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

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

I think we did see that in the case of what happened with Minister Lunn.

We're coming to the end of our time, but I want to say that the important thing I take out of this, I think, is not to say “Thank you, take care”, and off into the sunset we all go. Instead, it is to say that the main recommendations that you put forward have not been implemented.

While we did get Bill C-2, which was essentially a retooling of Bill C-11 from the previous government, the reality is that the main recommendations you have put forward have not been adopted. I think one thing we have to do as a committee is ensure that this happens.

To talk about other guidelines.... And this comes back to your point about committee. I think committee does play an essential role in being able to hold government to account, asking questions that maybe governments don't want to have asked. What we saw in the in-and-out scandal, what we saw in the Cadman affair, was the use of guidelines put out by the Prime Minister's Office on how to disrupt committee meetings, on how to use procedural rules to frustrate committees from asking questions that they want to have asked.

So the dilemma we're faced with in committee is that if the government decides they don't want to deal with something the opposition wants to ask about, they simply leave the room, or the chair disappears into the night, or they close the doors, or they don't show up.

I wonder if you have any recommendations there. Certainly the committee should be master of its own will. Opposition parties, I'm sure you would agree, must be able to ask these questions.

Do you have any ideas on how we could get around these procedural games that have been put forward in this playbook that has been advanced?

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

To be fair, before I let anybody else continue, there was a piece of legislation that had passed under the Liberals, Bill C-11. Bill C-2, their accountability bill, amended some provisions of that and added to that, but they didn't invent the whole thing.

I just thought I'd square the circle.

[Vic Toews]

Thank you.

The issue of Bill C-11, or the whistle-blower's legislation, I think is important. In speaking with my staff about that particular legislation, I understand there still has to be some consultation with stakeholders, including trade unions and management individuals. We are committed to moving that through as quickly as possible, but I don't want to unilaterally impose a program or a framework that the trade unions, for example, are not happy with. There needs to be that consultation, and I've discussed that particular issue with the secretary.

In terms of the cost, I can't say off the top of my head what that cost is, but perhaps the secretary can advise us.

Emergency Management Act

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate today in the debate on Bill C-12, An Act to provide for emergency management and to amend and repeal certain Acts.

The bill specifically asks for:

“...the appropriation of public revenue under the circumstances, in the manner and for the purposes set out in a measure entitled “An Act to provide for emergency management and to amend and repeal certain Acts”.

This enactment provides for a national emergency management system that strengthens Canada’s capacity to protect Canadians.

Canadians want assurances that the impact of emergencies will be minimized, that assistance will be available and disruptive effects will be limited and short-lived. To address these issues, the bill is pursuing the commitments under the national security policy, notably the review of the statutory framework for emergency management activities.

The purpose of this new act is to strengthen the readiness of the Government of Canada to prepare for, mitigate the impact of and respond to all hazards in Canada. It recognizes that emergency management is an evolving risk environment that requires a collective and a concerted approach between all jurisdictions, including the private sector and non-governmental authorities.

In summary, the bill would strengthen our readiness to mitigate the impact of and prevent or prepare for and respond to all hazards. It should be noted that the bill actually replaces the Emergency Preparedness Act of 1988 and is virtually identical to the bill introduced in 2005 by the previous Liberal government, namely Bill C-78. Accordingly, I would like to say at the outset that the Liberal Party will be supporting the bill, but there are some areas of question which we believe would be important for committee to address.

The Liberal Party certainly welcomes the reintroduction of the emergency management bill. The bill builds on our record on security since 9/11: first, an investment of over $9.5 billion to strengthen national security, to improve emergency preparedness and to contribute to international security; second, the creation of the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness; and third, the establishment of a national 24/7 government operation centre to coordinate federal emergency response.

I would like to give some background here. The bill would strengthen the capability of the government to prepare for, manage, mitigate and respond to all types of emergencies. This will become an interesting question because emergencies mean different things to different people. It would establish clear lines of authority and responsibility in collaboration with the provinces and municipalities. The bill would also facilitate information sharing between government and the private sector and with regard to the protection of critical infrastructure.

The bill replaces, as I stated, the Emergency Preparedness Act of 1988, while preserving its basic provisions in the civil emergency planning and preparedness as a key government responsibility; that delineates responsibilities between the public safety minister and cabinet colleagues; that makes provision for federal-provincial cooperation; and finally, that makes provision for post-disaster financial assistance to provinces. The issue with regard to the provinces is also an important one because of the jurisdictional responsibilities and the need for coordination of course.

The revised act grants new powers to the Minister of Public Safety to exercise national level leadership in emergency management by: first, coordinating federal response to emergencies in Canada and the United States. It is an important element that also includes matters that relate to and may have occurred within the United States but may have an impact on Canada.

Second, it establishes standardized elements for the Government of Canada emergency plans. Third, it monitors and evaluates emergency management plans for federal institutions. Fourth, it enhances cooperation with other jurisdictions through common standards and information sharing. In our experience, harmonizing those common standards will certainly be a tough situation, as it always is.

With regard to the bill more specifically, clause 2 defines emergency management as “the prevention and mitigation of, preparedness for, response to and recovery from emergencies”.

Clause 3 establishes a national leadership role for the Minister of Public Safety in relation to emergency management.

Subclause 4(1) outlines the minister's responsibilities in fulfilling that national leadership role and it includes a broad variety of responsibilities. Paragraphs 4(1)(a), (b) and (c) include coordinating functions in development, testing, implementation and evaluation of government emergency management plans. Paragraphs 4(1)(d) and (e) include monitoring potential and actual emergencies and coordinating of the government response. Paragraphs 4(1)(f), (g), (h) and (i) include coordinating emergency arrangements and responses with the provinces. Paragraph 4(1)(j) includes providing financial assistance to a province if requested. Paragraph 4(1)(l) includes providing the continuity of constitutional government in the event of an emergency.

Clause 6 outlines the general responsibility of each minister, and there are other ministries that are involved outside the Minister of Public Safety, to ensure his or her department prepares emergency management plans and sets out common standards of those plans.

Clause 7 grants the governor in council powers to make orders or regulations with respect to emergency management plans, to use federal resources in response to civil emergencies, to provide financial assistance to provinces and to declare a provincial emergency of concern to the federal government. Certainly that is an area of sensitivity that has to be properly addressed.

Clauses 8 to 10 amend the Access to Information Act to permit the government to refuse to disclose private sector information supplied in confidence to the government with respect to emergency management plans. A public interest override is included.

The bill covers a pretty broad range of responsibilities that I might look at a little later in my comments, but I wanted to touch on some of the areas that have come up already with regard to concern within the bill that we would want to look most carefully at.

The bill would allow the federal government to refocus or better coordinate the organization of its response to emergencies. This is not in contention, but we should note that there is a difference between what is called an emergency and what we might regard as a security related incident.

An emergency may be as a result of a natural disaster, whereas a security related incident might be something along the lines of a terrorist attack, for instance. They are not always the same. Most of what the bill would deal with are emergencies involving natural disasters with some component of man-made contribution in it. Being able to assess whether or not we have adequately covered those situations certainly was a matter of interest and concern.

I am a little concerned personally why it took so long for the government to get the bill to us. As I indicated, it was a bill that was substantively before the House in the last Parliament and here we are some time later, but moving on, in reality, emergencies and natural disasters have evolved and become more complex. We simply need a government minister, aside from the Minister of National Defence who historically would have been the lead minister to take charge in these matters, who would coordinate these things. That would be the federal Minister of Public Safety. That is one thing this bill does that is different from the previous bill.

The second thing we are promoting is the imposition of protection for private information of third parties in the hands of government. As I indicated, the bill provides for a related amendment to subsection 20(1) of the Access to Information Act by adding an additional paragraph to give effect to these provisions.

There also are five or six subsections of the act which would be affected. Those ostensibly relate to the circumstance where information is provided to the minister by persons who would otherwise be covered under the Access to Information Act and that their information which is given is going to be exempt. In other words, if it is given with regard to a situation where there is an emergency as defined, that information would be kept private.

The other area of the bill in which there is an amendment has to do with Bill C-2 which has just been passed by the House after receiving some important changes. It was the first full bill that was introduced by the government and I can recall that there was a lot of concern about the haste in which Bill C-2 had been drafted. It contains amendments to a wide range of legislative areas. As well, it puts a significant onus on the public service to establish a broad range of management procedures, all in the realm of ensuring that accountability is kept in place.

The other thing it does which is interesting and has come up a few times, is in Bill C-2, there are some amendments to Bill C-11, the whistleblower bill, which received royal assent in the last Parliament. It received the unanimous support of all parties. We now find ourselves with another important bill which ostensibly arose out of the case of George Radwanski, the former privacy commissioner, who for a variety of reasons was put in a situation where he resigned his position and indeed suffered some consequences as a result of his actions which I will not go into.

Bill C-12 contains a coordinating amendment to Bill C-2 that should Bill C-2 have received royal assent, this amendment included in Bill C-12 will be made to that bill.

The bill repeals the Emergency Preparedness Act, chapter 6 of the fourth supplement to the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1985.

The last clause in the bill is the coming into force clause. It is something on which I have commented before as the co-chair of the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations. We have embarked on a review. In fact at the last meeting we actually were looking at the Fisheries Act and some regulations that were necessary. This item has been outstanding for 23 years. All of the people at the table certainly were not here when it started and I suspect if we do not do something about it, there are going to be new people at the table when it ultimately gets resolved, if ever.

We also had a private member's bill dealing with the repeal of acts which had received royal assent, either entire acts or acts which included amendments to other acts which had received royal assent but had not been proclaimed within 10 years. It has some provisions whereby it could be saved during the last year. That report would be tabled in the House identifying the bills that are coming up to their 10th anniversary and would allow the government of the day to make some decisions as to whether or not it is going to act on triggering those changes.

This bill also includes coming into force. Clause 14 says, “This Act other than section 12 comes into force on a day to be fixed by order of the Governor in Council”. What that means is that cabinet is going to decide when the provisions of this particular bill come into play. This is the kind of provision which gives rise to the problem of things lingering for an extensive period of time. I am not entirely sure why there is not a specified date or some sort of horizon period. This is a very important bill. It is a bill that I would have liked to see introduced much earlier. This bill which deals with public protection and safety is very important to Canadians.

There is a proviso in the bill which caught my attention. Under “Minister's responsibilities”, subclause 4(2) states:

The Minister has any other responsibilities in relation to emergency management that the Governor in Council may specify.

This may cause some difficulty, although I am not sure and we will have to wait until we can get an opinion on it. The bill is purported to include all of the provisions and responsibilities, but that subclause includes anything else we think we should do. Those things would presumably happen through regulation or governor in council and not be available to the House to consider.

This would appear to give the government of the day a free hand in terms of adding to the bill things which probably should be included in the statutes themselves with regard to better defining this. When there is a blanket responsibility, anything else that the governor in council may specify is basically carte blanche.

We have talked often in the scrutiny of regulations committee about whether a particular regulation or change to a bill in fact has an enabling provision in the act. This has a blanket enabling provision, which means that theoretically almost anything could happen through a governor in council order. That is a matter which may very well come up if not here, then certainly in the other place.

There is another item I want to mention with regard to issues which have come up. Subclause 7(c) allows the government to make regulation to declare a provincial emergency to be of concern to the federal government. It appears that the intention of the bill is to put the federal responsibility on what would be a provincial emergency. When people look at this they are going to want to explore it a little further because of the coordinating requirements.

There is another clause in the bill which deals with making regulations, as I indicated, on the issue of whether we have any statutory jurisdiction in the United States of America. Of course, we do not have any statutory jurisdiction. That would involve an extraterritorial application of our laws. However, it does not prevent us from developing an emergency management plan. The point is that it may involve the spending of money and resources in the United States. That is a matter which gets us very much involved.

Clause 7 of the bill creates the authority to make regulation. It seems to indicate that it anticipates spending money in the United States of America. For example, subclause 7(b) talks about regulations respecting the use of federal civil resources in response to civil emergencies. The question becomes whether that includes assistance in response to United States emergencies. If we respond to an emergency management plan that we have developed with the U.S., are we talking just about the border or are we talking about Laredo or some other area, maybe even Hawaii? There are some interesting questions to which I still do not know whether we have the answers.

I am suggesting there are some technical issues and if it is intended that the minister or governor in council make regulations about joint emergency management plans, that should also be set out in the statute. I am not sure whether that is the case.

All in all, the fundamental elements of the bill appear to be consistent with the bill in the previous Parliament of the Liberal government. The Liberal caucus will be supporting the bill.

Federal Accountability Act

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by acknowledging my colleague, Benoît Sauvageau. I worked with him on Bill C-2 and assisted him throughout the process. I want to make sure everyone knows what extraordinary work he did. We must all recognize that.

All parties in this House worked very hard on this. Never before has a committee sat for so many hours and so many days in so few weeks to produce a bill of great importance about accountability.

We all gained something; some of us lost something. Some of the things we wanted to see in the bill are not there, but I want to emphasize that we did gain some ground.

Among other things, we, the members of the Bloc Québécois, succeeded in getting an independent appointment process for Elections Canada returning officers. This is very important. Such a process has already been in place in Quebec for a number of years, and now we have it at the federal level.

In fact, consultation has already been undertaken to find out if returning officers in each riding were competent, if their work was well done, if there was any partisanship, and if they had the necessary qualifications to do the job. All parliamentarians were consulted and a report was tabled. That was a huge step forward. I would like to congratulate the committee on its support for this part of the bill.

We also succeeded in eliminating rewards for whistleblowers. We found that proposal completely unacceptable. It might even have prompted some people to make false accusations in order to receive the reward. That provision was removed from the bill. I would like to thank the secretary of the Treasury Board because we discussed this and he agreed to make the change.

The parties worked together on this, in a fairly respectful manner. We also obtained the assurance that this legislation will be reviewed in five years. Typically, legislation is reviewed every 10 years. We asked that this be reviewed after five years, because the legislation is so complex that we are not entirely sure how it will be implemented. It affects so many other acts that our concern regarding the implementation of Bill C-2 has to do with the time frame and costs of its implementation.

As we know, this bill amends several other acts, but we do not know how long this will all take. Over time, we will see how this bill moves forward.

We needed an accountability act. Given the sponsorship scandal and the Gomery Commission, this House needed legislation to ensure the probity of parliamentarians. We are all honest people. We all want to represent our constituents well. There can be temptations, however, through bad influences, to act dishonestly. We saw this with the sponsorship scandal. Bill C-2 corrects part of the problem.

However, we deplore the Conservative government's decision to give in to the ultimatum given by the Senate, in order to stop the constant back and forth between the House of Commons and the Senate, and to ensure that Bill C-2 is passed quickly.

We rejected the idea of a separate Senate ethics officer, because such an officer would not be as effective as Bill C-2 could have allowed. However, as I mentioned, there has been some give and take.

The Bloc Québécois made concessions and compromises; the Liberal Party made compromises; the NDP did so as well, and the government made many compromises, to our great surprise. We always said that we would not delay the committee's work unduly, and we kept our promise by making solid proposals. But we regret that many people who would have liked to testify and submit briefs to the committee were unable to do so because of impossible time constraints. They were given barely 24 hours to write a brief and come to testify. It is very unfortunate that witnesses often had just two minutes to speak. This is unreasonable, and the work suffered as a result. When seven or eight witnesses take the time to travel together and only one or two have the chance to testify before the committee for two minutes, and when the question period is also limited to two or three minutes, this does not promote very good relations. In that sense, it was very difficult.

Many Quebeckers would have liked to testify before the committee, but were unable to do so. However, some people later testified before the Senate committee, which was a good thing. But it was also difficult in the Senate, because the hearing process moved along very quickly there as well. A bill was needed and, in my opinion, it will be passed on division. We will monitor the application of the legislation very closely, because it affects many other existing laws and makes significant changes.

We do not know whether it will be possible to make improvements to certain laws. It may be that a bill to amend each law will have to be introduced in the House of Commons. But we do not know how much time, energy and money that will involve. We hope that there will be as much collegiality among the parties and that the work will be as well done as when Bill C-2 was drafted. As I said at the start, we never held up the process. We will therefore support the bill, but we hope that this bill will truly make a difference and not just be a bogus bill.

Do hon. members recall Bill C-11, Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act? From the outset, we called for Bill C-11 to be implemented immediately since it was ready, having gone through the Senate and received royal assent. Still, approval was denied supposedly because Bill C-2 was about to be introduced. Nine months were wasted with that. Because they had no protection, whistleblowers were not able to make the disclosures they wanted to make or should have made. Moreover, Bill C-11 was not in conflict with Bill C-2, not at all. In fact, once Bill C-2 was in effect, Bill C-11 would have been complementary.

We in the Bloc Québécois cannot understand why the government would not implement Bill C-11. It would not have cost the government anything, yet protection would have been afforded to whistleblowers, allowing them to start immediately doing their jobs. Of course, that is unfortunate, but now we are at the stage of implementing Bill C-2. This will ensure that we can count on our civil servants being able to do their jobs. If disclosures have to be made, they will be made honestly. That is actually a job requirement. They will not get paid for making disclosures. That would be unthinkable. It is the duty of civil servants to report on what is not working in their departments and on any wrongdoers who are up to no good. This marks an important victory for us.

I thank all my colleagues on the legislative committee on Bill C-2, both from the government side and the opposition. I think we did good work together, and my wish is that the legislation will be effective and will come into force as soon as possible.

Bank Act

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

That is a good thing. The President of the Treasury Board is a trusting person, I am sure.

As I said, some amendments in Bill C-2 of this Parliament amend a bill that was passed in the last Parliament, which has not been put into force yet. It is kind of reverse order. One would think that Bill C-11 would be in place and then Bill C-2 would be passed.

I could talk for some time about Bill C-11 and why it would have been important to have it in place because there is so much work to do before it gets up to speed and is operating efficiently. We could have had more accountability within the public service and the Government of Canada had it been in force when the Conservative Party took office. However, that is the Conservatives' choice. I do not think they really wanted to have too many people with the protection to blow the whistle on a government that was not doing things properly.

Before Bill C-2 gets royal assent and comes into force, Bill C-11 must be proclaimed. Because Bill C-2 amends Bill C-11, Bill C-11 must exist in law before Bill C-2 can be proclaimed.

I am glad to hear that Bill C-2 is now in the last stages of becoming law and is ready to receive the go ahead in terms of coming into force, which means that Bill C-11 also would be proclaimed and be in force. We will see the beginning of the establishment of the human infrastructure of an effective accountability mechanism and protection for our public servants.

I thought it was important to raise with members that we are now considering a bill which has a very large number of amendments. Today in the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations which I chair, we addressed an issue where a regulation has been bouncing back and forth. It passed in this place, but on review it was found to have a flaw. We sent it back to the department saying that it should be fixed. The first piece of correspondence on that matter actually took place 23 years ago. A problem in a regulation was cited 23 years ago. The departments are still bouncing back and forth as to who is to blame and why it cannot be done.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-37. I found it very difficult to deal with the bill. First, the bill in itself is probably one of the larger bills I have ever seen in this place. It is some 237 pages long.

It is an omnibus bill of sorts, which means it provides a variety of amendments, technical and otherwise, to a wide range of bills. When people read the bill, they cannot understand what the provisions in it mean unless they have the bill to be amended beside them so they can see the provisions that are already in place and understand the context in which they relate to that bill.

I know the members know, but Canadians should know that when we get bills such as this, members, who are involved in the finance committee, have to rely on the work and due diligence of others to make absolutely sure the provisions are there. In fact, it is probably the most extreme example that I could cite.

I have a problem with the bill because it covers so many things. I suspect that if any government ever wanted to do anything to amend certain acts, this certainly would be the way to do it, to put through a bill in excess of some 230 pages, which affects maybe 20 or 30 different existing pieces of legislation.

In order to give people an idea, the summary to Bill C-37 indicates that it is an enactment that amends a number of acts governing financial institutions. At least it is in a pocket that we understand.

The bill also amends legislation related to the regulation of financial institutions. This place has been seized over the years with legislation related to financial institutions, particularly as it relates to bank mergers and the lines of business banks can get into. I must admit it conjures up some memories of clichés that some members would use in their speeches during some of the debates about banks being terribly bad. However, most people would say that their bank branches are pretty good.

The notable pieces of legislation that are being amended are the Bank Act, the Cooperative Credit Associations Act, the Insurance Companies Act and the Trust and Loan Companies Act. All of the amendments are aimed at achieving three objectives: first, enhancing the interests of consumers; second, increasing legislative and regulatory efficiency; and third, adapting those acts to new developments. These sound a little comprehensive, but they are envelopes under which these particular amendments could be placed. There are also amendments to the Bills of Exchange Act to provide for the introduction of electronic cheque imaging.

There are also technical amendments, which cover a broad range of acts: the Bank Act, the Cooperative Credit Associations Act, the Insurance Companies Act, and I could go on. There are at least 20 of them.

I think maybe I have made my point, that ordinary members of Parliament, who are not involved in the finance committee and maybe do not have some of the background and training, will have a very difficult time. A number of votes are taken on bills like this, whether it be at second reading, committee stage amendments, report stage, third reading. I think Canadians will ask themselves this. If this is so cumbersome, if there are 230-some odd pages, if there are virtually hundreds and hundreds of amendments to dozens of acts, how can a member of Parliament, with all the responsibilities, make an informed decision and cast a vote reflective of the due diligence that has been done?

How that happens here is probably the same way it happens in real life.

I can recall being the vice-chairman of the board of the Mississauga Hospital. Under the Ontario hospitals act, the board of directors is responsible for every aspect of the administration and operation of the hospital.

I remember giving a seminar on trustees of hospitals. As I recall, the title was “Hospital Trustee: Mission Impossible”. It is impossible because we can not possibly expect volunteer members of a board of directors to be fully informed about the day to day activities of the hospital, to take full responsibilities for what the doctors, nurses and administrative people do and, if anything goes wrong, to be personally responsible for those.

What happens is the responsibilities of the board are seconded or delegated to other persons. Therefore, for the board's responsibilities, as is the case for members of Parliament, there is a delegation or a secondment of those responsibilities to others who specifically spend their time on them. They perhaps have the specific expertise and the support personnel, either within their offices or from parliamentary offices, to do the necessary due diligence, to do the checking, to ask the questions, to hear witnesses and to make some ascertainment as to the propriety of the amendments being made.

We have in this chamber always the presumption of honesty. We certainly have that as well in our committees as we bring witnesses forward. It is a process which the members of Parliament rely on their best judgment to ascertain that witnesses who appear before the committee are appropriate witnesses, that they cover the necessary areas and that they get the proper representations from the departmental officials who are responsible for having drafted this.

We also have the support of the Library of Parliament, which does some excellent legislative summaries to the extent that it can. In this regard, I suspect the legislative summary for a bill this size might very well be five times larger, maybe about 1,000 pages, but we have the resources available to us of the Library of Parliament to assist us in specific areas.

It is an onerous task. I do not purport to be fully knowledgeable and able to come here and argue the case of why members should vote for a particular clause in a particular bill that is to be amended, whether it be technical or otherwise. However, the job does get done and it gets done through a process of secondment, provided the committee is doing its work and provided the officials have done their work.

I must admit Canadians should be assured, and I wish they would get a better chance to see it, that the work done in committee is probably the most productive work that members of Parliament do. The work in committees is excellent. The quality and level of questioning of witnesses is excellent in terms of discharging the responsibility of due diligence or doing the detail with regard to the legislation before this place.

Being a legislator is an important responsibility. One of the things that I note in the bill is right at the very end. It is coincidental, but I just gave a speech a couple of days ago on a private member's bill that had to do with repealing acts that had received royal assent. They had gone through the entire legislative process of being tabled at first reading, debated at second, went to committee, committee stage amendments, report stage amendments back to the House, third reading, passed on to the other place and then went through an almost identical process and then received royal assent.

The public would think that when the bill receives royal asset it is law. It is not law until it is proclaimed. It must be in force.

The private member's bill I referred to was started in the Senate by Senator Tommy Banks. It was the third iteration of a bill that has been around since about 2002. It has to do with repealing legislation that has received royal assent but has not been proclaimed and put into force, and therefore is not active law in Canada.

I note the final provision of the bill found on page 237 entitled, “Order in Council” under the subtitle of “Coming Into Force”. It reads:

The provisions of this Act, or the provisions of any Act enacted by this Act, come into force on a day or days to be fixed by order of the Governor in Council.

This appears from time to time in bills. It means there is no set date as to when the provisions of this bill will be put into place. Often that happens because other things must occur before the provisions of the amendments within the bill could be operative. It is almost like once we pass this, before we put it in force, certain other things have to happen. Once they have happened, then the governor in council, which is basically the cabinet, sets a date fixing that certain provisions of this act would come into force.

As an aside, in most of the cases bills would generally say that the act would come into force on the date on which it received royal assent. That is fairly straightforward. There are others which have provisos that the in force date will be on a specified date, for instance, January 1, 2007.

In the reproductive technologies bill, I believe there two key areas. One is called prohibited acts under the bill. The other is controlled activities. The prohibited acts were all in force on royal assent. The controlled activities were subject to being in force by a date set by order in council. The reason for that was the controlled activities required the establishment of a board of management that would do certain things. Until that was set up, the provisions of that could not go forward.

Another example is Bill C-11 from the last Parliament, the whistleblower legislation. This legislation received royal assent in November of last year. The legislation provides protection to civil servants who have allegations of wrongdoing within the public service or anybody who is within the definition of a public servant. The bill is not in force yet.

In this Parliament we have Bill C-2, and this can get complicated in non-financial bills. Bill C-2 prescribes amendments to Bill C-11.

Statutes Repeal Act

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by saying that we support the principle underlying this bill. As my colleague said earlier, 57 bills gathering dust is a lot.

I would like to go back to Bill C-11, The Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act. As you may recall, during our study of Bill C-2, the Bloc Québécois asked that Bill C-11 be withdrawn immediately. If the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act had been enacted and implemented while we were studying Bill C-2, we would have been able to take the time we needed to study it thoroughly. If Bill C-11 had been passed before, we could have been certain that that much at least had been done rather than wait for Bill C-2 to be passed.

Bill C-2 is currently before the Senate. We do not know when it will be returned to the House of Commons. The Christmas break is approaching and we will not resume until January. It is unlikely that Bill C-2 will be adopted or withdrawn before that, and we will still have the problem of Bill C-11, which is ready and has received royal assent, but is not yet enacted. It is just one of many bills that are gathering dust on the shelf.

On the other hand, we will probably have to revise some bills, because they have been left on the shelf too long. Amendments may be needed. There will also likely be jurisdiction issues, because certain provinces, such as Quebec, have already established measures concerning some bills. We must therefore ensure that there is no duplication and that our jurisdictions are respected. Certain important changes may have already been made, which could undermine or duplicate existing legislation.

As I said, we support this bill. However, we would like to see it go to committee. We believe three amendments are important, and I will list them. We think that they will strengthen Bill S-202.

First of all, we think that the discretionary period for enacting a bill passed by Parliament could be shortened from ten years to five years. We would like to see this amended because we find ten years simply too long. We see this when we are studying a bill in committee. Indeed, most of our existing legislation is revised every five or ten years anyway. As we all know, if this measure is not in place, this could lead to some major changes. Things change with time. We must review our legislation, make it better and more modern. Furthermore, things happen outside this House. Other legislative assemblies, including the National Assembly in Quebec and other parliaments, all carry out their own measures, which could lead to amendments to one of our 57 bills.

We would also like to require the government to explain to Parliament the reasons why it does not intend to implement legislation that has received royal assent. This is unimaginable, when witnesses have been called to appear and people have worked on a bill, sometimes for as much as two years. I remember that when we revised the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, it took us two and a half years. It would make no sense to wait 10 years before looking at it again. The government therefore should report to Parliament and explain why it has decided to give royal assent to legislation but then has opted to shelve it instead of implementing it.

This also does not reflect well on parliamentarians. People say that we pass legislation but then shelve it. They find the system very cumbersome, very slow and very long. When legislation receives royal assent, the government has to be able to implement it as soon as possible.

It starts in Parliament, then is referred to a committee, where it is amended before going to the Senate, where more witnesses are called. It goes through all the steps needed to receive royal assent, then it is shelved. This makes no sense to us.

The third amendment we would like to make pertains to clause 3 and reflects the fact that members of the Senate are not elected. We therefore propose to amend clause 3, which reads as follows:

3. Every Act or provision listed in the annual report is repealed on December 31 of the year in which the report is laid unless it comes into force on or before that December 31 or during that year either House of Parliament adopts a resolution that the Act or provision not be repealed.

We would like to replace this clause with the following:

3. Every Act or provision listed in the annual report is repealed on December 31 of the year in which the report is laid unless it comes into force on or before that December 31 or during that year the House of Commons adopts a resolution that the Act or provision not be repealed.

These are amendments that the committee could discuss. It could look at whether it is possible to find common ground.

In general, Bill S-202 is good because these changes are needed. We cannot allow very important bills to be shelved.

I find that Bill C-11 was extremely important and there are currently people who will not disclose any wrongdoing as long as we have not resolved the problem with Bill C-2. Repealing Bill C-11 would not have taken any effort. The legislation was ready. We could have just continued with Bill C-2. The one was not in competition with the other. They were based on each other, in any event. I still do not understand why the government refused to implement Bill C-11, which was shelved.

I also wonder what becomes of these bills afterward. Bill C-2 will likely be passed eventually. I imagine it will come back from the Senate and we will pass it. However, what will become of Bill C-11? What happens to bills that are shelved? Will Bill C-11 become obsolete and have to be repealed? We have to ask these questions.

We will therefore support Bill S-202, but the reservations I expressed must be taken into account. I think that five years is better than 10 years. When we study some acts after 10 years, there are so many changes and amendments to make that it can take two or three years to go through committee. I saw it happen with the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. I also saw it happen with Part II of the Canada Labour Code. We spent months and months amending Part II, which had not been reviewed for 15 years. We have to set limits so that, as we asked with Bill C-2, the act can be reviewed every five years to assess its effectiveness. We will strike a committee to determine whether it is working well. If it is not, we need the power to amend it quickly and ensure it does work well.

The Bloc Québécois supports sending Bill S-202 to committee, where members will discuss its application with witnesses.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

moved that Bill S-202, An Act to repeal legislation that has not come into force within ten years of receiving royal assent, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is quite an honour to present Bill S-202 to the House.

The members may wonder why it is an S bill. This bill was tabled in the other place by Senator Tommy Banks. It went through all stages of the legislative process, a very rigorous process. It has passed in the other place and is now referred to the House of Commons for consideration. It is now brought to the order paper and is before us like any other private member's bill. We are at second reading and we will go through the normal process that we otherwise would. I wanted members to be aware of that, and certainly the public.

