Bill C-11 (Historical)

Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act

An Act to establish a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoings in the public sector, including the protection of persons who disclose the wrongdoings

Financial Administration Act

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, having been a member of the government operations and estimates committee since its inception, the issues related to the public service are extremely important to me. I am quite encouraged, and I think Canadians should be very encouraged, by the commentary of all hon. members who have participated in the debate on Bill C-8.

As the members know, it is a technical bill to enact a decision of order in council. However, when I listen to the debate, I hear concerns about harassment, whistleblowing and employer and labour relations. The public service should be encouraged to know that parliamentarians have taken this matter seriously and will work to the best of their ability to address some of those issues.

First, since we are talking about a particular bill, maybe we should say something about it just to reaffirm. We tend to invoke the relevance issue from time to time. The Chair's decision to allow members a little latitude to talk about the importance of the public service is very important.

The bill aims to confirm, by legislative means, the order in council which established the functions of the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency and placed it within the Treasury Board's portfolio. It also maintains the status quo and does not modify either the functions, or the attributions or powers that were formally given to the agency by orders in council which had already been put in place.

The main benefits of the bill include: (a) clarification of the role of the agency within the system, including unions, and in particular the relations with the Treasury Board's portfolio, as well as with the Treasury Board which is the employer; (b) it better integrates the activities relating to human resources management within the Treasury Board portfolio; and (c) it provides for greater visibility for the agency, both within and outside the public service, facilitating implementation of its policies, programs and services.

Essentially, the bill proposes to add the position of president of the agency to the Financial Administration Act in the same way the Secretary of the Treasury Board and the Comptroller General of Canada are already identified in that act.

It also specifies the nature and powers and functions that may be delegated by the Treasury Board to the president of the agency in the same manner as stipulated in the act for the Secretary of the Treasury Board and the Comptroller General of Canada.

Finally, it stipulates that the President of the Treasury Board is responsible for the coordination of the activities of the Treasury Board Secretariat, the agency and the Comptroller General of Canada.

A number of members have commented so far today that this is basically a technical bill that enacts some of the provisions related to an order in council appointment. However, as I said in my preamble, members have wanted to talk about the public service generally and about some of the concerns.

We talked in questions and comments about the whistleblower legislation, which is now before committee. We have had the minister before us already on this matter to provide some background. However, the important thing for members to know is that the bill has been sent to the committee after first reading. It is a very significant move that it goes after first reading. Once a bill receives second reading, the approval in principle is in place and one cannot start to change the fundamentals of the bill after second reading. The committee has the unique opportunity in regard to the legislation on whistleblowing, Bill C-11, or any other legislation that goes before any other standing committee after first reading, to really get down to the fundamentals.

I think members are familiar with the hon. members who are on this committee, and it is an excellent committee. The committee has expressed its views already in its conversations with the President of the Treasury Board. There is an appetite to look at this much more carefully than we might have otherwise done after second reading. However, the members, the public and the civil service should be assured of this. The important thing for the committee is to hear the witnesses from all the stakeholders.

I had the opportunity to fly home last week with someone who had been a whistleblower, Ms. Gualtieri. She wanted to talk about it. I am sure it will be coming before committee again as a specific example. There are many other aspects to this, the structure, et cetera. It is going to be difficult.

The committee is going to have one problem and that is the current structure of the bill. With all of the provisions that it sets up in terms of addressing matters under the whistleblower legislation, it pervades the entire bill. To change it, and this is the caution, it is going to be virtually an enormous rewrite of the bill. We have to be prepared for that.

I do not think committees have had much success in rewriting bills because there are so many tangents and tentacles that go through them. In fact what has happened historically is that when committees do not like a bill and do not believe they have the ability or the resources to do the rewrite, the bill is simply defeated at committee and the committee sends the bill back to the House, saying that the committee is rejecting it.

That is also a possibility. I do not think it is my preferred route though. I think the committee has the opportunity to do it.

I also wanted to comment very briefly on Bill C-25, the Public Service Modernization Act which came before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. The current President of the Treasury Board was the chair of the committee at that time. It was a tremendously complicated bill and had two bills embedded in it, as I said earlier in questions and comments.

The bill was the result of literally years of consultations, expert opinions from right across the country and consultations with all of the stakeholders. It was the best effort. One of the most important things that I found out from the witnesses and from the committee process was that the experts had basically said that the culture within the civil service was such that we could not move fully with the restructuring and modernization of the public service in one step, in one bill.

It was decided that we could only take it so far. The reason was the culture within our civil service. There is a culture of some cynicism. Sometimes things happen. There is experience. There was some cautious optimism that the changes, as we fully implemented the changes that were contemplated under Bill C-25, would improve the environment in which the public service must operate.

This means we are going to go through another wave of renewal and modernization of the public service, once it is determined that we have brought it forward as far as we can under the provisions of Bill C-25. That is very important for members to understand.

Members may be interested to know that the government operations and estimates committee has a significant opportunity in its mandate to go where it feels it should go to deal with these things. From what I have detected so far, the committee members are very interested in pursuing certain aspects more rigorously.

I think there is going to be some special work done within the committee. I hope that once we get through the important process of the estimates and dealing with the whistleblower legislation that we will then formulate our agenda to continue this important work and to have some important input into the renewal process of the public service.

For the benefit of the public service representatives who are watching, the problem we had with Bill C-25 with regard to the whole modernization process was there was some concern that the consultation was not full consultation. We have to make absolutely sure that whenever there are changes being proposed and legislation being formulated that the stakeholders whom it will affect are fully consulted. That is an absolute necessity.

On top of that, the timeline within which we had to deal with that bill was very tight. Many of the witnesses, including PSAC which represents the employees, came forward with a myriad of suggestions and recommendations on how to amend Bill C-25, but it happened to be the day before we were going to clause by clause study on a bill that was the size of a telephone book.

It is extremely difficult for changes to be made to legislation at committee when substantive changes are not brought to the committee's attention until the day before clause by clause study is going to be done. Members need the opportunity to educate themselves about the nature of the changes and how they would impact things. They need to be able to do a little research.

I would simply send the message out to the stakeholders, whoever they may be, that real changes to legislation can be made at committee provided that committee members are apprised of the changes and sought to champion some of those changes themselves. Witnesses should not wait until they are before the committee to inform the committee that they have some concerns. That is a very important part of the legislative process.

Let me conclude by talking about culture. The stopper in terms of Bill C-25 going the full range of change that was necessary to do a proper segregation between management and representation of the employees was that, in the view of the experts, the culture of the public service was such that it could not take all that change. I am not sure whether or not that was the right decision. We can only speculate what it would be like.

In my experience the people I have had an opportunity to meet and work with at committee, people from PSAC and from the Public Service Commission and from other unions, have been very helpful and very sincere. They feel very welcome when they appear before our committee. All of those stakeholders with regard to the public service should know they have a place to go to in terms of expressing their views, and that is the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

That is reflective of the decision that we made to expand the mandate of the Public Service Commission not only to submit an annual report, but to report to Parliament and appear before the committee as often as it thought necessary. That was an extremely important change that we made. I understand it will be effective in December 2005, which is a while off but that is how long it will take before these changes can be made.

There may be some cultural problems within the public service, perceived or otherwise. There are also some cultural problems within the legislators. I want to assure our excellent public servants that the parliamentarians on the front lines who are able to deal with these matters are very open and sensitive to the concerns raised by them to date. I suspect they will be sensitive to other concerns as we move forward in the future.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the electors of Burnaby—New Westminster for their support on June 28. I would also like to underline the good work of organizations in my riding, such as the Hyack Festival, the New Westminster and District Labour Council and the New Westminster Chamber of Commerce.

