sure.
Further debate?
Mr Alex Cullen (Ottawa West): I'm pleased to rise on this bill that we're debating tonight, these amendments to the Election Act and the Election Finances Act. I have to say from the very start that our party is opposed to this bill. I want to make that very clear from the outset, because listening to the remarks of the members opposite, they seem to say: "You're in favour of this; you're in favour of that. Why aren't you in favour of the bill?"
There are very good reasons to be opposed to this bill, not the least of which is the process by which it was brought into this House. As a matter of fact, it is an example of the complete disrespect the government has for due process in this House. Not only are they aware and have participated in previous amendments to the election process on a party consensus basis - and I know the members opposite are going to say, "You agreed to this; you agreed to that." We don't agree with this bill. Let's make it clear.
There are some things we would agree to in terms of electoral reform. The members opposite say, "After so many years, it's time for electoral reform." If that is so, with the change in the ridings, let us sit down as reasonable people and discuss the kind of reasonable changes that all of us can agree on. But this government has no respect for consensus-building. Instead, it comes into the House, there's no ministerial statement whatsoever and the minister is not participating in the debate tonight, because he knows, as the members opposite know, that the document they've come forward with is crass political opportunism and that there is no hope for consensus around such a change as that.
The Commission on Election Finances just released its 23rd annual report, for 1997. I think there's a small lesson to be learned from the statistics they have here as a result of last year's latest venture into politics, into the election process. Of course I'm speaking of the by-elections that were held last year. Last year in the riding of Ottawa West, which I now represent, the spending limit for Ottawa West was $45,175. That was for a riding that had a population of 77,000 people and about 45,000-plus voters. So the spending limit was around $45,000.
I have to tell you that the person who spent the most money did not win. My Tory opponent spent some $44,000. These are expenses subject to the limit. In reality he spent $54,000, but we exempt some small expenditures because we say it does not count towards electioneering. In the bill that we have before us tonight, we have expenditures that will surely count, that any reasonable person would say would form part of the election process, and other people have alluded to it before me. That is the cost of polling and the cost of travel. When you are bringing the media around to follow the campaign, you are surely trying to influence the campaign, trying to influence their reportage. The party that has the money and is able to spend that certainly is trying to take advantage of it. But no, this is not to be part of the spending process. But I digress.
In my campaign, I spent some $27,000 and the NDP spent some $12,700 in Ottawa West. On a per vote basis the winning margin for my campaign was about $2.43 a vote, for the NDP $4.94 on a losing cause, and for the Progressive Conservatives $6.10. That's to underline the fact that even though they try to spend the most money, the issues of health care, education, downloading - there's a saying that says, "Nothing can stop the power of an idea whose time has come." But all of this can get masked if there is a concerted effort of using money to buy elections.
What will happen in the new riding of Ottawa West-Nepean? The new riding of Ottawa West-Nepean will have a population of about 107,000 people. We will have, if we use what happened in the federal election as our most recent mark, about 76,000 voters. Using today's formula, that would mean that the limit in terms of expenditures would be about $62,000. Was that the limit in Ottawa West in the last federal election? No, it wasn't. The limit was some $59,800. That was seen to be fair, reasonable, creating a level playing field. It was transparent; people understood the purpose of the exercise and supported it.
Don't forget that every dollar that someone contributes to a registered political party means there's less money coming in tax revenue to the public purse. Every time a candidate runs and spends that money to collect votes there is a public subsidy. Incredibly, with the bill we have before us, we have a tax-and-spend government. It boggles the mind - a tax-and-spend government. This government is going to increase the contribution limits and therefore the tax credits for contributors, and therefore taxpayers will be subsidizing those folks who can write the big cheques to the party they like and at the same time will be contributing towards election subsidies to candidates. This government's actually going to raise those limits.
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I digress. The limits the federal government had for the same-size riding, Ottawa West-Nepean, was $59,800. If we use today's provincial rules and simply expand it by the 30% that Ottawa West is expanding by, it would be $62,000. But according to this government, the legislation they're proposing, the limit to be spent in Ottawa West-Nepean would be $72,000; $13,000 more than what the federal people deemed appropriate for the same riding for an election that was just held a few years ago.
It is amazing. In the course of two years, with inflation running at 2% or 3%, this government can say it is justifiable to increase spending for that community well above the rate of inflation, well above the increase in population, well above the size of the riding. It is simply wrong.
Why is this government doing it? It is straightforward. By exempting clearly political activity that would seek to further any party's electoral chances, they are tilting the playing field by increasing contributions to parties above and beyond inflation, which clearly requires more subsidy from the taxpayers. By increasing above and beyond the rate of inflation the subsidy candidates will receive from the public purse, they are imposing an additional cost on taxpayers, and it is to unlevel the playing field.
There is a very good reason why over the years - I have been a student of this game for many years - when we've been dealing with electoral reform there has been all-party consensus, because it has to be made clear that this is going to be an unbiased process, a level playing field, transparent.