I find Bill S-202 to be a very constructive bill. Its short title is called the statutes repeal act. It is an act to repeal legislation that has not come into force within ten years of receiving royal assent.

The public may wonder how both the House of Commons and the other place can do all of our work, do all the due diligence, get the bill passed and get royal assent, yet the bill is not be put in force. In other words, it is not active law. It sits in limbo until a subsequent government decides to proclaim the bill and put it into force, and there are some reasons for that. However, two full bills, which are over 10 years old, have received royal assent, but they have not been proclaimed. About 57 other pieces of legislation, which are amendments to other acts, are also over 10 years old and they still have not been proclaimed in Parliament by the government of the day.

We have to ask ourselves if we should have a procedure in which we can effectively create a sunset clause, with reasonable provisions. Should there be good reason for a bill not being proclaimed, or not being put into force, there will be an opportunity to do that without frustrating all of the work that has been done.

In checking the work already done already, I must admit this is a lot more complicated than members may think. There are a lot of constitutional and procedural questions and a lot of questions about what happens if a provincial jurisdiction has enacted similar provisions, but the Government of Canada has not. For example, if we repeal provisions, will that affect the provincial jurisdiction and the application of the law? There were some excellent questions on behalf of all hon. senators who participated in the debate.

Bill S-202 received third reading in the Senate on the June 22. The bill could prevent legislation, which has received royal assent but has not been brought into force, from sitting on the books indefinitely. The bill would not apply to acts which come into force upon royal assent, which means they would automatically come into force, or acts that come into force on a day specified within the legislation.

We often have the case where it says in the bill that it will come into force upon receiving royal assent, or that the bill will come into force, or active law, on a date indicated in that bill. However, there are bills that do not say that. They in fact have a coming into force clause; that is they will come into force when the government says they will, or an unspecified time.

Unless either the House of Commons or the Senate takes action, the bill would cause these acts to automatically be repealed if they have not been brought into force within 10 years of receiving royal assent. There are exceptions for provisions that have been amended before the bill comes into force. For instance, if there has been some action on that bill within the last 10 year period, there are provisos that this 10 year period would be extended for 10 years beyond when an amendment had been made.

According to testimony in the Senate, the Department of Justice was very active. As I have said, there are only two statutes that are affected by Bill S-202 in their entirety. They are the Motor Vehicle Fuel Consumption Standards Act, which passed in the early 1980s, and the Canadian Heritage Languages Institute Act from 1991. However, there is individual legislation amending the other pieces of legislation. I have examples of some 57 other acts that would be affected by this, but I will not to read them into the record. I am happy to provide hon. members with copies of them. It is in the Senate record should members like to look at some of those.

The short title of the bill is the statutes repeal act. Clause 2 says that the justice minister must within the first five days that the chamber sits in any calendar year give a report to the House of Commons and the Senate. The report must list every act or provision of an act that received royal assent more than nine years before December 31 of the previous year that has not come into force. In other words, on day one of the 10th year, we would have a report to both Houses of Parliament. This means the government of the day would have virtually a full year to determine whether it better take some action, or make some changes, or supercede it, or repeal it or somehow address it. If it does not, then this bill would in fact trigger.

Clause 3 states that any act or provision, which was listed in the annual report and has still not come into force by the end of the 10th year, would be repealed as of December 31 of that year unless either chamber adopted a resolution that the act or provision would not be repealed.

Clause 5 provides that any provision that was not in force and would have been repealed under the prevailing procedure would not be repealed if it had been amended at any time during the previous nine years. Ten years after that amendment, the provisions of the bill would apply if the amendment itself was not brought into force. If there is no action on a bill or an amendment to a bill within 10 years of it receiving passage in both Houses, then the cards fall and it would be repealed.

Bill S-202 has had three predecessor bills in its life. The original hearings were back in 2002. Senator Banks confirmed that the intent of the bill was not to impair government flexibility, and that is important to note, but to ensure that any act or provision that had not come into force within 10 years after being given royal assent was revisited. That is the important aspect of Bill S-202. It would provide a period during which we would have to look at it and find out whether action was necessary one way or another. Failing that, the act or the provision would automatically be repealed.

There are four options now with the possibility of a resolution in either House for stalling the appeal.

First, some provisions that are more than nine or ten years old may have been recently amended, for example, to correct an anomaly or problem. Is the intent of the bill that a provision that Parliament has recently considered be automatically repealed? The intent is not to do that. It is to ensure that there is some activity. As the senator has pointed out, there has to be some sort of sunset provision.

Second, what happens with a provision that is partially in force or in force in some but not all provinces? The Contraventions Act, for example, requires negotiations with a province before it can be brought into force in that province. The question really is, would such acts be partially repealed with respect to provinces where they were not in force?

The third option is with respect to international treaties. They may require implementing legislation and there could be a 10 year time lapse before international ratification was actually complete. The question would then be, how would the bill deal with this situation?

Fourth, justice officials were also concerned that the bill would cause an automatic repeal with no provision for publication of the statutes or provisions repealed.

I want to assure members that Bill S-202 has addressed all of those concerns. It has done so through changes providing: first, that a resolution adopted by either chamber operates to ensure that the provision is not repealed; second, that amendments to a provision before a bill comes into force to extend the period for another 10 years; and third, that all repealed acts or provisions must be listed in the Canada Gazette.

The bottom line is Bill S-202 does in fact respond to the questions that have been raised by justice officials and others with regard to us getting ourselves into a situation where we may cause some unintended consequences. The conclusion is that is not the case.

The senators who examined the bill also raised concern with Bill S-202. Could the repeal of a list of provisions be done by motions involving a senate and/or the House of Commons or is some form of assent or approval by the Queen's representative also required?

Section 17 of the Constitution Act states that the legislative power rests in the Parliament composed of the Queen, the Senate and the House of Commons. Senators felt it might be preferable if the legislation contained some recognition of the Crown. This is where the Senate gets into some aspects, which I do not often hear in this place, with regard to the constitutionality.

Justice officials were of the view that the bill itself was the legislative mandate required for the repeals and that the process in the bill was analogous to a sunset clause, which provided for the repeal at a specific time. The officials also referred to section 2.2 of the Interpretation Act, which provided for a deemed repeal in the case of provisions that were spent or no longer operative. Thus Parliament can anticipate a repeal that takes place some time later, but according to the rules established by Parliament itself.

In the case at hand, the rules would be established by Bill S-202. In other words, the bill would provide the mechanisms in which we could deal with this problem. In the view of the justice officials, this would overcome any constitutional difficulties with the repeals triggered by the bill. As I said, there are some 57 acts which are affected, but I will not go there.

To summarize, the only way this really comes up is if the legislation says that bill will come into force on a date to be specified by order in council, that is by the cabinet. When there is no specified date or it does not say it come into force on royal assent, then somebody has to do something down the road to trigger it.

There are a number of instances where there is good reason why we would not want to make it come into force immediately. There are transitional provisions and things to get prepared for it coming into to force. We understand that when we bring in new legislation, there are or can be consequences to a broad range of stakeholders. Therefore, the form of having an enforced clause sometimes is desirable and necessary.

In the case before us now, the Senate has discovered there are bills, having gone through all of the process in both Houses, sitting collecting dust in limbo. Also some 57 other acts have all kinds of interesting amendments. I cannot imagine what those people, who thought these were important at the time, are feeling. I am getting a little worried about the whistleblower legislation, Bill C-11. It has been over a year now, in the last week of the last Parliament.

When we have done the work, when Parliament has passed it, all Houses, when it has royal assent, we want to know it has happened. If it does not happen, maybe the House has to consider another amendment, something to the effect that if a bill does not get royal assent within a reasonable period of time, reasons should be given. That is accountability.

I thank Senator Banks for all of his hard work. I commend the senators for their due diligence on this. I have satisfied myself that they have asked all the important questions and considered, as part of their review, the important questions of the day. They have referred us a bill which is in very good shape.

I ask all hon. members to support Bill S-202.

Federal Accountability Act

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are two things. First, I am not upset. Second, I know the member is flabbergasted.

I am sorry that the member did not hear all of my speech, but in the very first sentence I said that I supported the accountability act, and I have all along. Then I went into a complete description of the difficulty that an ordinary member of Parliament would have in dealing with this extensive bill. Let me give the member another example.

I have raised this point in the House a couple of times already. It has to do with Bill C-11, the whistleblower bill, which received royal assent in the last Parliament but was not proclaimed. I was going to get to that in my speech. It was not proclaimed so it is not enforceable.

There are amendments in Bill C-2 which would change the whistleblower bill, but the whistleblower bill would have to be proclaimed and then Bill C-2 would be proclaimed once it got through the rest of the process, so that in combination it is where the government would like to have it. I understand that.

I am not sure if that would even meet the member's requirement for accountability simply because the whistleblower bill is important. It creates an officer of Parliament. It creates protection for public servants who come forward and disclose alleged wrongdoing by the government or government departments.

That bill should have been proclaimed. If the government had problems with it, it should have had a separate bill to make amendments to it so that we could, even by now, have had it fully in place. We could have had the protection for public servants that they do not enjoy today. It has been a waste of time. I do not believe that even that action or inaction has been fully accountable by the government.

I raised a number of those examples, but I would be happy to speak with the member about any aspect of the bill, including another bill that he referred to on the softwood deal, which I opposed and opposed and opposed.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-2, the federal accountability act.

First, I do not think there is any member in this place who does not share a common objective, which I believe the President of the Treasury Board said in his opening speech on April 25 of this year at the lead speech on second reading. He said, “Our goal, our commitment, simply put, is to make government more accountable”.

On this basis, I believe Bill C-2 had that goal as its fundamental principle and, as such, it received the unanimous support of all parties at second reading and through the rest of the process. I am sure all hon. members will support the bill.

However, members will know that there have been a lot of discussions over a great period of time about how the bill was done. There were concerns when the bill was first tabled. The government put forward a very significant document. I do not believe there is any other bill, which I have had to work on as a parliamentarian, that touches so many other acts. It is an omnibus bill.

The bill touches a very large number of acts and it is difficult to read. We cannot start at the beginning, go through and see the story, the lead up, the plot, the end of it and everybody lives happily ever after. It is not like that. Every section of it refers to amending some other piece of existing legislation. There are also some transitional positions, et cetera, but in the main we are basically amending a very large number of other legislation.

When we looked at Bill C-2, we had something over 200 pages. Then we were told at the outset that the government wanted it passed. I believe April 25 was the first debate, and it wanted it passed by the summer.

It begs the question about how parliamentarians discharge their responsibilities. In the prayer we start the House with every day we say that we make good laws and wise decisions. It is not possible to have done this bill justice in such a short time and yet it was at the government's insistence that we push this matter because it wanted the bill passed by the summer. It is now November.

There have been a lot of questions about whether someone has been delaying the process, whether it be in the House or in the Senate. Parliamentarians not only have the right but they have the duty to do the job as they see fit, to make good laws and wise decisions. I do not think any member of Parliament, except those possibly who were on the special legislative committee to deal with Bill C-2, had the opportunity and the time to get into the detail. However, we all had an opportunity to look at aspects of the bill in which we may have had some background.

Canadians should understand, when parliamentarians rise to vote on Bill C-2 tonight on the subamendment, on the amendment, on the concurrence and on the passage of the bill to be sent back to the Senate, that members of Parliament have had to rely on many other people in this chamber who have done the work in a great bit of detail.

I wanted to make that point because we have, with a very large bill, a situation where members of Parliament have been asked to rely on the work of others in order for them to make an informed decision. It is very difficult, and I have some reservation about some of the areas of the bill. However, because there was an alliance formed by the government and another party, the amount of time that was available for the debate and to consider amendments, even at report stage, was truncated substantially. There was a forced position. In fact, we did not even have a final vote before it went to the Senate. Basically, we deemed that the question was put and deemed that it was passed. There was no recorded division on it.

It suggests to me, and I am sure it suggests to those observers who watch the legislative process, that when a bill is put together in such haste, there will be mistakes. I do not think anyone in this place will deny the fact that there were mistakes made in the bill that Parliament passed and referred to the Senate.

In fact, the President of the Treasury Board, in dealing with the work of the Senate, estimated that there were about 154 amendments proposed by senators. The Senate is composed of Liberal and Conservative senators, and 42 of those amendments came from Conservative senators. Of the 150-some odd amendments, the President of the Treasury Board accepted, without debate, without further consideration, 57 amendments.

The fact is the President of the Treasury Board, who is the minister responsible for Bill C-2, accepted some 57 amendments proposed by the Senate to make this a better bill. For that to happen, I think the Senate demonstrated that it did the job it was put there to do.

The Senate reviewed the legislation. It came up with changes, and we are still considering other amendments. The President of the Treasury Board has laid out, and the members can see, some of the brief reasons why some of the other proposed amendments are not acceptable to the government. That is his job. I believe this debate will find there are still a couple of items that yet remain unresolved.

In the main, I think all members of Parliament understand that Bill C-2 will pass the House and go back to the Senate. I want to advise members that the Senate has already made some consideration as to what happens when it goes back to the Senate. It has decided to have the bill immediately referred back to its legislative committee to advise the Senate on the appropriate course of action to take. The Senate is ready and waiting for this bill.

I am hopeful we will see Bill C-2 pass at all stages, get it through the Senate and receive royal assent prior to the House rising. The proclamation of the bill is up to the government.

I want to make one explanation. Even though a bill passes through the House of Commons and the Senate and receives royal assent, it is not in force. It is law but it is not in force until it is proclaimed. I raise that because we have the same issue with regard to another bill, Bill C-11, the whistleblower legislation, which passed and received royal assent in the last Parliament, and I will comment on that bill.

Bill C-2 is about accountability. I think we know that we have the support of all hon. members in the House to make the bill as good as possible, to ensure that it passes and that we get some of the important provisions started. Much of the legislation will require a lot of changes within the public service of Canada, within the administration of political parties and within all these acts. The Chief Electoral Officer will to have quite a job to do.

A week ago Friday, I was pleased to participate as a panellist at a special conference in Ottawa on the subject matter of accountability, with specific reference to Bill C-2. It was a four day conference and I followed some of it. I found out that many of the panellists and presenters were law scholars, professors from universities and experts on various aspects of law such as access to information. Members of Parliament and senators participated as well.

I found it fascinating that a debate was going on as to what we meant by accountability. It was interesting how different speakers had different definitions for accountability. Having recognized that, I went to the dictionary to find out what a lay dictionary would say about someone who is accountable. If we look up the word “accountable”, accountability is a form of usage. It basically said that accountability has to do with someone who is required to explain or justify his or her actions or decisions. That was the short definition of “accountable”.

As a chartered accountant, I worked a lot on public financing. There is a document called a prospectus which goes out to potential investors to give them all the information they need to make an informed decision about whether they want to invest in an offering. One of the principles in terms of requirements of a prospectus, which is very important, is that it give true, full and plain disclosure.

With that as background, I spoke at this conference and defined, for our purposes, accountability as a government or as anyone explaining and/or justifying their actions or decisions with true, full and plain disclosure. We can see all of a sudden that the definition is building because someone can be accountable to different degrees. We can be accountable by giving some part of a true, full and plain disclosure but the degree to which one is accountable comes into question.

I went on that theme but also wanted to look at some examples. A very simple example was in the throne speech that the government presented at the beginning of this Parliament. The Minister of Finance announced that there would be a decrease in taxes to 15.5% on the first marginal tax rate. In fact, the tax rate actually went up. It had been reduced in the last Parliament to 15% and the throne speech increased the tax rate on the first marginal bracket to 15.5%. It was an increase in taxes for Canadians.

The finance minister subsequently explained that the change in the tax rate by the previous government from 16% down to 15% was only in a ways and means motion that had not yet passed in the House. Mr. Speaker, you will know that when a finance minister announces changes, like what was done with the income trust, those things are all of a sudden in effect. Subsequently, as Parliament gets a chance to review and vote on the ways and means motion, it will formally ratify it but, if it should be defeated, we cannot go back retroactively. Therefore, the rate that was announced by the previous government was 15% and the tax returns of Canadians for the 2005 tax year showed an initial tax rate of 15%.

Had Parliament continued and not been interrupted by an election, the ways and means motion would have been voted on. Had it been defeated, the tax rate would have reverted to 16% but only from the date of the vote in Parliament that defeated the ways and means motion.

The finance minister said that since it did not pass in Parliament, as far as he was concerned the rate was still 16% and he reduced it to 15.5%. It is wordsmithing. It is semantics. There is no question that Canadians paid a tax rate of 15% on their 2005 return but the government in its throne speech and in the budget that was passed increased that tax rate to 15.5%.

Now we need to ask whether the government was accountable. Was it accountable to Canadians? The Conservatives said that they had decreased taxes but they in fact increased the taxes. When we go through that explanation, we do not get the chance to explain it to everyone and I am not sure everyone would understand. I am not even sure anyone will understand what I just said.

However, we need to apply the definition of accountability, which is explaining or justifying our actions or decisions in true full and plain disclosure, but this was not done. On that item the government was not fully accountable. It was sort of accountable but with an explanation or a qualification. It was not pure and true accountability.

With regard to income trusts, the government made a promise during the election campaign. At that point, the Conservative Party, wanting to form a government, was not accountable. Do members know why? It was because the making of a promise not to raise taxes on income trusts was interfering in the marketplace and any finance minister knows that the predictability and stability of the marketplace is the responsibility of a finance minister not to impact the marketplace unduly, not to jaundice or bias it so that there is no government interference in the financial markets.

The first decision to make that promise was to give some assurances, which would have affected the decision of investors. When they saw that as part of the Conservatives' platform, they decided that if those people were elected they would make that happen. If we look at the numbers on income trusts, more Canadians buy into income trusts because it offers a substantial opportunity for high return and a regular cashflow, which many seniors like because it allows them to emulate a pension plan.

The first promise not to tax income trusts was unaccountable but the second one was the broken promise, the so-called double-cross, which was to all of a sudden tax income trusts. The ethical question comes up about whether a government is responsible for keeping its promises or, if it must break its promises, to at least explain and justify them in true, full and plain disclosure. However, that did not happen. In fact, the implications to the marketplace were clear. It was the mother of all free falls in the financial markets. Thirty-five billion dollars of the wealth of Canadians was wiped out in a day and half.

The government made two mistakes. The first one was interfering in the marketplace by making such a promise. The second one was breaking the promise, notwithstanding that there was some argument that the problem had to be dealt with. Even today the Canadian Association of Income Funds is providing analyses that refute the fact that there is a significant disparity between the tax treatment of income trusts and of dividend paying corporations.

On the question of accountability, it would have been a greater degree of accountability had the announcement of that decision been taken, say, on a Friday. At least the people who would be impacted would have had the opportunity to do something before the opening of the market on Monday. Instead, the government made the announcement mid-week and Canadians did not have an opportunity to consider the change and many people lost money. Was there accountability there? I would say not.

I wish I had more time to talk to hon. members about some of the aspects of the bill. I have problems with some areas. I wish the access to information provisions were stronger, as recommended by the former commissioner, Mr. Reid. There are some other matters that I believe we can deal with at a future time, so that is not critical.

On the whole, we are moving in the right direction and I congratulate all hon. members for doing as good a job as possible in the time allotted.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the concern I would have is if the government proclaimed Bill C-11 and Bill C-2 was not passed, we would end up with Bill C-11 on the books. What I am saying to the member very directly is that Bill C-11 was flawed. Procedurally the member is correct in terms of the sequence that needs to happen and could happen.

What is in front of us right now is a bill that was passed here as amended and sent to the other place where it was meddled with. Quite frankly in some cases it was gutted and the whole orientation of the bill was changed and sent back to us.

For those who would blow the whistle it is small comfort to them that the intent of the other place was to improve it. At the end of the day what we have to look at is those markers that I mentioned before. The rules have to be clarified. The public interest has to be established. In the case of whistleblowers, having Bill C-11 proclaimed and then having Bill C-2 come into play could happen.

The concern I would have is if Bill C-11 were proclaimed and Bill C-2 did not pass, we would have a substandard whistleblower act. That is not good enough for the women and men who work in the public service.

Another side to that is that we need to extend the whistleblower legislation beyond crown corporations and governments. We need to talk about people who receive public dollars who are doing research. We have heard stories of people who are doing research in universities who are trying to follow the public interest and do the public service by blowing the whistle and they are not covered by the bill. We need to take a look at that after the bill is passed and perhaps amend it down the road. I suppose that is for another day but for now, we should pass this bill. Then we could get on to getting really decent whistleblower protection for the women and men in the public service.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments on this, but I still need to get some clarification. If Bill C-2 is going to make amendments to Bill C-11 to make it better, Bill C-11 still has to be proclaimed before Bill C-2 is proclaimed. We have to have an act that is actually in force and in law before Bill C-2.

If the member wants Bill C-2 to be in place and passed before we rise on December 15, should not Bill C-11 be proclaimed so that we can get the process moving? Everyone would understand the rules of the game under which they would be operating. It just is not clear enough to the public service whether or not the provisions in Bill C-11 as amended by Bill C-2 are going to be in place.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be very succinct. In my opinion, and in the opinion of many people with whom I worked before being elected to this place, Bill C-11 is substandard. I am delighted it was not proclaimed. I can name people who pushed to ensure that it did not see the light of day because they wanted a better bill. To be quite direct about it, it is yet another reason to get this bill through the House, back to the Senate, get the bill passed and stop the ping-pong between the two places.

Bill C-2 would change the whistleblower legislation to ensure there would be a more comprehensive way for people to report misdeeds and that they would not go into a process where they would have to wait for long periods of time. That is exactly what Bill C-11 would have done.

I was on the committee and supported the changes. It was helpful to make amendments to ensure they would have a choice. If people were to blow the whistle now, they would have the choices that were in Bill C-11 and additional ones, if they chose to use them. That is really important. This is cutting edge and if Bill C-11 had been proclaimed then, the government of the day would have had the excuse of saying it wanted to see it operate for a while.

Speak to people who have actually blown the whistle, like Dr. Chopra. Ask what he thinks of it. He would tell us, because I have talked with him, that Bill C-11 is substandard. It does not meet the test. He is delighted this is coming forward.

The final thing is to pressure the government to clean up all those cases before Bill C-2 is proclaimed and enacted. I have asked the government to do that and I hope it does it soon. People's careers have been destroyed, like Dr. Chopra, for doing nothing more than standing up and doing the right thing in the interest of Canadians.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member spent a bit of time talking about the whistleblower act, Bill C-11, which came up two Parliaments ago. It was worked on for about a year and all last Parliament.

As a consequence of the work of the government operations and estimates committee, the bill was virtually rewritten. One of the changes was to create a new position, a new public integrity officer of Parliament, who would be in the same vein as the Auditor General or the Privacy Commissioner, et cetera. That bill was unanimously passed by all parties in committee with all of those changes. It came to the House, was fully debated and unanimously passed by all parties in this place. In fact, on the second last day of the last Parliament, it received royal assent.

That bill is extremely important to the whole accountability mechanism. It provides protection for the public service, for those who feel they have information about some alleged wrongdoings or other reprisals, as defined in the bill, to come forward to get explanations to this watchdog who will report to Parliament. It is a very important bill.

I understand Bill C-2 proposed some amendments to the whistleblower bill. What I want to understand, and maybe the member can help, is that Bill C-11, although it received royal assent in the last Parliament, has not been proclaimed. This means that although it is law, it is not in force yet. All the work has been done by Parliament and passed by both Houses and given royal assent, but it is still not operative. We still do not have a process of bringing in this new officer of Parliament. We still do not have the directions to all the crown corporations and agencies that will be swept in under this because it has not been proclaimed. The government has been in office for several months and it still has not been proclaimed. It is important.

Could the member try to explain to the House and to Canadians why Bill C-11 has not been proclaimed so we can have accountability, openness and transparency now?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin my comments by following up on the point the member for Cambridge was enunciating on cleaning up politics. It is a pleasure to again speak to a bill that we worked hard on and to which I have personally contributed on the committee.

I will begin with the title of cleaning up politics because that is the title of the document put forward by my predecessor, Ed Broadbent, before the last election. The document is entitled “Cleaning up Politics: Demanding Changes in Ethics and Accountability”. The seven point plan that Mr. Broadbent put forward is pretty straightforward but still a little elusive, notwithstanding some of the important things that have been brought forward.

The first point was to have democratic accountability for MPs. What he was referring to was that no MP should ignore the wishes or intents of his or her voters for personal gain. What he was talking about is that MPs should not be able to cross the floor simply so they can be vaulted into cabinet. It is important to note that he was not talking about the present government. He was talking about the previous government. That is something we were not able to attain in this bill but we will continue to fight for that because the basic premise of democracy is not to have MPs cross the floor at their will and for their personal gain. It must stop. The government in Manitoba is putting forward a bill that will do that and the Government of Canada should do the same.

The second point on his list was fixed election dates. I am glad to say that Bill C-16 is on its way. Hopefully it will pass through the Senate a little easier than Bill C-2 will, for the sake of all of us.

The third point was to have transparent leadership contests. A certain member of the Liberal Party, who went on to become the leader of the Liberal Party and the prime minister, was able to raise $12 million for his leadership campaign. Some would say that the $12 million were not necessary because, as we all know, it was not much of a contest. However, before the government gets too high on its horse, the present Prime Minister spent $2.7 million for his leadership contest. It seems like a bargain by comparison but, nonetheless, we need to have less money injected into the body politic and take the money out of politics. We saw what kind of effect that can have on the body politic in the most recent American elections.

The fourth point was real electoral reform. We will continue to fight for this. We do not believe that what we have seen with the unelected Senate is anything that anyone can be proud of and it is certainly showing that our democratic institutions need an overhaul. One of the things we have put forward, following along many reports going back to the Pépin-Robarts report and others, is the need to change our democratic institution so it is reflective of the will of the people. We can look at perhaps a first past the post system with proportionality, such as they have in New Zealand, Scotland and, in fact, in most of the rest of the world save two other jurisdictions.

The fifth point was to end unregulated lobbying. I am pleased to say that there are changes in Bill C-2 about lobbying. I am sad to say that there are some amendments being put forward by the Senate to change that. What seems to be elusive is what my colleague, Mr. Broadbent, put forward, which is that we deal with firms that act as both lobbyists and government consultants. This is a conflict of interest as they are playing both sides of the street. We saw that with the previous government and we do not want to see that happen in the future. If a firm is working for government one day, the firm should not be able to turn around and lobby the next day. It creates a perception of influence peddling, and we have seen examples of that before.

What we need to still deal with is the fact that lobby firms, public relations firms, must have clear rules in front of them for the sake of our democratic institutions and we need to ensure it is understood that government is here to serve the people and not the friends of any particular party. Sadly, Bill C-2 does not end that type of lobbying and we need to continue to work on that. We provided amendments but they were ruled out of order.

The sixth point on Mr. Broadbent's list was ethical appointments. Just recently a panel of experts looked at reforming the National Capital Commission here in Ottawa. It should be noted that the National Capital Commission, which goes back to 1959, was always an appointed body based on who one knew and on political patronage. We hope that will change but it should not be based on a whim. It should be based on a structure so that appointments can function properly.

We proposed, and the bill does have amendments, to have a public appointments commission. Those amendments were taken from Mr. Broadbent's work on ethical appointments. We believe we should toss out the whole idea of patronage when it comes to appointments. With a possible 4,000 appointments, we believe it is dangerous to allow them to be motivated by politics. In fact, they should be motivated by merit to serve Canadian people and not to serve any political party which, sadly, was the case, not just with the previous government but back all the way to Macdonald. Canadian history is littered with problems in and around political appointments.

The commission that my colleague from Winnipeg worked on and was derived from Mr. Broadbent's idea makes sense. As was mentioned earlier, the government had concerns about the person it tried to appoint to fulfill this job. The problem was not necessarily with Mr. Morgan's abilities to do the job but with the way in which it was being done. We had in front of us a bill that would change the appointments process and the government tried to cut off the process and appoint its own person but then cried foul when it was not accepted.

The point was that we had a bill before the House which talked about a public appointments commission but the government decided it knew better and wanted to appoint its person who, quite rightly, was rejected. It was not because of the person himself or his merit. It was because the government put forward someone ahead of a bill that was in front of Parliament to create a public appointments commission. On another day I could give my opinion on that person for that job, but I will leave that.

We need to have a public appointments process and that brings in ethical appointments. It is too important for Canadians and for the body politics.

The final point Mr. Broadbent put forward was to reform the access to information and, my gosh, do we need work there. We have problems presently with the government. I recently had an access to information on something that was not controversial and I received three lines and 18 pages blanked out. I wondered if something as controversial as a museum was actually of note to the security of the country and puts us all in jeopardy. Apparently it does and one of the problems is that the Access to Information Act is too limited, too controlling and does not serve Canadians well. We clearly need to change that.

We need to ensure light is shed on government and that we have a window on the decision making of government, not simply to allow people who want to be critical of the government, while that is important, but to allow anyone who wants to understand how government works and the motivations behind policy and, quite frankly, being able to form policy, are allowed to have their voices heard by way of knowing what the decisions were of the government. There are changes in Bill C-2 but we need a heck of a lot more.

I want to talk about some of the things that we were able to provide and propose as a party. We did not oppose the idea of Bill C-2. In fact, in principle we supported it in committee and where we thought changes were needed we proposed alternatives. I already mentioned our proposal for the public appointments commission which was accepted as amended and put into the bill. One of the things I put forward was to ensure that all contracts of $10,000 or more be on the public record. We had to fight to get that in but it is in Bill C-2.

One concern Canadians had with the previous government in the sponsorship case was contracts without a paper trail. Often we did not know who was providing the service or what that service was. One of the amendments the NDP put forward in the area of procurement was to ensure that all contracts of $10,000 or more would now be on the public record. I would have preferred that it had been a lesser amount, but that is what we agreed to on compromise. Now any Canadian can find out who is providing a service to the government and who is getting the contracts. They will know if they are getting value for their money.

The NDP believes fundamentally in lowering the donation that people can make to $1,000. Sadly, in the amendments before us, the Senate has deemed it in its infinite unelected wisdom to change that to $2,000. I know this was something the Liberal Party preferred. I think most people would agree that $1,000 is fine and reasonable. We would like to see that amendment defeated. No constituent of mine has called me to ask me to ensure the donation limit is increased from $1,000 to $2,000. In fact, I would submit that any member of the House could go out and claim that was a good idea in a town hall meeting or in a householder.