I welcome the opportunity to present my views and those of my New Democratic Party colleagues on Bill C-8, an act to amend the Financial Administration Act, the Canada School of Public Service Act and the Official Languages Act. I would like to provide some background on the bill.

In November 2003 the Public Service Modernization Act, Bill C-25, received royal assent. The main intent of the legislation was to modernize the human resources management in the public service by adding the concept of merit, implementing a more flexible staffing system, incorporating learning activities, and this may seem hard to believe given the current state of affairs, improving labour management relations. The NDP supported Bill C-25 in principle but in the end voted against it.

Overwhelmingly, workers in the trade union movement, including the Public Service Alliance of Canada, strongly opposed many aspects of Bill C-25. The government refused to take into consideration their concerns and defeated at committee stage a number of progressive amendments. These amendments mainly dealt with the security of workers.

In came the new Liberal regime and on December 12, 2003, the Liberal government established by decree, or order in council, the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada as well as its functions. The agency was placed within the Treasury Board portfolio.

Government contended that the agency was the next logical step for implementing the Public Service Modernization Act, but since the agency was created by order in council, government had to follow up with Bill C-8, which was tabled this month, to confirm by legislative means the decree of the Prime Minister. This is therefore a technical or mechanical bill, as some would call it, which does not modify the functions or the powers given to the agency but which clarifies the role of the agency in the system.

The government maintains that Bill C-8 will allow for better integration of activities relating to the management of human resources within the sphere of operation of the Treasury Board. The government also maintains that this bill will ensure greater visibility of the agency inside and outside public services.

The bill adds the position of president of the agency but says nothing about the terms and remuneration of the president. I hope we can clarify this with officials at the committee stage.

More important, Bill C-8 confirms a potential significant delegation of powers to the president of the agency. The Treasury Board is relegated to the role of coordinator of the activities of the Treasury Board Secretariat, the president of the agency and of the new office of the comptroller of Canada. This office was reinstated after being canned by the Mulroney Conservatives in the early 1990s.

Given the track record of the Treasury Board on human resources issues, this may be a good idea after all. Maybe labour-management relations would finally improve, but it is fair to say it would be difficult for them to be worse. Bill C-8 keeps the door open to Treasury Board involvement. This makes me wonder about the capacity of the Treasury Board to effectively follow up and coordinate what it is supposed to coordinate. Perhaps some in the government think it would be a good thing to combine a junior partner and a senior partner to effectively deal with human resources issues.

Perhaps as part of the study of the bill in committee we should file access to information requests, targeting existing surveys and reports on job satisfaction at the Treasury Board. That information, I believe, would prove to be very interesting.

The president of the agency is provided with lots of powers over human resources management and human resources issues, in fact, as many as the President of the Treasury Board wishes to transfer, including employment equity issues, ethics, and powers conferred under the Public Service Employment Act.

Given all that, would it not then be appropriate that government consult with Parliament before appointing the president of the agency? Why then not make the president of the agency an officer of Parliament? After all, this is supposed to be an independent agency. I would like to see an amendment to that effect in proposed subsection 3.1.

Once again, this is a technical bill. We are trying very sincerely to find valid reasons to support it.

However we must be absolutely certain, first, that the government is not building up unnecessary expenses. The underlying philosophy of Bill C-8, in its potential implicit and explicit costs, must be assessed or reassessed and scrutinized at committee stage.

We must be sure that this will not entail wasteful spending by the government.

Was there any prior consultation on this agency? None that I know of at least. There is no substantial background documentation. One must wonder whether we are making things up on the go.

Is it improvising first and trying to justify the decision afterward?

The onus is on the government to make and prove its case. How can we respect the credibility of the Liberal government on those issues when we all know its dismal record in human resources management. Certainly with the public sector strikes this fall, the fact that many of the contracts were delayed and negotiations left public sector workers without contracts up to a year and a half, the fact of a fall in real wages of public sector workers who have lost about 10% of their real wages over the past 10 years, and the fact that table 2, the one salary survey that was done, showed a wage gap of 20% between public sector workers employed by the Government of Canada and those in the other public and private sectors. All of those facts indicate that there is a serious issue around human resources management and the lack of respect with which the government treats public sector workers.

I have many other questions about Bill C-8. I would like to find out what it will really mean for us and better understand its consequences for the public service.

Is the government attempting to clean up the mess created by the multiple scandals and abuses of the political purse? Is the agency just a smokescreen or an effective tool for management, or maybe, as I mentioned, it is just an improvisation?

First, an agency was announced last December. Then the government created the evidence for its need. Why would the civil service be better off with this scheme? We need evidence. How will the agency affect other departments? We need evidence. How would this agency ensure a better service from and a better treatment of civil servants. We also need evidence.

As an hon. member already mentioned, the Treasury Board website provides an elaborate plan of action for this agency. On paper it looks fantastic. However, the real challenge will be to demonstrate that these changes will translate into positive and tangible results with respect to the way the government does business. That has not yet happened. It will take years after Bill C-8 is adopted to find out whether the outcome is good for the people of Canada.

We must think of the challenge in trying to hold the government accountable to all of this. Again, there is no guarantee that this will work. The government has shown that it has difficulty in many respects controlling its own departments. How can it control the proliferation of agencies and related outcomes? The more separate places that exist, the less transparency we will have and the more difficult it may become to have effective control.

We are concerned about the proliferation of agencies. The Auditor General herself has commented on the lack of control and on the lack of accountability mechanisms. From Genome Canada, $375 million were poured in for just a few dozen genomic research positions, to the Canada Foundation for Innovation and many others. These agencies are not under the same scrutiny. There is always the same pattern, a small overworked staff relying on outsiders, and none of that is subject to Treasury Board accountability and regulation.

We know the Treasury Board regulations themselves are in serious need of overhaul given the scandals during the election campaign, for example, the expenses for staff at Citizenship and Immigration who were put up in hotels here in Ottawa according to Treasury Board guidelines. It was a cost to taxpayers of more than $30,000.

I am not saying that these agencies do not do good work. I am sure that many competent and dynamic Canadian men and women work hard in them. Still, there is taxpayers' money involved, and these agencies do not really have the means for supervision and monitoring.

There is much talk about the all wonderful program activity architecture, or PAA, to regulate accountability and record it. The PAA went ahead with virtually no documentation, no policy backgrounder and no consultation, again making things up on the go. I would not be the least surprised that not all government departments and agencies have officially submitted their PAA with the signature of the relevant minister.

I have another major concern. How will all of this affect the venerable Public Service Commission? We heard, during the introduction of Bill C-8, the President of the Treasury Board state that the Public Service Commission of Canada was moving away from a managerial role to an auditing role.

Effectively, through Bill C-11, the whistleblowing legislation that is currently before committee, the Treasury Board is giving the public commission a new mandate which is to deal with wrongdoing and whistleblowing in the public service.

The government decided not to create an independent body when in the case of whistleblowing there is indeed a compelling case in favour of creating an independent body to oversee the application of this important legislation. Responding to more calls for an independent whistleblowing agency, the Treasury Board president stated at committee that we should be working to modernize existing rules and procedures rather than add a new body to the public service. That begs the following question: Why is the government then creating a human resources agency when it clearly did not provide the rock solid evidence that was needed? Why is the government refusing to create an independent oversight agency for whistleblowing when there is compelling and overwhelming evidence in favour of such an agency?

I have more. During its presentation to the committee on Bill C-11, the Treasury Board admitted that by giving the mandate to deal with whistleblowing to the Public Service Commission, Bill C-11 would create a conflict of interest situation since the Public Service Commission, a body that holds executive powers over the public service, such as hiring staff, would also have to answer complaints of wrongdoings.

Does this confirm that the government is bent on stripping the Public Service Commission from its hiring powers? We already know that the HR agency proposed by Bill C-8 could be the recipient of many of those powers. Is the President of the Treasury Board paving the way for legitimizing the new HR agency that Bill C-8 would entrench into legislation?

