Media has been rife with stories about how Russia may have been involved in the outcome of the American Presidential election but Blake Richards says it could also happen in this country.

Richards, the MP for Banff-Airdrie, says there are large, glaring loopholes in Canada's election laws that could allow it to happen.

"There have been people that looked at the last election and have alleged that they believe there was a pretty significant influence even in the last election.  In the absence of that having been established beyond a doubt at this point the least we can say is that there is a possibility of it."

Richards says it's all because of the laws governing third party spending in Canada.  "The only time period in which there's any ability to look at their records or books or to determine how much they've had in terms of contributions.  There's very strict rules about contributions to political parties but when it comes to third parties it's only during the election campaigns themselves that their contributions can be looked at and it's only for the purposes of advertising.  They can do door knocking or paid volunteers or any other activities that take place during an election without scrutiny.  Any contributions received before an election campaign as well, there's no scrutiny."

With fixed election dates, Richards says it's easy for third party groups to know when contributions have to be cut off.  "There could be millions of dollars of foreign money funnelled into Canada and totally influence the outcome and there's nothing anyone could do about it or even determine if that's been the case."

Elections Canada says there are things which need to be looked at but it would be up to the government to bring forward legislation to change things.  "At this point, despite questioning the government, I've had the opportunity to question the Minister for Democratic Reform myself, we've had no commitment at all that they would do that but we're going to keep pushing them on it for sure."

Richards says one organization has recently launched a campaign against the Conservatives, trying to get them to apologize for their stance on Omar Khadr and asking Canadians to sign a petition to show solidarity for the convicted terrorist who received a $10.5 million payour from the Liberal government.  

Richards speculates on what a third party would gain by such a move.  "I think a third party would just be trying to collect information on who supports the various political parties and that to me is troubling because a third party shouldn't be making it their job to try to oppose or support a particular political party.  if they've got ideas they want to push, that is what these groups were meant to be for, 'we believe in X so try to think about that when you vote.' When they try to get into trying to promote or support or oppose political parties or candidates, I think that's starting to get into a different area."

Richards says maintaing the integrity of the Canadian electoral system is fundamental to safeguarding democracy in Canada.  He wants Elections Canada to have the tools they need to ensure that no foreign entitty is able to influence the results of an election, either directly or indirectly.