The members opposite will stand up and say: "Your party supported this. Your party supported that. Your party supported the other." Our party is opposed to this bill because this bill is a package bill, and this government that presents it is not allowing this bill to go to committee, to hear from the taxpayers who are going to further subsidize this government's initiatives, to hear from the taxpayers whose money is going to be spent. Their money is going to be spent to buy their votes in a much shorter election campaign, where in my larger riding and your larger riding there are more people to meet and less time to do so, more issues to bring forward, and less opportunities for communities to organize themselves so we can have a full debate so that the taxpayers and voters can have a proper choice on election day. Oh no, this government is not interested in that.
Why is this government defying history here? Why is this government defying tradition here, a well-worn tradition that has served the taxpayers and voters of this province so well? Why is this government hiding from taxpayers, from voters, by refusing to allow this to go through the committee process like any other bill? Why is the government so intent on tilting the playing field as it is doing so today with this bill? The answer quite simply is crass political opportunism.
Others on this side have talked about the Americanization of politics. Watch the American side of politics. The taxpayer, the voter does not like the political process being abused in the name of moneyed interests. The whole purpose of the exercise is to make it transparent and a level playing field.
This government by showing disrespect to process, lack of consensus, no ministerial statement, no participation, not sending it to the committee, having limits way ahead of the federal rules that supposedly we're supposed to be operating under, because these are now federal ridings -
The Speaker: Questions and comments?
Mr Marchese: I want to talk very briefly about the government malfeasance as it relates to Bill 36 and say that we agree with the member for Ottawa West because we have similar kinds of thoughts as we oppose this bill.
I want to draw on a particular analogy that those who watch soccer will understand. I watched the game today between Italy and Cameroon. The Italians won 3-0. It was a good game. But I want to draw on the analogy as a way of making this discussion a little clearer to those who are watching on this program, and by the way we're on live; it's not a repeat program.
In soccer, as indeed in most other games, we have a referee. As most people would know, there's a referee to make sure that when there is a foul play, the referee is there to call the foul. You've got two sides and by and large it's a fair game. Every now and then you have one side tripping somebody and you've got the referee there saying, "Oh, it's a trip." You call the foul and the game is stopped and of course the team that was the victim of the foul gets to shoot a free kick and it goes to the other side. The point of that game is that it's a fair one.
We've got a referee. The Speaker is a referee in this place, but we don't have a referee when the government decides on its own to bring in a bill when there's no one who can say, "Hold on here, there's a foul play." What the government has done in this instance is to say: "The referee's on our side. We set the rules and, by the way, we hire the referee and the referee in this case is Mike Harris." They are rules set by the government and we, in trying to oppose it, are saying to the people watching, "Something is wrong with this bill." We need the audience to realize the malfeasance of this bill and we urge the people of Ontario to fight back.
Mr Ernie Hardeman (Oxford): It's a pleasure to rise and put a few comments on the record on the presentation made by the member for Ottawa West.
First of all, not just to the member for Ottawa West but generally to the comments that have been made by the members of the opposition and the third party as they relate to the democracy of this bill, as a member of the Legislature I find it somewhat interesting that they would use that comment. It seems they're putting forward the analysis that a bill that does not have all-party agreement before it arrives here for first reading is somehow undemocratic. I was led to believe that, as we are in this place, the discussion and the debate here in the Legislature is the part that matters and is where we would put forward our position, not in preparing the bill behind closed doors.
I would have some concern if this type of bill did have all-party support coming into the Legislature and there would be no debate in this Legislature. We might have 130 members in the Legislature agreeing with this bill, but the people of Ontario would have no idea what was in the bill. I think it's very appropriate that we have this debate before the Legislature so the people in Ontario will understand what the bill says and what it will do for the election process.
I quickly want to point out a part in the newspaper, in the Friday editorial in the Peterborough Examiner, "Dismiss the opposition claims that the new election rules in Ontario will unfairly favour the ruling Tories, especially when what we're seeing are two opposition political currently bereft of any credible policies and led by two individuals who have yet to be seen as preferable alternatives to Premier Harris." I think that has maybe more to do with what is happening here than their democratic rights.
The Speaker: Questions and comments? The member for Renfrew North.
Mr Crozier: Who said that, Conrad Black?
Mr Conway: The question my friend has asked is a good one. Does Conrad Black own the Examiner? I think he does.
Interjections.
Mr Conway: If he doesn't, he owns most of them.
Interjection.
Mr Conway: Listen, Mr Black has a view and he also wrote a book. One of his idols in politics is Maurice Duplessis, "I seen my opportunities and I took `em." In the Duplessis world of politics, you don't even need to pay the members.
I want to simply make this point again. The member for Ottawa West tells a very interesting story about his campaign last time in Ottawa West, and he makes a point that I think is an important one, the expenditure of money does not necessarily guarantee the result.