The NDP also believes it is important to strengthen the whistleblowing protection in the act. Before I was elected to this place, I worked with many people in the community around whistleblowing. When Bill C-11 was before the House, it was not sufficient. I was delighted to see it was not proclaimed because it was not good legislation, as some might have suggested. In fact, people who had been negatively affected as whistleblowers were adamant. They said we needed to change those parts of the whistleblower protection act to ensure it reflected their concerns. That has been done and I hope we will not tinker with that.

Conflict of interest rules allowing Canadians to make complaints to the new conflict of interest and ethics commissioner is something we have provided by ensuring that positive propositions were added to Bill C-2.

The protection of first nations' rights within the act is something I personally moved through committee to ensure they were not sideswiped by something that was not about them. First nations were almost folded into the equation when they should not have been.

The NDP amended the bill to ensure we not only changed the appointments process, but in effect changed the whole notion of patronage. If there is one thing, as my colleague from Winnipeg has said, we should ensure that the public appointments process remains in the bill.

The way appointments were done in previous governments was via a telephone and a Rolodex and who was known in the PMO. Those days are gone, fineto, adios. Canadians have been clear that this kind of politics is not only admonished, but it is something that will not be accepted. I challenge anyone in this place to go out and debate the need to bring back patronage appointments in our democratic system and our democratic framework. Thankfully those days are gone.

We need to ensure we have a clear understanding of the bill. It is not about getting a pound of flesh. If it is about that, then I suggest members have missed the point. If the government or any of the opposition parties are trying to exact revenge with this bill, then they are clearly misguided. Canadians are tired of it. We do not need to deepen the cynicism of politics. In fact, what the opposition is trying to do is to ensure there are clear rules so we can build back the trust that has been lost with Canadians.

Recently I saw some appointments that caused me concern. The Conservative government has appointed someone to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada who goes against the consensus within the scientific community on climate change. It has appointed someone who will be responsible for providing a grant to researchers, a person who is out of step with the mainstream scientific body on climate change.

Again, we need to pass the bill to ensure we have merit based appointments so we no longer have people appointed to bodies, which are so important to the public good, who potentially undermine the public good.

If we look at the bill in total, all of us have concerns about it. We have stated those concerns in committee. We proposed alternatives to it so it would be something of which we could be proud. In the end, we wanted to go back to our constituents and say that we did everything we could to ensure we had clear rules that would bring back responsibility to government, that would bring back clear representation to our citizens, the constituents we represent. No longer could we say that the decisions being made in government were being made under a cloud of suspicion over whose interests were being served. Quite frankly, that was the equation.

We need to ensure the following: when people are lobbying the government, they are not doing it because of who they know; when people blow the whistle, they will not have their career ruined because they stood up for the public interest; when someone is appointed to the head of a Crown corporation, it is based strictly on merit alone; and when people decide they will contribute to government, it is based solely on the public good and not on their private interests. Those are the key issues we all have to look at when we look at Bill C-2.

Sadly, the amendments that have come back to this place from the other place do not do that. They are riddled with self-interest. They will undermine the public trust and ultimately, I believe, undermine the whole notion of the necessity for the other place. When we have the other place sending legislation back to this place, legislation that has been gutted of many well thought out sensible ideas for its self interest, it speaks for itself.

I could underline many of those amendments, but two in particular are worth underlining. First is changing the limit one can give from $1,000 to $2,000. This has been put forward by people who are not even elected, which raises all sorts of question marks. Many people in the other place spend much of their time raising money for political parties. Perhaps that is the reason. The other issue we have to examine is changes to lobbying. We need to strengthen our oversight on lobbying, not weaken it.

In the end, we have an unelected body, the other place, sending back to an elected body incredible amendments in terms of the number, but more important, in terms of the scope and what they will do to the bill. That raises the question of the value of the other place when it does such a thing.

When we talk about real accountability and when we see what has recently happened and how the bill has been played with and manipulated by the other place, we have to then suggest this. The next project, after the bill has passed, is to take a look at how we can reform, modify and change the other place to make it a lot more accountable and democratic so it will not meddle in the voice of everyday Canadians who elected us.

Finally, if the bill is destroyed and not passed, every one of us will have to answer as to what we did and why. My belief is Canadians wanted to see us pass a bill with clear rules and clear reform for them. The bill is not about us. It is about Canadians. We need to pass the bill and ensure the values that Canadians entrusted to us to promote are the bottom line, not the interests of people in the other place or anywhere else.

[John Baird, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the interventions from the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine. I know she cares deeply about integrity in politics in the governmental process. She mentioned a number of issues.

One of the things I dislike about this Parliament is if there is any difference of opinion on facts, the accusation of liar, liar goes back and forth. In fairness, it probably exists on both sides of the House. No party in the House, least of which me, can claim innocence on that. However, people can have different opinions. No presentation of the facts are indisputable. Two different people might reasonably come to two different solutions.

The member opposite has said that many of the Senate amendments are excellent. I take no fault with the Senate wanting to take a reasonable period of time. There was some suggestion it should pass this immediately in July. In fact, we said that if it wanted to take three months to review the bill, in addition to the 72 days the House took in addition to the 58 day election campaign, by all means take it.

I was scheduled to be the last witness with the Attorney General at the end of September, but then things changed. They thought they had an agreement and that fell apart, and that is unfortunate.

I do not take issue with wanting to sit 120 hours. What I did take issue with was the amount of time it cumulatively took. The Senate took one week in the end of June. It took off for seven seeks. Then it came back for a week. Then it took off. We expected it would have looked at the amount of time all members of Parliament in the House took to deal with the bill. The bill is not perfect. It was not perfect coming out of the House and it is not perfect coming out of the Senate, but it is important.

Another issue the member raised was Bill C-11. The Liberal government was the first to bring in a whistleblower bill. I will concede that Bill C-11 was better than nothing. There are those of us who represent ridings in the national capital.

Like many of my colleagues, including the members for Gatineau, Ottawa Centre, Nepean—Carleton and Ottawa—Orléans, as well as official opposition members, I know that a lot of public servants say they are still afraid to blow the whistle.

Many public servants still remain concerned and worried that if they stand up and speak out, they will be hurt. We wanted a system that was tougher and stronger. I think all parties contributed to that and this is what is before us today.

I noticed, though, when the Liberal senators on the committee put forward a press release talking about the amendments they were presenting, they left off a lot of them. They left off the fact that they were doubling the amount of money people could donate to political parties. They left off the fact that they were going to allow political staffers to go into the non-partisan public service. They left off many of the amendments which would be considered as gutting the bill.

Could the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine enlighten us as as to why they would not have been proud of those amendments?

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

I would like to underscore the work done by the hon. member for Rivière-du-Nord, who is also the Bloc’s deputy leader in the House of Commons, and her former colleague, the late Benoît Sauvageau, who was a friend, a professional colleague, and a man who made a real contribution to the work of this legislative committee.

Despite the genuine effort that the members of the Bloc Québécois and the Liberal Party put into Bill C-2, the Conservatives called it in French the Loi fédérale sur l'imputabilité. This is prime example, I think, of a government in such a hurry to prove that it is doing something that it has made an elementary mistake. In English it is possible to say the Federal Accountability Act, but anyone with the least knowledge of French should know that in this language it would be the Loi fédérale sur la responsabilité.

I should add that it was Mr. Sauvageau, the hon. member for Repentigny at the time, who moved an amendment to the bill to correct the French title. Although I thanked him at the time, I would like to thank him again posthumously.

This is an ideal example, I think, which shows, first, that the Conservative government has no understanding at all of accountability when it comes to being responsible, and second, that this government’s discourse is basically dishonest.

For example, the parliamentary secretary to the President of Treasury Board just delivered a speech in which he repeated ad nauseam that the Liberals want to get illegal donations and that by amending the Canada Elections Act, the Conservatives are ensuring that registration fees for political conventions will not be included in the definition of a contribution. He claimed as well that only the Liberals interpret the existing law in this way. So they are being dishonest in this regard.

People who are listening to the work of the House on television but cannot easily get the Canada Elections Act will think it really is illegal to claim registration fees for a party convention as a political donation for which a receipt should be issued for a possible tax credit.

What the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board failed to mention is that, since being appointed the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada over 10 years ago if I am not mistaken, Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley has interpreted section 404.1 of the Canada Elections Act to include registration fees for political conventions.

Consequently, the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board is trying to mislead Canadians by claiming that it was the Liberals who misinterpreted the law in an attempt to have taxpayers foot the bill, which is not true.

The Chief Electoral Officer interprets the statute. He decides whether or not the Liberal Party of Canada, the Bloc Québécois, the NDP, the former Progressive Conservative Party, the former Reform Party and the former Canadian Alliance acted appropriately and within the law with regard to reporting convention fees.

The parliamentary secretary is trying to distort the debate. The Conservative government knew that the Canada Elections Act requires a political party to disclose the registration fees for its conventions to the Chief Electoral Officer. Then why did it not do so and why did it hide these registration fees? Today we learned that these fees totalled $2 million. This party hid the $2 million from the Chief Electoral Officer and it is now under investigation. If he really wanted to speak honestly, the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board should have mentioned it in this House

When we, Liberals and Bloquistes, put questions on the interpretation of section 404.1 to the chief electoral officer and to political party officials, everyone unanimously agreed that the interpretation of the chief electoral officer was the correct one. Convention fees should be considered political contributions and, therefore, they should be declared by the party to the chief electoral officer. The government is omitting to mention this in the House in order to create a false impression in the minds of Canadians.

When the Senate, because of the dishonest behaviour of that party, makes the law very clear on this issue, what does the government do? It wants to reject the Senate's amendment, while claiming that the Senate has dragged its feet, has engaged in filibustering, etc. This same government does not want to tell Canadians that the quality work accomplished by the Senate has made the government realize that some fifty amendments were necessary to correct the legislation, otherwise its own bill would not make sense in a number of areas.

Here is a little reminder of the facts. The Senate heard over 140 witnesses during 98 hours of hearings. It came to the conclusion that the accountability bill was seriously flawed, and that amendments to this legislation were required to live up to the commitment made by the minority Conservative government. Of course, a number of amendments were made. Some are accepted by the government today, but others are not, which explains why the Conservatives are attempting to make their gimmickry retroactively legal. Hiding political donations of $2 million from the chief electoral officer is indeed engaging in gimmickry.

If this government were honest and thePresident of the Treasury Board were an honest man, he would admit it in this House.

The Speaker of the House has already ruled, saying that if the person were honest, he would do something. So it is parliamentary. I said it, if the President of the Treasury Board were an honest man, an honest person, he would say that it is not true that this government wants to shed light on the federal government’s work. It is not true. If it were true, certain amendments that the Bloc and the Liberals tried to make as part of the House legislative committee—for example, to the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act—would not have been blocked by the Conservative members, with the support of the NDP. Still the Senate was able to adopt them.

So I return to my subject. Concerning political financing, the Senate suggest setting the limit on political party donations at $2,000 a year. This decision was made because the government was not able to demonstrate that the current limits undermined electoral procedure at the federal or provincial level, where the limits, when there are any, are much higher than those proposed in Bill C-2.

Second, donations made to political parties play an important role in our democratic system. Limiting them too strictly might affect the participation of small parties in political life. Furthermore, limiting the amount of these donations too strictly reduces the resources which political parties must have to fulfil their legitimate role in debates in Canada, and this leaves more room for third parties that wish to influence the debates. This is interesting. The Prime Minister, who was formerly, I think, the CEO or president of some federation, of an NGO, appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada for third parties to be allowed to advertise and spend during a federal election campaign, claiming that the limits the former government had put in the Canada Elections Act on spending by third parties during an election campaign were unconstitutional.

It is interesting because this Prime Minister has still not disclosed who the donors to his own party leadership race were. He still has not disclosed who the donors were to the federation which he led before returning to politics. It is interesting for a Prime Minister and a party that pride themselves on wanting to ensure accountability and transparency. But they are hiding things.

With regard to access to information and privacy, the Senate and the senators are proposing to remove the Canadian Wheat Board from the coverage of the Access to Information Act so that the board can stand up to international competition better when representing Canadian farmers. Here again, the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board is claiming that the Liberals are supporting an amendment that will remove the Canadian Wheat Board from the coverage of this act because they have something to hide. He knows that this is completely untrue.

The Canadian Wheat Board represents Canadian farmers on the international stage against competitors from other countries. Obviously, these competitors would love to have commercial, scientific and other information that helps the Canadian Wheat Board represent Canadian farmers effectively.

Wanting to remove the board does not mean hiding something from Canadian farmers. It means protecting Canadian farmers who want the board to sell their products on the international market.

I would also like to address the issue of better protection for personal information on donors to the National Arts Centre. The members of the House of Commons legislative committee in charge of reviewing Bill C-2 had understood—at least the Bloc and Liberal members had understood—that some donors to the National Arts Centre wanted their identities to remain confidential. That is their choice.

Artists may also donate their time and talent or charge much less than the regular market rate. But they do not want potential clients to know that they donated their time or gave a concert for no charge or for half price for charitable reasons or because they want to promote a certain type of music or activity. They do not want this information made public. A potential client could say the artists billed only so much and that it will therefore pay them only a given amount.

The Senate brought into place many excellent amendments. It pains me to see the government continually talk about how the senators have attempted to block the legislation, that the senators do not want to see transparency, that the senators do not want to see accountability and that Liberals, the official opposition, also do not want to see it. Nothing is further from the truth.

Let us look at it. It was a Liberal government that adopted whistleblower protection legislation, Bill C-11. It was never brought into effect by the current government. There were witnesses who came before us who said they would like to see that legislation enacted immediately. I remember Mr. Sauvageau and the member for Rivière-du-Nord asked that the government proclaim it and bring it into force immediately while we had the opportunity to study and work properly on Bill C-2. The government refused.

We then attempted to bring amendments here. Here are some of the amendments the Liberal members tried to bring forward and the government, with the aid of the NDP, blocked: one, to provide a reverse onus so that any administrative or disciplinary measure taken within a year of a disclosure would be deemed to be a reprisal unless the employer showed otherwise; two, extend the time limit to file a reprisal complaint to one year instead of the 60 days that the Conservative government proposed and is now trying to bring back; and three, remove the $10,000 limit on awards for pain and suffering and increase the amount for legal advice from $1,500 to $25,000.

Those are reinforcements that we attempted to bring forward and the Conservatives and the NDP blocked them, yet they say they are for protecting public servants who divulge wrongdoing on the part of government.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, many of us spent the 37th Parliament and the 38th Parliament trying to get the Liberal government to introduce some measure of whistleblower protection. I had a private member's bill and I think my colleagues did, even those within the Liberal Party, trying to get the government to move.

What we wound up with in Bill C-11 was the best we could achieve with an unwilling government of the day. It was a flawed bill from the start. I like the chapter on whistleblowing in Bill C-2 far better than I ever liked Bill C-11, so there was no point in trying to implement Bill C-11 while Bill C-2, we hoped, would have had royal assent by now.

I do not agree that we should have done both of them, because implementation would have been a nightmare. The best thing we can do to introduce meaningful whistleblower protection is pass Bill C-2 as quickly as possible.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member was a member of the government operations and estimates committee when we dealt with the whistleblower bill in the last two Parliaments. The member will know that the committee basically rewrote the bill from the beginning, including introducing the creation of a new officer of Parliament who is going to oversee the whistleblowing complaints function.

Bill C-11, the whistleblower bill, received royal assent in the last Parliament, but it is not in force in Canada under the law because it has not been proclaimed. It brings into play all of the crown corporations and agencies under a redefinition of what constitutes a public servant. It creates an officer of Parliament. It also provides protection for public servants.

Will the member advise the House of whether or not he believes that the whistleblower bill, as passed unanimously by all parties in committee and in this place, should be proclaimed immediately?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we wanted to make the act stronger. Whistleblower protection was a big issue in Ottawa West—Nepean and in Nepean—Carleton. I should also point out that this was also a big issue in the constituency of the New Democratic Party member for Ottawa Centre.

We felt the measures contained in Bill C-11 were not strong. We have worked together to fix it instead of mix it.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, another hon. Liberal member spoke about the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act.

It is whistleblower protection, as we say in English. The member asked why we must pass the accountability act with respect to whistleblower protection. I would remind him that the whistleblower protection that our government introduced as part of the accountability act is dramatically different from that which found itself in Bill C-11, the previous Liberal bill.

To begin with, every stakeholder group opposed the previous Liberal bill on whistleblower protection. There was no support among whistleblowers and virtually no support among public sector unions. There was strong opposition from PSAC. Every whistleblower who came before the committee opposed Bill C-11.

Quite to the contrary, the Conservative accountability act provides for two years of jail time for anyone who punishes or bullies a whistleblower. The bill would create a tribunal of judges who would be capable of ordering the restoration of a whistleblower's career and even provide back pay and consequences to those who abuse whistleblowers. All of that would be managed by an independent tribunal of judges, not by bureaucratic or political leaders.

Finally, it would remove the two cover-up clauses that the Liberals had put into the last whistleblower protection bill, the clauses that would have allowed information related to a whistleblower disclosure to be hidden for up to five years. We have eliminated that and the other cover-up clause.

Would the hon. President of the Treasury Board comment on the very profound improvements to whistleblower protection which are found in the accountability act?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

We wanted to make it stronger. The Public Service Alliance of Canada had real concerns, as did its members. The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada argued strongly that we should not repeal Bill C-11 through the federal accountability act; rather we should improve upon it, and we certainly accepted that advice.

We think that it was not strong. The Conservatives voted for it. It was better than nothing. I am happy to concede that. We think we can improve it. That is why when Parliament reconvened, the very first bill we presented was to do just that. It shows the priority that we placed on it.

I do not think there is a single public servant out there who would say that the improved Bill C-11 from the previous Parliament is not stronger and better as a result of the work by the member for Nepean—Carleton which the federal accountability act puts in place. As a member representing a riding here in the capital, I am certainly very proud of it.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have real problems with Bill C-11. Conservative members in the last Parliament did vote for it. It was better than nothing. There was a huge change from the beginning of Bill C-11. The Liberal government of the day made massive changes at the end due to pressure.

I do not think one person who came before the committee hearings on Bill C-11 supported the bill, not a single one. Maybe when the Liberal members get up they will mention one group who supported Bill C-11. I look forward to hearing it, but certainly from the Hansard that I reviewed--

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today on Bill C-2, which is very lengthy. It contains more than 317 sections, amends 43 existing acts and creates, if memory serves, two new ones.

First of all, I would like to say again that the Bloc Québécois supports the principle of this bill. Ethics were at the very heart of the last election campaign, which chased a corrupt government from power. Liberal Party government was replaced by Conservative Party government. Now it is up to the Conservatives to prove themselves.

We think, as well, that this bill picks up to some extent on certain aspects of the work of the Gomery commission. The Bloc Québécois was an active participant, of course, in the work of this commission. The Bloc made some recommendations, which should now be implemented.

I should also add a commentary. My colleague from Repentigny just did so. We want the government to review the title of this bill. We have to get beyond semantics. “Projet de loi sur l'imputabilité“ seems to us to be virtually a literal translation of Federal Accountability Act. If the Conservative government has any respect for the French name of this bill, it should take a serious look at the title and replace it with a much more accurate translation: loi sur la responsabilité. Pushing things to the extreme, one could maybe say “loi sur la responsabilisation“, because that is what this bill is really about. Insofar as we are concerned, I would like to announce right away that the Bloc Québécois will probably introduce an amendment so that we can speak henceforth of the “loi sur la responsabilité“.

In addition, the Bloc Québécois is pleased, of course, about certain things that have been part of its platform since 1993. I could pay tribute to the Bloc pioneers who sat here before the massive arrival of a strong contingent of Bloc members between 1990 and 1993. One of the Bloc’s traditional demands had to do with the process for appointing returning officers. There are some references to this in the bill.

I should repeat in the course of my comments that the Bloc Québécois feels that this bill needs improvement.

Certain things need to be corrected and improved. Even though particular sections pay lip service to some of the Bloc’s traditional demands, we think that much clearer commitments are needed from the government. I would like to speak now, in this regard, about the appointment of returning officers.

In the last Parliament, I tabled Bill C-312 on behalf of my party, which required that a competition be held, as provided for in section 2.1 of the Public Service Employment Act. This competition for the appointment of returning officers would replace the traditional process, which has been in place since about the beginning of this institution, whereby such appointment is a prerogative of the Governor in Council. Let us not mince words. Governor in Council means the prime minister’s office and the minister responsible. They are the ones who make the political appointments.

The Bloc Québécois is asking that returning officers be appointed following an open and transparent process. And the Bloc will see that this is reflected in this bill. So the positions will be advertised in the newspapers and anyone who thinks he or she has the necessary skills will be able to apply. Furthermore, a selection board would be formed to choose the ideal persons to occupy the positions of returning officer in the 308 electoral districts of Canada.

I sit on the Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The Elections Act provides that the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada shall be accountable for management of the last election. As for the returning officers—this has been a traditional demand of Mr. Kingsley, who is also critical of the current process for appointing them—at present, the returning officers are friends of the government and persons who have worked in electoral organizations and are appointed through patronage.

Far be it from me to allege that the 308 returning officers are incompetent. However, one returning officer who is not competent to manage the democratic electoral process is one officer too many. We have seen some horror stories—and if there were consensus, I could recount them until midnight. So it is important to have competent people who are free of all political affiliation.

Bill C-2 does not provide for open competitions to select returning officers. I was just saying that the Bloc feels that this bill can be refined and that we will have to improve on it. The Bloc also believes it imperative to add provisions whereby returning officers can be chosen through an open and transparent process.

I would like to draw attention to something else. The bill speaks of the financing of political parties. Let us talk specifically about leadership races. There is at present a political party on this side of the House, namely the Liberal Party of Canada, which is in the midst of a leadership race and which will have to choose its leader by the end of the year. Unfortunately, this bill mentions no restriction as regards a cap to financing during a leadership race. The Bloc Québécois is of the opinion that, in not preventing candidates for the leadership of political parties from contracting large personal loans, the bill will make it possible to circumvent the restrictions on individual contributions. If this is not given a framework and guidelines, it will encourage ill-advised persons to do indirectly what the bill does not permit them to do directly. I therefore announce to the government that the Bloc Québécois will want to ensure that this point is clarified.

We are prepared to study the problem. We do not wish to prevent candidates from taking personal loans, but we say that this should be overseen and should be part of a process, once again, that complies with the rules for financing political parties.

Another element is the whole question of following up on the Gomery Commission. The Bloc Québécois took an active part in the proceedings of the Gomery Commission, through our lawyer. Actually, we took an even more active part; we submitted recommendations at the request of Justice Gomery. So we, the Bloc Québécois, did not just have a passive role; we proposed recommendations.

I remind you that the Bloc Québécois was the only party to propose a report to Commissioner Gomery with recommendations for improving responsibility. You will understand, when I talk about improving responsibility, that I am referring to the faulty French title of the federal accountability act. But that was the goal of these recommendations. We, the Bloc, submitted 72 recommendations to Justice Gomery. Without repeating them all, I am going to give more or less the chapter headings or highlights.

One of the suggestions was about recovering the sponsorship money, which the member from Outremont qualified as “dirty”.

I put the question to the government: where do we stand in the process of recovering the dirty money? Has there been anything new since the Conservative government came to power on January 23?

Also, in our recommendations, we suggested giving more powers and resources to the officers of Parliament. For instance, we insisted a lot on intensifying the powers of the Auditor General. We also suggested some amendments to the Access to Information Act, the Lobbyists Registration Act and the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act .

By the way, the point of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act is not solely, not all in fact, to provide $1,000 rewards for whistleblowers. Indeed the act does provide $1,000 rewards for whistleblowers. I believe my colleague from Repentigny made these comments in his speech; the Bloc Québécois is opposed to compensating whistleblowers.

It is one thing to protect whistleblowers; it is quite another to develop a whistleblower culture with monetary incentives. Whistleblowers, if they wish to do their job properly, will not find any motivation in the $1,000 cheque associated with it. They expect protection from the government and from the management of their department or agency, so that they are not silenced, dismissed or harassed.

Let us assume that the very large majority of public servants in Quebec and Canada, who work in the federal public service, are primarily competent and honest individuals who want to do their job honestly, but who do not accept abuses of the system.

Unfortunately they are often muzzled, implicitly or explicitly, because they do not have this protection.

We must avoid generalizations. There has been some wrongdoing by some public servants, but it is not the case that all public service employees are dishonest. We must avoid generalizations, and that applies to public servants as it does in any other area.

It will be recalled that Justice Gomery made a lengthy case for the accountability of every individual to be recognized throughout the hierarchy. The idea is if each person’s role is recognized, there will be no abuses of authority, no dirty tricks, no shenanigans, and that this, rather than whistleblowing, is how fraud will be controlled.

When a superior supervises the work done by a subordinate—excuse the expression—or a co-worker, and the superior’s superior supervises, and the superior’s superior’s superior supervises, we call this line of authority control. This will be much more effective than handing out $1,000 cheques to encourage whistleblowing.

There is another thing: the Bloc Québécois made formal recommendations, out of its 72 recommendations, dealing with making individuals appointed by the government more accountable. In addition, the Bloc Québécois platform made various recommendations to the same effect, which it identified as priorities.

Certainly I am running out of time and we could address various things, but I will simply remind you that we are pleased to see that some of the proposals made by the Bloc Québécois have been incorporated in Bill C-2. I spoke earlier about the merit-based appointment of returning officers by Elections Canada. I could talk about the independence of the lobbyists registry.

Lobbyists are a powerful force here in Ottawa. We need only look at how they lie in wait for a change in government to see how true this is: some lobbyists painted themselves one colour while members of the same lobbying firm painted themselves another colour. They want to be certain that they make everyone happy, they buy drinks all round, and they know that the key to success as a lobbyist is to be connected. We even have a Minister of Defence who is a former lobbyist, whose clients were very well known. That is an illustration of the important role lobbyists play.

The Bloc Québécois has been making another recommendation for several years: we see that the new Political Parties Financing Act is going to be very similar to Quebec’s legislation, by introducing corporate donations. And there is one more thing that the Bloc has traditionally called for: strengthening the powers of the Auditor General.

In conclusion, because I have less than a minute left, the Bloc Québécois supports the principle of the bill, which should be called, in French, Loi sur la responsabilité. As well, the Bloc Québécois will study the bill in depth and refuses to go along with any bulldozing.

It refuses to pass this bill, which has 317 clauses, with any undue haste. The Bloc Québécois will be making constructive proposals to improve this bill.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my dear colleague from Quebec for his comments and questions.

Of course, the hon. members on this side of the House wants to work with all House members, to ensure that this bill puts effective measures in place.

I would like to see this bill go to the committee in order to get the opinion of experts and members from each party, including the official opposition, the Bloc and the NDP.

It is very important to take the necessary time. The Canadian public was consulted during the 57 days of the election campaign. Our fundamental policy during the election campaign was obviously accountability and what can be done to clean up the federal government.

Other things were also important. Take, for example, Mr. Gomery's hard work, the work accomplished by the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, and the work of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

My colleague from Nepean—Carleton said that members of the 38th Parliament worked for two years on bill C-11, An Act to establish a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoings in the public sector, including the protection of persons who disclose the wrongdoings. Considerable work has already been accomplished, but it is important to take the time to work on this bill in committee.

Furthermore, I read that my New Democrat colleague from Winnipeg made a very good point in a newspaper, namely, that establishing these measures before our return to our ridings for the summer break would be appreciated by the Canadian public.

Supply

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss the opposition motion presented by the leader of the New Democratic Party which proposes that the Prime Minister should ask the Governor General to dissolve Parliament during the week of January 2, 2006, and set the date for the election for February 13, 2006.

I must admit that it is a bit disappointing that the NDP has not put forward a substantive motion for debate today. Last time around, the NDP took a constructive approach to its opposition days by putting forward issues that matter to Canadians. For example, Canadians had the benefit of a full discussion on such matters as environmental aspects of automobile emission standards, access to employment insurance, which is obviously a big concern in my riding and in other rural communities across the country, and the health risks of trans fatty acids.

Today, the NDP wants to talk about scheduling, about how to ignore constitutional convention and speed up the next general election by a mere eight weeks.

Clearly, the priorities of opposition members have changed. Today, they are more interested in procedural tactics rather than substantive issues that Canadians want this Parliament to address. Opposition parties are not interested in the process of governing. The opposition day motion today is really about manipulating the parliamentary and electoral calendar to serve what are clearly partisan interests.

The motion calls for an election to be held on February 13, 2006, despite the fact that the Prime Minister has already promised to call an election in early 2006.

The Prime Minister made that promise to Canadians last spring. We all know by now that an election will be called within 30 days of the final report and recommendations of the Gomery inquiry, which are scheduled to be tabled on February 1, 2006.

According to the Prime Minister's promise, the next election will be held in March, or early April at the latest. By then Canadians will be familiar with Justice Gomery's recommendations and will be able to benefit from a much improved legislative environment.

Nonetheless, that is not enough for the opposition. They want to hold an election in mid-February, which is 8 weeks, at the very most, before the date the Prime Minister proposed to all Canadians on national television.

An election any sooner would be held before Justice Gomery has completed his work, and therefore, before Canadians have all the answers regarding the problems with the sponsorship program and—equally important—regarding the measures that will need to be taken to prevent such a situation from happening again.

It will be incumbent upon the opposition parties to explain to Canadians why they are disrupting the work, not only of the government, but also of Parliament, in order to force a premature election in the middle of winter, thereby going against what most Canadians want. In fact, Canadians are still waiting for a good reason for all this.

The opposition parties are saying they do not have confidence in this government. Yet, they want to use opposition days to confirm their confidence for a just few more months. This flagrant contradiction highlights the purely political motivation behind today's motion.

As the government House leader indicated, some opposition members seem to believe that the notion that a government must have the confidence of the House was somehow divisible, that we could have confidence today, but tomorrow? Maybe in a few weeks they would see if they had lost confidence. The government would continue to govern, until they decided to put that loss of confidence into effect.

I said a couple of days ago that the opposition members seemed to think that confidence in government, in parliamentary terms, was like Christmas lights. We turn them on in the evening, we turn them off in the morning and then we put them away in January. Canadians will not be fooled by that simplistic analysis.

When the first minority government in 25 years was elected in 2004, the government committed to doing things differently in Parliament. Canadians expected us, as members of Parliament, to work constructively together. The record shows in many cases we have been very successful. In just 19 months we have delivered on a broad range of initiatives that will advance the interests of Canadians and continue to ensure Canada's place in the world.

For example, we passed legislation to implement the 10 year plan to strengthen health care. A federal adviser on wait times was appointed. Steps continue to be taken so we can work with the provinces to protect Canada's public health system.