It is strange that, while this government has so far been opposed to the creation of an independent agency to monitor whistleblowing, the same government has not succeeded in demonstrating that the agency created by Bill C-8 is necessary.

Canadians know full well that only an independent agency, operating outside the government, can effectively guarantee that public servants who blow the whistle on wrongdoings will truly be protected.

The government has said no. But this is simply a question of common sense. Unless, of course, someone is trying to protect the minister from the employees and not the other way around.

In fact, there could be an even better solution for whistleblowing supervision. Why not give such a mandate to the Auditor General? It would be a natural extension of the mandate of the Auditor General, not the job of the Public Service Commission or a human resources commission. This would mean that we may not even need to spend money on another independent agency since independence is the middle name for the Auditor General's office. It would be a win-win for our rights as Canadian citizens and a win-win for civil servants and taxpayers.

The non-partisan, venerable and effective Public Service Commission is losing influence due to the proliferation of agencies. Why are we tampering and improvising from one patchwork to the next and weakening government institutions?

We owe it to the taxpayers, the civil servants and the citizens of Canada to question the rationale for the creation of the human resources agency and to ask for evidence that its creation will actually address problems and not create them, and relate all arguments to the basic question: Why another agency if the government has difficulty controlling existing agencies and departments?

The case for the human resources agency proposed by the Prime Minister in December 2003, and which Bill C-8 seeks to legitimize, has yet to be made. I am looking forward to having all of these questions answered at committee.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague's assessment that Bill C-11 will not work as long as the disclosure is not independent. Right now the way the bill stands, the government could decide to remove whatever agency it wants from the whistleblower legislation on a whim, and that is not healthy.

I believe that a good bill can come out of the House that will actually serve what we are trying to do. It will actually allow a public servant to report wrongdoing and feel comfortable in so doing. Every member in the House has agreed at one time or another that our public servants are our most valued resource. The President of the Treasury Board said that in his speech, and everyone in the House agrees with that.

Here is the perfect opportunity to show that faith in our public servants and to amend this bill so that it will do exactly what it is designed to do, and that is to protect people who report wrongdoing.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to broaden the context of our discussion to the overall matter of the public service and zero in on the comments the hon. member has made with respect to whistleblower legislation because I do not believe these issues can be discussed in isolation.

My understanding of Bill C-11, as it is currently written, is that the disclosure mechanism is not independent from the political leadership of the country. That is an essential problem with the bill. Furthermore, through order in council the cabinet can remove different branches of the government from the power of this legislation. That means that if the sponsorship scandal had occurred and this bill had been in place at that time, and the government had been interested in concealing information, it very easily could have removed any agency that was implicated from protection under the whistleblower legislation, thus removing the protections on public servants who wished to speak out against the corruption.

Those are two essential flaws that I see: the lack of independence and the fact that the cabinet can exempt certain bodies of government.

Due to the fact that we now have a minority government, and that the majority of members in this chamber and in the government operations committee are in the opposition, that is the majority support true whistleblower legislation, does the hon. member believe that we can use this coalition of opposition members to put forward the necessary amendments to strengthen this bill, give it teeth, and give it meaning to our public servants and taxpayers?

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I must admit I do agree with the hon. member. When I was working in Sudbury, there was a great public servant working there, and that was myself. There were many others. I must admit I enjoyed my time in Sudbury very much.

I also worked in Ottawa here as a public servant, and in Cornwall. We have been recognized as having one of the best public service in the world. Our public servants are dedicated, hard working people. This is not about them. This is about maybe making life a little better for the public service, and that is my concern.

I am glad to hear that the government is prepared to do anything possible to that end. I am glad that the member opposite agrees that we should give the public servants the tools that they need to do a good job. One of the ways we can give them that tool, as the hon. member mentioned, is with Bill C-11.

That is a bill that is before committee right now. We on this side are making some constructive changes that are coming actually from public servants, not only retired public servants like myself but active public servants who are doing the job today.

They are saying unequivocally that we need an independent commissioner. The way Bill C-11 is drawn is flawed. I was just talking to another public servant before I came into the House this afternoon and I got exactly the same report, that it will never work unless we have an independent commissioner.

I am really happy to hear the member opposite. Hopefully she will encourage, and make her comments and feelings known to the President of the Treasury Board. The ultimate goal is to end up with the most perfect bill possible.

[Diane Marleau, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to hear that the Conservative Party will support Bill C-8.

I also want to remind the member, the official critic for this legislation and for Bill C-11, the whistleblowing legislation, that it is our intention to ensure that we listen and that we have the best possible bill. We feel that public servants do us a tremendous amount of good services. They work hard. They give of themselves unbelievably. I often think we, as parliamentarians, and as Canadians do not appreciate them enough.

I am lucky in my riding. I have had some great public servants. As a matter of fact the hon. critic actually worked at HRDC in Sudbury.

However, I want to emphasize that in all my years as a member of Parliament I really have not seen the politicization of the public servants in my riding at all. They continue to be very good at responding to any request from any party. I have been the MP, but there have been other MPs from other parties, and I think they do a very good job.

How would the member change that? The member seems to think we do not listen to people. How would he have us listen more than we are right now, trying to do the best possible job? The member has been a public servant. I am very interested in hearing what his suggestions would be to make this bill and Bill C-11 better.

There are no magic solutions. It will take some time before we see any improvements or we see massive change. However, governing is a work in progress. We take a few steps forward and if it works well, we build on it. If it does not work well, we change our way of building. I consider this a way of moving forward.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to say a few words today on Bill C-8, a bill to create and empower the Office of the President of the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency.

As the President of the Treasury Board said, that agency was created last year by the Public Service Modernization Act. Bill C-8 is essentially a housekeeping bill. It is part of the government's effort to implement its reforms of the public service which are laid out in detail in the Public Service Modernization Act. I am sure the Chair will forgive me if I spend much of my time discussing that act and the need for public service reform in general.

As the House knows, I was a public servant for 22 years. I served as the president of a union local and as a manager in four federal government offices in Ottawa, one in Sudbury and one in Cornwall. When I study legislation like Bill C-8 or Bill C-11, which deals with disclosures of wrongdoing, I am able to look at it from the point of view of a public servant. Often that perspective seems to be missing from the government's considerations when it drafts legislation.

Although I recognize the need for more rational and functional structure for the public service, I am somewhat skeptical when I hear about public service modernization. There were many positive steps taken in last year's Public Service Modernization Act which Bill C-8 would supplement. Many of the changes are long overdue improvements to the nation's public service. If carried out properly, they could lead to a much happier, less strike prone and more productive public service. As I said, I am very skeptical.

At the time it was tabled, the Public Service Modernization Act was touted by the government as the first major public service restructuring in 35 years. The government is being more than a little naive if it thinks it can make up for 35 years of neglect all at once.

The reality is other attempts have been made to modernize the public service. I was part of the public service during many of those attempts at modernization. I have lived through them. I have learned that the government is usually a step or two behind the pressures and demands of the public service. Somehow or another the government cannot seem to keep up with the public service. We must never fall into the trap of assuming that our work is done and that a single act of Parliament can instantly reverse the disenchantment in the public service over long-standing issues.

I asked the President of the Treasury Board in committee last week why he would not create an independent, external body to receive and investigate disclosures of wrongdoing and protect those public servants that he spoke so highly of, the ones who make disclosures. His answer was that the Public Service Commission would change and would become more independent and more respected by public servants.

It is fine to give that responsibility to the Public Service Commission. It is always dangerous to assume that the culture of the public service will change that quickly and dramatically because the government makes a few organizational changes. As I said, I was part of that same public service for 22 years. It does not change quite that easily.

