Liberal MP Joe Volpe is calling on the Senate to amend the Federal Accountability Act to prohibit people under 18 from donating money to political parties after the House of Commons failed to impose such a restriction.
Mr. Volpe was criticized this spring when his campaign for the Liberal Party leadership accepted donations from 11-year-old twins. He returned $27,000 he had received from the twins and three other minors and said he had created a precedent that should become the law of the land.
Mr. Volpe sent a letter last week to the Opposition Leader in the Senate, Liberal Dan Hays, calling for the legislation to include tougher rules.
"In the course of the debate, we established in Canada a sense that the spirit of the law is that no one under the age of 18 would make a political contribution. I lived to that standard by giving the money back," Mr. Volpe said in an interview yesterday.
Senator Hays must have had a good laugh when he read the letter. Even his own party thinks Volpe has become a punchline at best, an embarrassment at worst.
Nonetheless, kudos to Volpe for his eleventh hour attack of conscience. He'll still be going into this race as the kingmaker with every Tomaso, Ryczard and Harjit in Toronto fresh off the boat and in the party.
Source: Globe and Mail
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