We passed legislation to implement fundamental reforms to the equalization program. This balanced approach ensured that all Canadians could benefit from social services and enjoy the same quality of life, regardless of the province in which they live. These improvements mean additional resources, additional moneys being transferred to my province, the province of New Brunswick. We already have seen an improvement not only in social services, education and health care, but improvements in infrastructure as well. The government and people of New Brunswick benefit by this cooperative approach.

We passed legislation respecting civil marriage to respect the fundamental values of equality and religious freedoms as well.

We passed legislation to implement a new deal for cities and communities. This unprecedented initiative brings together the federal government, provincial governments and municipalities to ensure that the infrastructure of our communities is responsive to local needs, culturally vibrant and environmentally sustainable. Again, small rural communities in my constituency benefit from this type of initiative.

We transferred, for example, the full refund of GST paid by municipalities as simply a down payment on the new deal for cities and communities. If the government of New Brunswick would organize itself to negotiate a deal with the federal government, municipalities in my constituency and throughout New Brunswick, as well as small rural communities, would benefit from this important initiative.

We passed legislation to implement our climate change plan and meet our Kyoto commitments. In two weeks, Canada will begin hosting the conference of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol in Montreal to make further progress on our important climate change commitments.

To ensure Canadians have the best opportunities to flourish, we passed legislation to implement early childhood learning and child care agreements, which we have reached with many provinces.

To keep Canadians safe, we passed legislation to protect them from pornography and Internet luring.

I am proud of the record of this Parliament so far. We were able to pass a budget bill that further accelerated our priorities in public transit, in housing, in post-secondary education, in national defence and in foreign aid.

We made major changes to improve the employment insurance system, something that is very important to seasonal industries in my constituency. We removed many of the disincentives to work, which created a bizarre situation where a worker in a seasonal industry would go to work for what might be a shortened work period for reasons beyond the control of the worker. If the lobster season was not as productive that week, if the weather did not allow a certain harvest to take place, the workers were disadvantaged by a system which calculated employment insurance based on recent weeks as opposed to best weeks. We changed that in this Parliament and the government has served the needs of seasonal industries and seasonal workers very well, certainly in my constituency.

Contrary to the opposition parties, I believe there is still much work to be done. A premature election could jeopardize over 40 bills currently in the House, bills that would provide important benefits to the well-being of Canadians and to the competitiveness of Canada.

For example, Bill C-67, the unanticipated surpluses act, reflects the government's balanced approach to fiscal management by providing a proportional allocation of unanticipated surpluses to permanent tax reductions, targeted investments and debt relief. Our ability to allocate surpluses is a direct result of the sound financial stewardship of the Minister of Finance and of his predecessors.

Bill C-68, Canada's Pacific gateway act, provides the foundations for expanding our trade with the growing economies of countries like China and India and other Asian countries. This has been a priority for our government. The government of British Columbia has urged us to take action on the Pacific gateway. This is what the government is doing to ensure that the Canadian economy as a whole can prosper by the great opportunities that these markets present.

Bill C-11, the whistleblower's bill, is currently before the Senate and provides vital protection for employees who courageously come forward to blow the whistle on wrongdoing in their workplace. The bill reflects the hard work of many members of Parliament, members from Vegreville—Wainwright, Winnipeg Centre and Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques. I do not think those members want Bill C-11 to die prematurely.

Bill C-37, the do not call list, is also before the Senate. It reached the Senate through the support of all parties. Jeopardizing this work for the sake of electioneering at Christmas time does not benefit Canadians.

Earlier this month the government supplementary estimates requesting from Parliament the funds needed to implement the programs that allow federal initiatives to operate. These supplementary estimates include additional investments for defence, immigration, climate change, infrastructure, public security, the health of first nations and federal-provincial partnerships.

For example, the estimates include $15 million to implement the veterans' charter; $36.4 million to alleviate and prevent homelessness; over $230 million for investments in first nations communities and first nations peoples; $102.9 million to mitigate the impact of BSE; $34 million to aid the softwood lumber industry; $74 million for the agricultural policy framework; and, $1.1 billion to enhance Canada's national defence.

This is only a sampling of the productive agenda the government has for the next few months and the government continues to move forward this fall to deliver on our commitments.

Next week we will have, for example, a first ministers meeting with aboriginal leaders in British Columbia to address the challenges faced by our first nations. First nations leaders have stressed how important this meeting is for their communities. It would be the responsibility of opposition parties to justify jeopardizing the results of that meeting with a premature election.

Later this month the Minister of Justice will unveil a package targeted at gun crime, which we all know is an important challenge for our cities and for the safety of our communities. This Monday the Minister of Finance presented his fall economic and fiscal update, which proposes significant tax reductions for Canadians and a prosperity plan for Canada's future.

Over the next five years more than $30 billion in tax relief is proposed and over 95% of that would be delivered through personal tax reductions. In addition, significant investments are proposed to create access to post-secondary education and encourage lifelong learning so Canadians can continue to be competitive workers in the global marketplace. Combined with investments and research, innovation and social capital, the economic update sets the stage for accelerated growth and prosperity for the nation.

It is important to highlight that student associations across the country were particularly pleased with the investments in access to post-secondary education. In my constituency I am fortunate enough to have Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. The student groups there had spoken to me many times about the heavy financial burden of a post-secondary education. The measures announced by the Minister of Finance will help the students at Mount Allison University.

These measures will help students in my riding who are registered at the University of Moncton, for example. In fact, students across the country will benefit from these very important measures.

This is where the government's focus has been on governing. Canadians are tired of politicians playing partisan games. It is little wonder that cynicism about politicians is on the rise when people spend more time worrying about the timing of the next election than advancing the interest of their constituents in this Parliament.

Government members are here to represent their constituents and to work on making this Parliament successful. I have outlined the number of important initiatives that we have before us. We know there is an impending election that will follow the finance report of Justice Gomery. In the meantime Canadians expect us to roll up our sleeves and to get to work on delivering the commitments that we have all made to our electors.

The election will be at some point in early 2006. That was the Prime Minister's commitment. However, Canadians also want answers from the Gomery commission's final report before going back to the polls. That also was the Prime Minister's commitment. In the meantime, all parliamentarians should spend time working on the legislation that is before the House, that is in committee and that is in the Senate. They should be looking at many interesting private members' initiatives that are coming before Parliament.

In closing, I believe that Canadians want us to work together on what concerns them and on improving their lives and the lives of their families and fellow citizens. They hope the work we do here in Parliament will improve their quality of life. They do not want the debates to end in the partisan bickering that does little to honour this Parliament.

Privilege

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it was interesting to hear my colleague from the NDP say that his party was not entering into an alliance, an unholy alliance, with the Conservative ideologues and the Quebec separatists. So I am just curious what in fact this is. Is this a political ménage à trois? It is a pretty scary thought.

More interesting, the member mentioned that in the spring they were not allying with the Liberals, but in fact were helping to govern to ensure that very important legislation would get passed. We have some 30-odd bills on the order paper that, if there is a non-confidence motion, will not get passed. Following that logic, I would assume the NDP is now saying that these are not important bills for the people of Canada.

What sort of bills are these? There is Bill C-66, the energy relief bill, which would provide relief in January for people on fixed incomes, our seniors and families on low incomes. It would fall to the side. Does his party not feel that is important legislation? There is Bill C-69, the agricultural marketing programs act bill; or Bill C-64, the vehicle identification bill or, as some would call it, the Chuck Cadman bill. It would unfortunately fall by the wayside. There is Bill C-16, the impaired driving bill and Bill C-54, the oil and gas exploration bill. I am sure that the members opposite from Alberta will be happy to see that one fall by the wayside. There is Bill C-11, the whistleblower protection bill, and Bill S-39, the sex offender database bill. Which of these bills does the member feel is not important enough to be passed?

Telecommunications Act

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think we have established that the new approach of bringing bills to committee before second reading is extremely important.

To repeat the point, normally when we have bills the first thing that happens after they are printed is we have second reading debate. All parties have an opportunity to debate the bill and we then have a vote in principle. If it is passed in principle, it goes to committee. The committee then gets an opportunity to have witnesses and can make amendments, but the amendments have to be within the framework of the bill that was passed at second reading by the House. There are limits on what the committee can do.

By allowing a bill to go to committee after first reading, a committee virtually can rewrite the entire bill. One excellent example was Bill C-11 on the protection for whistleblowers. It took a long time for us to work on that. We took a bill that in fact I thought was on its deathbed, but after some very good work and excellent cooperation on the committee, as this committee had with its Bill C-37, the bill became one that everyone could get behind. We intend to work very hard to ensure that it fully achieves the objectives.

It was a good decision to refer it to committee. The committee should be commended for making the changes. I think all members would agree that they are constructive and productive amendments.

Criminal Code

[Gurmant Grewal, Conservative, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Madam Speaker, I wanted to participate in the questions and comments but I was not recognized even though I stood five or six times to ask a question of the Liberals. However, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the constituents of Newton—North Delta to participate in the third reading debate on Bill C-49, an act to amend the Criminal Code in respect to trafficking in persons.

The proposed amendments would create a few new indictable offences to specifically address human trafficking.

The first offence, trafficking in persons, prohibits a person from engaging in specified acts for the purpose of exploiting or facilitating the exploitation of another person. This offence would carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment where it involved kidnapping, aggravated assault, sexual assault, or even death.

The second offence would prohibit anyone from receiving financial or other material benefits resulting from the commission of a trafficking offence. It would be punishable by a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail.

The third offence would prohibit the holding or destroying of documents, such as identification or travel documents, for the purpose of committing or facilitating the commission of a trafficking offence. It would carry a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment.

Human trafficking is a growing problem that demands urgent and substantial action from the government, which we have not seen for the last 12 years.

According to the United Nations, over 2.4 million people, the vast majority of them women and children, are victimized each year. Human trafficking is now the third largest illegal trade in the world behind weapons and drugs. The penalties have been minimal so this trade has been growing. With annual profits of close to $12 billion on average, organized crime has moved into the trade and has become a dominant force.

Canada is not immune to human trafficking and in fact has been identified as a major transit point and destination for human trafficking. Last year the RCMP estimated that at least 800 people are trafficked into Canada annually, and that an additional 1,500 to 2,200 people are trafficked through Canada into the United States. Some experts believe that the actual numbers are much higher, but the nature of the crime makes it impossible to say definitively how many people are involved. We can say, however, that it is a serious problem.

One of the major root causes has been ignored in the debate that I have listened to today, and that is that the immigration system in this country is in a mess. There are long delays. There is a long queue of people waiting. Some of these people have been waiting for up to eight years to be interviewed and have their cases processed.

For example, in the independent category, in some countries the waiting period is 66 months before someone can be first interviewed. Married couples are separated for a long time before they are reunited. Similarly, parents and other family members have to wait a long time. Visitor visa cases are not being dealt with properly.

The system is being abused. I am not saying the system encourages human trafficking, but why are we letting this happen? It is occurring because the system itself is flawed and is not working the way it should. As a result, the system is vulnerable to abuse because the front door of our immigration policy is not open and therefore people are coming in through the back door. The Liberal government has made promises to address the problem, but for the last 12 years it has not been able to keep any of them.

I would say that these legitimate people, who the system was meant for, are given the run around, are not allowed to come through the proper channels and are being abused by those people.

My province of British Columbia is particularly vulnerable to human trafficking. The United States state department identifies British Columbia as an attractive centre for East Asian traffickers who smuggle South Korean woman through Canada to the United States. Organized crime groups have targeted Vancouver because of our immigration laws, benefits available to immigrants and the proximity to the United States border.

According to the state department, at least 15,000 Chinese entered Canada illegally over the last decade, many of them paying thousands of dollars to smugglers only to end up working as indentured servants or even as prostitutes. Asian women and girls who are smuggled into the country are forced into prostitution regularly. Traffickers use intimidation and violence, as well as the illegal immigrant's inability to speak English, to keep victims from running away or informing the police.

Bill C-49 is not entering into a legislative vacuum. In June 2002, a specific offence against human trafficking came into force under section 118 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The current law provides for fines of up to $1 million and life imprisonment. Section 118, however, deals with human trafficking across our international border from a border integrity angle.

In contrast, Bill C-49 would deal with trafficking both within Canada and across Canadian borders. Although anti-trafficking legislation has been in place for three years, the first ever charge under the law did not occur until this past April. A Vancouver businessman faces human trafficking charges after police answered a call about a violent incident at the businessman's massage parlour. One charge in three years is a rather meagre result.

Detective Constable Jim Fisher, with the Vancouver police intelligence section, confesses that Canada has not come to grips with what it takes to properly police this human trafficking that has been happening for so long. We can have the best laws in the world but if we do not place enough resources into enforcement the laws will mean nothing. That is the case with human trafficking. Our enforcement of the current law is weak, as demonstrated by this one charge.

Canada is struggling to identify its trafficking victims inside secret migrant smuggling operations.

We will remember that the Auditor General's report seriously criticized this particular instance: 36,000 illegal entrants into this country are missing in action and cannot be traced; and 60% of the people who come to our ports and apply for refugee status go before our refugee officers without any documents and no identification but we all know that when they boarded their plane for Canada they had some sort of document. However once they land in Canada and appear in the lineup applying for refugee status they have no documents.

We must use anti-trafficking laws to vigorously increase investigations, arrests, prosecutions and convictions of traffickers. However that will not happen with the government which insists on starving our law enforcement agencies of the resources they need to do their jobs effectively.

As a member of the Subcommittee on Organized Crime, as well as a member of the citizenship and immigration committee in the past, I became familiar with many of the problems facing our country. It has become clear to me that the Liberal policies are undermining the credibility of the criminal justice system. The government has given us a system in which even soft sentences are only partly served and that fails to protect citizens from crime.

The human trafficking aspect is a lose-lose situation for everyone except the human traffickers who are making a profit. It is bad for our country, bad for our society, bad for our communities and bad for newcomers who could have used the front door rather than using the back door and paying huge amounts to the snakeheads or to the human smugglers.

Who is responsible? The weak laws that are not being enforced by the government.

The recommendations of my colleagues and myself on the committee were essential for tackling organized crime but were ignored by the government and are gathering dust somewhere on a bureaucrat's desk.

The Liberal government has had 12 years to deal with this issue and it has failed. It is the Liberal record of all talk but no action that has put us in this abysmal situation. It is essential that we have tough laws. We need to give the police and law enforcement agencies what they need to carry out their jobs.

The amendments contained in Bill C-49 are comparable to laws passed recently in other jurisdictions.

In July 2004, the United Kingdom passed a new law clamping down on traffickers by introducing a new offence of human trafficking for non-sexual exploitation with a maximum penalty of 14 years and making the offence of knowingly employing an illegal worker a “triable either way” offence subject to unlimited fines.

In 2000, the U.S. Congress passed the trafficking victims protection act which, among other things, created new laws that criminalized trafficking with respect to slavery, involuntary servitude, peonage or forced labour, and increased prison terms for all slavery violations from 10 to 20 years and added life imprisonment where the violation involves the death, kidnapping or sexual abuse of the victim.

In this situation, the victims need protection from the government. Our laws should be such that they should prevent these things from happening, there should be enough deterrents in place and there should be enough resources for the law enforcement agencies to carry on with their jobs but, at the same time, the victims must be protected so that we are fair to all aspects of the law.

Surveying the international scene, it is clear that the time is ripe for tough new human trafficking legislation.

Trafficking in persons has been described as a modern form of slavery. It is a serious human rights violation and is the fastest growing form of transnational organized crime. The profits are huge and the penalities are minimum. It is imperative that Canada acts to stem the growth of this serious crime.

I therefore welcome Bill C-49. It is a small step in the right direction. The bill would bring Canada into line with the international commitments. The bill would address a serious global issue. However the government must not sit on its laurels. Without serious penalties for these serious crimes, the exploitation and abuse will continue.

Bill C-49 speaks of tough maximum sentences. The serious problem with the government is that it talks about tougher maximum penalties but it means nothing because the judicial system, the lawyers, will never hand out those penalties.

Bill C-49 says nothing about mandatory minimum sentences. We need mandatory minimum prison sentences so that those who violate the Criminal Code should be behind bars, should suffer, or at least serve some time and minimum penalties should be imposed.

As we have seen with this existing law, the resources must be available to enforce the law. Only then will Canada be able to start to effectively stamp out human trafficking in this country.

As a nation, it is our responsibility to seek a solution to this problem in order to protect the human rights of all people, from all backgrounds, no matter what their nationality might be.

As lawmakers in this country, it is our responsibility to clean up the system which the government has failed to do for the last 12 years. Our immigration system should be our economic backbone, as well as supporting growth in this country. The immigration system is supporting the manpower needs and the skilled labour that we need. The system is so polluted that it is working only for the human traffickers and not for the legitimate immigrants who want to come to this country and make significant contributions in many ways.

The question of the recognition of foreign credentials did not come to the floor of this House until I brought forward a motion many years ago which the Liberals failed to support. We have qualified people coming to this country to serve, contribute and make positive economic contributions in socio-cultural ways but instead are being employed in menial jobs. Would we expect someone with a Ph.D. or another degree to work at a gas station or drive a taxi? We allow loopholes in the system that have not been taken care of in the past.

On the weekend I attended a wedding reception. Many of the guests who were supposed to join the family on that auspicious occasion could not get their visitor visas. When we inquired about the situation we found out that there were bogus reasons. No legitimate reasons were given and even the income of the sponsors was not properly entered into the system. Some zeros were missing in the income figures. Naturally, the arbitrary criteria did not allow the respectable family members to join the celebration.

We hear similar stories from members of Parliament from all parties. They hear these stories when it comes to funerals.

What do those people do when they are barred from attending family events? They naturally will find some other means to come to this country, such as abuse their ministerial permit or use political influence.

Bill C-49 is a step in the right direction. All the law enforcement agencies must be given enough resources. The laws should be tougher so that we can curtail the violations to the system and the abuse of the system, but on the other hand open the front door to immigration so that legitimate people can come through the front door.

I remember an interesting story. When I was a member of the immigration committee I mentioned this concept of the front door and back door. I said that the back door was closed long ago. When the former minister of immigration was speaking to Bill C-11 in the House at that time, she looked at me and said that the bill would close the back door but that it would open the front door. Neither the front door nor the back door is open now. Instead, the government has installed a revolving door.

I urge the government during the short time it will be in office to clean up the system. The government needs to do whatever can be done to make the immigration system work and stop human trafficking forever.

Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I tend to agree with the member on his last point. Having a bill like Bill C-11 is much like parking a police car at the side of the roadway even though there is nobody in it. There tends to be an optic that causes people some pause to reflect.

The significant importance of this bill is that it is in the best interests to protect whistleblowers who, with the proper moral compass and the commitment to their oath of office, are prepared to come forward. The member well knows that many of the witnesses who came before us had been whistleblowers without the process and protections involved prior to the Radwanski episode in which there were some emulated protections and with which there were no apparent problems. We have heard many stories.

I thank the member for raising the importance of the bill in regard to providing protection to whistleblowers and in regard to it maybe being the starting point for a greater level of support and confidence within our public service so that when there are wrongdoings, as defined in the bill, appropriate steps will be taken to bring resolution to them to the fullest extent.

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, my colleague has given me a bit of a challenge to bring it back there, but it is on the same general topic and that is that we need to make sure that Parliament's oversight of the public purse is impeccable and that this type of activity, which my colleague has described, just simply does not occur.

I find it absolutely incredible, as he has mentioned, that this has been known for seven years. If our system were working correctly, in that length of time for a shoplifter there would have been justice, there would have been a penalty and there would have been a sentencing. After seven years nothing has happened.

My colleague's complaint is absolutely and totally legitimate. These laws have to be corrected. The rules and guidelines have to be lived by. They are not and there is no penalty for not doing so.

With respect to Bill C-11, it would increase the degree of thought that a person might give before he or she embezzles public money. The probability of my being caught is now increased. For the person who does not have the built in moral compass that would prevent him from doing it, perhaps the fear and the increased probability of being caught will have that deterrent effect and, in that sense, the bill is necessary.

However I still decry the fact that under successive Liberal governments the culture of lack of honesty has been allowed to grow to this point with no penalties that are visible at all for breaches of that trust.

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether I hold the record for the longest interruption of a speech. About eight or nine years ago I was giving the last speech of the day and the particular bill I was speaking on was not called again for a whole year. It was a couple of days short of a year before we resumed the debate, and I finished my speech after about 12 months of waiting, so to me this little delay for question period is nothing compared to that.

I would like to complete my speech on Bill C-11. Before the interruption, I was talking about the fact that among Canadians there is an increasing lack of trust in their politicians and their government. I think Bill C-11 at least partially addresses this. We must first and foremost change the whole culture, the whole way of thinking. That is what is important here. Hopefully, with people knowing that somebody else can blow the whistle on them, it will mean that we will have many fewer instances of people abusing the public trust.

I would like to point out that one of the reasons for this is that even under the present law when people are found out and found guilty, the penalties seem to be quite disparate from what other Canadians face. I want to share with members an observation made to me by the editor of the Sherwood Park News , which I think is very appropriate here.

She and I were talking about the sentence Paul Coffin got for stealing, which he admitted. He confessed to it. He stole millions of dollars from the Canadian people. His penalty is that he has to give speeches on ethics, but he must be finished by nine o'clock. The editor of the Sherwood Park News said she has covered the local court there a lot and has seen way more stringent penalties for young people who have been picked up for shoplifting in the local mall. So here we have one person who is picked up for shoplifting a $50 or a $100 item and who gets a more stringent penalty than somebody who steals from the taxpayers in the amount of millions of dollars. This needs to be corrected.

I suppose we could say that our case is with the judge who handed down that particular sentence, but it is also with the government of the day. This Liberal government has set up a culture in which this type of thing is tolerated. It must come to an end. This must be stopped. Otherwise, we are going to land up with even less trust and respect for government, for Parliament and for our institutions in this country. It should not surprise us that people increasingly object to having to pay their income taxes when there is so much misuse and abuse.

The latest case with the president of the Mint is another example. How atrocious and how shameful it is that an individual can so abuse the money that is entrusted to him. It is not his money. He is there on behalf of the Canadian people to try to manage, of all things, the printing of our money and the production of our coins. He is in charge not of our monetary system but our monetary framework and he is getting away with this abuse. If we cannot trust the people in Canada's bank, who can we trust? This has to come to an end.

I urge this government not to stop at Bill C-11 with a little whistleblowers' legislation. Let us change the culture of what is happening. Let us communicate clearly to all civil servants what the expectations are. Those expectations must include an impeccable attention to honesty and trust and absolutely no abuse.

Let us do that. Then, hopefully, Canadians will once again be proud to be Canadians and proud to pay their taxes and will have faith and trust in Parliament and in our civil service.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Burnaby—Douglas for splitting his time on this important legislation for Canadians. It is important for them appreciate it and have some understanding of it. Because of the way we have operated in the House this past session and in sessions before, the erosion of public confidence in this place has been extraordinary. When we go back to our ridings and talk to average Canadians about their faith in not only politicians but also in the work that is carried out on their behalf, it is clear the erosion in faith has been steady and consistent. It is at an all time low, I would suggest.

The bill starts to move in the direction of addressing the issues. Bill C-11 is an example of how a minority Parliament can improve upon any government's unwillingness to see something through to the end of the day. The first attempt at this bill in the previous Parliament was a second class affair. The intention of the bill was at some point buried in the midst of protectionism and it became much more about ministerial protection than it did about what it was truly intended to be.

The modifications from all four corners of the House, including from the member for Winnipeg Centre and many others who have contributed to the debate, have led to a bill that has the congratulations and support from all four corners of the House. This is very important to me and to many here. We are trying to make this place work, despite the constant mudslinging and the rest that we see on a daily basis.

I will contextualize for average Canadians who are watching the debate, why the bill is important and why it came to be. It is important to understand that the intention of the bill is to prevent the scandals we have seen over the last number of years. Many people will understand this issue from having watched the movie The Insider . Great strain and stress is put on a person who has the evidence of a company or a government that is doing something wrong. That person has to break through the many barriers, which now exist for public servants and administrators, to proclaim from on high the wrongdoings of someone potentially at a senior level who, by de facto, has more power than the person who blows the whistle.

Our own Insider movie has been playing in Montreal and Ottawa: the Gomery inquiry. There are absolutely scandalous tales of what went on in the backrooms between the government of the day and the present government and their supporters, the people who funded them and worked on their behalf. Brown bags of money across tables at nefarious restaurants and all the rest brought cynicism to a new high within the Canadian electorate. We saw that through the last election, which bore extraordinary fruit, a minority Parliament. We have taken mediocre bordering on bad legislation and improved it to a quality where people can start to be proud of the work of the House.

The strength of the opposition in this place has contributed to the government's slightly increased humility and intelligence in introducing legislation that would meet the requirements of the constituents who have elected us to represent them from all parts of the country. They are seeking a government that is accountable, not only in words, but in action.

For years we have heard rhetoric of this government and past government about the need for openness and transparency. Yet when it comes to action, when it comes to the day to day happenings at the most senior levels, both within the Liberal Party and those they appoint to those patronage spots in particular, the House of Commons and the entire parliamentary system suffers. The reputation of the hard-working people in the Canadian bureaucracy also suffers. It becomes an embarrassment to admit that we work for the federal Government of Canada, knowing what has gone on.

The intention is another important context. What is the intention of the government in introducing the bill? Is the intention to have a fundamental cultural shift, almost a psychopathic culture toward the promotion of patronage, of taking care of friends and ensuring that the flow of money from the trough always arrives at people who are most supportive of the government of the day? Is it the intention of the government, to reform itself from within? It is a speculative question with a deeply held suspicion as an opposition member, having watched the goings on in the government from an arm's length.

I take a small example of the many patronage appointments. The Prime Minister promised to fix this process in the last election, another promise broken. It is the appointment of Mr. Murray, a failed Liberal candidate, to the National Round Table of the Environment and the Economy. He is very nice, commendable fellow of sorts and a very strong mayor in Winnipeg. He was appointed to an environmental portfolio at a very important time in the history of Canadians, particularly when it comes to the environment. We are facing dire predictions for our future. We have a government that has failed to reduce the amount of pollution and smog, with another smog day for Toronto and many other cities across the country.

The obviously loyal member of the Liberal Party of Canada came before a committee to present his credentials. He was found wanting. He was found to be in absence of some of the basic understandings of the issues facing our environment today. It was a patronage appointment that led to a lack of confidence in one of our most important bodies, a fully funded body from the national taxpayers' roll, the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy. This further eroded our confidence in the government's ability to manage and steer this ship.

The Information Commissioner, Mr. Reid, through a number of disclosures to Parliament and in the press has talked about the almost addiction to privacy that the government has maintained. Legislation was passed to create the position of an officer of this House who would report to the House and keep the government in check, when it came to access to information. It also provided other key tools that the Canadian public and their representatives, us, could use to access the government's work to ensure that there was accountability and the much looked for openness of government. This officer has told us repeatedly that the Liberal Party needs to fundamentally shift its culture away from this addiction of secrecy and seek the openness and transparency that has been talked about but not fully acted upon.

Once again we are asked to have faith and confidence that the words which exist within the bill will match the actions that are forthcoming. These include a sincere commitment by the government to reverse the culture of protecting minister at all costs, of protecting one's immediate superior in the bureaucracy. It is a commitment to a culture in which we can appreciably learn from our mistakes, a culture in which we can understand that mistakes in a bureaucracy the size Government of Canada will be made and certain expenditures will not be the most prudent. It is a culture that accepts that fact and will improve upon the mistakes rather than cover them up as we have seen over and over again. Only through the exposure of the work of the opposition parties in this place and the media were we able to gain access to find out what went wrong with policy or spending of tax dollars.

The governing party of the day is looking for praise in the introduction of this. The best way to negotiate at times is while holding the gun. Putting the government's back against the wall, with certain dire electoral predictions, is a way to motivate it, after more than a decade of words but no action, to finally produce a bill that has some merit and some weight. That accountability must now take us to the next step to see what the ramifications and actions will be.

Will the culture shift? Will the Radwanskis no longer appear? Will the patronage end? Will the trough be closed down for a small period of time to allow Canadians some restoration of faith in the decisions that come out of this Parliament?

The Prime Minister has often talked about the democratic deficit, yet when promises have been made with respect to electoral reform, of fundamental accountability, the government has stalled, dragged its feet and has not come forward with its promises.

What comes next? Will the patronage machine continue? Will failed Liberal candidates seek the high positions and the gravy train they have come to expect? Will former ministers have extravagant expense accounts and no accountability or will the government finally take charge and change its fundamental culture? I remain doubtful.

Canadians expect the protection that is offered by strong whistleblower legislation, the protection of their food, of their medicines, of their tax dollars. They need this. They expect this bill to have teeth. They expect the enactment of this bill to be sincere.

The New Democrats' position is that we will hold the government's feet to the fire, hold it to account on this and the many other promises that have been made through legislation. We will ensure that Parliament begins to function rather than the mudslinging that is so supported and relished by the official opposition, which dare I say barely has the reputation to hold the name.

Within the context we now have, we have an opportunity to get things done, as the New Democrats did in the spring by providing a better balanced budget for Canadians. We will continue to work hard and diligently for Canadians.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member's speech was constructive, particularly with regard to advising the House and Canadians that we did hear from whistleblowers. We heard their stories. I can assure the member that the committee was quite moved by the real life examples that have gone on over a number of years.

He will also celebrate the fact that the new commissioner will be in a position to receive alleged wrongdoings and those kinds of matters not only from members of the public service, but also from suppliers and others. There is also the opportunity to bring forward some matters which were of a whistleblower nature prior to this legislation coming into force.

The committee had a great opportunity to shape this legislation by having it after first reading.

I wonder if the member would care to comment on the matter his colleague from Winnipeg Centre raised about how important it is going to be to shepherd the implementation and communications plan to ensure a good start with regard to Bill C-11.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is good to participate in the debate on Bill C-11. I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley.

This bill is an act to establish a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoings in the public sector, including the protection of persons who disclose those wrongdoings. That is the long title of the bill. The short title is the public servants disclosure protection act, but I think we all know it as the whistleblower legislation.

Today we are on the verge of passing this legislation. In fact, we may finish the debate today and finally see this important legislation move through the House of Commons. That would be an occasion to celebrate. It has been a long time coming. Many people in this place have worked very long and hard to see the accomplishment of some whistleblower legislation. This legislation is not perfect, but it has been long needed. Today if we get the bill through the House, it will be an accomplishment indeed.

I want to pay tribute to my colleague from Winnipeg Centre, one of the people who have worked hard on this legislation. He has worked hard on this legislation from the very moment he arrived in the House back in 1997. His first private member's bill focused on the whole issue of whistleblowing and the need for an accountability mechanism that would allow public servants to raise important issues of wrongdoing in government and not suffer the consequences for their courage in raising those issues.