The Public Service Modernization Act, and by extension the bill before us today, does make some steps in the right direction, and I am happy to recognize those important steps.

By the government's own admission over the past few decades, the public service has remained structurally and functionally a top-down organization, with too many isolated pillars of communication and accountability. The Public Service Modernization Act provides for more flexibility in staffing and in managing people. It also stresses the need for a cooperative approach to labour management relations, which I fully support and which is long overdue.

The employees who actually deliver end products and services are the ones who know best what works and what does not work. They must have more say in the running of the workplace. If the intent of the Public Service Modernization Act becomes reality, the result will be happier federal workplaces.

The act also overhauls staff training and development and more clearly delineates the roles of key players in the human resources area, in Treasury Board, in the Public Service Commission and in the various deputy ministers and their equivalents. That is where the Public Service Modernization Act connects with Bill C-8.

Bill C-8 would allow Treasury Board to delegate its powers pertaining to human resources management, official languages, employment equity and values and ethics to the President of the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency.

Under Bill C-8, the President of the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency would replace the President of the Public Service Commission, an ex officio governor of the Canada School of Public Service, and would replace the Secretary of Treasury Board as the person providing the Official Languages Commissioner with reports on the monitoring and auditing of the federal institutions with respect to their compliance with official languages rules.

As I mentioned earlier, it is very difficult and dangerous to prejudge the impact of a reorganization like this. It needs to be considered in a broader context, in this case in the context of the Public Service Modernization Act which is very complex. At the end of the day the most important stage of any bureaucratic restructuring process is listening to the front line workers whose effectiveness is at stake.

If serious problems arise, the public servants will let us know, only if we are prepared to listen to them. Unfortunately, the government's track record has been poor when it comes to listening to front line public servants.

We can tell that the government does not listen to public servants just by the way it treats whistleblowers. Bill C-11 is supposed to address this issue, but it will not do the job unless it is amended, because the government has not taken into consideration what public servants had to say about the way the program would be implemented.

I believe that all the technical changes in the world will be for naught unless the government listens to and respects its employees. It will get respect from public servants only if it shows them some respect. Only through a relationship based on mutual respect will the government be able to rely on a modern, flexible and efficient public service.

In closing, I will support Bill C-8 and I will encourage my caucus colleagues to do likewise. However, my support comes with a cautionary note for the government. Do not make the mistake of thinking that mechanical changes will resolve all the country's public service issues in one fell swoop. The government has to be dedicated to working with public servants in a respectful way over the long term. The government has a tough road to hoe if it intends to overcome its record of the past decade.

[Reg Alcock, Liberal, President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

moved that Bill C-8, an act to amend the Financial Administration Act, the Canada School of Public Service Act and the Official Languages Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand before the House today to move second reading of the bill aimed at giving legislative confirmation to the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada which was created by orders in council as a result of the government reorganization of December 12.

As hon. members know, on December 12, 2003, the Prime Minister made some significant changes to the government structure and organization. The reorganization was intended primarily to advance the priorities of Canadians by improving services and their delivery, but also by making sure that the government has the tools it needs to restore the confidence of Canadians in their public service to sound fiscal management, more rigorous allocation of resources and, above all, implementation of the highest standards of ethics, openness, transparency, accountability and reporting to Parliament.

Such goals cannot be achieved without a modern, professional and responsible public service that is dedicated to the public interest, that is representative of the Canadian public and that serves Canadians with excellence in the official language of their choice.

To achieve these goals, we also need employees who are guided and supported effectively, and in accordance with the highest ethical standards in an effective workplace that is empowering, healthy and respectful of employees' language rights.

In other words, we need an outstanding workforce and a workplace guided and supported by effective and responsible human resource management throughout the public service, the kind of management that reflects best practices in this field.

That is why the government created the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada as part of its reorganization of December 12, 2003.

Created by orders in council, beginning with the transfer of certain functions of the Treasury Board Secretariat and the Public Service Commission, the agency has taken up the functions it needs to modernize and foster ongoing excellence in human resources management and leadership throughout the public service.

For example, with functions that have been transferred to it, the agency will oversee the effective implementation of the Public Service Modernization Act, which received royal assent in November 2003.

It will also work to set up integrated systems for human resources planning, oversight and accountability purposes across the public service.

It will encourage the training of highly skilled leaders who are guided by the highest accountability and ethical standards, and who are evaluated against those standards.

Last, it will continue to make targeted improvements in the area of employment equity and to promote linguistic duality, while putting in place better monitoring and reporting systems that will make results more accessible and transparent for Canadians.

The agency will thus make it possible to give the attention, direction and support needed to promote and maintain throughout the public service, human resources management that is exemplary and leadership that is constantly renewed and consistently more effective and results oriented.

In short, it will make it possible to put in place the conditions that public servants need to provide Canadians with efficient, quality services, while promoting the highest standards of integrity, transparency and accountability.

This is a turning point in the history of the administration of the public service which, for the first time, has a separate agency responsible for human resources management.

The work performed in the public service is of great value to the government and to Canadians. A highly effective public service contributes to the social, economic and cultural well-being of Canadians, as well as to their health and security. It also constitutes a competitive advantage in the global economy. Such a public service is made of men and women who devote their lives to serving the public interest and the Canadian public, and who promote fairness, justice, health and democratic vitality.

The best way to recognize their contribution, which will require increased effort in order to achieve excellence, is to give this new agency a legislative base. That is why I am presenting this bill today. Its purpose is simply to confirm the agency's existence through legislation.

Let us be clear on one thing. The bill does not in any way change the powers or functions already conferred on the agency by orders in council. The bill only enshrines in legislation what already exists in fact.

Essentially the bill does the following: first, it adds the position of president of the agency to the Financial Administration Act, in the same way the Secretary of the Treasury Board and the Comptroller General of Canada are already identified in the act.

Second, it specifies the nature of powers and functions that may be delegated by the Treasury Board to the president of the agency in the same manner stipulated in the act for the Secretary of the Treasury Board and the Comptroller General of Canada.

Third, it stipulates that the President of the Treasury Board is responsible for the coordination of activities of the Secretary of the Treasury Board, the president of the agency and the Comptroller General of Canada.

Although they are relatively modest additions to the Financial Administration Act, these amendments constitute a key step for public service administration. With this bill, the agency would benefit from having a legislative basis that sets out more clearly and visibly, both inside and outside the public service, its role and relationships within the portfolio of the Treasury Board and with the Treasury Board in its role as employer.

As a result of the addition of the office of the president of the agency through the Financial Administration Act, the bill would require two correlative amendments: an amendment to the Canada School of the Public Service Act to appoint the president of the agency as an ex-officio member of the school's board of governors, replacing the president of the Public Service Commission; and an amendment to the Official Languages Act to stipulate that it is the president of the agency, rather than the Treasury Board Secretary, who will provide the Commissioner of Official Languages with any audit reports that are prepared under the responsibility of the Treasury Board.

I want to stress the fact that, in addition to demonstrating the importance the government places on human resources management, the bill would also permit: first, the clarification of the perceived role of the agency within the system, including unions, and in particular of its relationships within the portfolio of the Treasury Board and with the Treasury Board in its role as employer; second, the better integration of activities relating to human resources management within the Treasury Board portfolio; and third, a greater visibility for the agency, both within and outside the public service, facilitating implementation of its policies, programs and services.

I would like to remind the House that the bill concerns the government's most precious resource, its employees, people who are in the service of Canadians.

I would remind members that as we advance into the 21st century, setting up a true human resources management agency for the federal public service, which is also the biggest employer in Canada, sends an unequivocal signal to all managers, public servants and union reps that sound human resources management is a priority for the Government of Canada.

Mr. Speaker, you will recall as a member of the this chamber the debate that took place on the original Bill C-25, the Public Service Modernization Act. The member to my left was heavily involved in the discussions.