But I've been here all night and I've listened to most of this debate and I want to say to my friends the government members, smart, good people all, that Mr Christopherson made a compelling case here tonight. I'm not on the committee that he was on and I listened carefully to what he said. Before this debate is over, I would like somebody to make the counterargument about the differences between this bill and that which was being suggested by various of the external committees, whether it was the committee on election expenses or - the various committees.
Christopherson made a compelling argument tonight, and I would just like to hear somebody make the counterargument. That's what debate's all about. And again, since it is a matter of our integrity and since it's our honour and our reputation on the line, I would just to hear somebody counterpoint Christopherson's case because nobody has done it to date. People are reading from prepared materials that undoubtedly the central office has prepared or some fast-talking operative has authored, but the Christopherson case, will somebody respond to that?
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Mr Martin: I want to commend the member for Ottawa West for his presentation tonight and I want to focus just for a moment on one piece of it, that is, the issue of the lack of public consultation on this. But that's not inconsistent with so many pieces of legislation that have come before us here to take away democratic rights of the members of the House, of people out there to participate in a process that we over a number of years have developed by way of the political system that we have in place in Ontario, taking us down the road towards a more Americanized version of how we govern ourselves that is based almost totally now and primarily on money, as our leader has said on so many occasions lately, where a person's worth is directly related to how much money he has in his back pocket, how much money he has in his bank account.
Now, through this piece of legislation, without any public consultation, we're heading in a direction of whoever has the most money in their war chest when the election is called has the best chance of winning the election because of the way that elections happen now. With the diminishing of the time allowed for campaigns to unfold and to happen, you take us even further down that road. Where before a party like the New Democratic Party went door to door and knocked on people's doors and talked to people about what they thought was appropriate and right, we will no longer have that kind of time. You'll have to buy air time on radio or TV, and anybody who has done that in the last little while will know how expensive that is.
This is taking us ever so quickly down a road that will match what we do in Ontario in many ways to the American model without any public consultation. I agree with the member for Ottawa West when he says that's not the right way to go, it's not the right thing to be doing.
The Speaker: Response. Member for Ottawa West.
Mr Cullen: I'd like to thank the members for Fork York, Oxford, Renfrew North and Sault Ste Marie for their comments. I want to respond specifically to some of the comments raised by the member for Oxford, who is, as you know, a member from the government side. He spoke about the issue of democracy and how the expectation came about that there should be all-party support for any reforms or any bill that comes in here. Quite frankly, that's the whole point.
When we have bills come in here, it's through the test of debate that we try to perfect the bill. In this instance here, we're dealing with something that affects the whole playing field; not simply a policy that the government is putting forward, but the whole playing field upon which we base the democratic process from which governments are to be chosen. Quite frankly, when we're dealing with that it behooves us to have all-party consensus so that the public can rest assured that indeed it is a fair process by which they choose the representatives to come here and make the best decisions possible.
I would say to the members opposite that by denying due process here, by denying that this goes through a committee process, by denying the opportunity to build consensus - because there were elements in the various reports that came forward either from the chief election officer or from the election finances commission that there could have been, would have been, all-party consent. We could have had progress. But when the members opposite deny that, then - I hate to tell you this. The public out there already looks at politicians with very jaundiced eyes and when they see politicians taking the crass opportunity to further their interests by ramming through legislation like this, it's not good for the democratic process.
The kind of limits that are being talked about here, how can we justify in Ottawa West going from a limit of $45,000 to $72,000 in the space of two years? It is nonsense. People are refusing -
The Speaker: Further debate?
Ms Lankin: I'm glad to have an opportunity to speak to this bill. There's only 10 minutes on the clock so I will narrow my comments to about three or four points, although there are many others that I would like to have an opportunity to address. I want to ask the government members, please, to respond to these two or three points. I really want to know your answer to these questions.
The first area of concern I have is the provision of the bill that increases spending on what's called the central campaign. That's not the local riding campaigns. It's the central party campaign, which includes the leaders' tour - the leaders travel the province - and your television advertising for the central party and the leader, those sorts of things.
The election finances commission did not recommend any increase in the central campaign. I say to the members opposite, currently you can spend around $2.7 million. Why is that not enough? Please explain to me why $2.7 million is not enough to run a central campaign in this province. Your proposal, not supported by the election finances commission, increases that amount by about $1.3 million.
We'll now have an opportunity to spend up to about $4 million on a central campaign, in a campaign, by the way, that you've decreased down to four weeks, to 28 days, and you want to have $4 million. Please explain that to me. I do not understand that. I do not understand why that kind of money is necessary, why the taxpayers should condone that kind of money. I think it opens you to the allegations that are being made about big-money influence, being able to buy campaigns. Please, just answer why you support moving to $4 million.
The second question I have is, within that $4 million - it used to be $2.7 million - you used to include things like the costs of polling and things like the -
The Speaker: Hold on. There are a lot of meetings taking place, and I think it's important that we listen to the members who are debating. If you're going to meet, if you could go out into the lobbies I would appreciate it.
