Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Mississauga South.
I am going to read the motion again because I really want it to be understood:
That, in the opinion of House, the Conservative Party of Canada's “in and out” electoral financing scheme was an act of electoral fraud and represents an assault on the democratic principles upon which Parliament and our electoral system are based, and that, further, the House calls upon the Prime Minister to: (a) order the immediate repayment of any and all illegally obtained electoral rebates that were paid out to candidates for the Conservative Party of Canada as a result of the “in and out” fraud; and (b) remove all individuals facing charges for this fraud from any position of responsibility within Government or the Conservative Party of Canada.
Everyone who is responding from the Conservative side of the House say that it is none of the business of this House. Well it is, because all of us when we were elected to this House had to sign that we agreed with the Canada Elections Act. The idea of democracy being put in jeopardy is a good enough reason for the House to discuss this issue.
The Court of Appeal ruled against the Conservative government on February 28, 2011 and charged four senior Conservatives, including two sitting senators with wilfully exceeding spending limits in the 2006 campaign and with providing false and misleading statements.
As the court said, this breaking of the law would “weaken compliance with the limits set by Parliament”, which is where we are now, and “abuses could well proliferate, and the statutory objective of promoting a healthy democracy through levelling the electoral playing field” would be undermined.
That is why we are discussing this issue in the House. It is about democracy and Parliament has a role to play.
We have heard a lot of answers in this House from the Conservatives. I just want to mention very quickly what happened.
According to the Court of Appeal and Elections Canada, everyone is allowed to transfer funds from the national body to a local riding. That money goes to pay for advertising for the local riding, which directly--and the word “directly” is consistently used--benefits the local candidate.
When the other parties did that, they followed the rule of law. However, the Conservative Party did it but did not put forward ads that benefited the local candidates at all. They put forward the same old big national ad.
Why did the Conservatives do it? They did it because they wanted to be able to spend another $1.2 million over the limit, which they had already spent, in what was a very close campaign and in which they knew that advertising would give them the edge.
Not only did they do that knowing that they had contravened the Canada Elections Act by doing exactly that and not directly benefiting the candidates to whom the money was sent, but they also set up an elaborate accounting scheme to make sure that no one could see what they did. It was a shell game. In fact, as the Court of Appeal said, it was a scheme. It was deliberately set up to defraud and fool people into believing that something else had happened. That is the gist of this whole issue.
When the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister stands in the House and says that the transfer of advertising money was something that everybody else did, that they moved money back and forth, he is being cute. Actually, he is being very deceitful in what he is saying because that is not true. It is very clear in the act what is meant to happen and what in fact this party did.
Not only that, there were candidates who thought they smelled a rat. I want to quote some Conservative candidates.
Joseph Goudie, the Conservative candidate for Labrador said:
It most certainly did smell to me...for a national party, or any kind of a political party, to benefit in what I perceive to be an underhanded manner, using not just my campaign but many others across the country, left me with a feeling of being used.
Liberato Martelli, the Conservative candidate for Bourassa, said:
I was told it would be deposited and quickly withdrawn....I was told there would be invoices but I never saw them.... When I joined that party, I believed its vision at the time...I came to the realization they don't have as much integrity as they claim.
The third candidate, Cynthia Downey, the Conservative candidate for Random—Burin—St. George's said: “[Harper] gives his word, and he breaks his word. If I--”