We examined what we believe is a fundamental change in how we organize ourselves around the services we provide to our employees. I have said many times that all organizations lose when they do not pay attention to the people who work for them, that sound human resources management is not simply a matter of checks and balances over hiring, as was the foundation of the original Public Service Commission, but in the modern era it is bringing the tools of sound resources planning, helping people with their own career planning and helping to meet their education needs.

We talk a lot in the House about the need for continuous improvement and life long learning. In government we need a focus for those services, an organization that spends its time working with our employees, with government, agencies and departments to determine their needs and constantly thinking down the road as to how we can become better at what we do as we serve Canadians.

In doing that, we are always caught in this chamber with dual roles, of promoting good quality services to Canadians and also providing a level of oversight that guarantees to the people of Canada that resources are being dealt with properly, that we are paying close attention to the public purse, and that we are managing as efficiently and effectively as we can.

This is a discussion that came up on Bill C-11, an evolution in the role of the Public Service Commission. As we are discussing the legislation that puts in place and empowers the situation to deal with whistleblowing, we have talked a lot of how the role of the Public Service Commission, which traditionally has been the employing authority for government, is evolving and how it relates to other activities in government. This is another piece of that structure.

I believe that after 32 years of working within the existing structure, the government spent some two years studying, speaking to experts from all across the country, looking closely at how it managed its human resources, and then it made a decision that it would separate the functions and create an agency whose focus it was to spend its time working with our employees to ensure that they got the very best that they needed to do their job, the very best training, the very best services, and the very best support.

I think the public servants who are running the agency at this point and who have begun to give life to this vision have done an extraordinary job in a very short period of time at pulling together the resources they need to implement this vision. They believe it will take another year or two before things are up and running fully in the way that is envisioned. And that was contemplated in the act. Then we will come back to the House and ask the House if there is a provision there to review these decisions at the end of that period.

However what is fundamentally important about this is that it is a long overdue change. We spend too much time examining the problems, and rightly so. We need to look at the things that create problems. We need to look at the areas where there is always a need for improvement. We spend too little time celebrating the fact that there are 450,000 Canadians who do very good work on behalf of the citizens of this country and they deserve our support, encouragement and assistance every day.

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have mixed feelings as I stand to speak on the government address in reply to the throne speech. On the one hand, it is of course an honour to speak on behalf of the people of Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry. On the other hand, the speech from the throne offers very little to speak about that has not already been spoken about far too much. It is basically a regurgitation of the same old rhetoric and the vague, unkept promises that have been included in every Liberal throne speech for the last 11 years. Incredibly, the government even had the gall to talk about fiscal discipline, after overseeing a decade of the worst spending scandals this country has ever seen.

We have experienced the HRDC scandal, the 100,000% cost overrun for the useless gun registry, the sponsorship scandal and the unaccountable spending of millions of dollars on Liberal patronage appointees. All this waste took place while our Prime Minister was gutting health care and the military, the two most important fundamental responsibilities of government.

The Prime Minister delights in saying that he has balanced the budget, but anyone can balance a budget by raising taxes and cutting basic services, as he has done. Neither talent nor vision is needed. On the other hand, balancing a budget in a well thought out and responsible manner while contributing to Canadians' quality of life takes real leadership.

Let me give members an example of this government's misplaced priorities that is especially relevant to my riding. The government has done almost nothing to help rural Canadians cope with the devastating circumstances beyond their control, such as drought, floods and BSE. Remember the AIDA program? It failed to deliver. The CAIS program is no better, and the government's response to the BSE crisis is virtually non-existent. Yet the government happily throws good money after bad into a program forcing rural Canadians to register firearms.

Finally, having taken their property rights away and watching their livelihoods die, all the government can offer rural Canadians is better Internet access. I suppose if they have the Internet, farmers will be able to advertise the sale of their farms and look for work in the city.

That is where things are headed as long as the government fails to support our agricultural sector. It is ironic that the government is so fond of talking about high speed communications for rural Canada, when its response to the BSE crisis has been so slow.

In the throne speech the government calls broadband communication one of the fundamentals of rural economic development. What about agriculture? When will the government realize that agriculture is the very essence of our rural economy?

The government has become so arrogant that it thinks it understands the needs and priorities of rural Canada better than rural Canada does itself. Farmers are not alone in being treated in such a paternalistic and ill-advised way by the Liberals. Some of the measures proposed in the Speech from the Throne indicate that families are getting the same treatment.

Rather than enabling all families to make the child care choices that work best for them, the government continues to promise funding for only those families who choose to put their children in day care facilities. There is no mention of any incentive or assistance for parents who choose to stay home to care for their children. There is nothing for those whose children require special care.

Every family has different circumstances and the government should enable families to make the choices that best meet their own needs. This government loves to pay lip service to diversity, yet its cookie-cutter approach toward child care disrespects the diversity of families and removes their freedom of choice.

The approach to the provinces comes from that same paternalistic attitude. The throne speech is filled with fine phrases about respecting regional diversity in Canada, but this government will nevertheless continue to interfere as much as ever in areas of provincial and municipal jurisdiction.

There are good reasons for Canada being a federal state. Where government policy relating to regional interests is concerned, the provinces are the ones in the best position to make decisions.

Just as individuals and families should be able to make their own choices with respect to things like child care, provinces should be able to make decisions in areas such as municipal infrastructure, skills training, education, and other areas that, according to both the Constitution and common sense, are provincial matters.

This government is so busy making policy where it should not that it has failed to make policy where it should. The most obvious example is national defence. The throne speech started with a very appropriate tribute to our men and women in uniform, but I suspect that most of our military personnel and their families and, for that matter, most Canadians will find the tribute more than a little hypocritical coming from this government. The Liberals have mismanaged and neglected our military almost to the point of collapse.

The government has not even reviewed its defence policy in more than a decade. I am talking about the decade since the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, unprecedented nuclear proliferation and regional instability. None of these things have been taken into account in the government's defence policy.

Our military has been systematically dismantled since the Liberals came to power, thanks to this government. The Canadian Forces have no rapid reaction force. Thanks to this government, Canadians paid half a billion dollars not to buy helicopters for the navy, and now we will pay again to buy the cheapest helicopter instead of the best.

This government oversaw the demise of Canada's last submarine fleet, and the replacements, like those for the Sea Kings, are the cheapest instead of the best. The government is eliminating the army's tank force. Our military cannot move its own heavy equipment overseas, either by sea or by air. One of our four destroyers is in mothballs because there is not enough money to put it to sea.

Only the dedication, discipline and quality of our military personnel have allowed them to perform their duties so well up to this point. Our men and women in uniform deserve the safest and most effective equipment available. They deserve our respect and appreciation. The government has asked them to do too much with too little for too long. It must stop.

One of the commitments the government made in the throne speech was to build consensus when it comes to setting the nation's objectives. There is already a consensus in Canada that the military needs better equipment and more funding, but so far there is no evidence that the Liberals are interested in that consensus.

The same is true in many other areas. Canadians of all political persuasions know and agree that there is a need to strengthen our democracy. The official opposition of the House and the governments of all the provinces would almost certainly agree that the people of each province should elect the senators who are supposed to represent them. I suspect that there would also be broad consensus on establishing fixed election dates so that government cannot reserve democracy for an opportune time.

There is also a broad consensus in Canada about criminal justice issues. I think a large majority of Canadians and members of the House would agree that our children should be protected by raising the age of sexual consent from 14 to 16.