Interjection.
The Speaker: Thank you very much, member for Durham East, for your help.
Ms Lankin: I hope the parliamentary assistant heard the first question with respect to the central campaign.
The second question I have is, are the proposals for you to exempt items like polling and travel in particular from that ceiling for the central campaign? That was also not a recommendation of the election finances commission.
I want you to explain to me why you want to exempt that travel. Remember that I've just finished outlining that you've increased the central campaign ceiling from $2.7 million up to $4 million, and now you want to take out and not count against that ceiling the travel and the polling. What does that mean in practical circumstances then? It means that in terms of travel you can spend anything that you can raise the money to spend. That means in a 28-day campaign, which is another recommendation that wasn't made by the commission that you're implementing, you can move, if you have the money, the leaders' tour around absolutely everywhere in the province much quicker if you have the money to do that. But you've taken that outside of the ceiling.
What I really want to know is why you would do that, because the practical effect of that is therefore there's probably another $500,000 or so that used to be spent on travel in central campaigns that no longer has to be counted. So you've added $1.3 million. You've exempted $500,000 or so for travel plus another couple of hundred thousand for polling that used to be spent. That's all outside now. What it means is you have additional to previous campaigns about $2 million to spend on buying advertising in this province in the next campaign.
I believe the reason you are doing this is that I've heard from many of your members that you're concerned about third parties having money to buy third-party advertising. I don't agree personally with third-party advertising. I'd like to see tighter restrictions on that. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about how we can ensure, whether it is the teachers' organizations you're concerned about or the National Citizens' Coalition, and I've seen some of the garbage they've put out in previous elections, or Fair Rental Ontario or whoever gets involved - let's talk about whether that's appropriate, not whether you increase the ceiling so that you can spend another $2 million on advertising campaigns.
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Understand that not all political parties have the ability to compete with that kind of money. I hear the member talk about that the Liberals are the wealthiest party. I'm not defending what they can or can't spend. I'm saying that all three political parties do not have equal support from corporate Ontario, nor do they want it. This is wrong. This has not been recommended by the commission. There is no rationale that I think you can put forward that explains why there should be such a massive increase in the amount that's being spent on the central campaign: another $1.3 million to the ceiling, and by taking out polling and travel, another $2 million that you'll be able to spend on advertising in the next campaign. That, my friends, opens you to the kinds of allegations that are being made.
The member for Oxford talked about the process and said that he thinks this is where the debate takes place. He thinks this is where the democratic process is, that it would be wrong if there were a three-party agreement, that it wouldn't allow the public in. What a very bizarre statement, given the intentions of the government with respect to this bill. We have been told that you intend to move a time allocation motion, which would not allow for any committee hearings. We've been told no committee hearings; we've been told that you intend to move a time allocation motion which closes debate and which will not allow for Committee of the whole. What that means, my friends, is that you have told us you will not allow us to put forward any amendments to this bill. So I say to the member for Oxford, defend how that is a democratic process with respect to this bill.
The three concerns I have raised here, which were not part of the commission's recommendations, which I ask you to give me a rational answer for, are things I want to put forward as amendments. I want to have an opportunity to debate an amendment in this House. I want to make the case about why the amendment I would put forward would provide for a more balanced, fair and democratic Election Act in this province. I want you to tell me why you are denying my right to put forward an amendment to this bill. That, Mr Parliamentary Assistant, is my fourth question. Why are you denying me the right to put forward an amendment to this bill and have that amendment debated and voted on by the members of this House?
In all of the debates so far, none of you have spoken to these key issues. You have all raised points on which there is probably three-party agreement. I'm tired of that because that is not debate. That is platitudes; that is ducking the issue; that is obfuscation. There are a number of matters within this bill on which you could find three-party agreement, but that's not what the government is interested in. If they were, we would have that debate. In fact, we would listen to the committee of the whole and you would find that there would be all-party votes on certain sections of the bill where we agree, and we would have an opportunity to deal with some amendments in other sections where there is great controversy.
There is nothing, I think, you could tell me that would convince me that we need to move from $2.7 million in spending in central campaigns to $4 million in this province as well as exempting huge amounts of expenditure activity like travel of the leader and polling, so that you have more money to spend on advertising. If your real problem is third-party advertising, it is a difficult issue to deal with, given constitutional guarantees. Let's sit down and talk about how we do that. There we could find some agreement. There I would be interested in working with the government. But for you to use that as an excuse to increase the amount of spending that you can do on advertising by $2 million, to increase the amount of spending on your central campaign from $2.7 million to $4 million, to do all that in what now could become a minimum 28-day campaign and not once to have answered the question in this House as to how you defend that, when not one of those things was recommended by the commission, and then to say I don't have a right to put forward an amendment to be debated in this House - how can you expect anything else but to be accused of being anti-democratic? It is shameful.
The Speaker: Questions and comments?
