Stephen Owen

[Federal Accountability Act, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak to this group of amendments. Motion No. 28 is very much in order as far as we are concerned, but I would like to say a few words about Motions Nos. 29 and 30.

Motion No. 29 talks about a requirement to post and disclose all contracts entered into by the government over the amount of $10,000. This would codify something that is the practice. It was brought in by the previous Liberal government as a policy, but was not in legislation. For the past year and a half, and I know because I was public works minister at that time, the government has posted contracts over $10,000. This amendment would codify that, and we agree it is a good thing to do. This has been done invariably in any event over the last time by policy of the previous government.

It is immensely important that this public information be seen by the public and appreciated. If any unfairness on procurement or questions come to light, there is full knowledge of where that concern lies and people can bring up their concerns at an appropriate time. We have no difficulty with that being codified in the legislation. We think it is an appropriate step forward, even though it was invariably done by the last government.

With respect to the exclusion of aboriginal people, first nations, we agree the technical amendment to the committee's amendment is appropriate. We have had a chance to discuss this with government lawyers as well as parties opposite. This is appropriate in terms of cleaning up the language to ensure that aboriginal groups, first nations, that have first nations self- government agreements with the government, which are recorded in legislation, as well as bands under the Indian Act be at this time excluded from the legislation.

It is important to understand our constitutional order. Section 35 of the Constitution, as it has been increasingly interpreted and explained by the courts as well as in its wording itself, continues the rights of aboriginal people.

The jurisprudence on this has made very clear that there is a duty to consult and, indeed, to accommodate first nations when we take actions of government. In this case, a parallel series of discussions went on with first nations organizations, with the Auditor General, so an aboriginal auditor general could be created. This would give us the opportunity to also house that aboriginal auditor general. The current Auditor General has offered to house the new office in her office for a period of a year or two to add to capacity-building to get it up to speed.

The important thing is we are not asking municipal or provincial governments to be subject to direct audits by the Auditor General. Therefore, it is not appropriate that we would ask self-governing first nations be subject to this.

This is an important exclusion at this time. The President of the Treasury Board has expressed the overall concern that money emanating from the federal government be followed by the Auditor General. We have heard evidence from the Auditor General that the appropriate way to go forward is to help first nations work toward a first nations auditor general and she will be in full partnership with that auditor during the capacity-building transitional period.

[Federal Accountability Act, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank colleagues all around who have worked hard on this important bill over the last while. We have had some differences of opinion with respect to the effectiveness or perhaps unintended consequences of some of it, and that has led to a number of amendments which have been generally well thought out and well received.

With respect to this group of amendments, we are in agreement now with the withdrawal of Motion No. 11. We are in agreement with the rest of the amendments except for Motion No. 12, and let me just respond to the President of the Treasury Board briefly on that.

The prosecutorial decision-making of an attorney general, and therefore a deputy attorney general for the purposes of prosecution or a director of public prosecutions, is not exactly an executive power. It is a quasi-judicial power which must be administered in a fair and impartial way. There is some cloudiness around that.

Regarding the amendment that was made in committee and was agreed upon, the legislative committee should have direct involvement in the choosing of this individual. Given the impartial nature of that person's work and given that this person fulfills the independent role of the attorney general in our system as a quasi-judicial decision-making prosecutor, we believe it is most appropriate that we maintain the ability for the parliamentary committee to recommend and have that recommendation followed.

[Federal Accountability Act, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, certainly any knowledge of criminal activity would have to be disclosed, and members of Parliament, above all, should ensure that any knowledge of illegal or otherwise improper donations should be made available and disclosed to the proper authorities.

[Federal Accountability Act, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the comments made by the member for Winnipeg Centre. The NDP did put forward an interesting amendment that would have required donations from someone underage to be included in the parent's donation. We had difficulty with the amendment because with the limits being $1,000 several children or two parents could be giving donations and the underage children could potentially exhaust their parents' ability to donate. We would not want to get into one of these kinds of tussles.

While young people should be encouraged to take part in political parties, which is what our parliamentary system is based on, the complications around the donation seem sufficient enough for us to say that cutting donations off at the voting age would be the simplest way to plug the hole.