If the government really wants to act on the basis of consensus, it should start where the consensus already exists. The government has made no attempt to build consensus on anything it has done so far in its mandate. As Treasury Board critic for the official opposition, I listened with great interest as the Treasury Board president tried to make it sound like the government had consulted stakeholders and the opposition on Bill C-11, which deals with disclosures of wrongdoing by public servants. I know I was never consulted. Opposition critics were told of the changes made to the bill a few days before it was tabled, but we were certainly never consulted during the drafting of the bill and it shows.

The government most definitely did not consult the opposition parties on the throne speech. Even if some of us over here will have to vote in favour of its adoption in order to enable the government to continue, this is an unbelievable show of arrogance on its part.

Let me say in closing that I had hoped this throne speech would herald a Parliament built on cooperation and common sense. This is what a minority government situation calls for. But I was disappointed. The throne speech shows no effort to build bridges and no innovation in the areas that matter to Canadians. That is what the amendment proposed by the Leader of the Opposition is meant to fix, and I sincerely hope that it passes with the support of my hon. colleagues opposite.

Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act

[The Speaker]

Pursuant to order made on Tuesday, October 5, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the referral to committee before second reading of Bill C-11.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today for the first time in the House to speak to Bill C-11. First, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the great people of Elgin—Middlesex—London for electing me to the House. I will endeavour to provide the service that I know they deserve.

Let me now speak to the bill at hand. Bill C-11 is called whistleblower legislation. In an ideal world, we would not need protection for our workers because the workplace would be free of wrongdoing. Sadly, this is not the case today. With workplace wrongdoing, a more and more common occurrence, we must have in place a solid plan to ensure that workers who come forward to report wrongdoing are protected.

I will speak to the reprisal piece. We can reasonably expect that men and women of goodwill and conscience will take effort to stop wrongdoing as they see it happen, but only as long as the workplace climate is such that the person attempting to stop the wrongdoing is not endangering his or her employment comfort either now or in the future. It is not easy to report wrongdoing. Recent background shows examples of public servants, like Mr. Cutler, being subjected to a reign of terror.

The Liberal government came to power in 1993 promising whistleblower legislation. It then ignored that promise. Since 1999, many attempts have been made to correct that.

Confronted with the sponsorship scandal, the government introduced Bill C-25 in March. Bill C-25 was widely criticized as an ineffective legislation that would actually discourage whistleblowing. Bill C-25 is the basis for this legislation. Let us see what is in Bill C-11.

In reality, this bill contains all the same problems as the last version. Bill C-11 was to be a major revision of Bill C-25, which was universally panned in the last Parliament.

Public servants will not be encouraged to disclose wrongdoing to the president of the Public Service Commission as they see that position as part of senior management. This bill does not allow the person receiving disclosures to report directly to Parliament. The president of the Public Service Commission would report to a minister, who would then table the report within 15 days. This process creates the same kind of interference that has apparently taken place in the past.

This bill also allows cabinet to add any agency or crown corporation or department to a list that is excluded from this act. This allows government to exclude public servants from protection of retribution when they disclose wrongdoing.

Like Bill C-25, Bill C-11 sets no punishment for those who make reprisals against whistleblowers. Also as with Bill C-25, in Bill C-11 only those who make disclosures through the prescribed channels and whose disclosures meet specific criteria are protected. This sounds like controlling disclosures, not facilitating them.

In conclusion, I could support an act that creates a truly independent body to receive and investigate disclosures made by the public servants. This is an act that falls short and it must be fixed.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to speak to Bill C-11, the first bill to which I have spoken in the House. I would like to take the opportunity to thank my constituents from Burnaby and New Westminster for having elected me to this august body on June 28, 2004.

I would like to take the opportunity to stress, as my colleague from Winnipeg Centre has, the importance of the legislation for good governance. This is legislation that has been repeatedly promised by successive Liberal governments, first in the red book of 1993, which, as we know, promised the protection of civil servants as a result of the scandals that plagued the Mulroney government.

It was again promised with Bill C-25, which was introduced in the spring of 2002, 11 years later, which was in fact a bill that, to quote my colleague from Winnipeg Centre who has done a tremendous amount of work on this issue, was more aimed at protecting ministers from whistleblowers than whistleblowers from ministers. One can understand the rationale, given that the current scandals that affect the Liberal government are handsomely competing with those of the Conservative government that preceded it.

Bill C-25 had major flaws. All critics agreed that it failed miserably in creating a sense of security to whistleblowers. It failed to cover political staff, the RCMP and national security bureaucrats. It discouraged civil servants from coming out to expose corruption. In fact, when the bill was reintroduced in 2004, some of my colleagues from the 37th Parliament received anonymous calls from public servants who wanted to come out with more information on corruption but who were discouraged by the bill.

Bill C-25 died a good death on the order paper with the 2004 federal election and, of course, whistleblowing legislation was promised again in the Liberal platform. Now we have another reincarnation with Bill C-11.

This new version is indeed improved but I have concerns. There are structural deficiencies which would prevent the desired effect of such a bill, which is to clean up the corruption in government while protecting civil servants. As long as civil servants believe that their organizational culture does not protect them from reprisals or may in fact support reprisal, they will be deterred from coming forward to report misconduct.

I do believe, along with my colleague from Winnipeg Centre, that major work needs to be done at committee stage. I compliment the government for referring this bill immediately to committee without having it go through second reading. That would have made major changes impossible since those changes would have gone against the principle of the bill.

The two most important concerns are the following: Bill C-11 replaces the toothless commissioner in Bill C-25 with a complex reporting mechanism involving the Public Service Commission of Canada and a whole array of codes of conduct which, as we now know, are last in, first out, in the case of conflict and deterrence.

The President of the Treasury Board said that the Public Service Commission of Canada was moving away from a managerial role to an auditor role. Why would the Public Service Commission want to get involved in auditing, in issuing subpoenas or setting deadlines for CEOs to respond to recommendations?

As we know, the Public Service Commission has other fish to fry.

When it comes to government and good governance, auditing means the Auditor General. We have seen the good work of this body in which we have full confidence. We absolutely need an independent review mechanism. The Auditor General or another independent officer of Parliament, call it the public sector integrity commissioner or whatever, would be able to do the job and do it efficiently and, most important, report to Parliament.

Bill C-11 has a broader range of coverage and includes employees of crown corporations and the executive, with the exception of CSIS, the uniform members of the RCMP and Canadian Forces. Again, I believe that unless there is an independent review outside the sphere of government, the legislation will not produce the intended effect. We must separate the oversight of the government of the day from the public service.

We need an independent commissioner. The government seems to be in a hurry to set up agencies that can be used as an extension of its policies and where it can hide money for programs beyond the scrutiny of the Auditor General. It is out of the question to give powers to an independent commissioner who would be nothing more than an officer of the House.

Again, why not use the Auditor General? Why not have someone reporting directly to Parliament?

In committee, we need to consider other issues that have something to do with the old saying “The devil is in the details”. Some of these issues have already been raised by the hon. member for Repentigny and my hon. colleague from Winnipeg Centre.

Let me mention, for instance, the threat of harsh disciplinary action against public servants making unfounded allegations.

In that case, whistleblowers should file a complaint with other bodies, such as the Industrial Relations Board, which could take up to 18 months. The reverse onus is on the victims to prove their innocence, and that is not real protection against undue risk.

What would the legislation do to protect the rights of those who have already paid the price of the government's inertia? My thoughts are with those three doctors who were fired for denouncing the health hazard of the use of BGH, bovine growth hormone. They should have been nominated for the Order of Canada. I am speaking of Shiv Chopra, Margaret Haydon and Gérard Lambert. We must look at introducing some retroactivity to protect those individuals.

In conclusion I would like to read an excerpt from an article that was written in the Ottawa Citizen about the victims of our lack of legislation. It reads:

Despite the absence of legislation, employees of conscience have spoken out. At Health Canada, Dr. Michele Brill-Edwards sounded the alarm about the arbitrary drug approval process, including a rush to market of inadequately tested products. Likewise, Health Canada veterinarians Shiv Chopra, Margaret Haydon and Gerard Lambert spoke out and testified at Senate hearings about the risks associated with bovine growth hormone.