Mr O'Toole: Respectfully, it's always a privilege to respond to the member for Beaches-Woodbine. She makes some very succinct arguments. To digress for a moment, I want to refer to the member for Renfrew North, who earlier made the comment that the member for Hamilton Centre made the most consistent argument. I take odds with that, and I do so for one reason. He tried to make the point - I have to say to the member for Beaches-Woodbine, you were a member of the cabinet of the government of the day when they brought in the social contract, one of the most powerful members. I would say if she was the leader of the third party today, there probably would be some significant dynamic changes in this province. She's not hamfisted. I respect the many things she does.
I have to draw to the members' attention here - it's important. I failed to get on the record and I want to repeat for the record that in the annual revenue statement that I'm looking at, the official document, average contributions individually - this is really filing the annual 1996 statements. I know it's all "blah, blah, blah" to you; you've been there, done that. The average individual contribution for the Liberal Party is $169 dollars; for the NDP the average individual contribution is $81; and for the Progressive Conservative Party - these are average Ontarians - $121.
Trade union contributions to the Liberals were $409. That's the average contribution, dues checkoff, whatever. For the NDP it was $763. Almost every person carrying a union membership card - and, respectfully, they have a right to do that. For our party - listen up here - there wasn't one cent.
I'll tell you, the corporation donations are the most significant -
The Speaker: Thank you.
Mr Curling: It's passing strange that the member did not respond to the member for Beaches-Woodbine, who put the question very eloquently and asked about due process, the democratic process being circumvented, and somehow the denial of giving every one of us participation in the political process of proper debate. I'm sure there will be no answers coming from the government side to the questions put forward by the member.
As you rightly said, the member is one of the most respected individuals in the House in debates. In putting those questions forward, you have denied that aspect of debate.
In Scarborough North, where I am, every Friday I go to the schools and talk about how laws are passed. Basically, I try to tell the students that there is a due process of debate. When I actually saw what the minister had done here, without any sort of introductory process to the bill - it tells us the arrogance of this government. Even with that, it tells us that there are no apologies whatsoever, and says, "We will ram this thing through."
I want to say to the members here, as the member for Beaches-Woodbine stated so well, that if we could discuss the things that are so important to us, giving time for us to debate it properly, making sure that not only we in Parliament have an opportunity to respond to those issues but the people in the province who will be participating in this process are given an opportunity - denial of this is a basic denial of the democratic process. I hope you'll come to your senses and make that process pursue its normal course.
Mr Martin: I want to say to the people out there and to the members across the way that they would do themselves well to listen to the member for Beaches-Woodbine, who spoke here tonight on this bill, because this bill strikes at the very heart of the work she has done for a number of years now, not only as a member of this Legislature but as somebody who has been actively involved in the political process in her community and in the province over a long period of time. She knows, as she looks at this and compares some of it to what's happening in some American jurisdictions where politics now has become somewhat of a joke on one side and very seriously challenged on another side, that is not where we want to go in this province.
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Any of you who have serious concerns, who are really interested in politics, where the people of a jurisdiction have a real say in who governs them and in the kinds of things they put in place by way of the laws, regulations and rules that we all have to learn to live by so that everybody can participate in a serious and significant way, will want to listen to the member who just spoke because of some of the things she points to in this bill, such as the increase in the amount of money you can spend, those things that no longer fall within the category of what needs to be reported. What that does by way of changing the very nature and flavour of how elections are run takes away from that very personal knocking on doors, speaking to people, town hall meetings, and turns an election into basically a media-driven, TV-radio thing where money is the operative and I think does a real disservice to the democracy we've come to know, and we'll all live to regret it.
Mr Gilchrist: It is indeed a pleasure to respond to the comments from the member for Beaches-Woodbine, and I will of course not refer to her by name. I'm sure earlier today was a momentary lapse, after all the years in this chamber, that she would repeatedly do that during one of her questions. I'll stick to the topic here tonight, tempting as it is to digress.
She spoke in her comments about certain changes, and there's no doubt that anybody watching tonight would be left with the impression, from her comments, that somehow research and polling are some new initiative to allow the various parties to spend whatever they see fit on that aspect of a campaign. Let me draw to her attention that it was only in the 1995 election that the commission made a ruling that polling was included. In fact, since then they have realized the error of their ways and have flip-flopped and have gone back to the policy that has always existed, that, and I quote, "No expenses will be included that do not reflect expenses that directly promote or help in the election of a candidate." Let me draw to your attention that the Liberals in the last election spent five times as much as the Conservatives on polling, so I think it's safe to say that does not determine the outcome of an election, or we would see a very different composition in this House.
More important in your comments again, and it's the same old spin: As long as it's something you don't agree with, it's undemocratic, ignoring the fact that the people of Ontario had a chance in the election of June 8, 1995, to express their views on the direction they wanted Ontario to take. They elected democratically the government that is sitting in this chamber today. We have the right under our system of government to continue to make the legislative changes that are necessary to reflect changing times. For you to suggest that there's not democracy because you don't agree with something is utterly arrogant.