That came from my colleague's background in the trade union movement. For many years he represented workers and the difficulties they faced in the workplace, not the least of which would be how to deal with wrongdoings on the part of an employer. His work and initiatives which started back in 1997 have contributed to where we are today on this issue.

Members from other parties have contributed as well. We have heard today that the Bloc Québécois back in 1996 introduced a significant private member's bill on this issue. This was an important contribution and included important principles that have finally seen the light of day in the legislation we are debating today. We have also heard of attempts from the Conservative side of the House on this issue.

We are taking an important step to finally get a bill through the House. This kind of legislation is a crucial part of any government's approach to ethics in government, accountability in government and a response to wrongdoing in the conduct of government. Even though there are still some problems with this legislation, it will take us to a new level of accountability. It is something we can all celebrate.

In the past there have been other attempts. Bill C-25 in the last Parliament was an extremely flawed bill. It was so flawed that some folks came to believe it was an attempt to protect ministers from the disclosures of whistleblowers and that it had nothing to do with the protection of people who took that strong step and made the commitment to expose wrongdoing in government. It is a good thing that is behind us.

I think it is because there is a minority government situation in this Parliament that we have been able to make progress on this issue. The government has been convinced of the importance of proceeding along these lines, perhaps egged on by some of the other scandals that face the government today.

Whistleblowing is not an easy thing to do in any workplace, particularly a government workplace. We know the power dynamics of the workplace. Workers often feel they do not have the resources and huge power that managers and the people who are in authority over them have, which often puts workers in a terrible position.

There are huge risks involved in whistleblowing, such things as the loss of jobs and relationships people build in organizations and the workplace. There are subtle reprisals people can face, such as changes in holiday times or access to other benefits in the workplace. We have also heard in the past of concerns around frivolous complaints that might be made because of other disputes in the workplace.

When the Canadian Labour Congress appeared before the committee, it talked about many important issues and cited a study from the October 2004 issue of Policy Options . Researcher Donald Rowat highlighted a study done in the United States on the fate of whistleblowers. This was before the U.S. had strengthened disclosure law.

Mr. Rowat studied 161 workers who had made a wrongdoing disclosure. He found that 62% of them lost their jobs, 18% were harassed or transferred, including being subject to isolation tactics and character assassination, and 13% had their responsibilities or salaries reduced. In addition, many of them experienced mental breakdown and family breakup. Those are very high prices to pay for speaking out on wrongdoing in government.

I am glad that we have finally made progress on this and that we are taking steps to ensure good management and to encourage public servants to make this kind of disclosure, to encourage government to engage in the problems that have been raised, and to encourage action to resolve those problems.

Bill C-11 almost died in this Parliament. It took the hard work of many opposition and government members to keep it on track. We have ended up with a piece of legislation that is a good attempt at addressing these important issues. It is a good example of how a minority Parliament can work.

We have worked hard in this Parliament to ensure fairness to see that not only the interests of the government are addressed, but also the interests of opposition parties, of Canadian citizens and of the workers in the public service. We successfully reached a conclusion of which we can be proud. It took a minority Parliament to convince the government of the need to move in this area. Clearly, the earlier attempts had been unsatisfactory and in some cases extremely disappointing.

Bill C-11 saw some major changes from that which was introduced originally by the government. Those changes have enabled the bill to go forward. Those changes include an integrity commissioner who would report to Parliament and not to a minister. That is a significant improvement to this legislation.

Changes have been made to the list of exempted organizations of government. Significant deletions were made from the long list that was originally part of the legislation. All crown corporations, agencies and institutes are now included. Those that are not included are those that have clear measures around wrongdoing and whistleblowing already in position.

Many whistleblowers have lost their jobs because of that, including a number at Health Canada who are very important to this whole process. This legislation is a tribute to the risks that they took and the punishment that they received. I am glad that we are on track with this legislation. I look forward to its final passage.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House today to address Bill C-11. As a former public servant for 22 years, I and many of my colleagues laboured in the trenches without any protection whatsoever. I saw firsthand the kinds of things that unscrupulous management can do if the rank and file do not have support and protection. Therefore I am very glad to address Bill C-11. Although it is flawed legislation, it is a step in the right direction.

I would like to make some observations. First, the Conservative Party has always called for protection for public servants who expose corruption. We have seen so much corruption recently from the government that thank God we are finally enacting legislation to protect the people who care enough to expose this corruption.

In its original form, the bill would have done more harm than good because it was the same old, same old. It was the government controlling the agenda. Now, with the amendments we have made, the Conservative Party has finally convinced the government and the President of the Treasury Board to agree to have an independent commissioner in charge of whistleblowing. Although the legislation is flawed, none of the flaws are fatal and we can work with the legislation. The bill lays important groundwork on which we can work further when we, the Conservative Party, form the government in the not too distant future.

The bill was amended at committee and at report stage to ensure that the bill created a truly independent commissioner to hear and investigate disclosures of wrongdoing from public servants and others and protect those making disclosures. We heard witness after witness at committee, long term public servants with 20, 25 and 30 years of loyal service, and because they were just doing their jobs of exposing what they thought was a wrongdoing to their superior, they ended up losing their careers and suffering years of emotional distress. These people did not even realize they were whistleblowing. They thought they were doing their job and that was the thanks the government was heaping on them. They were fired from their positions after long, loyal service.

The bill includes most crown corporations and the RCMP. I have to thank the member for Nepean—Carleton for insisting that we include the RCMP. He led the charge and we were able to convince the government to include the RCMP under the legislation. The bill still excludes military personnel, CSIS and the CSE. It includes several other government agencies and crown corporations listed in the schedule to the bill but the cabinet, unfortunately, may add or delete from the schedule at any time after the bill is passed. We have some concerns about the fact that the cabinet will be able to remove certain agencies from that.

One of the nice features about the bill, which again is because we worked so hard in committee, is that we now have legislation where whistleblowers may report directly to the commissioner instead of having to report internally first. The government's original piece of legislation was totally ineffective. At one stage of the process the committee was trying to decide whether it should scrap the whole bill and start over again. However we worked on it clause by clause and we think we have come up with pretty decent legislation that requires a heck of a lot more work, but it is a big first step.

In closing, the public servants of Canada, people who have served this country loyally for years and have worked day in and day out and have done such a good job for the country, deserve the respect of Parliament. I believe this bill starts to give a little bit of Parliament.

[Gurmant Grewal, Conservative, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am surprised that the hon. member's question has nothing to do with the whistleblower legislation, Bill C-11. This is simply a ranting from a different point of view.

I would like to highlight that the worst corruption record in Canadian history is from the current Liberal government, for patronage appointments, for corruption, for mismanagement, for wrongdoing and for the things I mentioned earlier.

The Conservative Party of Canada believes in appointments based on merit and on transparency.

What the member should have asked is why Bill C-11 is not very effective legislation. Even though it is a step forward in the right direction, I would like the bill to be much more effective so that it would really protect the whistleblowers. In fact, any whistleblower legislation should protect the public interest that it serves and, when applied, should be free to expose the mismanagement, waste, corruption, abuse and cover-ups within the public sector without the fear of retaliation or discrimination.

With this bill, the government has blown a golden opportunity to have effective whistleblower legislation. It could have implemented real protection and meaningful reforms that the Conservative Party has been asking for, and the opposition parties in general. However what the government has done is it has given us a half-baked, half-measure kind of bill.

Bill C-11 is a step in the right direction but it is not at the point where it will actually protect all whistleblowers for the wrongdoing they expose with the corrupt Liberal government and other corrupt governments.

[Gurmant Grewal, Conservative, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise again on behalf of the constituents of Newton—North Delta to participate in the third reading debate on Bill C-11, an act to establish a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoings in the public sector, including the protection of persons who disclose the wrongdoings.

It has taken more than a decade for this weak government to fulfill its promise and produce this whistleblower legislation. Canadians have had to endure the tainted blood scandal, the HRDC boondoggle, the ballooning gun registry, and the sponsorship scandal, not to mention the numerous other smaller scale spending scandals which have been regularly occurring in this mismanaged government and which have emerged on a regular basis since the government came to power in 1993.

In each and every case, the existence of effective whistleblower legislation could have made a significant difference, but the government has not been interested. It lacks the political will. The Liberals have been more interested in protecting their own reputations than in ensuring good government and the careful handling of taxpayers' money.

It took the sponsorship scandal for the Liberals to finally make good on their 1993 campaign promise, coupled with the pressure from members of the opposition and the Conservative Party. However, even now it is obvious that their hearts and souls are not in this legislation. Up to now, it seems that the Liberal government's policy has been to control occupational free speech rather than permit it.

Rather than rewarding whistleblowers, like governments do in the United States and many other countries, the Liberals have bullied whistleblowers, intimidated them, harassed them, fired them, and ruined their professional and personal lives. The Liberals have always believed in secrecy, confidentiality and cover-ups rather than transparency, accountability and corrective actions.

Let us take a moment to remember some well publicized whistleblowing cases. Bernard Dussault, the chief actuary of the Canada pension plan, reported that he was asked to modify numbers to paint a more positive state of the CPP. He was fired from his job.

Michèle Brill-Edwards, senior physician in Health Canada's prescription drug approval process, was pressured to approve medication that had caused deaths in the United States. She went public. She had to resign from her job.

Joanna Gualtieri, DFAIT portfolio manager for Latin America and the Caribbean at the time, blew the whistle on waste and lavish spending on diplomatic housing and embassies. The inspector general and the Auditor General later supported her allegations. She was harassed and marginalized within the department. Finally she had to quit and go through the expenses of court, her career completely ruined.

Marilla Lo, senior analyst at the Treasury Board, claimed abuse and harassment, including discrimination for promotions, layoffs, and abusive management practices. She was ultimately fired from her job. Of course she later won a wrongful dismissal suit, but was then forced into retirement.

Brian McAdam was a 25 year veteran foreign service officer, an honest officer in Canadian diplomatic missions in the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East, South America and Asia. In 1991 he documented evidence of corruption at Canada's foreign mission in Hong Kong, real evidence, which I have mentioned in my earlier speeches. He was demeaned and ostracized by his colleagues. He finally gave up and had to take early retirement.

Michael Sanders, a financial analyst with the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, blew the whistle on the absence of sufficient safeguards to protect taxpayers against the collapse of major financial institutions. His fate was to be fired from his job.

Dr. Shiv Chopra, a senior veterinary drug evaluator in Health Canada's therapeutic products and food branch, blew the whistle on the drug approval process for bovine growth hormones, saying that human health concerns were being completely ignored due to pressure from drug companies. His fate was to be fired from his job.

There are many other cases, including those of Corporal Robert Reid of the RCMP, Dr. Margaret Haydon of Health Canada, Bob Stanhouse, again of the RCMP, and Dr. Barry Armstrong of the Canadian armed forces. The list goes on and on, but my time is limited.

Canada is well served by professional and independent public servants, who are often the first to spot problems such as those in the sponsorship scandal. They know when their department has been told to suppress test data. They know when someone is submitting inflated travel expenses or phony invoices or when the work is not being done but the invoices are being submitted. They know what laws they are supposed to enforce and they know when they are not being enforced.

However, federal public servants who disclose wrongdoing in the workplace have little or no recourse if their manager chooses to retaliate against them. Bill C-11 proposes an improvement over the status quo, but it is far from protecting the real whistleblowers and it is not nearly as effective as legislation in other countries.

Five years ago, in the face of government opposition, I introduced legislation to protect bureaucrats who reveal wrongdoing in the workplace. In 2003 the Liberals refused to vote in support of my private member's bill because they did not have the political will to introduce any effective whistleblower legislation. They simply lacked the political will, and that is well reflected in Bill C-11.

When I blew the whistle on whistleblowing, the Liberals had their ears plugged. My private member's bill, Bill C-201, was debated in the House. It was written with the assistance of real-life whistleblowers, many of whom I have named before. They have suffered harassment and reprisals for doing what was right, for doing what was in the best interests of this country but not the Liberal Party.

One whistleblower, Joanna Gualtieri, was of great assistance. She founded the institution called FAIR. Ms. Gualtieri has highlighted a number of points that must be included in whistleblowing legislation if it is to be effective. The following points were included in Bill C-201 but are not found in Bill C-11.

First is full free speech rights. Protected whistleblowing should cover any disclosure that would be accepted in a legal forum as evidence of significant misconduct or would assist in carrying out legitimate law enforcement functions. There can be no loopholes for this one.

Second is to permit all disclosures of illegality and misconduct. Whistleblower laws should cover disclosures of any illegality, gross waste, mismanagement, abuse of authority, substantial and specific danger to public health and safety, and violations of policies, rules and conventions. They are missing from this bill.

Third is the duty to disclose illegality. It is also missing from the bill.

Fourth is that the coverage under the bill should extend to all personnel and affected communities. This is also missing.

Last, and of course, there should be safety from harassment after blowing the whistle.

Bill C-11 serves more as a tool to manage whistleblowing and rein in potential whistleblowers than it does to encourage disclosing wrongdoing. We need effective legislation that would really protect whistleblowers.

The Conservative Party deserves kudos. It is through our efforts that we have these amendments, such as whistleblowers now reporting to an independent commissioner rather than to the president of the public service, the commissioner reporting to Parliament rather than to a minister, the RCMP being included in the group of whistleblowers and the Access to Information Act restrictions being reduced to five years from twenty years. In fact, there should be no restrictions. However that goes to the Conservative Party's credit.

Similarly, there is the amendment on the removal of government bodies. The government had the arbitrary authority to remove certain bodies from coverage of whistleblower protection, such as the public service commission, the pension commission, CPP commission, Bank of Canada and many others. Compensation should be given by the commissioner and the penalties against reprisals should be given by the commissioner, not by anyone else.

All those things were the accomplishments of the Conservative Party.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Newton—North Delta.

I am pleased to rise on behalf of the constituents of Fleetwood—Port Kells to speak to Bill C-11, an act to establish a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoings in the public sector, including the protection of persons who disclose the wrongdoings.

Canadians have been waiting for a long time for effective whistleblower legislation. Countries around the world have had whistleblower legislation for decades, protecting public servants who take their oath of protecting the public interest seriously.

Indeed, one wonders that if there had been whistleblower legislation years ago, we may not have had a sponsorship scandal. Who knows how much taxpayers' money could have been saved. Instead, it ended up in the coffers of the Liberal Party.

Unlike the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party has always supported effective whistleblower legislation for public servants who expose wrongdoing, corruption, waste and mismanagement.

Bill C-11 fails on a number of levels, including its enforcement apparatus, its procedural scope and its transparency mechanisms. Before voting to support this bill, I would like to see amendments made to correct these glaring deficiencies in the bill.

First, as it stands, the bill's creation of an independent commissioner to oversee whistleblowing complaints is flawed.

As was the case with the previous Ethics Commissioner, the independent commissioner will report to a minister and not the House of Commons. Past experience with ministerial reporting has not endeared anyone to the process. In fact, in the case of whistleblowing, which could easily implicate political appointees, party workers and/or elected government officials, there is nothing worse than having the commissioner report to a cabinet minister who is often beholden to these interests. An enforcement apparatus must be put in place that avoids reporting to cabinet.

This is clearly a case of the fox guarding the hen house. An independent commissioner reporting to Parliament would be freer in his or her assessments and also more likely to avoid the subtle and structural procedures and biases of cabinet and ministerial authority. Why after 12 years of Liberal rule would we trust a system that furthers ministerial power over whistleblowing?

Rather, we should be making every attempt to make the independent commissioner's office truly transparent. Quite frankly, why should Canadians trust these Liberals to guard themselves, when in the past, they have proven themselves so capable of being untrustworthy?

Second, an independent commissioner responsible to Parliament would further decentralize power from the Prime Minister's Office. As we saw in the sponsorship scandal, power concentrated in one area tends to be abused. Or as Lord Acton most famously said, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Lord Acton's words are just as applicable today as yesterday.

Part of the need for whistleblowing legislation is that power has been centrally concentrated in the Prime Minister's Office, leading to cronyism and control. By having the independent commissioner report to the House of Commons, we can further erode the incredible power of the Prime Minister's Office, promoting greater transparency, accountability and democracy.

However, democracy has not been this government's strong point. In fact, the Prime Minister came into office promising to slay the democratic deficit. We have seen in this House the exact opposite: confidence votes ignored, excessive nannying of the Prime Minister's Office, appointing Liberal hacks to the patronage appointments and absolutely no movement on democratic and electoral reform.

Bill C-11 furthers this trend by not prohibiting reprisals against public servants who bring their complaints through procedures other than the ones spelled out in the bill. Those who go through the media, police or Auditor General all face the possibility of disciplinary action under this bill. Far from opening up government, this aspect of the bill places undue restrictions on public servants and could continue a climate of secrecy in the public service.

A Conservative government would provide broad protection for civil servants in all areas of disclosure, including the media. The media's role in any democratic society is to act as a check and balance against excessive government authority and control. While we would all think that at various times the media has failed in its role, by eliminating the ability of public servants to go to the media we further erode the checks and balances of a free and democratic society. Accountability and transparency demand that public servants be allowed media disclosure.

There is nothing to keep politicians more accountable than the prospect of headlines screaming scandal and corruption, as the former head of Canada's Mint has recently discovered. Accountability through the media is a key component of any whistleblowing legislation and a Conservative government would ensure that it was included in the bill.

Transparency is further eroded by the scope of the bill, which excludes several crown corporations. There is simply no excuse not to include all government agencies. As we saw at the Mint under former Liberal MP David Dingwall, crown corporate heads often feel themselves outside the purview of Parliament and end up spending taxpayers' dollars wildly. We cannot allow this to happen by excluding certain agencies.

Transparency is also jeopardized by the time allowance for departments to refuse to release wrongdoings for over five years. Frankly, five years is too long. With such a provision in place, the sponsorship scandal would still have taken place even if it had been reported by dutiful public servants. The Liberals could have continued to keep a lid on the scandal while claiming to be ethical in government.

Such a scenario is completely unacceptable. It seems the Liberals have learned nothing about ethics in government over the last two years. While the Prime Minister is good at ethics rhetoric, when we look below the surface we see the same Liberal solutions to Liberal-made problems. It is not surprising that the solutions turn out to be no solutions at all.

Whistleblowing legislation is an important component to any reform agenda. However, it is one piece of the puzzle. Well crafted whistleblowing legislation provides transparency and accountability, but it does little to address the systemic and structural problems inherent in our present parliamentary system. For that we need a clear focus on system-wide reform measures, such as parliamentary confirmation of judges and heads of crown agencies, electoral reform, and Senate reform.

What we clearly need is leadership on both democratic reform and ethical government. We have had leadership on neither issue from the Prime Minister and I fear we never will. The only way to truly bring honest government to Canada is by implementing a broad range of democratic reforms, something a Conservative government will be more than happy to do in the not too distant future.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I actually like Conservative scandals better than Liberal scandals because with the Conservatives they do not seem to be afraid to fire people and put them in jail. When Brian Mulroney was prime minister, a cabinet minister a week went down. He would fire them. He would not just prop them up month after month. I am with my colleague. I prefer all of the scandals of the Progressive Conservative Party to the ones that we have lived through with the Liberals.

Clause 55 is meant to be very narrow in scope and application. There is some comfort we can draw from the fact that our committee at any time could amend and change Bill C-11 if we find there is a real problem with clauses. We do not have to wait for the five year mandatory review of the bill. There is nothing stopping us from correcting irritants as we go. I believe the application of clause 55 will be very rare and narrow as it pertains to the Access to Information Act.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of quick points in response to an observation from my colleague on the definition of the largest political scandal in Canadian history. He mentioned the Devine government in Saskatchewan.

I would point out to the member that the total amount of money that was stolen by members of the Saskatchewan Conservative Party was far less than the amount stolen by Mr. Coffin in one example of abuse in the sponsorship scandal. Yet Mr. Coffin, it appears, gets to lecture on the university circuit while others in Saskatchewan, as the member rightfully points out, did go to jail. I would suggest that if we are looking at the scale of theft, this is by far, in terms of monetary terms, the largest scandal in Canadian political history.

The member mentioned in his remarks that it was worth the time it took to present this bill, and the years that it took in development to get it right. There were a couple of points that my colleagues and I have raised that this bill still needs some refinement in terms of clause 55, which refers to the five year period in which information can be withheld.

If a department head chooses to do so based on the fact that he or she may feel the disclosure of that information would ultimately lead to the identity of the individual, I feel that is somewhat restrictive and onerous on the Canadian public. It would allow department heads to arbitrarily say that they are going to withhold the information because they believe the identity of the whistleblower might be revealed and, therefore, the information itself cannot come forward.

Second, does the member believe there should be exemptions for crown corporations and others or should all arms of government be treated equally inasmuch as they should all be under the same umbrella of Bill C-11 as every line department or should there be exemptions as this bill suggests there should?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would concur that it was the efforts of opposition party members who forced the issue until it reached such a critical mass that the government could not ignore it. I recognize my colleague from Newton—North Delta was very aggressive in his pursuit of whistleblowing legislation.

I read the bills he introduced on this subject. They are very similar to mine and the one introduced by the Bloc Québécois in 1996 in the 35th Parliament. It had it right from the beginning. The whistleblower officer should be an independent officer of Parliament. In the incarnation from 1996, it suggested the Auditor General. My private member's bill also said that we should use the office of the Auditor General, only because we knew the Auditor General had the confidence and respect of the public servants and that her office was an independent office that reported only to Parliament and not to a minister of the Crown or to government.

Therefore, the opposition parties knew what they wanted nine or ten years ago. It was echoed and reinforced by significant efforts made by my colleague, myself and others who put forward private members' business.

Again, it is an example of the advantage of minority Parliament when we are advancing some of these soft issues, non-monetary issues, issues that advance and elevate the status of the working conditions of public servants. I think it is going to be a different world. As soon as we pass Bill C-11, the culture and the morale in our public service will elevate.

[Gurmant Grewal, Conservative, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I highly appreciate the efforts and the comments by the member for Winnipeg Centre. Quite some time ago he had a private member's bill to protect whistleblowers. I improved upon that bill and introduced a bill in the early part of my political life. That bill did not get to see the light of day in the House of Commons. I reintroduced it in the House and it was debated.

It was surprising that the Liberals did not support either of these bills or the efforts of other opposition MPs to introduce protection for whistleblowers. I would conclude that the Liberal Party did not have the political will to introduce any meaningful, effective whistleblower legislation. Only when the government was ridden by scandal after scandal and only when the corruption became very evident to all Canadians, were the Liberals forced to bring in whistleblower legislation, and they came up with a half-hearted approach. That was after 12 years in government.

I compliment all opposition parties that have worked significantly hard and effectively in committee to improve upon Bill C-11. Finally we have legislation that is better than before, although not perfect yet.

Does the member for Winnipeg Centre believe that the Liberal Party did not have the political will right from the beginning and that it was the efforts of private members in the House to force the government to come up with meaningful whistleblower legislation?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is with some satisfaction that I rise on behalf of the NDP to speak to Bill C-11 at third reading. It has been eight long years that I have been seized of this issue and trying to develop some satisfying amendments regarding the protection of whistleblowers. It looks like there is light at the end of the tunnel. By the end of this business day in fact we may pass a significant, satisfactory whistleblowing bill. It is very gratifying for me to address this one last time, I hope, in my career.

I emphasize the words “a bill for the protection of whistleblowers”. I should point out at the outset that that in itself is progress. The original bill that we dealt with in the previous Parliament, Bill C-25, a bill which my colleague from Mississauga South touched on in his remarks, was all about putting in place a system by which people could blow the whistle on wrongdoing. It made very little mention of and had very little emphasis on the protection of the person who blew the whistle on wrongdoing. It struck me that the emphasis was all about protecting ministers from whistleblowers, not about protecting whistleblowers. We were critical of that from the outset. We raised it a number of times. It would seem that our presentations on that issue resonated because we now see that Bill C-11 is titled “an act to establish a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoings in the public sector, including the protection of persons who disclose the wrongdoings”.

In a perfect world I would even reverse those points and say that this is an act to protect whistleblowers. Without going into the technical details of the bill, the biggest challenge we have now is to convince the public sector that it is going to be okay. Somehow we have to mitigate a century of distrust on the part of the public servants. The empirical evidence to them has been that if they open their mouths and blow the whistle, they are putting their jobs at risk and nobody can really protect them. That has been the prevailing wisdom, well deservedly I am afraid.

As a former trade union leader, if I were a union leader in the public sector and one of the people I represented came to me for advice saying, “I have evidence of a wrongdoing here; I am tempted to go forward and blow the whistle”, my advice would have had to be, “Keep your mouth shut because I cannot protect you. Your employer may persecute you, discipline you or make your life difficult as a result of your coming forward and blowing the whistle”. My advice would have had to be not to do it.

Even though I am well aware of the legal obligation to report breaking the law, there are other things that can be categorized as wrongdoing. Employees may be made aware of maladministration of funds that fall short of criminal behaviour, just fundamentally silly activities.

We hope to learn a great deal after this bill is in place, but as I said, our first challenge and the issue I am seized with now that I am confident this bill will pass, and where I am directing my attention is on how we can get the message out there to assure the broad spectrum of public servants that they are safe now, that they can come forward with the confidence that they will not suffer reprisals just for doing the right thing. That is what it boils down to, doing the right thing.

With any kind of luck, this new officer of Parliament that we are putting in place by virtue of this bill will be like the Maytag repairman and maybe will not get a lot of business. That would be everyone's first hope.

Let us put this in perspective. This whistleblowing legislation should be only one element in a series of bills in a suite of legislation that will augment and enhance the accountability, transparency and openness, and the freedom of information that are the characteristics and earmarks of a western democracy that we can be proud of.

If we had true open government, if we had better access to information and freedom of information laws, there would not be the corruption that whistleblowers would have to report because the government would be operating in the light of day. It is the culture of secrecy that allows corruption to flourish. That much we have learned, and we have learned it the hard way in my years in the House of Commons.

In the context of the current culture of secrecy for which the government is famous, we need whistleblowing legislation. There are activities going on in the shadows without the scrutiny and oversight of Parliament, much less the general public. We would not have unearthed any of the recent corruption scandals were it not for the courage of whistleblowers who came forward at great personal risk and without any personal benefit. I do not know of a single whistleblower case, and I have studied many, where the whistleblower was motivated by self-interest. That is just not the motivation. The motivation is values, morals, ethics and knowing the difference between right and wrong.

I want as an employee the type of person who cannot sleep at night if he or she knows of a wrongdoing in his or her working environment. That tells me we have a decent person. Someone who is decent enough to feel bad about wrongdoing is the kind of employee that we want, that we want to reward, and ultimately that we want to protect.

Here we are in this chamber all of us speaking in lofty language about values, integrity and ethics, but we have been derelict in our duties to not protect those very values within the public service and not to reward those values. If anything we have cut those people adrift and have not given them the support they have needed in recent history. Until the advent of this bill they were on their own.

I have cited this example before. My colleague from Mississauga South, the vice-chair of the government operations committee that developed the bill, will remember it well. During the Radwanski scandal, we would never have known about the wretched excess and the abuse of privilege that was George Radwanski without whistleblowers. The most significant thing and the thing that still bothers me to this day is that those whistleblowers who had clear abundant evidence of wrongdoing within Radwanski's office did not feel comfortable in coming forward to a standing committee of the House of Commons without their lawyers present.

It was at midnight in the East Block behind closed doors at an in camera meeting and they still did not feel comfortable about talking to us. They insisted on bringing their legal counsel with them to defend them. As soon as they left that room they were vulnerable people. That is atrocious. Honest people who were doing the right thing felt they needed legal counsel to be able to report gross misuse of funds.

That illustrated to me more than ever the urgent need for whistleblower protection but as I say, as an interim measure. I am optimistic that within a short period of time the pent up demand may abate. There may be a number of wrongdoings of which people have knowledge. The floodgates may open briefly for the first year or two years, but in the fullness of time as we develop other complementary legislation about access to information, freedom of information and transparency, there should not be a great deal of need for the whistleblower officer. I hope his or her phone does not ring off the hook because we will have a self-correcting regime. Sunlight is a great disinfectant and when we shine the light of day on an issue, it is the natural enemy of the culture of secrecy that allows corruption to flourish. That is the next logical step for those of us who are interested in this issue.

It is not hard to see where the justifiable apprehension about coming forward came from within the public service. I came across a research paper in October 2004 which talked about the United States. Prior to it passing similar legislation, a survey was done of 161 workers who were disclosed wrongdoings. Of those 161 workers, 62% lost their jobs, 18% said they were harassed or transferred against their will, including being subject to isolation tactics and character assassination, 13% had their salaries and the terms and conditions of their employment reduced and many experienced a mental breakdown or family break up. Those people sacrificed an enormous amount to report wrongdoings. Granted, this is an American study, but it is a recent study. I think it is a snapshot of the experience in Canada.

We heard heart-rending testimony from a number of prominent whistleblowers who came before our committee. They could not even hide from the spotlight on this issue.

Ironically, the very week that the latest incarnation of the whistleblower bill was introduced, the three most prominent whistleblowers in Canada were fired, three officials at Health Canada who blew the whistle on the bovine growth hormone. They were under pressure by industry and by Health Canada to approve the agricultural nutritional supplement for milk in cows. However, because they were not satisfied it was safe, they blew the whistle on it.

These individuals went through five years of misery. They went through all the things outlined here today. They were transferred to different offices farther from their homes. They were transferred to places where there were no computers. Imagine a scientist being asked to work without a computer. The department could never seem to get them hooked up. They were denied meaningful work and given only insignificant work. All of a sudden holidays were not available when for years they took their holidays at a certain period of time. This was punishment by subtle harassment. It does not have to be as overt as firing somebody.

Before I run out of time, I caution the government about another thing. In the earlier incarnations of Bill C-11 we were very critical of the government's language which spent more time and attention contemplating punishing those who would make a false report or a complaint that was not in good faith, a malicious or vexatious report. There was very clear, specific, harsh, swift discipline for those who would do that, but there was no corresponding language to punish a manager who might impose punishment upon a whistleblower. It seemed completely out of balance. The government clearly stated that it would not tolerate false or malicious complaints.

Some people say that whistleblowing could be used as a form of industrial sabotage. For example, if people hated their bosses, they could blow the whistle on them in false ways. That was dealt with in Bill C-11, but there was no corresponding discipline contemplated if management was just mad that somebody blew the whistle on it and disciplined the employee. The only recourse for employees would be to file a grievance with their union, wait in line at the Canada Industrial Relations Board to have their grievance heard, and two years later they may or may not achieve satisfaction. That is not good enough.