I do agree with my friend from Winnipeg Centre that it is against the law to launder money through anybody, whether they are a friend, a spouse, a child or anyone else. Donations are to be made in the name of the person they actually come from and any act otherwise would be improper. We should be looking for ways to ensure that loophole is closed down and we make it a clean cut off at 18, the voting age, which would be logical. We could avoid mistakenly receiving donations in someone's name who we do not know personally or someone who was given money by someone else to donate.

[Federal Accountability Act, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak with respect to this group of amendments and the bill generally. The member for the NDP, who preceded me, makes a very good point when he reminds the House of the progression toward the crafting of and the approval of the open government act. It was the draft act produced by Commissioner John Reid, at the request of the House over a year ago, and submitted in the early fall of last year. It came before the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, which endorsed it, and that is extremely important, with support from, I think, all parties in the House.

That was moving us toward an expert based, record based experiential amendment of the act, which we have had the experience of working on now for over 23 years in the House and through the Commissioner of Information.

There has been a great deal of discussion over all of this time with respect to how the act is working or is not working, how the public service is reacting to the requirements of the act and whether it seems to be an aggravation to people to disclose information easier kept secret. That is not what we want and that is not what it is intended to do. The intent of the act is that information held publicly, with some exceptions, is public information and should be available.

One of the interesting things about access to information is it not only enriches our democracy by allowing Canadians to know what is being done with their money, and I think all members of the House understand that, subject to some reasonable exemptions. It causes the public bureaucracy to work more efficiently as well. If bureaucrats are required to make available this information on an ongoing basis, then they have to clean up their record keeping. One would hope it would lead to a regular process of simply posting information as a matter of course without citizens having to ask for it.

We learn about the unintended consequences sometimes of these acts and they need to be amended from time to time. Commissioner Reid performed a very worthy service in providing the open government act for consideration by the House. As I mentioned, it was endorsed by the committee.

Then in line with that endorsement, the Conservative Party in the last election made it part of its election campaign to include the open government act, as presented by Mr. Reid and endorsed by the committee, in the accountability act. It would be its first piece of legislation should it be elected. I think that conformed to the will of the House and the expectations of the public.

We are disappointed, as well as the other opposition parties, that the whole act did not appear and we are taking another course. We will be very interested and directly engaged in that discussion in the fall when the opportunity, through another committee, comes to bring up to date the legislation.

Not only have we had this process through the information commissioner and the House committee, but, in a very interesting way, this case come before the courts. The Supreme Court of Canada has endorsed the general concepts of access to information, that there should not be permanent exclusions that do not have exemptions. They would be time limited and there would be some discretionary exemption. In applying this discretion, one should look to exemptions such as personal information, third party information and commercial information. There should be an opportunity for the commissioner to apply some discretion to ensure that there is no injury being caused by that exemption. I suppose the flip side of that, is if there is some injury caused, is there an overriding public interest that should be exercised in favour of disclosure.

The injury test, the discretion of the commissioner, public interest override and to avoid permanent exclusions which allow no discretions to be applied are important principles. Those are interesting aspects which we will have to come to in the fall. We were disappointed they were not in here.

Another interesting issue came about as a result of finding out that one of the leadership candidates for the Liberal Party had received donations from children who were under the age of majority. I think they were 11 or 12 years old. I have very little knowledge of any of the money that is donated to my campaigns. As a matter of practice I usually do not look. I do not want to be directly associated with knowledge of that. It may well be that all members of this House have unknowingly received contributions at some time from persons who are underage.

My colleague from Notre-Dame-de-Grâce--Lachine put forward an amendment at committee that would have made it improper for anyone who had not reached the age of 18, the voting age, to make political donations. It is unfortunate that it did not pass at committee but it is something we should think about in the future. I do not think any of us would want to be given money in the name of minors, which does not actually come from their own funds.

Looking at the motions in Group No. 2, the official opposition will be supporting most of them. We know that two have been withdrawn but we are having a little difficulty with Motion No. 14 which was put forward by the NDP member.

We need to consider in this House whether there is a substantive difference between the Auditor General and an audit, and any other official of Parliament, such as the parliamentary commissioner. They all provide somewhat similar roles. They receive concerns from the public. They can initiate their own investigations. They perform audits, whether it is compliance with the Official Languages Act, the Access to Information Act, the Privacy Act, the Treasury Board directives or other auditing and accounting rules of government.