The Speaker: Response, member for Beaches-Woodbine.
Ms Lankin: I want to begin by saying that I am extremely disappointed that the parliamentary assistant did not respond to the questions I put forward. I asked very specifically if he was listening to the questions, I asked for a response on those key points, and none of the government members responded to those issues. In fact, the parliamentary assistant sat there and didn't respond and I'm really disappointed.
Let me say to the members for Durham East, Scarborough North and Sault Ste Marie that I appreciate their comments very much. I think they were constructive. While I may disagree with them on some points and agree with them on others, that is part of a constructive give and take.
Let me say to the member for Scarborough East that I resent his implications tremendously. I believe that the comments I made tonight were the furthest thing from spin. I asked questions with respect to particular items that were not recommended by the commission. In fact, his concentration on the issue of polling shows how warped the response was, given that it was a matter that I just referred to in passing and that the main consideration was the exemption of travel from the ceiling in an expenditure ceiling which is already being increased by $1.3 million, from $2.7 million to $4 million. I asked why that was necessary. Not one of you has been able to respond to that question, because you know there isn't a legitimate response. My friends, there is not a legitimate response. It is your paranoia about third-party advertising, your attempt to compete with that with big corporation money, and unfortunately, you have skewed the balance of democracy in Ontario by doing so.
My point, to the member for Scarborough East, on the democratic process is that we have been told that you will not even allow us to put an amendment forward. Whether I disagree with you or I agree with you, I should have the ability to vote on sections and put forward amendments, and you are denying -
The Speaker: Thank you, member for Beaches-Woodbine. Further debate?
Mr Tim Hudak (Niagara South): I am pleased to rise and participate in the debate on Bill 36 this evening, the act to amend the Election Act and the Election Finances Act.
I believe Bill 36 is part of a package of changes to modernize the way that elections are run in the province. First of all, one of our prime campaign commitments was to reduce the number of MPPs. It stood to reason. I think it was a fair argument.
Mr O'Toole: Bill 81.
Mr Hudak: Bill 81, the member for Durham East says.
If we were asking the public service and we were asking our municipal partners, our partners across the public sector, to do more with less, it made sense to ask the politicians to do the same thing, which has meant that we are reducing the number of politicians by some 20%, from 130 ridings down to 103. This means we are matching the boundaries of our federal members, so next time around I will have the pleasure of contesting areas like Lincoln, West Lincoln and Dunnville, beautiful areas in Niagara and Haldimand, and I look forward to that.
As part of that, it makes sense to modernize the way elections are run in this province. One item that has been in a bit of contention tonight is the 28-day election period. I would argue that in this modern age, it's much easier to communicate one's message across the riding and across the province than it was decades or even years ago, with advances in technology. I remember knocking on doors, going to debates and such, and there wasn't that attention, I guess, to the election in the early days after the writ had been dropped. It didn't seem until even halfway through that period that people keyed in on the issues and were asking the questions about where the party stood on policies and you saw some changes in the issues and in terms of the polling numbers.
The 28-day campaign makes a tremendous amount of sense, in my opinion. In fact, I think if you look at the rest of the provinces, this is consistent with the majority of the rest of the provinces in this great country. I think a 28-day campaign makes a heck of a lot of sense, and again, I think if you ask the vast majority of voters, they will agree 100% with a 28-day campaign.
There has been some debate over the ability to spend money as a party as a whole. The 60 cents per person would be the party spending limit. There is this heightened rhetoric, this hyperbole from across the floor, that somehow this is American-style politics, the fact that the party can spend 60 cents per voter across the province. That's not American-style politics at all. When you're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars spent on American campaigns, $40 million spent by one candidate alone in the Democratic primary for the Senate, and governor seats as well in those primaries in California into the double digits of millions of dollars, that's American-style politics. But 60 cents per voter? Come on. Let's be fair and let's be realistic, as my friend from Huron says.
How does that compare with the rest of the provinces? Maybe this is trying to capture headlines that it's American-style politics and it's going to be another Clinton-versus-Dole campaign in Ontario. Again, let's be serious. What are they doing in the rest of the provinces? If you look and you compare Ontario's package, the amount that you can spend either in the riding or across the country, those kinds of limits, I would argue that we have by far one of the most modest packages, if not the most modest, across Canada, one of the most restrictive amounts of spending.
I spoke about the 60 cents per voter, which is less than all but two jurisdictions in Canada. We're a bit more than Nova Scotia. We're close to Quebec. When you compare that 60 cents to six bucks per elector in PEI - I don't hear the accusation that Prince Edward Island has American-style of politics. Maybe we are moving to the Prince Edward Island style politics in Ontario. Maybe that's the next spin that the opposition will come up with, or even Manitoba-style politics, where it's 80 cents per elector.