We now have it clearly stated that punishing a whistleblower is in and of itself a wrongdoing and an individual may be disciplined or fired for doing that if it can be demonstrated. We are comforted in some way that balance has been reintroduced into the bill. However, I caution the government in the application of this bill once it becomes law. Far greater attention and resources should be dedicated to ensuring that managers do not discipline employees wrongly rather than employees wrongly reporting mischievous grievances.

Those are some of the cautionary notes I point out to the government.

We should use these final moments of this debate at third reading to reflect on two things.

It takes enormous courage for a worker to come forward with evidence of wrongdoing. Inversely, it takes a lot of courage for a government to introduce meaningful whistleblowing legislation. I think that is why governments, and not just this one, around the country and the world are reluctant to allow true whistleblowing legislation to come into force. In fact, when we pass this bill, we will be the eighth developed nation, of which I know, that will have meaningful whistleblowing legislation. That is not very many. It is an act of courage on both parts. It is an act of courage on the part of the whistleblower and on the part of the government.

The fact that we are debating this much improved Bill C-11 today is evidence of a minority government situation working as it should. This is a graphic illustration of the advantage to ordinary Canadians of minority parliaments. We saw the type of whistleblowing legislation introduced by the majority Liberal government. Every witness who came before our committee rejected it out of hand. I believe there were 14 leading authorities, from university professors, to union leaders, to people who studied this issue from one end to the other. They rejected it unanimously. That is the kind of bill we get from a majority government. As soon as it was a minority situation, things started to open. Log jams were broken. All of a sudden things that we were told were impossible were in fact possible, and we have a better bill as a result.

I believe it is a case study for the advantage of minority governments, especially as it pertains to issues that affect the general population. Minority governments are good for ordinary Canadians. That is my point and I stick to that.

It was worth the time it took to get the bill right the first time. As opposition party members, we could have said that we were getting half a loaf with Bill C-25, that at least it was a bill about whistleblowing and that was better than nothing. We could have voted for it and had it introduced by now. However, we did not. We stuck to our guns and said that it was not good enough, and I am glad we did.

Nobody could have used a crystal ball to foresee this, but that party lost its majority status as a government. All of a sudden we had some influence. All of a sudden there was consultation and cooperation. All of a sudden my phone would ring and a minister would ask me what it would take for me to support this kind of thing. That did not happen in the majority situation. Believe me, nobody cared what we thought about then, no matter how relevant and valid our contributions could have been.

It is interesting to go back and think about the money we could have saved and the quality of administration we could have enjoyed had we had whistleblowing legislation quite some time ago. Maybe we would not have had to endure the terrible sponsorship scandal that is ripping the country apart.

My Saskatchewan colleague from the Conservative Party said that the sponsorship scandal was the biggest scandal in Canadian history. I disagree with him somewhat. When the dust settles, it may earn that position in the history books. However, to this point in time, the biggest scandal on record, dealing with the malfeasance of politicians, is the Conservative Party government of Grant Devine. Most of its cabinet ministers were not only charged but convicted and sent to prison in massive numbers.

Until such time as the last Liberal is led away in handcuffs, the Devine government in Saskatchewan is holding the record for malfeasance, and I presume that scandal was revealed by a courageous whistleblower.

We are proud to support Bill C-11. We are proud of the role we played in it. I take great satisfaction and some pride in the fact that we will have a bill under which public servants will be protected and feel comfortable in telling us what they know. We will ensure that no one harasses them or persecutes them for doing the honourable thing.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, this bill is a big step forward. Make no mistake, the members worked hard in order to reach agreement on this bill. Be that as it may, the fact remains that every member of every party on the committee had to be able to speak as one—particularly with regard to a bill as sensitive as this one.

In my opinion, this bill was essential. It is unfortunate that, today, we cannot predict its impact. However, I am quite hopeful that it will give public service employees who witness wrongdoing and want to disclose it the confidence to do so. We will see if this bill and its provisions are effective over time.

However, I am concerned—my colleague from Repentigny raised a point earlier. Parallel with this bill, I also introduced Bill C-360 to protect victims of psychological harassment. Despite the extensive protection we are able to offer public servants who disclose wrongdoing, psychological harassment will always be the aftermath.

This morning, I received three e-mails from former public servants who followed yesterday's debates. They congratulated me for being the only one who dared lift the veil on what would come after. I greatly appreciate the fact that my colleague from Repentigny has just revisited the aspect of protection and the legislative framework of the bill. The three e-mails I received said more or less this: “Ms. Bourgeois, after the famous 60 days of protection, what will happen if we are transferred to a new place, moved to another department? Then what will happen? Even if people do not know the name of those who make the disclosures, people will end up knowing, or thinking they know, because everything eventually becomes general knowledge. The public service is a closed microcosm.”

That reminded me of something I said here in the House yesterday. I said that the bill is a huge step forward but that there was a little something lacking, and that was iron-clad protection for public servants who make disclosures. That is something that I am proposing along with my bill, but I would also ask that this bill include someone competent who would listen to federal public servants and those covered by the Canada Labour Code. This independent commissioner could be the same one as proposed in Bill C-11, but that person would have to have a staff mandated to deal with public servants subjected to reprisals. These staff members would be able to act even 60 or 120 days after the fact. According to the bill, unless I have misunderstood—and I would like to be told so, if that is the case—the complaint may be filed after that 60-day period if the board deems this appropriate under the circumstances.

With all these “mays” and “ifs” anything is possible, but we are not necessarily resolving the problem. That is what public servants are worried about because they do not have this iron-clad protection. The workplace is merciless toward public servants who blow the whistle. A public servant might be exposing the practice of a government, or, just as likely, the actions of a superior.

I want to close by saying that there is no guarantee that the public servant disclosing wrongdoing can be protected from intimidation, abuse of power, isolation or everyone ganging up on him. I thought that was what the President of the Treasury Board realized yesterday when he nodded in agreement with me that there was a little something missing.

I am not sure there will be as many disclosures as we hope. This bill shows transparency. It goes far beyond any political party. I have heard it said the game here in this House is power. Of course there is criticism. Nonetheless, it goes beyond any political party since it will allow public servants, honest workers, to say, “I am doing this because I do not accept the situation. If I want to sleep well at night, then I will disclose this wrongdoing.” This bill is good, but it needs to go a little further and supplementary protection needs to be added to it.

I now want to ask my colleague why the Canadian Forces were excluded from this bill. He touched on this, but I would like him to elaborate. I want him to explain it again. Many disclosure, harassment and intimidation cases come from National Defence or the Canadian Forces. Of course we trust them. They have their own way of managing and processing complaints as they see fit. Nonetheless, I have some reservations.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to again speak on Bill C-11. When all the members of the House decide to join forces to ensure the success of a bill, we see that things can be done quickly. I last spoke on this bill less than 24 hours ago, so it is possible to move quickly when we want to.

Since people's comments and speeches often lose sight of the main objective of a bill, I will start by reading the title of Bill C-11: An Act to establish a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoings in the public sector, including the protection of persons who disclose the wrongdoings.” The purpose of this bill is to establish a procedure for disclosure and to protect those making disclosures.

I have listened to, and read, the speech by the President of the Treasury Board. I too would like to draw attention to the invaluable work done by the members of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, including the permanent members, among them my colleague from Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, and the other members, both occasional and semi-permanent. We were always extremely glad of their helpful suggestions.

I would also like to thank certain colleagues, among them the hon. member for Mississauga South, who has shown a marked interest in Bill C-11 since yesterday, as has my colleague from Terrebonne—Blainville. I also congratulate her for introducing a bill in complementarity to Bill C-11. I use that term, but I am sure there are more appropriate words in a dictionary of synonyms. The bill in question is Bill C-360, the purpose of which is to help the victims of psychological harassment and to recognize the harmful effects of such harassment on federal public servants.

My congratulations to her, and my thanks for her interest in Bill C-11, now at the third reading stage. I know that yesterday she questioned the President of the Treasury Board on the repercussions and also on the complementarity of bills C-11 and C-360. The President of the Treasury Board has shown some openness to meet with my colleague in order to see how these two could work together, how they could be dovetailed.

Many normal, relevant, important questions on Bill C-11 were raised by hon. members in this House and I am sure that those who sat on the committee on a regular basis helped us to clarify our thinking or realize that in fact we could have better defined or taken into account certain aspects of the bill, which naturally can be improved upon.

In my opinion, every bill presented in this House can be improved upon, and it is in listening to our colleagues and their suggestions that we see just how this can be done. Nonetheless, we must be careful when we consider the bill or when we make suggestions, because we must look at what is already included in the bill. I will come back to that a little later.

Some aspects of the bill also deserve to be acknowledged and repeated, even if hon. members have already repeated them. In my opinion, it is highly important to repeat them for the public servants watching us, those who worked on developing the bill, and also to respond to clause 4 of the bill, which stipulates:

The Minister must promote ethical practices in the public sector and a positive environment for disclosing wrongdoings by disseminating knowledge of this Act and information about its purposes and processes and by any other means that he or she considers appropriate.

Yesterday, I ran out of time to finish my speech. I will spend more time today talking about raising awareness and disseminating information.

The hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent pointed out earlier that this bill is not a panacea. We will not fix every problem in the federal public service or in Canada with this bill. Nonetheless, this bill is certainly a step in the right direction for improving working conditions and relations and ultimately for moving toward sound management of public funds.

When this bill is given royal assent, it will be highly important for the government, through the Treasury Board, to run an awareness campaign to inform public servants covered under the legislation of the important tool parliamentarians will have given them.

I have been entrusted with multiple mandates here in the House, and if there is any bill that I am proud to see become law, it is this one. I talk about it in my riding whenever I can—as well as about my role as a member of the opposition. I had the opportunity to do so recently at my nomination. If any bill makes me proud of the work we can accomplish, together and with rigour, in this House, particularly under a minority government, it is Bill C-11. I know that it will protect public servants, ensure they benefit from healthier working conditions and encourage disclosure whenever wrongdoing occurs within their working group or their immediate work environment.

I hope that the President of the Treasury Board and the government will be able to provide adequate information so that public servants can be made aware of the important tool they currently have at their disposal, a tool that will ensure they benefit from better working conditions.

Further down in the bill, subclause 5(1) indicates that “The Treasury Board must establish a code of conduct applicable to the public sector”. Then, in subclause 5(3), we read, “Before the code of conduct is established, the Minister must consult with the employee organizations certified as bargaining agents in the public sector”.

During discussions and comments on how to improve this bill, Nycole Turmel, representing the public service union, was consulted and worked closely with parliamentarians in order to have a bill that takes public servants into consideration and best meets their expectations.

A code of conduct must, then, be tabled by the President of the Treasury Board. However, this code of conduct must be established in cooperation with the public service union. Obtaining this degree of collaboration was extremely important to us. The collaboration that existed within the committee is now needed to develop the bill.

I repeat that we also defined wrongdoing. One of the questions that we were asked yesterday was extremely relevant. Paragraph 8( c ) mentions “a gross mismanagement in the public sector”. I had asked the question in committee as to why use the word “gross”, when it could have simply read “a mismanagement in the public sector”. This gives public servants and the integrity commissioner the freedom to determine what constitutes gross mismanagement.

I am convinced that others share my view that the integrity commissioner must not be inundated with trivial matters. Granted, each dollar paid in taxes by Canadian citizens has to be administered in a serious and rigorous manner. But in any business, be it a corner store, a general store or a pharmacy, man will do what man will do, as the saying goes. Unfortunately, there are dishonest individuals who doctor inventories or numbers. The whole government, with a budget of hundreds of billions of dollars, cannot therefore be expected to ever be made 100% perfect.

On the subject of trivial matters, for our listeners, $1,000 or $5,000 do not represent trivial amounts of money; these are large amounts. In other cases, other realities, other places, employees who observe mismanagement in their immediate work surroundings may complain to their union steward or immediate supervisor. In reference to relatively small but nevertheless significant amounts, instead of describing them as “trivial”, it would be more appropriate to talk about relatively small but nevertheless significant amounts.

When a really significant situation arises, however, employees ask themselves if it constitutes gross mismanagement in the public service. They determine on their own whether there was indeed gross mismanagement, in which case they make a disclosure, a complaint, to the integrity commissioner, who may agree that there was gross mismanagement. They get to exercise their freedom of choice and think for themselves. Rightly or wrongly, we have agreed in committee that this was one way of handling or dealing with this kind of wrongdoing and its definition.

Further on in the bill, the text addresses the protection of those making disclosures. Clause 19 reads: “No person shall take any reprisal against a public servant.” Further on, there is mention of the person's horizontal transfer without loss of benefits or seniority.

I have listened carefully to the comments, criticisms and suggested improvements to the bill, and find them overall totally legitimate. For that reason, we have included a five-year review in the bill, somewhat along the lines of the one in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. I feel there ought to be similar provisions in the Official Languages Act as well. Unfortunately, there has been no review of that act and it is beginning to collect cobwebs. I do not know whether Official Languages Commissioner Dyane Adam would agree with me, but I feel that legislation dating back to 1968, with a revision in 1988 and nothing since, might well be expected to need reviewing, considering the way society has changed. That is what Bill C-11 does.

Bill C-11 gives the government the benefit of the doubt. Initially, there will be an integrity commissioner appointed. We know how well known the Auditor General and the Commissioner of Official Languages are today for their exemplary and rigorous work. We can only hope that the man or woman appointed as public sector integrity commissioner will be equally well known, but not for having brought major scandals to light. We hope there will be no such scandals. We hope that the management of public funds and the working people's money will be done efficiently.

Should there be a sufficiently high number of complaints requiring public servants to meet with the commissioner, as my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent has just said, there ought to be a climate of trust in place.

Certainly the first two or three people to disclose will be afraid, as they are today, of being identified, of being the victims of reprisals, of being involved in the trial runs of a new system. The commissioner and his or her staff will have to ensure that the first complaints set an example to other public servants who see wrongdoing taking place, so that they will also feel free to disclose.

Between the first and second draft, we included RCMP officers and we have now excluded various positions, such as positions with the Canadian Forces. I am also thinking of CSIS, in terms of telecommunications.

These groups have been excluded for reasons related to national security. They appeared before the committee and told us that, for national security reasons, they did not want this bill to apply to them.

These groups told us that they agreed, on the condition that these institutions have a similar measure allowing employees of these institutions to lay a complaint. In five years, or even earlier, we will be able to see if those who asked for protection for national security reasons kept their promise to comply with these conditions.

Earlier, I was talking to a Radio-Canada host. I told him that Radio-Canada is not subject to Bill C-11. However, the committee learned that Radio-Canada already has a similar tool in place for its employees. As a result, this crown corporation is excluded from Bill C-11, because it has an equivalent measure in place for its employees.

So, the entire public service benefits from adequate, professional and rigorous protection. Those who do not must have a similar and comparable measure that shall be subject to the approval of the Standing Committee on Governmental Operations and Estimates. Those who are not protected by Bill C-11, but who already have a similar measure in place, will have to test how well it works with regard to any future complaints.

The integrity commissioner will now be an independent officer, which was not the case in the initial version of the bill. We think the definition of wrongdoing will not leave any room for a series of frivolous and vexatious complaints. I believe the terms “frivolous” and “vexatious” were dropped from the initial version—I will have to verify that—to prevent the bill from being used as a pressure tactic during the negotiation of collective agreements. Public servants must not use Bill C-11 to go against its philosophy, its intent and its initial purpose, which is to protect public servants and provide them with a legal framework.

All these corrections were made to the bill in light of comments by witnesses, including Mr. Keyserlingk, who was the integrity officer for a while and who asked the government to give the rules or existing policy a legal framework. The existing policy was inadequate and did not have the necessary authority or tools to defend public servants properly. All this work was accomplished because of everyone's cooperation and good will.

We in the Bloc Québécois, like my colleagues from the Conservative party and all the other parties, believe we have come up with a bill that, although imperfect in some parts, responds to the expectations resulting from the sponsorship scandal, the goings-on of the privacy commissioner, Mr. Radwanski, and the current case involving Mr. Dingwall at the Royal Canadian Mint. Just this morning the papers reported that some ministers in this government, including the former president of the Treasury Board, broke Treasury Board rules and travelled on private jets instead of taking commercial flights, which would promote sound management of public funds.

Public servants who witness such wrongdoings could disclose them. Certainly, ministers and deputy ministers will be more careful. Exemplary public servants could disclose wrongdoings in the same way Allan Cutler disclosed the sponsorship scandal, despite the enormous pressure dissuading him from doing so. According to comments made in committee, this public servant would have been a little more comfortable had the bill been in place, although he still would have been afraid.

Time will tell whether the bill will meet all its objectives.

It would be my pleasure to answer any questions.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-11. I will be speaking in support of the bill. I would not say that I do so grudgingly, but let me say that I will be supporting the bill because I agree with and support the spirit of the bill. There are elements of the bill which still need some cleaning up. I think a change of government would go a long way toward effecting those positive changes that need to be made to the bill to make it a better bill than it is now, but generally speaking, the spirit of the bill is something I certainly can support.

I want to talk about that spirit and give a couple of examples. If this bill had been in effect years ago, some of the things we have experienced over the last decade or so might not have surfaced. We might have had a better government. We might have protected the taxpayer more. We might have seen the kind of Parliament that worked in the way most Canadians wish it to work.

The spirit of the bill is to effect two things, that is, to protect the identity of those individuals within the public service who wish to come forward to inform someone of wrongdoing, of criminal wrongdoing, perhaps, of illegal activities that are occurring within their particular sphere of influence, within their government department or within their agency, and not only protect them when coming forward, but protect their identity from ever being disclosed.

They need to be protected, obviously, because if any public servants felt that by coming forward they would be punished, the amount of information coming forward would be greatly lessened. If any members of the public service feel they have a true and legitimate fear of reprisal, retribution or punishment, obviously they will be very reluctant, to say the least, to come forward with any information that might point the finger at one of their superiors.

I think we have no better example to look at than what has been commonly referred to as the biggest political scandal in Canadian history, the sponsorship scandal, and what happened over the course of the last decade and what might have happened had this bill been in effect.

I think most Canadians now are familiar with the elements of the sponsorship scandal, but I want to dwell on them again just for a moment, because I think the information bears repeating. Generally speaking, what happened was the following. Over the course of three consecutive federal elections, there seemed to be, there was, an orchestrated plan perpetrated by members of the Liberal Party of Canada to take taxpayers' dollars that were part of the sponsorship program and funnel that money illegally back to the Liberal Party of Canada in Quebec, to the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party of Canada, to assist the Liberal Party of Canada in Quebec with election activities. Clearly this is of great concern to all Canadians, because not only it is highly illegal, it is reprehensible on a moral basis as well.

Let us just think for a moment about what might have happened if we had had Bill C-11 in place a decade ago. During the Gomery commission investigation into allegations of misuse of taxpayers' dollars in the sponsorship scandal, one of the things we learned was that two directors general of the Quebec Liberal Party testified that they in fact took money from the sponsorship program and delivered that money to organizers, to individuals within the Quebec Liberal Party, to assist these people to perform election related duties during federal elections. In other words, they laundered money back to the Liberal Party of Canada to allow the Liberals to try to increase their political profile and to increase their election readiness, preparedness and that type of thing.

I can assure the House that if legislation like this were in place, that might not have occurred. Just for clarification purposes, in provinces outside Quebec the term “director general” refers to a position mostly commonly known as executive director. I have some knowledge of the role of an executive director of a political party since in a former life that is the position I held with two political parties in my home province of Saskatchewan. I was the executive director of the Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan. I was also the general manager of the Saskatchewan Party. “General manager” was a term that we equated with executive director.

I can assure members that had anyone in our party in Saskatchewan at any time suggested that we concoct some sort of money laundering scheme similar to that of the sponsorship scandal and asked me in my role as an executive director to help implement this scheme by funnelling money to one of my political operatives, I would not have done that without at least a very serious, honest and frank discussion with other members of my party.

I can assure members that, at least in my opinion, the directors general who testified before the Gomery commission would not have carried on this activity without getting approval from someone else, someone higher up the political food chain. There is no director general and no executive director in Canada, in my opinion, who would carry on illegal activities such as this on his or her own accord. In my opinion, someone higher in authority than the directors general of the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party of Canada authorized this type of illegal activity. They were told to do these types of things.

My point is that someone, or perhaps many other people, knew of this activity. They knew of this plan. They knew of this scheme. Why did no one come forward? Was it that every member of the Liberal Party in Quebec was corrupt and every single member who was privy to this information and privy to this illegal scheme agreed with it? Was it that they said, “Let us flaunt the law, let us money launder and steal money from Canadian taxpayers. It is okay. We are Liberals”. Perhaps they did. Perhaps every single person who was aware of this activity agreed with it, condoned the activity, and thought that it was perfectly normal and legitimate to do because of course as Liberals they were above the law.

Although I have spoken of this type of activity before, perhaps, and have made suggestions that all of these members who were complicit in this activity were on the same page, I honestly do not think that would be the case. I think there would be some people who were aware of these activities and who did not agree with them, and who thought this would be absolutely unconscionable and reprehensible, not to say highly illegal, but they did not come forward.

Until the Auditor General started seriously investigating the activities surrounding the sponsorship program, no one came forward internally from the Liberal Party of Canada to say, “I think something is amiss here. I think there are some problems”. Why did they not come forward? I can only guess about this. Perhaps they did not because there was no protection for them to come forward.

Certainly, a scandal of the size and scope of the sponsorship scandal, as we have seen, would have prevented individuals from coming forward. If they felt that their jobs were in jeopardy, that their future livelihoods and incomes were in jeopardy, they would not have come forward.

This bill goes a long way toward preventing that type of attitude from employees. Now, hopefully, with Bill C-11 in place, they would feel assured that they could come forward with information which would be both informative and salient, and they would not be punished and their names would not be released. They would feel that the information they provide to someone, and in this case hopefully it will be the independent commissioner, would result in preventing this type of illegal activity from occurring again, and those individuals involved with these types of schemes would be punished but the individual who came forward with that information would not be punished.

I think that if we had had had Bill C-11 in place a decade ago, there is a reasonable chance that the sponsorship scandal would not have occurred, or at least it would not have gone down the road as far as it did. After all, and I will just repeat myself, the sponsorship scandal occurred over three consecutive federal elections.

This program was not an isolated incident. This scandal occurred successively over three federal elections. Most Canadians I have spoken with have asked, “How in the world could they get away with this?” How in the world could anyone perpetrate a scheme this large without someone knowing, without someone coming forward and saying, “This is wrong, stop it, this is absolutely reprehensible”. Perhaps the reason no one came forward is that they were afraid. They were afraid of what might happen to their careers if they came forward.

Bill C-11 is an extremely important piece of legislation in that regard. It allows individuals who see wrongdoing, who see activities that should not be condoned, to come forward without fear of reprisal or retribution or punishment. That is the spirit of the bill and it is certainly something that I totally agree with. It is something that should have happened a long, long time ago, but as the saying goes, better late than never.

Not only do I agree with the spirit of the bill, but I agree with one of the other comments that my colleague from Mississauga South mentioned earlier. He was giving credit to committee members who worked on the amendments to the original bill to get it to the state that it is in now. I want to make a comment for all my colleagues here. I think that as parliamentarians we should all be concerned with only one thing, and that is the fact that collectively we need to bring forward legislation, regardless of subject material, in a cooperative manner that brings forward the best possible legislation for Canadians.

Quite frankly, as an individual I do not care if it is a Liberal initiative, a Conservative initiative, or a Bloc Québécois or NDP initiative, as long as the end result is something that provides good government and good legislation. With that fact, I totally agree with my colleague from Mississauga South that the committee should be applauded for the fine work it did.

I also have to give a bit of a partisan plug here. It was the Conservative members of that committee who drove many of the amendments from the original bill that are now contained in the current Bill C-11. Some of those amendments were not only extremely important but extremely timely.

The member for Mississauga South spoke of the intent of clause 55 and why it was put in. This is one clause that the Conservative members on the committee were very much opposed to, because it states that information disclosed from a whistleblower can be withheld from the public purview for a period of five years.

Here is where we Conservative members differ in opinion from the member for Mississauga South. He suggested that this is a good clause because the primary function of the bill is to protect the identity of the whistleblowers. He said in regard to any head of any department that if he or she legitimately believes the information being released could possibly lead to the identification of the whistleblower, this gives the head of that department the right to withhold information for up to five years.

I would humbly suggest to the member for Mississauga South that any department heads of any crown corporations or agencies or line departments in government could make the argument that they could not release the information because they believe that the information, once it is public, could perhaps lead to the identification of the person who provided that information. Therefore, they would say, that would be a legitimate reason to withhold it for up to five years. That destroys the intent and the spirit of the bill.

Yes, we must protect the identification of the whistleblower, but even more important is the fact that the information the person wants to release to prevent illegal activities from occurring should be provided and should be made available to the public, to the Auditor General, to Parliament in whole, without anyone arbitrarily determining and choosing to withhold it for five years because it might lead to the identification of the person who provided that information, or the whistleblower.

I and most Conservative members believe that clause should be eliminated and when a Conservative government is elected that clause will be eliminated from the bill. The current information officer, another officer of Parliament, agrees with our take on that clause, which is that it should be removed, as should any reference to special exemptions for crown corporations. If we really want to make this truly effective, this legislation should apply equally to all arms of government, whether they be crown corporations, line departments or agencies.

The spirit of the bill is to ensure that Canadians and Canadian taxpayers are protected, that individuals with information about wrongdoing by superiors in government can come forward without fear of reprisal, without punishment and that their identities would be protected. While I agree with that wholeheartedly, should that not apply equally to all arms of government? Why should there be exceptions? In my humble opinion there should not.

I also want to speak briefly to the new position that we hope the bill will result in and that is an independent information officer who will report directly to Parliament as opposed to directly to a minister. I heartily approve of this portion of the legislation. The original bill, as I am sure the House is aware and most Canadians are aware, according to the legislation drafted and presented by the government, was that individuals would report to a superior or to someone perhaps in their own department and, ultimately, it would go to a minister of the crown and then perhaps that information would be made public. I think there are too many ifs in that. There are too many variables to really suggest that the information would protect the identity of the whistleblower and protect the whistleblower from political reprisal.

Allowing the office of an independent commissioner to be established to deal with these issues is absolutely a right step and a correct step.

I would suggest, however, that if we want to go one step further we should give more powers to that independent commissioner. We would like to see the power to grant more generous compensation to whistleblowers who have been reprised against. Frankly, something that is still a concern of mine is that, regardless of this legislation, I am somewhat fearful that in the future any government, whether it be a Liberal government, a Conservative government or any other government, might still choose to take actions against those individuals who came forward to give information that might be considered politically damaging or, at the least, embarrassing.

I would like to make sure that in the future we take whatever steps that might be necessary to provide even more protection and perhaps even compensation for those whistleblowers.

This is a long overdue piece of legislation. Once again, I applaud all members of the committee who came to some agreement on amendments to the bill. It is something that I hope in future will prevent the type of actions that we have seen, like the sponsorship scandal and the Dingwall case, from ever occurring again.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on clause 55, the request for information under access to information, the member certainly knows that those requesting the information can appeal and that appeal goes through the access to information officer, another honourable officer of this Parliament.

At some point in time we really have to trust someone because an investigation would be done to ensure that the point that is made in the bill, and that is protecting the identity of the whistleblower, comes first before the availability of information.

Second, with regard to the schedule, the member well knows that if it is an order in council it gets gazetted and there will be new crown corporations. There may be some that are consolidated et cetera. They may have to be amended. It can be done instead of having a new bill to amend it and tying up Parliament. It is housekeeping in nature. If somebody just changed the name and everything else was the same, would we really want have a bill go through all stages of Parliament?

Finally, I wish to comment on the quality of witnesses and what they told us on Bill C-25. We heard witnesses that told us some things during Bill C-11. If we took everything that everybody said, we would have a very bad bill. I think that quite frankly the government's referral of Bill C-11 to committee after first reading was a recognition that there was still not 100% consensus on some of the sticky points. It was important that the committee had the opportunity to hear from those witnesses and others to fill it in to make a final determination of consensus.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member across for his statement and I would like to say that I am up to tenderize some more turtles, as he put it. He talked about the Conservative Party using little bits of information or using lack of information. I would like to help him with a few of the statements he made.

Certainly, under clause 55, the anonymous protection against reprisal, that is exactly what the clause says and it is there to do that, to protect the privacy of the person making the allegation of wrongdoing. All we are trying to state is that it also points out a very convenient place to hide wrongdoing if indeed that is what we wanted to do. Because it can be hidden for five years, that clause will allow it to be done. It is not that we do not trust the government to be forthcoming with wrongdoing when it discovers it, but it has proven itself not to be able to do so.

Under schedule 1, the list of the crown corporations and departments of government that are in the bill, he states that it is only there simply for housekeeping, simply to allow them to opt out if someone was to change the name of a crown corporation or if a crown corporation went private, it would be cleaned up that way. I hope that is truly the only reason for that clause. It certainly could have been handled by simply saying all government and crown corporation employees do not need to have a schedule. Perhaps then we would not have the opportunity in the background where people could make a decision on order in council to opt out of a crown corporation or a government body simply because wrongdoing was found there. We are not saying that is the purpose of the clause; we are saying the opportunity is there for it.

On the last little bit there was talk of the commitment to quality, the commitment to a good bill, and the commitment by the government to bring forward whistleblowing legislation as promised in 1993. In talking about quality, all of the witnesses who we saw on Bill C-11 also talked about Bill C-25. They asked for the same types of changes including an independent office on whistleblowing and yet protecting public servants was completely ignored in this version until it was massaged in committee. I would like him to comment on that.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-11 which has a long-standing history in this place.

A former colleague, Mr. John Bryden, was very instrumental in getting this process started. It actually goes back to the creation of the government operations committee and the time when George Radwanski was the Privacy Commissioner. That was the first instance when a whistleblower came before parliamentarians under the protection of the committee. The person who came forward with information told the committee that he or she would appear only if the meeting was in camera and only if he or she could be there with a lawyer. That event in a prior Parliament was most significant in terms of being the catalyst in bringing forward whistleblower legislation such as Bill C-11.

If we were to identify one specific reason why employees in the public service were reluctant to come forward, it was the fear of reprisals. It really has to do with the issue of anonymity. It really has to do with people who want to discharge their responsibilities within the public service in a way which is in the best interests of all Canadians.

The genesis was there. In the last Parliament a subcommittee of government operations looked at this matter. The member for Ottawa West and the member for Laval East were the co-chairs of the committee. From that subcommittee came the principles which we were hoping to see in the first bill on whistleblower protection. In the last Parliament Bill C-25 was sponsored by a minister other than the minister who is currently sponsoring Bill C-11. We debated the bill but it died on the order paper as a consequence of the election call.