I am not quite sure of the distinction that is being made by separating out the Auditor General from the others. I gather that the mover of the motion is concerned about the absolute exclusion given to the papers produced in the process of an audit that would apply to the Auditor General for disclosure, that it simply not be permanent and that it be made discretionary but after the audit is complete, as with the other officers of Parliament. I think we may want to hear a little more debate on that one.

[Government Policies, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, to continue with the list of change for the worse, in the riding of Thornhill alone, funding to Kids Come First, a new day care facility with 56 spaces, has been cut.

In Saskatchewan federal support to farmers has been cut by about $200 million this year compared to last year.

Saskatchewan families have lost about $125 million for early learning and child care.

Money to upgrade and expand the RCMP's training facilities at the Depot Division in Regina has been reduced by more than 60%.

Strategic investments in energy, science and research have disappeared.

The promise for icebreakers in deep water ports has been broken.

The construction of two schools on first nations reserves in Alberta has been postponed, despite the $21 million in funding being committed to the two projects.

The national caregiver agenda, a five year $1 billion commitment to improve the lives of unpaid caregivers has been iced.

There is more, unfortunately.

[Federal Accountability Act, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, could the parliamentary secretary provide a little more elaborate explanation of the amendments to the schedules where ACOA seems to be deleted and IDRC is added? Could he tell us why that is necessary? It was not clear to me in his remarks.

For the most part, the Liberals agree with the government's statements on these amendments, as well as those proposed by the NDP. I think there may still remain some confusion around the amendments to the schedule, both recommended by the NDP and by the government. Perhaps the parliamentary secretary could give me a little more detail on that.

[Federal Accountability Act, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, l agree with the Minister of Justice in his suggestion that proposed subsection 41.5(3) also be deleted. That makes the package complete. What we are suggesting, with unanimous consent, is to delete the government's Motion No. 9 and replace it with an amendment that would delete proposed subsections 41.4(3) and 41.4(4) and 41.5(3) and 41.5(4). I would seek unanimous consent for that opposition.

[Federal Accountability Act, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I understand the concern of the Minister of Justice with respect to proposed sections 41.4 and 41.5. I would suggest, as a subamendment to Motion No. 9, rather than deleting all of proposed subsections in proposed sections 41.4 and 41.5, that we simply delete lines 19 to 28 on page 89, which would remove proposed subsections 41.4(3) and 41.4(4) with regard to the prosecution. On page 90, under proposed subsections 41.5(4), delete 41.5(4) rather than the whole of proposed section 41.5. That deals with the concern of the Minister of Justice with the courts.

That would ensure that both the courts stay out of the House of Commons business and the House of Commons and its committees stay out of the courts and prosecutorial business, which is the constitutional structure that we have of autonomy and independence of those branches of government. Yet it would still allow the prosecutorial service and the courts to have the benefit of the public committee or House report that might have been tabled in its proceedings. It could therefore pay what attention it deemed appropriate to it. That would be my subamendment.

[Federal Accountability Act, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I have two points with respect to the previous speaker's more general observations. One is general and the other is specific.

The bill was certainly rushed through committee stage. Almost every expert witness from different sectors cautioned us, as a committee, to take our time because it was complex and lengthy. It involved dozens of different statutes and it would have some dramatic impact in many of the opinions of witnesses. That was simply the evidence before us.

We moved at quite a pace. A number of witnesses were grouped together in time periods, which frustrated them in feeling they were being properly listened to and understood.

Therefore, I do not think there is any question that, while we moved quickly and effectively through most of the bill, many of the witnesses, including Arthur Kroeger, the dean of the senior public official community in Ottawa, thought it should take the committee all next fall to go through it properly.

The other issue the member raises is with respect to the crossing the floor amendment, which I introduced. He is absolutely right. The chair of the committee did rule it out of order. I then asked for a vote to overrule the chair so it could be considered. The NDP voted with the government against overruling the chair. That was in substance the same thing as voting against for the amendment.

I take no issue with the members being opposed to that amendment, but there was a vote against my motion to overrule the chair in his finding the amendment out of order. That was the sequence of events. However, we are here to debate the bill.

However, let us get on, go through clause by clause and have a good discussion on this and perhaps stop the more general speeches.