Diplomat Brian McAdam and, subsequently, veteran RCMP officer Robert Read revealed corruption in Canada's consulate-general in Hong Kong and risks to our national security through fraudulent visa schemes and penetration of our immigration computer system by organized crime. And Col. Michel Drapeau denounced corruption among senior military brass and was an outspoken critic during the arbitrarily truncated Somalia inquiry.

As one of the most profiled whistleblowers in Canada, Dr. Nancy Olivieri sparked an international debate on the erosion of the sacred principle of university independence from corporate influence. Threatened when she sought to disclose adverse drug trial results to her entrusted patients, she remains, 10 years later, embroiled in costly and draining litigation.

All were fired except McAdam, whose destroyed health forced retirement, and Brill-Edwards, who conscientiously resigned. For Brill-Edwards, employment came at the price of a weekly train commute from Ottawa to Toronto.

These victims of the absence of legislation underscore the importance of the legislation. We have fought hard to bring the legislation forward. We will be fighting equally hard in committee and in Parliament to make the legislation better so that it truly protects whistleblowers in Canada.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House in the 38th Parliament. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the good folks of Calgary East who put their confidence in me in sending me back to represent them in this great House. I am very happy to note that their vote of confidence amounted to almost 62% of the total votes cast.

Bill C-11, the whistleblower bill, has been an issue that has been simmering out there for a long time. The bill talks about protecting public civil servants when they come forward to say that there has been some wrongdoing in the operation of the bureaucracy of the Government of Canada.

Let us look at a bigger and different context. Our bureaucracy in Canada, the Public Service Commission, is a big institution that works for the benefit of the people. In our democracy we have a Parliament that passes laws; however, what we then have is an independent public service to implement the law. This independence gives it a tremendous amount of power in ensuring that what Parliament has passed or what the intent of Parliament was be implemented for the benefit of Canadians.

It then gives a tremendous amount of power to the management of this independent Public Service Commission. We need to have some kind of accountability there as well. Time after time Canadians look at the Parliament of Canada as being an institution that can oversee and become the impartial area where accountability is done to the Public Service Commission. That is the most important aspect to ensure that democracy works.

Unfortunately, in Canada, that has not happened. There is no protection for someone who wants to say that there has been an abuse. One does not say that the public service in Canada is rife with abuses, corruption and so on, but time after time things do happen when people overstep their bounds, as we have seen with the sponsorship scandal that began in 1996.

That is a prime example and the Auditor General pointed out that an independent bureaucracy overstepped its bounds. That is why we have this commission going on. Why do we need a commission? What would have happened? As we can see from this commission, the first time the flags were raised it was covered up by the upper management. If, at that time, there had been whistleblower legislation, Canadians would have saved millions and millions of dollars in the sponsorship scandal because it would have come to this Chamber and we would have put a stop to it.

A recent article in the Toronto Star said:

Why does Canada not provide protection for professionals who perform their moral duty?

That is a simple question. In recognition of this deficit, parliamentarians recognized there was a serious problem and public servants needed this protection. I have been here since 1997 and since 1999, 13 attempts have been made in Parliament to bring in whistleblower legislation because parliamentarians recognized that there was a deficit, that we needed this protection so that people would have accountability in the public service bureaucracy.

Then of course there is the political issue. When it became politically hot for the governing party after the sponsorship scandal it suddenly woke up to the fact that there was a demand for the legislation and it tried to bring in some kind of legislation. It attempted to do that in the last Parliament and now it is bringing the same to this Parliament, which, for all practical purposes, as my colleague pointed out, is a band-aid solution.

Let me give an example. We heard in the House about public servants who were penalized when they spoke about being pressured. We all remember the case of the three scientists from the health department, Dr. Shiv Chopra, Margaret Haydon and Gérard Lambert, who lost their jobs because they said that they were pressured by the department to do something they thought was not in the public interest.

The case is still before the courts of Canada and all the courts are saying that the three individuals were not fairly treated despite the fact that a senior official of the health department said that it had nothing to do with those individuals going public. However everyone knows why they were penalized.

Cases, such as the one I just mentioned, identify why there is such a serious need for the whistleblower legislation. We have incidences that have taken place in the country that say that this is something that the Parliament of Canada should look at.

The legislation is back and my colleagues have highlighted why we are opposing it.

Let me say this so that people understand. The Conservative Party of Canada is very much in favour of whistleblowing legislation. My colleagues in the House and in the Senate have been attempting since 1999 to bring in legislation but we are opposing this bill, as my other colleague said, because there are some serious flaws in it that will not give protection. The intent is not there. It is a band-aid solution. Employees will not feel comfortable reporting abuses for fear of losing their jobs.

Let us look at some things. I do not need to go deeply into it because my other colleagues, especially our critic, have very elaborately stated what is wrong with the bill. The bill would not allow a person receiving disclosure to report directly to Parliament. The report would go to the Public Service Commission which, in our point of view, is not an independent body.

That is a little hurdle for a person who would make a report and he or she is not going to feel comfortable about doing it.

The bill would allow cabinet to add any agency, crown corporation or department to the list of public sectors that are excluded from the act. I would remind members that certain departments are excluded from the act, such as the RCMP and CSIS, but this leaves cabinet with the ability to add or take people out. Where is the independence? It is again controlled by the cabinet.

We can see that the legislation would be under the control of government and senior bureaucrats. This would not give public servants confidence to come forward and fulfil their moral obligation to protect the tax dollars by reporting any abuse going on. Who should they report to?

The most important thing is that there would be no punishment for anyone should the individual be penalized. I have explained the example of the three doctors from the Department of Health.

The Conservative Party is hoping that the whistleblower legislation, which will eventually come back to the House, will address all of our concerns.

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this bill, although I am somewhat concerned that I have spoken on it in the past all too many times. We have had similar legislation brought before the House on a number of occasions and it has never been passed by the House in spite of there being quite a bit of support from the government side as well as the opposition side.

I will talk a bit about how that has changed now. I do have some hope that this time we can bring about meaningful and effective whistleblower legislation. This is to be seen. We are working in a new territory with the type of minority government that we have.

I would like to start off talking about why our party will support this legislation if certain key changes are made. I think we are supported in these changes by certainly most of the opposition members and some government members, as we have heard in the debate that has taken place so far. That does lead to some hope, but there are some serious problems with this legislation as it stands right now.

The first, and it has been talked about before, is the need for an independent commissioner. The way the proposal is laid out in Bill C-11 the public service commissioner would handle complaints, but only after they have gone through a proper process. We are concerned about the process, but we are also concerned that the public service commissioner is not the right person to be reporting to.

I want to make it clear that I think the current president of the Public Service Commission is a very capable and competent person. Maria Barrados has proven that she is very capable and willing to do her job, and do it well, but that is not the issue. The issue is that the trust of the members of the public service simply is not there for the Public Service Commission.

I was a member of the government operations committee in the last Parliament when we dealt with this legislation. The point was made again and again that the public servants simply do not have the trust of the public service commissioner that is needed to make this legislation work effectively. We are calling for an independent commissioner to be put in place to handle these complaints, and to have an independent office similar to that of the Auditor General for handling these complaints.

There has been concern raised, and I share that concern to some extent myself as do other members, that we do not want to be establishing too many of these independent offices. They have been effective. The Auditor General has been extremely effective. We all know that. Having a similar office for this purpose is needed, but we do have to proceed with caution.

If we were to establish too many of these independent bodies, a couple of things could happen. First of all, the government could be handcuffed so that it simply could not do the job effectively. I do not see that as a concern in this particular case though.