Bill C-25 of the day came on the heels of another bill, a bill which was also numbered Bill C-25 in the prior session, which was on public service renewal. It was a massive overhaul. I think it was the first in some 20 years. There were still many issues.

We have just dealt with 47 report stage motions, all sponsored by the President of the Treasury Board. They all had to do with one thing which was how to change the bill that parliamentarians saw at first reading so that the person who was responsible for the whistleblower protection act was changed from the president of the Public Service Commission to an independent commissioner who would report to Parliament.

If members looked at the bill which was referred back from the committee, they would still see in the bill reference to the president of the Public Service Commission. The bill was sent to committee after first reading. This is very significant and shows that the commitment of all parliamentarians and certainly the government to having a good bill was so enormous and important that the committee did not have the authority to make it itself.

It took a change in the direction and the approvals of cabinet. It was a question of having a new officer of Parliament equivalent to the access to information officer, the Privacy Commissioner and the Auditor General. The committee felt it was very important, not because the members on the committee thought that this should be done; all of this came about as a consequence of the Radwanski hearings and the witnesses that the committee heard.

We heard time and time again that the anonymity issue was the stopper. The concern was that if employees were to say something, would they in some way be faced with a reprisal and their careers put in jeopardy? Do we have to relegate people who want to bring information forward to delivering plain brown wrappers or envelopes to parliamentarians to try to do something?

Under the Criminal Code, it is the obligation of every party who becomes knowledgeable of a criminal act to bring forward and report that act. However, members will see that is not mentioned in the bill, but it is. It is covered in the oath of office that all public servants take.

I use the term “public service” very generally. People may think that means the bureaucrats. Let us look at the bill very carefully. We now have a new definition of who, under this umbrella, would be covered by it. Every crown corporation is now included under that umbrella for the purposes of this bill, even though they are not public servants as we would understand it in our local jargon. It means every organization, agency, crown corporation, department, name it, the people who deliver those services in those departments and companies now have the protection of the act once it is passed. That is extremely significant.

There are a couple of exceptions such as the military, CSIS and the Canadian Security Intelligence Review Committee, I believe. The committee understood that within those groups there were administrative personnel who probably should have protection, et cetera. However, it was also important to understand that in this very narrow band of interests, being the military, national security and security interests, there already was a code of conduct and provisions whereby these matters could be dealt with.

Notwithstanding that, it also should be understood that even suppliers to the government would have access to go to the public sector integrity commissioner to bring forward information. The public at large, if they want, probably could do that too. There is no prohibition on information going to this officer. However, it is extremely important to understand that the new officer would have to be recommended for appointment by the government and scrutinized by parliamentarians before the appointment. After that time, this person, just like we have the powers of the Auditor General as a parallel, would have full authority and jurisdiction to make decisions, and that means the officer's decision would be the final one.

It is also important to understand that we are not talking about everybody's complaint. This is not to be the complaint department. The essence of the bill is to provide protection for whistleblowers. However, it also has to provide an orderly mechanism for this to happen.

There was concern about what would happen if we set up a separate commission and all of a sudden a wave of complaints came forward that could swamp the commissioner. The important thing for people to understand is what the area of interest is with regard to whistleblowing in this act. It is included under clause 8. For the purposes of this act, these wrongdoings would have to do with breaking some law of Canada, putting employees at risk or gross mismanagement. We are talking about the kinds of things that we experienced with the former privacy commissioner, Mr. Radwanski, where there were very serious problems. His whole department was terribly dysfunctional. There was gross mismanagement.

This is not a human resources body for employees who think they did not get a promotion they were entitled to or who think the employer had it in for them, and therefore they can go to the new commissioner thinking the he or she will take care of it. The commissioner will say that this is a human resources concern. There are mechanisms to deal with human resources issues throughout all government departments, agencies and crown corporations.

I have listened to all the debate. At the outset, the opposition has done a good job of its principal responsibility, and that is to deliver blows that would tenderize a turtle. Members of the opposition have to be as critical as possible and as selective as possible with information in order to bring up their point. They have done a good job of that. However, there is a fine line when someone takes information either out of context or do not provide it in all its glorious detail.

In most of the speeches provided to those members to read, reference has been made to the amendment to the Access to Information Act in clause 55 of the bill. This has basically been referred to by those members as the cover up clause. This provision, which was formerly a 20 year protection on disclosure of information, was amended down to 5 years in committee. The opposition has said that the government wants to have this in the bill so it can cover things up.

If they look at clause 55 in the bill, they would see it says that if the record came into existence less than five years before a request for information was made, the head of a government institution, and that is any of the various departments, agencies, crown corporations that are covered under this, including the RCMP, can refuse to release the information, “if the information identifies, or could reasonably be expected to lead to the identification of, a public servant who made a disclosure under that Act or who cooperated in an investigation under that Act”.

That is a bit different than what the members have been representing. I understand that it is very easy to take that little leap. They have to understand that clause 55, the consequential amendment to the Access to Information Act, is extremely important. The essence and the fundamental underpinning of the bill is to protect the identity of the whistleblower. That anonymity allowed the person to come forward in the Radwanski case. That individual came forward as long as they were provided with in camera proceedings and a lawyer.

There has to be some restriction on investigation notes and information relating to a whistleblower's statement or documents corroborating their statements so there can be less chance of reprisal against the person. We want to protect whistleblowers. We want to protect those who come forward in good faith to provide information which may identify a real wrongdoing as defined in the bill. The new commissioner has all the powers of investigation and resources available to do the job properly. Although those members like to talk fast and loose, clause 55 is extremely important.

I should remind members as well that when the Auditor General does an investigation, the information collected is protected for 20 years. It was set up that way to make absolutely sure that any information that came out could not somehow go back on the person who directly or indirectly was responsible for having that information come out.

Members have said that if we want to make the legislation better, we have to get rid of this clause. When it is put in the context of protecting the whistleblower, those members will not vote against it.

Another item that was raised with regard to the government by order in council possibly could eliminate a crown corporation for example, or anybody on schedule 1, which is the list of organizations covered by Bill C-11. Everybody is under this except the military, CSIS and the SIRC.

We have to think about this. I think Patrick Watson said that we should privatize the CBC, that we should put it out to tender. If we did that, we would save lots of money. What would happen if the CBC no longer was a crown corporation? What would happen if it were sold off like Petro-Canada to a private supplier? I think we probably should amend the bill in schedule 1 to delete the CBC from the list. Why would we do that? Because the CBC no longer would be a crown corporation. There could be a consolidation, or a name change or something else. What if we had a new crown corporation? Would we want it to be under this umbrella as well? Should we not have a clause in the bill that says that by order in council we can add another one?

Orders in council are not these secretive little things that people somehow squirrel away and frustrate the parliamentarians.

The member may laugh, but the member probably should get a lesson on gazetting. He should understand that order in council decisions are put into the Canada Gazette . They are there for all Canadians and parliamentarians to see. The member should clearly understand that if there were any change whatsoever to the addition or exclusion of any agency, department, crown or whatever, we would hear about it that very same day because employees would then know about it.

I do not see this as a threat. It is a housekeeping clause. It means that names change or consolidate, that people are added or deleted. It allows it to be done by order in council without raising a new bill to amend the act that was formally passed. It is an efficiency tool the government has to ensure we keep things up to date without having to tie up Parliament on things that are obvious. Let us be very careful about this.

I also was very interested in a few of the other points that were made. Members said that the government had to be pushed and that it did not much care about whistleblowing. I think that issue has been on the table since I was elected in 1993.

Bill C-25, which was introduced by another minister not the current minister sponsoring Bill C-11, was brought forward late in the Parliament. We had input and some opportunity to debate that bill.

Then Bill C-11 came forward. Members said in their speeches that it was the same dead bill, that it was lousy, et cetera. They have said that because they fixed it, it is okay and reasonably acceptable. Members should take the opportunity to look at the bill as returned from committee. All the changes that were made at committee are underlined. The most substantive change was to add the RCMP under organizations covered by the bill. While some members take credit for salvaging a terrible bill, if we look through it, the changes were housekeeping in nature. They were fine tuning the bill. As one speaker recently said, the broad strokes, the bill values, which push the foundations of the bill, were in the bill when we got it.

The other aspect is the bill was presented to us before second reading. It is a credit to Parliament to have the confidence in ordinary members of Parliament to send the bill to committee before there has been a vote in the House and before that approval in principle which really restricts the amount of changes a committee can make. What has happened with the bill is an excellent example of how Parliament works. I give full credit to all members of the committee who participated, full members and those who came in from time to time, for helping us to do a good job with the opportunity that was given to us. This was an excellent model.

Back two Parliaments ago when we had Bill C-25 on the modernization of the public service and public service renewal, one key issue that had to be addressed was the confidence level and morale of the public service. We are working on those things very slowly. Bill C-11 is part of what we can do to help to improve the confidence level and morale within the public service.

Public servants understand right now that this bill was about one thing and one thing only, and that was helping them to do a good job in order to bring forward information if they felt it was important to help them do a better job. I believe that Bill C-11 is an excellent bill and I thank all members for their support.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, discussions have taken place between all parties concerning the third reading debate of Bill C-11, and I believe you would find unanimous consent that the House begin immediately third reading debate.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member's last comment was probably the most telling. I applaud the Auditor General, not the government.

The government has been dragged kicking and screaming by the exposure of its own corrupt misdeeds into making changes. It was forced. The Liberals are not forthcoming. It was not that the Liberals said that they were going to clean up the way government was done and that there would be great openness and transparency. That is not what they did. They were forced into it because of the damning disclosure of the wrongdoings that were going on under the Liberals' watch.

I applaud the Auditor General, not the government. It is too little too late, quite frankly. It deserves some real consequences. Every time I hear technical arguments, there is often the candid admission that the government does not want people to look at the broad strokes. It gets everybody to focus on this or that little detail in order to miss the big picture of what is going on.

What is going on here is that the Liberal government does not want any consequences. The bill has been radically changed. In fact, the member for Peterborough did not even want to defend the original bill, Bill C-25, quite frankly, giving credit to everybody in the House that it has been changed. That is a candid admission of how bad Bill C-25 a year ago and Bill C-11 really were.

They were fake attempts at whistleblower protection. It is sad that the government could not muster the courage to get protection for all whistleblowers this time. That is what should have happened. The government did not do it. It does not deserve any credit.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to debate Bill C-11, the Liberal government's half attempt at protecting public servants who blow the whistle on corruption in government. It is a necessary bill but one, I am sad to say, the Liberal government never took very seriously.

I wish to begin by congratulating the member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry for his ongoing determination to see a whistleblower protection act that actually protects those who disclose wrongdoing. The voters in that riding would do well to remember it was that member, not the Liberal government, who pushed Bill C-11 from a woefully inadequate, fatally flawed bill to at least a workable framework for protecting whistleblowers. I believe that member of Parliament will be in the House to see a Conservative government that will finish the job.

With the prospect of a Conservative government to replace this tired and scandal plagued Liberal regime on the horizon, it gives me the opportunity to think aloud about what it will take to root out the Liberal culture of corruption and bring about a better, cleaner government for Canadians. This is no small step. Forming government means that we will take the reins as the largest employer in the land. A Conservative government would have to strive for labour excellence with the public service, not settle for the old Liberal pattern to disregard and demoralize.

Labour excellence is about forging a new relationship with our public servants, recognizing them as valued partners in the quest for open, transparent and fully accountable government that is finally free from the stain of corruption. Labour excellence between a Conservative government and the public service will have to include many things.

Some context for this bill: settling contracts on time or better, not allowing them to languish for months as this Treasury Board president did; bargaining fairly and not counting on public stereotypes of bureaucrats to strengthen the government hand to legislate back to work and impose a settlement, as this Treasury Board president hoped to do last year.

Such a partnership will require real whistleblower protection, not the amended bill we have before us today.

During debate on Bill C-11, I have seen a change in the Liberal tone. There is a jump in their step. They are talking about the wonders of a minority government while they secretly hope the public does not remember the two previous incarnations of this bill that did nothing to protect whistleblowers and everything to protect Liberal corruption.

The Liberal government introduced its fatally flawed bill in March 2004, just after the Auditor General slammed the Liberal sponsorship program and the government for breaking every rule in the book. The Liberals introduced that bill just before pulling the plug on the public accounts committee and on Parliament to keep Liberal ad scam misdeeds from reaching the voters. In other words, the Liberal government never intended to protect those who blew the whistle on its corruption.

I remember Allan Cutler. Most of us remember him for bravely disclosing corruption, but how many other faceless and nameless public servants had their careers, their health and their reputations destroyed for trying to do the same before the Auditor General broke ground on the truth behind the Liberal sponsorship program? They must be devastated listening to Liberals yesterday and today acting like they are actively part of a real whistleblower protection act. In fact, Liberals have been selling the false idea that this is already legislation. What a slap in their faces.

Now I am not fooled. Not only did the Liberal government fake whistleblower protection before the last election, it had the audacity to bring back the flawed bill after the election. Another slap in the face to public servants who have high ethics.

Canadians are not fooled. If former Liberal cabinet minister David Dingwall were not under a cloud of suspicion for bilking Canadian taxpayers with padded expense claims and kickbacks for lobbying the Liberal cabinet for Technology Partnerships Canada grants, the government would not have made a single amendment to Bill C-11, not one.

The Liberal government is in desperate need of an extreme ethical makeover but that makeover does not start with a few half measure amendments that are only better than the original bill because the original bill was so awful. Such an ethical makeover starts with a heartfelt commitment that taxpayer dollars are the delegated trust of hardworking Canadians coast to coast to their representatives, not the personal playthings of a power-mongering Liberal Party desperate to hold power.

Such an ethical makeover requires seeing public servants as public guardians of ethics in the processes of government, not potential leaks that must be quashed to preserve Liberal corruption. These public guardians deserve our utmost consideration as full partners ensuring that the dollars taxpayers pay in good faith help fellow Canadians in need and are not syphoned off to reward the friends and cronies of an institutionalized Liberal government.

Such an ethical makeover is not possible for the Liberal government. The evidence of that is in this amended Bill C-11. Liberals had the chance to get it right and chose not to. The Liberal government had the chance to shed a light into the darkest corners of every government department, but since Canadians would likely have seen Liberal rats scurrying about, the government chose to adopt a cover-up clause instead.

First the Liberals wanted 20 years without disclosure. They would never take zero. They would go no lower than five years. For five years, disclosure of wrongdoings can sit inside a government department before coming to light. Not only this but the Liberals had the chance to broadly apply whistleblower protection without strings attached. They chose not to.

The cabinet will retain the unilateral power to pull protection from whistleblowers, for example, at crown corporations. Disgraced David Dingwall was just forced out of a crown corporation by the official opposition's digging to expose his outlandish abuse of taxpayer dollars, not because the government was forthcoming about it. If Liberals had their way, he would still be CEO of the mint, bilking taxpayers for lavish dinners and golf memberships in secrecy. The Liberals cannot undertake an extreme ethical makeover because they had the chance and did not.

I will reluctantly support the bill, quite frankly because it is the best we will get from the Liberal government. This is better than the naked exposure public servants of high integrity and ethics faced for 12 Liberal years for doing the right thing by disclosing corruption, abuse and waste.

It is too bad the Liberals could not muster the courage to end their self indulgence with a comprehensive whistleblower protection act that would once and for all slap constraints on their corruption addiction. Because the Liberals are incapable of cleaning up corruption and cannot handle disclosure of the truth about their corruption, Canadians will have to sweep them from power.

Only the Conservative Party can clean up Liberal corruption and restore better government to a great Canada. The Conservative Party is ready to step in and do the job of protecting all whistleblowers, not just most.

The member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry is ready. As the next Government of Canada, Conservatives will end the cover-up clause and apply whistleblower protection to all agencies of the government. That is the clean government Canadians deserve.

[Gurmant Grewal, Conservative, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is shameful that the government waited for over 12 years to come up with a bill to protect public servant employees when they blow a whistle. It is shameful that when public servants are vigilant and notice some wrongdoing, corruption, mismanagement or waste in the government and blow the whistle for public safety, security and national interests, they are not protected.

The second thing that is shameful, for the Liberals particularly and the government, is that it was a private member like myself and some other members in the House who came up with this initiative many years ago, noticing that something was wrong in the system and that whistleblowers needed to be protected. The government first refused to support that initiative and then it tried to criticize and mitigate the private member's voice that was coming forward to awake the government, which was sleeping at the wheel, to come up with whistleblower legislation. When the government finally came up with a bill, it was a hopeless bill. It would have done more harm than good for those whistleblowers.

When the bill was in the committee, I appeared before the committee and made suggestions and recommendations for amendments because we wanted the democratic process to work. I am not criticizing or demonizing the role of the committee. The committee did a good job. All members of the committee from all the parties worked hard in the committee without partisanship, which is why this bill, which was hopeless in the beginning, has been changed a little and has some positive changes.

The government's role was in de facto carried on by private members to awake the sleeping government that it should come up with whistleblower legislation and make it effective in a real sense. When it came up with Bill C-11 it was hopeless and it was the Conservative members on the committee who gave positive contributions, suggestions, recommendations and amendments. That is how this bill has been changed from a bad bill to a somewhat acceptable bill at this stage.

The members of the committee did a good job and the sleeping government has to wake up and come up with amendments that will be effective and make the legislation really workable. Sometimes when it comes up with legislation it is simply a framework but there is no substance to it. Sometimes it comes up with a little substance which does more harm than good, but it is the members of the opposition who keep the government in line and make the bills effective.

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and Minister responsible for Democratic Renewal]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to what my colleague opposite had to say because I know of his long time interest in this matter.

However what disturbed me about his statements was his constant reference to the government and the government's bill. Although, technically, Bill C-11 is a government bill, it is my understanding that there is a history, some of which selectively my colleague referred to. It has had a couple of years of debate through private members' bills, inquiries within the system and public inquiries outside of the federal system. We are now faced with this bill which in fact was referred to committee after first reading.

As my colleague knows, the purpose of that, although to people watching it sounds a bit technical, is to allow the committee, if it wishes, to effectively rewrite a piece of legislation. This legislation, Bill C-11, which we are dealing with now, is not a government bill in the more general sense. This is a committee bill that each party here in the House has been able to deal with from the very beginning and change. It is my understanding that changes have been made.

I would like my colleague, if he would, to comment on this. Is he, in his grudging approval of this legislation, damning by feint praise the work of a standing committee of this House, work which has involved, not only members of his own party but of the Bloc, the NDP and the government side?

[Gurmant Grewal, Conservative, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on behalf of the constituents of Newton—North Delta to participate in the report stage debate on Bill C-11, the public servants disclosure protection act. Bill C-11 creates a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoing in the federal public sector. If enacted, this bill would finally give Canada whistleblowing legislation, something other nations have had for decades.

When we look into the background of the bill, we see that this government has had 4,350 days to fulfill its promise and introduce effective whistleblowing legislation. That is how long this government has had.

The former government House leader, the hon. member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, said in 1992, while in opposition, “Public servants must be able to report about illegal or unethical behaviour that they encounter on the job without fear or reprisal”. In his speech, the hon. member then went on to quote a Liberal caucus-approved document, “Public Sector Ethics”, calling for whistleblowing legislation.

However, once secure in office, the Liberals quickly forgot about their promises. In the end, it took the sponsorship scandal for this weak-kneed government to dust off its decade-old promise.

Meanwhile, we have witnessed billions of taxpayers' dollars disappear. The sponsorship scandal could have been avoided or at least quashed years ago if whistleblowing legislation had been in place. The same holds true for the HRDC boondoggle, the George Radwanski affair, the gun registry cost overruns and so on.

Public service integrity officer Edward Keyserlingk, referring to the sponsorship program scandal, said that whistleblowing legislation could have saved taxpayers millions of dollars by giving public servants “the confidence to come forward”.

It is little wonder no one blew the whistle on this scandal. In the absence of any whistleblowing legislation, even well-meaning public servants are reluctant to come forward because they know that making trouble will be a career ending move.

This government claims to support whistleblowers, but its actions indicate otherwise. Let us look at the case of the three scientists from Health Canada who were fired in June 2004: Margaret Haydon, Shiv Chopra and Gérard Lambert.

They were among this country's most outspoken whistleblowers. They raised issues such as the safety of a bovine growth hormone proposed for use in dairy herds to boost milk production, the influence of corporations in government drug approvals, and the need to keep animal parts out of the feed supply to keep beef safe. All three were fired on the same day for undisclosed reasons, which, Canadians were told, had nothing whatsoever to do with their whistleblowing. The government must think Canadians are hopelessly naive.

The Liberals have been boasting about Bill C-11 and everything they are doing for public servants who disclose wrongdoing. However, firing dissenting research scientists sends another message. It tells public servants that debate is discouraged in the federal government and no one's job is safe.

As far as Bill C-11 is concerned, in its original form the bill would have done more harm than good for whistleblowers. However, after a lot of hard work by Conservatives in committee, some of the major flaws have been corrected.

I do not want anyone to get me wrong. The bill is still far from perfect but thanks to the pressure applied by the Conservative Party, the government has relented and tabled amendments to create an independent commissioner to hear and investigate disclosures of wrongdoing. This was an essential change to the proposed legislation.

Other amendments have not been forthcoming, including: having the commissioner report directly to Parliament instead of to a minister; prohibitions of reprisals against those who make disclosures of wrongdoing to the public, media, police or anyone outside the narrow process prescribed in the bill; elimination of provisions to change the Access to Information Act to allow departments to refuse to release information about internal disclosures of wrongdoing for five years; and, the bill would still allow cabinet to arbitrarily remove government bodies from protection under Bill C-11.

The bill represents an improvement over the status quo but it remains clear that the government is more interested in managing whistleblowing than protecting and encouraging public servants who uncover evidence of wrongdoing.

It would be interesting to know if there could have been a better way to protect whistleblowers. Like the members for New Brunswick Southwest and Winnipeg Centre, as well as Senator Kinsella, I have for years been lobbying for a strong whistleblower protection. In October 2000, I introduced Bill C-508, the whistleblower human rights act, which was probably the first bill introduced in that session about whistleblowing protection.

My legislation, drafted with the help of actual whistleblowers, including Joanna Gualtieri, Brian McAdam, Robert Reid and many others, would have given people the confidence to come forward but the Liberals could not muster up the courage to support an opposition member's bill.

When the bill finally came to a vote in February 2003 as Bill C-201, because I had reintroduced the same bill, government members refused to lend their support to my initiative. If the government had been sincere about whistleblowing, Liberal members would have voted differently that day. We know the government did not want to pass the bill at that time. Instead, it revealed how phoney its promise had been.

The last time I participated in the debate on Bill C-11, I highlighted a good comparison of my bill, which was drafted by whistleblowers, to Bill C-11 at that stage. There was a big contrast. Many members on the Liberal side were nodding their heads in favour of some of the things that I was proposing in my bill.

The government needs to do more to encourage the reporting of wrongdoing and should stress that it is an important civic responsibility. In fact, it should be the stated duty of every employee to disclose any wrongdoing that comes to their attention.

Based on the experiences of the whistleblowers I have met, their careers and personal lives have been devastated. I believe an employee who has alleged wrongdoing and suffers from retaliatory action as a consequence should have a right to bring a civil action before a court. As well, allegations of wrongdoing should be rewarded like in California where whistleblowers are entitled to 10% of the money government saves as a result of their vigilance.

It is vital that the threat of employer retaliation be eliminated to encourage government employees to speak up. This will assist in curtailing the misuse of taxpayer dollars. Every day there seems to be new reports of corruption and scandal with the government that could be eliminated.

When I blew the whistle on whistleblowing, the Liberals had their ears plugged. Four years ago, in the face of government opposition, I introduced legislation which the Liberals refused to support at that time. Now is the time they should be serious about making this bill effective. Since it was first introduced some important amendments have been made but it is still flawed. I think we will let it pass so that a Conservative government will have the opportunity to make it stronger.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Madam Speaker, I think it is a small step toward protecting whistleblowers. However, I understand that some of the flaws still in the legislation will probably have some effect; it will certainly not be protecting Ms. Gualtieri to the point that she would have observed. There were many flaws not addressed in Bill C-23. Then, when it came to Bill C-11, she still had some concerns about the protection. She believes that the brown envelope will probably still be the way for many public servants to disclose wrongdoing. I think she will still have some concerns about protection as far as this legislation is concerned.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Madam Speaker, this afternoon I will speak to Bill C-11, the public servants disclosure bill, which presents another opportunity for the House to enact legislated protection for whistleblowers.

The bill would create a legislative mechanism for the disclosure of wrongdoing or whistleblowing in the federal public sector, including crown corporations, and would seek to protect those public servants in the department or organization who disclosed the wrongdoing.

This is the second attempt by the government at dealing with the subject of whistleblowing by federal public servants, the first one having died on the order paper as a result of the dissolution of the 37th Parliament.

Before we begin consideration of the merits of this legislation, it is important we recall why its implementation is so important.

Recent allegations of contracting irregularities or abuse of authority in federal government departments uncovered over the past few years have brought rise to an urgent call for protection for whistleblowers in the public service. The current protections afforded to these individuals can only be described as woefully inadequate, and all would agree that a pressing need for change exists.

Many in this chamber will recall a story of one of the whistleblowers, Joanna Gualtieri, but a brief refresher on her experiences would serve to provide an illustration of the current difficulties facing those public servants who bring their concerns forward.

For the past 10 years, Joanna Gualtieri has been a leading advocate for increased whistleblower protection for public servants so Canadians may be informed of any wrongdoing or corruption in their federal government.

As a real estate manager at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, she had witnessed first-hand violations of government rules to maintain lavish diplomatic lifestyles that were costing Canadian taxpayers billions of dollars. When she confronted her colleagues at DFAIT, she was met with high level resistance and outright opposition. Dismayed by the response, she went public about this misspending. Instead of being heralded as a watchdog for the public interest, she was persecuted in her workplace and dragged into a lengthy and costly legal battle with the government.

Yet despite paying a heavy price, both professionally and personally, Ms. Gualtieri has remained steadfast in defending the right to blow the whistle on illegality, misconduct and criminal waste of tax dollars within the public service. Why? In her own words:

Whistle-blowers are employees who exercise freedom of expression rights to challenge institutional abuses of power or illegality that harm or threaten the public interest. They represent the highest ideals of public service and epitomize the golden standard of loyalty to the long-term interests and sustainability of an organization. Studies have demonstrated that whistle-blowers are not the malcontents their detractors allege, but are, in fact, the employees an organization would want—bright, qualified and loyal.

Ms. Gualtieri's case is just one of the many that illustrate the need for effective protection for those public servants who bravely expose corruption.

Regrettably, Bill C-11 is a somewhat flawed piece of legislation and it would have been even worse if the official opposition members at committee had not been so persistent in securing some important changes to the bill.

As it was originally presented by the government, Bill C-11 would have done more to impede those public servants thinking about coming forward than previously. For instance, in its original form, the bill would have obligated whistleblowers to report to the government appointed president of the Public Service Commission.

This proposal was strenuously objected to by the official opposition and the majority of stakeholders who commented on the legislation. As a professional institute, the Public Service of Canada, which represents 50,000 public service professionals across the country, stated before the House Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, the office responsible for investigating wrongdoing must have the power to fully and independently pursue allegations of wrongdoing and order correction.

In large part because of the immense pressure, the government grudgingly agreed to amend the legislation to ensure an independent commissioner to hear and investigate disclosures of wrongdoing. Also, again thanks to the official opposition, the government, albeit reluctantly, agreed to permit the commissioner to report directly to Parliament instead of through a minister.

However, several other important amendments proposed by the official opposition in committee were rejected. These amendments are necessary and members of the official opposition will continue to advance them.

First, the bill would change the Access to Information Act to permit departments to refuse to release information about internal disclosures or wrongdoing for five years. It should be noted that this was originally an astounding 20 years until official opposition committee members managed to lower it.

Let us just imagine if Bill C-11 had been in effect earlier. Potentially, Canadian taxpayers would not have known for two decades about the stunning level of waste and mismanagement in the gun registry, in the human resources boondoggle and in the sponsorship scandal. While five years is clearly a marked improvement from 20, this provision remains unacceptable and has to be completely removed from the legislation, as even the Information Commissioner has stated.

A second serious concern with the legislation is the fact that cabinet has the power to arbitrarily remove several government bodies, including the Bank of Canada and the public service pension commission, from the whistleblower protection of Bill C-11. Many observers have stated, and I am inclined to agree, that the inclusion of such a clause threatens the integrity of the entire legislation. Again I will quote the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada:

No branch or agency of the Canadian government can be exempt from this regime if this initiative is to be taken seriously....

A fundamental element to rooting out wrongdoing is an independent and credible disclosure mechanism. Unnecessarily exempting any organization from this process only serves to shelter wrongdoing and silence ethical employees.

The official opposition attempted to alter this in committee, but was refuted by the government. Nevertheless, we will continue to pressure for specific amendments to ensure that cabinet does not have the ability to remove any government body from the scope of the act.

Bill C-11 does not ensure that those whistleblowers who risk their professional careers only to be shunned and punished within their workplace are awarded sufficient compensation. Making the decision to become a whistleblower is not easy.

These are public servants who typically have worked long and hard to advance to a point in a career where their responsibility and financial benefits are considerable. Not only that, they likely have developed close personal relationships with those people guilty of the alleged wrongdoing. They are confronted with a difficult choice: do the right thing and risk it all or remain silent and retain their position. Every year thousands of employees witness workplace wrongdoings, but only a fraction will speak out.

However, for those brave few the consequences can be unpleasant and stressful. Even before she went public with her revelations of waste and mismanagement at DFAIT, Ms. Gualtieri was ostracized for even raising concerns within the department.

Gualtieri, in a Canadian Lawyer magazine interview, recounted that she would be yelled at by one of her bosses in front of other employees. She would be interrupted or ignored at meetings and completely bypassed during work sessions that directly involved her job. It got so bad that on her doctor's advice she took an unpaid leave of absence for four months.

Consequently, it is important that we amend Bill C-11, not only to allow the commissioner the power to grant more generous compensation for whistleblowers but also to allow more severe penalties for those who engage in petty reprisal.

There are gaps in the legislation. They are grave and need to be addressed. However, they do not merit the complete rejection of this legislation.

This is the first step in aiding those future whistleblowers ready to expose corruption in the public service and, to echo the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, “immediate improvement” is preferred instead of “postponed perfection”.

This is vital legislation, not only for those future whistleblowers but also for Canadian taxpayers.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. I am convinced that since the government introduced a Bill C-11 which was almost identical to Bill C-25, it is obvious that the complaints would have been filed with the President of the Public Service Commission, who reports to the President of the Treasury Board. That means that a minister would have dealt with the complaints. That was totally unacceptable.