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I haven't heard a lot of voters in my riding say, "Please do not go to Manitoba-style politics," but that doesn't catch on with the media or accomplish the same kind of scaremongering that I think the opposition members want to drum up, so they have this whole American-style politics. That's not even close to being the truth, not close at all.
It's the same thing in terms of the limits that we can spend in our own ridings. As I said, my riding, currently Niagara South, will become Erie-Lincoln, and I will have the pleasure of running in the Lincoln, West Lincoln and Dunnville areas. Certainly, if I were an American-style politician, I would be raising millions of dollars right now. I think the extent of what I can spend in the campaign is not $10 million or $1 million or even what they would spend in Manitoba-style politics. It is a total per voter of 96 cents, not even a buck an eligible voter, which again is less than all but one of the provinces. Is it consistent with Canada? Alberta has no limits, Manitoba is $1.25 to start out with, about $2 in New Brunswick, $3 per elector in Newfoundland - and my God, if there's one thing we don't want, it's Newfoundland-style politics in the province of Ontario.
I think we should pin the tail on the appropriate donkeys here. This is all about rhetoric. It's all about raising the hyperbole in the House. The Peterborough Examiner has pinned the tail on the donkey. In the June 12 editorial the Peterborough Examiner dismissed opposition claims that new election rules in Ontario will unfairly favour the ruling Tories: "Essentially what we're seeing are two opposition political parties, currently bereft of any credible policies and led by two individuals who have yet to be seen as preferable alternatives to Harris."
I think that is what is at the root of the matter, and I certainly would not be surprised to see in the upcoming campaign, when you look at where the Liberals seem to be heading, a party always shy at the provincial level of embracing any kind of policies - they don't want to offend anybody. "We'll try to be half of this and half of that, and maybe that way we'll appeal to all the voters and try to fool them by telling them what they want to hear." My anticipation is that Dalton McGuinty, the leader of the opposition party -
Mr O'Toole: Who is he?
Mr Hudak: Dalton McGuinty, I understand, is the leader.
That's what most voters are saying. So what is he going to try to do? I think he's going to try to copy off the image of the strong and effective leader that we have in Mike Harris, and I think he's going to try to be Mike-Harris-like. That's what I think he's going to be.
I anticipate a lot of the money of the 60 cents per voter the Liberal is going to have is going to be spent on really hard-hitting, negative advertising to try to put the Premier's picture in a bad light or a bad shade across his face, to try to make him look like a bad guy, and Dalton McGuinty, without any policies, without any ideas, without any notion for change, will try to look good in contrast.
Mr Crozier: If he changes one iota like Mike Harris, I'm out of here.
Mr Hudak: Maybe that's why the member from Essex did not in fact support Mr McGuinty at the beginning of the race. Maybe he will choose to leave the party; I'm not sure. But if he did choose to leave that party and come over here, he had better get some principles and some good policies, and then he would be welcomed on this side of the House.
So I expect negative advertising. I think when the opposition talks about American-style politics, what they really mean is distortion and sensationalism. I think we have seen that demonstrated in the House recently by the opposition party.
I'll give you an example. The member for Oakwood walked around the House the other day with a sign that said "For Sale" on it, trying to intimate that Ontario was for sale. Either that or he's going to sell his home in Oakwood and move into the Castrilli-Kwinter battle. Perhaps he sees that as an opportunity as well. Then they held up the American flag behind the leader to try to again portray this chimera of American-style politics.
I don't think this cheap gimmickry is going to catch on. I don't think this kind of sensationalism and distortion is going to work with Ontario voters when they compare the messages they hear, no matter how much is spent. I don't think we're going to go to Manitoba-style politics or Newfoundland-style politics. They're going to look at who has the best record, who has cut taxes, who has cut red tape, who has made sure that tax dollars go to important services like front-line health care and textbooks for classrooms, and who has created the kind of environment in this province to help create jobs; in the three years here, 341,000 net new jobs. That record on its own speaks more than the Liberal money, more than distortions they're going to make, and I think a re-election is imminent.
The Speaker: Questions and comments?
Mr Curling: The member for Niagara South has a speculative way of speaking. Let me put some questions to you and maybe you could answer them.
I want to know, why didn't the minister make an opening statement on the introduction of the bill? He didn't. I presume he doesn't want any kind of a debate. I would ask you, will your government allow amendments to the bill as we debate it? Will your government allow public hearings so that the people of the province can participate in a democratic way in order to put their input in this very democratic party that you speak about?
You all seem to have one type of script, one script that they handed to you in caucus and said, "Read from that script." You all sound the same. Sometimes my friend from Scarborough East, who doesn't make much sense anyhow, is making his little comments that, "We will deal with them at election time."
I just want to know, will you allow the opposition to make amendments to your bill? I would like very much that you who speak about this democratic process, you who speak about the time for us to debate in this House, allow that. Because of the arrogance that we see here, I would bet that this will not happen, but I want to be proven wrong. I want to be proven wrong, that now that you're putting this process in place you will allow us to do that.
