Thank you, Mr. Chair. Many women told us that paying for a campaign is a major barrier to them deciding to become a candidate. We looked at rebate schemes across the country and used that information to create our recommendation, which I have to tell you is unique in the country since it is a recommendation that applies to independent candidates rather than those in parties.

First, we set the threshold to qualify for a rebate low. Candidates only have to earn 5 percent of the vote to be eligible for a rebate. Second, the expenses eligible for the rebate exclude cash and in-kind donations but do include the money the candidate spent from his or her own pocket on the campaign. We set a cap at 50 percent rebate on these expenses because it is one of the most generous rebates available in the country in this scheme and the cost to government, given the 2015 election results, would be about $60,000. If there was no cap, so if expenses were rebated in full, the cost to government would jump to $163,000.

Mr. Chair, as you see in Appendix C of the report, we looked at the option of providing a rebate of 50 percent on up to $10,000 worth of expenses. We ultimately decided against this number because so few people spend enough to require this greater reimbursement. In fact, it would have been just four candidates in the last election. Reimbursement at this level would favour those who spend more and can afford to wait for a rebate, in other words, candidates who probably don't need our help in the first place.

The option we chose was to rebate 50 percent of $6,000 in expenses because it reflects the level at which most candidates spend. Thank you, Mr. Chair.