The second thing that could happen is that we will get so many of these independent offices set up that pretty soon none of them will really be effective. The public will see so many of them and will be talking about what is happening before these independent bodies so often that pretty soon the effectiveness will wear off.

We do have to proceed with caution. However, I do believe in the importance of having a whistleblower process that works, the importance of protecting our public servants when they wish to report wrongdoing, and the importance of saving the money that has been lost through wrongdoing.

We all know about what is going on with ad scam, the sponsorship scandal, and that is just one example; $100 million wasted that could have been caught had a whistleblower been allowed, through a proper process, to report this wrongdoing. We all understand the importance of having this process work. Having an independent commissioner is a critical part of changing the process so it works well.

My party and I have concerns that under this legislation the cabinet would be allowed at any time to make changes to the legislation to exempt agencies, departments or crown corporations.

We should think about that a little bit. If a scandal is boiling, cabinet may say we have to put a lid on it because it does not want whistleblowers to report what is going on. If I sound a little cynical, forgive me, but we have seen so many cases of that happening over the past 10 years that we must head that off.

Now, under this legislation, all the cabinet would have to do is say that this agency, department or crown corporation is exempt from whistleblower protection and the scandal has a lid put on it. Clearly, that has to be changed. I believe that it will be before it comes back to the House.

The third thing is that the disclosure process that is in place now is more geared to control or to contain disclosures than to accommodate them and that must be changed.

Rather than talk about the content of the legislation I would like to talk about the fact that there is hope in this Parliament to actually make these changes that are necessary. Why? Because we have a minority government, 135 government MPs out of 308 members. That offers hope.

On the government operations and estimates committee, which is the committee that will be receiving the legislation very soon, we have a majority of committee members from the opposition side. We had a meeting about an hour ago where I, an opposition member, was elected chair of that committee. I have further hope because the government vice-chair, the member for Mississauga South, has just given a presentation in the House recognizing the need for that independent commissioner.

I know that many other members of the committee support the changes that we in the Conservative Party have been proposing here today. Because we have the majority, because we have the opposition chair in the committee, I think we really are into a new time in parliamentary history. I believe that we have an opportunity like we have probably never had before to make some real changes to the legislation before it comes back to the House.

I cannot prejudge what the committee will do, but knowing the members of the committee, knowing the fact that the committee has operated very well over the two years of its existence, and adding the effectiveness of having a majority from the opposite side so that government cannot block the way without some support from opposition, it really does lend a lot of hope for changing the legislation and bringing it back to the House in a format that can be supported by all members of the House.

It will be so fascinating over the next couple of months to see whether that happens and how it happens. One thing could happen that could prevent this process from leading to an effective bill. After the committee examines the bill, and I am confident the committee will make changes which will make it a good piece of legislation, the government could prevent the bill from coming back to the House for third and final reading. It can do that.

Unfortunately, that possibility is still left in the hands of government. I am hoping that will not happen because of support from government members, because of the nature of the House, and because of the cooperation that will be required to make the House operate well in the years to come. It will go through committee, come back to the House, and we will have a piece of whistleblower legislation that will protect the members of our public service. It will also protect taxpayers' dollars by having whistleblowers point out wrongdoing that currently costs millions and millions of dollars every year.

I am looking forward to working with all member to make the legislation work.

[Odina Desrochers, Bloc, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I begin I would like to offer my congratulations on the important position you now occupy and I shall also take a few seconds to thank the people of Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, a riding that has undergone profound changes. Some 65% of my constituents are new and they have placed their confidence in me. I am very happy to represent them. Today, I am very proud to speak about Bill C-11, which revives the former Bill C-25.

During my second term of office, and particularly between February and the election call, I spent hundreds of hours on the sponsorship scandal. The report of the Auditor General came out as our committee was beginning its work. The President of the Treasury Board was eager to tell us about legislation, measures, provisions that would protect public servants who might have been involved or who could have given us clarifications with regard to the work we were doing. And then we never saw him again. He disappeared. He became complicit in all we later heard about the Department of Public Works, that is, a good obedient Liberal who was trying all the time to hide the truth.

Here again, the President of the Treasury Board, reintroducing Bill C-25 as new Bill C-11, is offering the House just half a solution. Once again he is showing this House his lack of transparency. A step has been taken, but just one small step. There is still one giant step to take so that these things do not happen again. In this bill, we do not find the provisions that the Bloc Québécois was hoping for, such as what exactly disclosure is. Could disclosure not be a form of political pressure?

I sat on the public accounts committee. I sat on that committee in camera and I saw dozens of public servants tell us with embarrassment that they had been forced by the Gagliano gang to do things that led to the sponsorship scandal. In Bill C-11 there is nothing to define exactly what a disclosure is.

The bill uses the word serious. I would say that the situation is very serious. In fact, this government must understand that it is now in a minority and that its trademark arrogance will not work any more, because now, the opposition has the majority. This Liberal government must demonstrate that it is taking steps to ensure that public servants are protected for some of the actions they had to take during the Jean Chrétien administration, during the Alfonso Gagliano administration.

I do hope that this bill introduced by the President of the Treasury Board will protect people from political pressure. We all remember the Liberal big wigs who appeared before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. One after the other, Alfonso Gagliano, Canada Post president André Ouellet, Via Rail CEO Jean Pelletier, Marc Lefrançois and many others lied to the committee, and the Liberals tried to put the blame on civil servants. This is shameful! It does not reflect what really happened.

Bill C-11 does not do enough to protect civil servants, who are often under political pressure. They often have to answer to a small time manager appointed by the big Liberal machine. They are afraid to act, to tell the truth. Bill C-11 should do something about that.

Let us not forget about labour relations mechanisms. Civil servants are represented by unions. Whatever measures are stipulated in Bill C-11 must be taken in cooperation with the unions.

The civil servants who have the fortitude to disclose partisan decisions and cover-ups will need the support of their unions. That has not been provided for in Bill C-11.

Yes, we in the Bloc Québécois support Bill C-11 in principle, but we also happen to believe that major changes need to be made to this piece of legislation.

I would like to ask a question of the President of the Treasury Board. We do have something called the Policy on the Internal Disclosure of Information Concerning Wrongdoing in the Workplace. We rarely hear about it, but it does exist. What does Bill C-11 introduced by the President of the Treasury Board add to this famous internal policy concerning wrongdoing in the workplace?

The Liberal government must realize that, with this scandal, which made the headlines not only at home but also abroad, Canada has been discredited. The image of our parliamentarians—not Bloc members but those of the ruling party—has been discredited throughout Canada. During the election campaign, people were asking me what would happen after the work of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and the Gomery commission was completed, whether any actions would be taken against those found guilty, at fault or otherwise involved in the sponsorship scandal. The first action taken by the Liberal government is once again only half a solution. The efforts made by parliamentarians, witnesses, the Gomery commission and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts must not be wasted. With no follow-up, the Parliament of Canada will lose its credibility, and our image as parliamentarians will again be tarnished because of the Liberals' past.

The meaning of disclosure needs to be clarified. The people across the way also need to get through their heads what the word “transparent” means. The proposed process is not a transparent one. Once again, the plan is to appoint someone who will be both judge and jury. The president of the Public Service Commission runs the whole public service. Is this the right person to be the judge, receive disclosures, perhaps have to criticize his right-hand, or left-hand man? The most credible person right now is the Auditor General. Through her work, she revealed the sponsorship scandal. If this shortcoming of the bill is to be remedied, the person would have to be independent and accountable to Parliament.

It is time for an end to cover-up and secrecy among the friends of the government. It is absolutely essential that this minority Liberal government understand that things must change, as they said in the 1960s. And it has to show that there is a change. We in the Bloc Quebecois pledge to work hard on the committee to bring about changes that will meet the public's expectations.