If you don't allow us to do that, will you allow the public to have an opportunity to come before you to ask those questions so you can be accountable for the way in which you're behaving now? Then we'll prove how democratic you are. When the election comes, whether it's 28 days or 38 days, it really doesn't matter, because that day at the polls, they'll make a decision according to how you have behaved in this very undemocratic manner.
Mr Martin: I want to say that I agree with the member for Scarborough North in the points that he makes, and say to the member for Niagara South that the most disappointing part of his presentation, other than the presentation he made, is the fact that he sounds like he believes it. He actually has been himself hoodwinked into believing that there is something good and valuable about this piece of legislation as it is presented and that it will somehow enhance the democratic process in this province.
For him for a second to suggest that this is not about money is to deny that everything you've done so far in your three years is about money. That's exactly what it's been about. It's about money. It's about taking money out, it's about giving money to the rich, it's about balancing social commitments with financial commitments and always coming down on the side of financial commitments. It's about destroying communities. It's about taking away from Ontario all that we together have built up over such a long period of time and that is valuable, under the aegis of being democratic, of involving people, of including people.
I suggest, as the member for Scarborough North has said, if you have no difficulty with this, if you think this is so good for the people, why aren't you willing to take the time necessary to take it out for public consultation so that at the end of the day some amendments could be made so that it does present and in the end turn out to be something that is valuable and enhancing and evolutionary when it comes to the way we do politics and democracy in this province?
I suggest to you, as I've said here tonight earlier on, this is taking us down a road towards American-style politics, where money talks, where the party that can afford the most TV and radio time has the most impact on people. That's sad.
Mr Bill Grimmett (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): It certainly is a pleasure to provide comments, first of all, and then questions to the member for Niagara South. I want to address the issue of American-style politics, which the member is an expert on. Not only did he patrol the Canadian-American border for some years, but he also spent some time in the United States studying American politics. His comments on the American-style politics were very good.
Earlier in the debate, we heard from members such as the member for Renfrew North that our speeches were prepared by the whiz kids, but I have to say it was impossible for the speech given by the member for Niagara South to have been prepared by a whiz kid, because it was far too witty and far too humorous. The idea especially of Newfoundland-style politics in Ontario was certainly scandalous.
I have a question. What was the word, member for Niagara South, that you used about the flag being waved behind the opposition leader? That's where I'll leave it.
Mr Crozier: I want to speak directly to the comments from the member for Niagara South. He seemed to say offhandedly, "Well, what's 60 cents a person?" or "What's 96 cents a person?" What he didn't tell the people of Ontario is that the minister has said this bill is going to save money. It's going to save about $15 million, I think the minister said. Well, the people of Ontario pay part of every penny that's contributed to your party, my party or that party. So this election is actually going to cost in increased expense allowances, just those that are under the cap, a possible $50 million. The people of Ontario are going to contribute to that, because it's tax deductible.
The member for Beaches-Woodbine talked about those expenses that are outside the cap. But still, for those who contribute that money to the party or to the local association, it's tax-deductible.
The lid is absolutely off. There's absolutely no control this government has by increasing all these limits on the amount of money it's going to cost the taxpayer of Ontario, because every dollar contributed has at least a tax deductible portion. So just to dismiss it as a mere 60 cents or a mere 96 cents - I want you to also tell the people of Ontario how much they pay, how much they pay back to you in your campaign and how much they pay back to me in my campaign, how that can cost them at least $50 million in just that area alone.
The Speaker: The member for Niagara South has two minutes to respond.
Mr Hudak: I thank my colleagues for their comments. I hope I have belied the idea that this is American-style politics. Finally in the round, I didn't hear any jibes about American-style politics, because the reality is that Ontario's election finances laws will be among the most modest in Canada, no comparison to the states. The only person who brought up the American side of things was my colleague on this side of the House from Muskoka-Georgian Bay - and sometimes I wonder what side he's on in the debate.
There were a number of meetings, committees and such, recommending changes for some time. In these meetings, my understanding is that after a couple of the most recent, the Liberals came forward and said they would not support any changes whatsoever to the act unless they had a veto right over everything. Here we have two thirds of the members of the House on this side, and a small number there wanted the veto right over all things.
I remember hearing a suggestion by the member for Windsor-Walkerville, Mr Duncan. He recommended the increase in spending limits. He said, "If the federal expense limits were high enough for the recent federal election campaign, why are they not high enough for Mike Harris?" That was Dwight Duncan's letter to the government House leader of March 19, 1998. I would say we have listened. They made their recommendation, and true to form, the Harris government is listening. When we hear a good idea, we make those changes.
At the end of the day, these rules make sense for voters. This is Ontario-style politics in Ontario, and those guilty of sensationalism and distortion are those members across the floor.
The Speaker: It now being just past 9:30 of the clock, this House stands adjourned till 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.
The House adjourned at 2135.