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

Madam Speaker, the member touched on this, but something that is very clear is had there been a majority Liberal government, we would not have had this legislation now. I am not just saying maybe; it is clear that is the case. We know because in Bill C-25, the Liberals' first version of the bill, some of the major changes that have been made, such as having an independent office for whistleblowers to report to and many of the other changes, simply were not there. Even when they came back with Bill C-11, their second opportunity with the new minister, they still left that out. It was only in June, 24 hours after a member of the Conservative Party stood in the House and presented an ultimatum to the minister, that the minister agreed to have an independent office. Clearly, there was no intention on the part of the government. It was this committee, the opposition members, that made it happen.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, clause 3 in the bill authorizes by order in council that schedules can be amended by adding or deleting, for instance in schedule 1, any of the organizations listed, which include all the crown corporations. Some concern has been raised that the government could unilaterally eliminate some from the list. I do know that order in council changes to schedules to make additions or deletions are gazetted for public notice. As well, there are circumstances such as name changes or consolidations or when something is rolled into something else, when we have to have the ability to add or delete. I wonder if the member has a concern that the schedules to the bill could be amended.

I wish the member would also comment with regard to the fact that we had Bill C-25 in the last Parliament under another minister which came back in this Parliament as Bill C-11 under a new minister. The one difference was that this bill was sent to committee immediately after first reading. This gave the committee the latitude to change the bill in any way, shape or form. This is something which cannot be done if the committee receives the bill after second reading debate when general approval in principle has been received.

Would the member care to comment on whether or not the process of referring an important bill like this one to committee after first reading is the preferred route? At committee there is a lot of input and a lot of witnesses. Receiving the bill after first reading ensures that the input from all stakeholders is reflected in a good bill.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, first, I have the pleasure of speaking on Bill C-11. At the outset, I would like to thank my colleagues in the Bloc, my colleague from Repentigny and my colleague from Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, who sat in committee and who represented our political party. In conclusion, we came up with a bill which must still be improved, but which is a totally new bill with its 47 motions in amendment. In the final analysis, it gives us a fairly accurate and acceptable picture of what members of the public service want in order to be able to really do their job.

Everything boils down to a matter of confidence. Civil servants must have confidence in the system and in the processes so that they can make disclosures.

Allow me to fill you in somewhat as to the history of the bill. There was indeed consensus in the House of Commons. In committee, a motion was unanimously adopted for the tabling of motions in amendment and modification. This bill was thus completely changed.

On the other hand, the somewhat surprising element is that Bill C-11, which was tabled by this Liberal government, was tantamount to a carbon copy of Bill C-25, which was considered in the previous Parliament and which had received disparaging comments, among others, by representatives of the public service. Indeed, from the outset, they did not feel that they would trust the proposed process. The cornerstone was the intention to give to the president of Public Service Commission the power to receive complaints.

The president of the Public Service Commission is a civil servant himself and he answers to the government, namely to the president of the Treasury Board. It turns out that this was something else along the lines of the Ethics Counsellor, Howard Wilson—as people will recall—who answered to the Prime Minister and who reported to the Prime Minister on the goings-on among ministers.

Obviously, we did not want a repetition of that. After the Liberals came back as a minority government, one might have expected them to have at least grasped the importance of the promise to create whistleblower protection legislation. One might also have expected greater transparency, since the public service, as well as the other parties aspiring to be the party in power, in short, everyone during the election campaign wanted to support the public servants. Finally, the government again introduced Bill C-11, virtually a carbon copy of Bill C-25. Once again, it gave the President of the Public Service Commission the power to receive complaints. All, or virtually all, witnesses before the committee spoke out against this—I realize some will point out that there was one dissenting witness on that. Nevertheless, the vast majority of witnesses before the committee both this session and last criticized this situation and eventually the government came around to proposing an amendment.

The President of the Treasury Board tabled an amendment creating the position of public service integrity officer. So this position at last became that of an independent commissioner. The government backed the right side on something that had been proposed and defended by all opposition parties, the Bloc Québécois, the Conservatives and the NDP. Why? Purely and simply because it is a minority government and thus not in majority in committee. Those listening to us will find that easy to understand.

In a minority government, the opposition parties are in majority in committee. As a result, even if the government had not bowed to the obvious, the amendments would have been passed, not unanimously, but with a majority. The bill would therefore have ended up amended. If the government had not wanted amendments, it would not have tabled this bill. That was the other solution: not to table it. This would have run counter to all the government's campaign promises.

It is therefore a pleasure for me today to commend my colleague from Repentigny, my colleague from Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, and all the other opposition members on the committee from the Conservative Party and from the NDP, who stood their ground and got the message across to the Liberal minority government that if it did not come on side with them the bill would be amended regardless and the outcome would be the same.

The committee was unanimous. It is a pleasure today in the House to see all the members of all the parties shake hands and say that things are good. Yes, it is true, especially because there is a Liberal minority government. I hope that there will never again be a Liberal majority government. That is my wish. Obviously, we will see what happens in the next election, but that is still the reality. Why? Because I represent the riding of Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel. One part of my riding covers the Papineau region. I want to say hello to the people of Papineau, which is in the Outaouais region. I have one foot in the Outaouais and the other in the Laurentians. Sometimes, I get requests or complaints relating to the government. I want to give two examples, because I can attest to what is happening.

Somebody calls me in confidence and says that they do not wish to give their name. They say that they are a public servant. Immediately after the budget speech of March 31, on April 4—I looked in my agenda because I made a note of it—they say that in their department, they became aware of the purchase of computers by Public Works Canada before the deadline of March 31. It was a large purchase of several hundreds of computers. They ask me if I can do something. They ask me: “If I give you the name of the department, can you do something as a member of Parliament?” I want to look into it, make a request through the Access to information Act. The person than tells me that the computers have already been ordered. They are for new offices that have not been fitted out and when the new computers are installed, they will already be obsolete. This is how they described the situation. They know the situation well since they work in that department. I said to the person: “Listen, you must tell me what department it is.” I had to know. The problem the person had is that if they were to say what department it was, people would know who made the complaint. I want to be able to criticize, but it is difficult for me as a member of Parliament because public funds will be spent for nothing. Imagine, all I know is that computers were purchased by Public Works Canada for offices that have not been fitted out. You can understand that I examined all the requisition files. It is a huge budget. It was impossible for me to find a few hundred computers in the budget without knowing in what department to look.

A second example was provided to me by a journalist from the electronic media. If he is listening to me, he will know what I am referring to. He called to tell me about a situation that occurred just before the adjournment, at the end of June. A public servant had phoned to inform him that a lavish reception was taking place at a ritzy restaurant in the national capital region, at taxpayers' expense. He asked me what could be done about this. I told him, “Listen, it will be difficult to know what went on if we do not know which department is involved. With the date or the restaurant's name, something could be done”. Finally, the journalist called me back to say that he had contacted his source, but the person did not want to say which department was involved, because he did not attend the reception and managers will immediately know that he is the one who blew the whistle. That person did not want to participate. In the end, we never knew who was involved.

This is why we must have bills such as this one to help public servants who are prepared to disclose wrongdoings. The one who called me and the one who called the journalist were prepared to make such a disclosure. The problem was that they did not trust the protection process. That was clear, because there was no legislation such as today's bill. We must defend those who do not agree with these wrongdoings and who do not take part in them. Surely, these individuals must have told some people. They do not want to reveal their identity because they did not participate. For example, that person was not present at the department's lavish dinner. People probably knew why. That person did not agree with the way things were done. We hope that once this bill is adopted, those public servants who are prepared to disclose wrongdoings in the spending of public funds within the public service will feel safer with the process.

Once more I would like to thank my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois, the members for Repentigny and for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques and all my NDP, Conservative and Liberal colleagues who sat on that committee. The Liberals finally understood. Through political pressure, the opposition parties impressed upon the government the importance of bringing forth a bill allowing whistleblowers to deal with an independent commissioner who reports to the House of Commons, pointing out that, should problems arise, these people could call us and we would be proud to come and defend their position in the House.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Madam Speaker, after listening to members of the government here today, it is a whole lot of back-slapping about making Parliament work. Everything sounds great. It almost sounds like this was the Liberals' idea. For the record, people back home know better. If there was no ad scam, this bill would not be here and the government would never have reversed its course.

If there were no David Dingwall question right now, there would have been no reversal by the government in buckling to amendments. Two times the Liberals have introduced a woefully inadequate bill that exposes whistleblowers and does not protect them.

One of the critical areas where we are still vigilant about the bill moving forward is the idea that crown corporations could sort of be taken out of the scope or the protection of Bill C-11. I remember David Dingwall being the now former CEO of a crown corporation, the Royal Canadian Mint. Would something like this never have been exposed or moved forward? Is it not a problem that crown corporations or other agencies like that could arbitrarily be removed from the protection of Bill C-11 and whistleblowers then would not come forward, scandal would not be found out and government would not be cleaned up?

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

Madam Speaker, the simple answer is yes, flawed legislation was given back to us again, Bill C-25 in the last House and Bill C-11 this time. Not much has changed between the two. Witnesses were heard on Bill C-25 and, as I and the previous member stated, they said almost the same thing, which was that the legislation was fatally flawed and that there was enough wrong with it that we would be better off without the legislation than with legislation that had those flaws in it.

However what came back when this 38th Parliament came to work? It was Bill C-11 which said almost exactly the same things over again, things that had been testified about by the public sector employee unions and other whistleblowers from the past. It came forward with almost exactly the same recommendations in it.

Is that the government's answer? The government shows itself as a white knight after ad scam. It says that it will put forward whistleblowing legislation so that it will look like it is trying to clean up government. If the way to become a white knight is by putting forward flawed legislation that would put whistleblowers in more danger when they come forward, then the government wins the prize.

The government brought forward legislation that took the opposition groups to put it to together as a plausible piece of legislation and here we are today.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, in his presentation, my colleague described the situation and the pressure on the government to amend the bill. I would like to add that Bill C-11 is the continuation of Bill C-25, which had been introduced in the previous Parliament. As a consequence of the sponsorship scandal, the Liberal government wanted to redeem itself. Civil servants wanted to disclose information, but knew that they could not do so without being subject to reprisals. Thus, the bill was introduced but never passed, since an election was hastily called.

Nevertheless, Bill C-11 emerged during the election campaign. The Public Service Alliance of Canada clearly told the government and other politicians that the bill, as introduced, was inconsistent with the needs of civil servants. Indeed, there was no independent commissioner. The responsibility was given to the president of the Public Service Commission, who is a civil servant reporting to the government. Still, the government introduced Bill C-11 as a slightly modified copy of Bill C-25.

Will my colleague agree with this? Since the government was in the minority on the committee and since it was subject to pressure from the opposition parties, the Conservative Party, the Bloc Quebecois and the NDP, it was forced to amend the bill to make it acceptable. The bill could still be improved, but it is acceptable. Will my hon. colleague agree with this statement?

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to speak to Bill C-11 and talk about some of the work it took to get this bill where it is today. The previous speaker talked about the number of witnesses that came before the committee. Some of them had been before the previous session's committee on Bill C-25, which was also whistleblowing legislation.

Bill C-11 is an act to establish a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoings in the public sector, including the protection of persons who disclose the wrongdoings. If we could turn that into normal talk for people who are not in the public sector or work in the government, it simply means that when someone sees something wrong in their workplace, they can come forward and report it, and fear no reprisal for having done so.

In a perfect world, there would be no reason for this type of legislation. Public sector employees and all employees would come forward with suggestions and point out areas where their workplace could be a better place to work. Employers would always be open to those suggestions, open to the points being made by their employees that maybe a better way was there, a more legal way was there. In a perfect world there would never be a need for whistleblowing legislation. Welcome to a non-perfect world.

We do not live in a perfect world. We have had some examples of scandal in this government and in our public sector workplace that calls for the need for legislation such as Bill C-11. We need to have the ability to protect workers who come forward. I guess the granddaddy of them all are the brave employees who brought to the light of day the current advertising scandal that we are dealing with, the wrongdoing that was done, the money that was paid to advertising firms for no work being done, and the money then being in fact kickbacked to a governing party to use in elections.

These brave employees that came forward, so that this could be brought to the light of day today, are protected by Bill C-11. If we look back to the testimony given by public servants such as Mr. Cutler, one of the persons who brought forward the sponsorship scandal, he was being subjected to a reign of terror in his workplace after only doing what he thought was right. Employees should not be punished for doing what they think is right in their workplace.

We also have examples of mismanagement and scandal going back to the HRDC situation. The previous speaker mentioned problems at Health Canada, where employees hoping to protect the health and safety of Canadians came forward and said that they did not think this was right. They thought that they could protect Canadians if things were done differently. Were they given medals? Were they given certificates? Were they given any sort of accolades? No. They were sacked and sent home.

This is what we are trying to protect with Bill C-11. We are trying to make it so that it is an open place for an employee to come forward and yet not be reprised against or punished for doing so.

We have examples of the previous privacy commissioner's spending and travel habits coming to light through employees coming forward. We have examples of crown corporation executives with big spending habits, some of them being even very recent, that most Canadians find appalling. This spending was brought to light because employees are willing to come forward and say something.

With a background of the types of scandals that I have mentioned, it is not a wonder that Bill C-11 is needed. Bill C-11 was badly needed to help protect our public service workforce.

In committee many whistleblowers testified that they came forward not for reward. They did not come forward for spite. They came forward because it was the right thing to do. They felt someone should know what they saw occurring in their workplace. After the fact, almost every individual regretted doing it because of how they were dealt with. Initially, they came forward because it was the right thing to do.

We need Bill C-11 to protect employees from a government that believes behaviours of this type are acceptable. Our employees deserve better than that and this is why Bill C-11 can help. We as the Conservatives have always called for effective protection for public servants who expose corruption and we will continue to do so.

As was stated earlier today, this bill in its original form could have done more harm than good. It was fatally flawed when brought forward to the committee to work on. With the number of amendments that are now in place, the fatal flaws are out of it. Is it flawless? No, it is not, but the fatal flaws are gone.

There were some major reversals by the government. I believe the President of the Treasury Board admitted today that he had to listen to the committee about the structure of who whistleblowers would answer to. It was not an easy fight. He started off not wanting to listen, sure enough, but was forced at the end of the day, by unanimous representation by the witnesses, other than one, that it was the right thing to do, and so it was.

The bill still has some flaws, one being, what we have been calling today, the cover-up clause. We still see that departments can refuse to release information about internal disclosures of wrongdoing for up to five years. In our amendments, we moved that from 20 years to 5 years but nonetheless a department could still hold that information secret. The Conservative Party would like to see this provision completely removed, not just reduced from 20 years.

As was said earlier, it is very important that we protect the privacy of the people coming forward to disclose, and if in fact that is what this clause is for then I ask that we work harder to do so. If the protection of the identity of the discloser also protects the person who is committing the wrongdoing, then it is wrong and it needs to be fixed.

Another flaw, as I see it, is that cabinet or a governor in council can still add or remove government organizations and crown corporations from the list of employees who are covered by Bill C-11. We have been told that is not the case but I read the bill again today and it is still in there. They are saying that it would not be used for that, to trust them, that it would not be used to remove a crown corporation or a body of government from Bill C-11. They say that it is just there so that if they ever close down an organization, they could take that organization off the list.

It comes to mind that if that is the only reason that that clause is there and we end up having redundant organizations somewhere on a list, I would rather take that than risk the non-protection of an employee just because there seems to be a bit of a scandal brewing at crown corporation A and it could be put on the exclusion list so they would never have to deal with it. I would like the government not to have the opportunity for that out. I believe it is still there and the Conservative Party would like to see it removed. It is one of the flaws still left in this bill.

There are other areas of concern. We had witnesses before committee on Bill C-11 who talked about whether there should be rewards or some way of helping employees who have gone through the struggle of coming forward with whistleblowing. It could still be there but it is not yet in there. It also is not stated yet in the legislation what the punishments or further punishments may be for committing a reprisal against a whistleblower.

As I said, most of the whistleblowers we had before committee came forward just through the goodness of their hearts. They came forward because they felt it was the right thing to do and then there were reprisals against them. Certainly the ultimate punishment for someone who commits a reprisal is termination but there are even times when simply terminating the supervisor or manager who committed the reprisal against the employee may not be enough. There may need to be some more punishment besides that. The commissioner should have the power to do this.

In conclusion, we would like to celebrate Bill C-11 in the areas in which it shines. Because of pressure from opposition parties and the Conservative Party, the bill now includes an independent commissioner reporting to Parliament. It is something everybody asked for, except for one witness. It is great to have it in there. Of course, we had to convince the President of the Treasury Board that it was the right thing to do.

The inclusion in the bill of the RCMP for coverage was something we in the Conservative Party had to fight for very hard. We think there are people missing from protection but the RCMP are still in there.

The last one is that there would be a review of the bill in five years. That is positive if in five years we find it has been working and people have been coming forward to disclose wrongdoing in the workplace. Let us hope that in five years we have not found other flaws in the bill.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Madam Speaker, I think that the member is absolutely right. What we have seen is the fact that a minority Parliament can actually produce results and it was only because it was a minority Parliament did we get the kind of legislation that is actually going to protect whistleblowers in Canada.

I also appreciate the fact that revisiting legislation time after time without results is counterproductive. We always talk about efficiency, productivity, transparency and using our resources appropriately, yet when we keep resurfacing bills without getting on with them, it does not speak to anything that is efficient or a good use of resources.

Transparency is a really important aspect of this and I did not get a chance to talk about a 1996 report that Health Canada commissioned. If we want to talk about transparency and repeat business, Health Canada commissioned a report in 1996 on silicon gel breast implants that still has not seen the light of day. I hope we get more action on Bill C-11 than we have in previous bills.

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

Madam Speaker, the member did go at length into some of the testimony that was heard before the committee on Bill C-11. There was almost a year's worth of testimony to get us to the number of amendments we have today. If we look back to the last session of Parliament, Bill C-25 was there and almost word for word the same testimony was given by the same health department officials or the same representative organizations that the member spoke of early in her remarks. Those witnesses gave almost exactly the same type of testimony about what they would be looking for in whistleblowing legislation and yet the legislation that was brought forward was called by them, during some of their testimony at committee for Bill C-11, as fatally flawed, as being worse than not having it.

The government brought forward legislation that had to be amended. I agree that we have some very good amendments now. Does the member believe that if we were not sitting in a minority Parliament right now, that Bill C-11 would not look anything like it does?

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to start by acknowledging the good work the committee has done on this very important piece of legislation. In particular, I want to acknowledge the dedication and commitment that my colleague from Winnipeg Centre has shown in regard to the bill over a number of months.

I want to speak a little about the context for this bill. A number of other members have spoken about the technical aspects of it, but I want to remind the House of why this legislation is so important to people who perform good public service in our country. Most public servants are dedicated, committed, hard-working people and they want to be able to perform their duties with a level of integrity that is recognized and rewarded through recognition of the good work.

I want to first refer to the submission to the committee made by the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada in April. I think it outlines why this is such an important piece of legislation. The introduction states:

Many of our members, through their licensing bodies and professional organizations, adhere to strict codes of ethics and must bring to light unethical practices in their everyday work. Their commitment to high standards of practice and professionalism protects the efficacy and integrity of government programs and instills the confidence of Canadians. These admirable characteristics mean that it is our members who are most vulnerable when things go wrong. It means that they must have strong and effective legislation to protect them, their careers, and their families.

Strong and effective whistle-blowing legislation not only serves our members and employees throughout the broader public service but the Canadian people by protecting programs and safeguarding the trust they place in their government.

This is an important statement because of the fact that we have seen a number of things over the last couple of years which have really undermined the confidence of the Canadian people, both in their government and their public service. I think it behooves us to remember that most public servants do operate from a place of integrity and that they are very concerned with making sure there is legislation in place to protect them when they want to bring to light the things they see as important for a broader discussion in the Canadian public.

As well, the Canadian Labour Congress also did a presentation to the committee in April. Its members talked about some things which I think we do not normally consider when we are talking about whistleblowers.

The CLC report stated that disclosing wrongdoing is an extraordinarily courageous act on the part of an individual worker who is exposing the wrongdoing of people who have power over them in the workplace, power backed up with immense resources of a huge institution. Speaking the truth about wrongdoing is done with the knowledge that this may have serious implications for the one making the disclosure as well as for the person or persons involved in the wrongdoing if so proven. It is not a decision taken lightly.

I am going to talk in a couple of minutes about what has happened to some of our whistleblowers in Canada and the extraordinary courage they have demonstrated in risking their jobs and their homes in bringing forward issues.

From the same Canadian Labour Congress report, I want to quote a couple of numbers because I think they also signify how important it is that we do protect our workers. A United States study talks about the potential for harmful consequences. This was highlighted in the October 2004 edition of Policy Options , in which Donald C. Rowat highlighted a research study undertaken in the United States on the fate of whistleblowers before the U.S. disclosure law was strengthened.

Of 161 workers who made a wrongdoing disclosure, 62% lost their jobs,18% were harassed or transferred, including being subject to isolation tactics and character assassination, and 13% had their responsibilities or salaries reduced. Many experienced mental breakdown and family breakup. These are high prices to pay.

The willingness to take such high risk points to the integrity, personal strength and commitment to the public of workers who disclose wrongdoing. I think that talks about the tremendous courage they have. Many whistleblowers go into this with their eyes wide open. They understand that when they step forward there will be repercussions for them. That is why this piece of legislation is absolutely critical.

One of the members previously highlighted clause 8 of the bill which talks about wrongdoing. I am going to specifically refer to subclause 8(d) that talks about an act or omission that creates a substantial and specific danger to the life, health or safety of persons or to the environment other than a danger that is inherent in the performance of the duties or functions of a public servant.

This brings me specifically to two cases of whistleblowing within Health Canada. These people came forward because they were concerned about the health and safety of Canadians.

The first whistleblower I want to refer to is a man by the name of Pierre Blais, who was fired a number of years ago by Health Canada when he consistently raised concerns about silicone gel breast implants. He wrote memos about this issue. He looked at reports that talked about some grave concerns about the safety of silicone gel breast implants. This man lost his job with Health Canada. However, he has continued to be a very outspoken person on this issue. He recently appeared before a Health Canada panel examining whether silicone gel breast implants should be re-licensed.

It is a major concern when somebody loses his job because he dared to buck the thought of the day when all he was doing was trying to protect the health and safety, and welfare of Canadians. It is shameful that people who speak up lose their employment.

I am now going to talk about three other very famous whistleblowers in Canada. I am going to read a bit from a press release from The Scientist of May 2005 that talked about these Canadian whistleblowers winning their review. It stated:

Three Health Canada scientists who say they were fired for raising questions about the way that the agency approves veterinary drugs have won another round in their years-long battle in their campaign for reinstatement.

I want to draw to the House's attention the fact that it was a “years-long battle”. These three whistleblowers have been struggling for years to get some recognition that they were wrongfully dismissed and the toll it has taken on their health and on their families is tremendous. The article went on to say:

The Federal Court quietly released a decision on April 29 ordering the public service integrity officer to reconsider complaints from Shiv Chopra, Margaret Haydon, and Gerard Lambert that they, and the late Cris Bassude, had been pressured—and then sacked—for speaking out about the dangers of mad cow disease and about the use of hormones and antibiotics in the food supply, particularly the use of bovine growth hormones.

These dedicated people were speaking up about BGH, bovine growth hormone, and mad cow disease. One of these individuals is now unfortunately deceased, but the other three dedicated people lost their jobs. They courageously put their jobs on the line to bring these issues to the public's attention. They continue to be harassed and chased around in court, and cannot get this issue resolved. Presumably whistleblower legislation would protect people from having this kind of thing go on.

I want to quote another paragraph from The Scientist of May 4, 2005 because it shows how ineffective we have been in the past in dealing with these kinds of issues. The article stated:

The Public Service Integrity Office (PSIO) was created in 2001 to provide “public service employees with an independent and neutral external review of disclosures of wrongdoing in the workplace”. Its mandate includes ensuring “that an employee who makes a good-faith disclosure is protected from job reprisal”.

We know how effective that organization was because it did not protect those four workers from job reprisals. Public Service Labour Relations Board hearings have been held and government lawyers have been involved. This has been going on for a long time.

I want people to understand the impact of this on people's lives. As mentioned in the article, Shiv Chopra was one of the people involved and he said that he currently has no income and had to sell his home in order to survive. Whistleblowers, people who courageously come forward to expose wrongdoings to protect the health and welfare of Canadians, should not at this stage in their lives not only lose their careers but lose their home as well.

I look forward to the rapid passage of Bill C-11. I encourage all members to support this legislation. Let us protect our public servants, so that they do not have to face the kind of situation that these Health Canada employees faced.

[Marc Godbout, Liberal, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a great privilege to speak today on behalf of the amended Bill C-11, the proposed Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act.

I would like to add my voice to those of my other hon. colleagues, and commend the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates for its excellent work on Bill C-11. We could almost talk about a collective will to achieve something that may not be perfect but that has been greatly improved over the original version, which had been under consideration for a number of years. This collective will was also determined to have this Parliament adopt this legislation as soon as possible.

I do not want to spend a lot of time walking through the history of this bill, but I do want to remind hon. members that indeed it has a long history, one that goes back to the Sub-Committee on Whistleblowing of the government operations and estimates committee in 2003.

Bill C-11 is an evolution of a previous disclosure bill that received much input and debate, but which did not progress through Parliament due to the election call in the spring of 2004. And the bill that is before us today is an amended and, I would add, improved version of the Bill C-11 we saw at first reading. In other words, the disclosure bill has been the subject of intense scrutiny and consideration in the House and in committee. Involving all sides of the House and dozens of witnesses, debate over what Canada's disclosure legislation should look like was long, open and fruitful. The bill we have arrived at is the product of that debate.

I also want to underline to hon. members that if and when the bill is passed, our involvement in this disclosure legislation will not end. Hon. members will hear more over the coming months and years about various elements of the bill and will have a role in how many of them play out. We will still have the opportunity and the responsibility to keep tabs on how the legislation is being implemented. Let me explain.

As other hon. members have noted, the proposed public servant disclosure protection act requires the Treasury Board to establish, in consultation with employee unions and bargaining agents, a code of conduct for the public sector. The importance of this code cannot be underestimated as a serious breach of the code is considered a wrongdoing under the act. Once the code has been developed, it will be tabled in each House at least 30 days before it comes into force. Parliamentarians will have the opportunity to review the code of conduct before it comes into force.

In addition, if the bill passes, a public sector integrity commissioner will need to be selected and appointed. I must say that we had a thorough discussion on that very subject. We had many representations to that effect and all parties agreed to submit the amendment to the House.

The appointment is approved by the House and the Senate and thus parliamentarians would have a participatory role in the process of selecting the right candidate for this very important position.

As an officer of Parliament reporting to Parliament, the proposed new public sector integrity commissioner will report directly to Parliament, that is, to hon. members of the House as well as the other chamber. The commissioner will be accountable not to a minister, but to us in this House.

The commissioner would report annually to the House on the disclosure investigations undertaken during the year and on any related issues of concern. The annual report would be reviewed in committee. In addition, the proposed public sector integrity commissioner would be free to make special reports to this and the other chamber, at any time, on any subject related to his or her mandate.

Unfortunately, I will not have enough time to get into some very important clauses of Bill C-11. Just the same, I would like to call to the attention of members clause 8, which defines wrongdoings. The standing committee took a lot of time and heard many witnesses to develop the most accurate definition possible of what could represent a wrongdoing.

Obviously, it does not cover all government activities. But I think that we kept the definition short to prevent diluting the legislation per se, had we gone into too many details.

Hon. members should take a look at clause 20 as well. I personally met with representatives of the Public Service Alliance of Canada on many occasions on this topic, to ensure that this legislation, Bill C-11, protects whistleblowers. There have been problems in the past. We consulted other jurisdictions and other countries. What we have now may not be perfect, but we can take the next five years to examine, as other members said, how the legislation has worked and make changes as required. What is really important is that those of our civil servants who do disclose wrongdoings have the full protection of the law.

And what about the independence of the commissioner who will be reporting directly to Parliament? Once again, this was a request from our civil servants, which we understood well. I was pleased to see the government amendment in this respect, which will be part of the consideration of the bill by this House.

Finally, the bill also requires a review of the proposed act five years after its implementation. The proposed legislation specifies that an independent review of the act, its administration and its operation must be undertaken and the review presented to Parliament. This will allow Parliament to assess how well the legislation has worked, whether there have been unintended consequences and whether any changes need to be made.

I raise these issues to impress upon hon. members that Bill C-11 has evolved through the hard work, input and expertise of many individuals and organizations over the past few years. The result, in my view, is that the amended bill has met the government's goal of being the best bill it can be.

At the same time, if the bill passes—and I sincerely hope it does—we in this House will still have an important role, to ensure that it is implemented well and that it lives up to its potential.

We will have the responsibility for exercising an ongoing thoughtful and responsive role towards the commissioner.

We will also have the ongoing responsibility to ensure that this legislation supports federal public sector employees, today and into the future, to play their important role in supporting ministers, under law, and to serve the public interest.

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I meant to say that we will try to amend the bill even further to ensure that it is in the best interests of the Canadian people.

With respect to the cabinet, let me say this. Cabinet can arbitrarily remove several government bodies from the protection of Bill C-11. They are listed in the schedule to the bill. To suggest that everybody is included absolutely is not accurate. In fact, they include the Bank of Canada, the Public Service Pension Commission and the CPP Commission. There are bodies that cabinet can exclude. They are listed in a schedule to the bill. I advise the member to get a copy and read it.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to help the member correct the record.

Bill C-11 was referred to committee after first reading. It has already been there. The member maybe misspoke himself with regard to that.

The other matter he raised was with regard to crown corporations. All crown corporations and agencies are subject to this bill. The only exclusions whatsoever with regard to Bill C-11 are the military and CSIS.

Unfortunately, the member is not on the committee and has not had an opportunity to read the bill, but I want to assure him that Bill C-11 had the unanimous support of all parties at committee. We worked very hard to make Bill C-11 a good piece of legislation. Hopefully, now that we are at report stage and second reading, it will pass this place very quickly on behalf of all public servants and Canadians.

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-11, the whistleblower protection.

I speak with some trepidation on the bill. I have not been here quite as long as Mr. Speaker. However, some of the stories I have heard over the last eight years about the abuses in some departments leaves something to be desired. I will get into some specific examples of the culture that has permeated within the Liberal Party, which is quite shocking and appalling.

Before I do that, I would like to acknowledge the Conservative member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry. He took a bill which we could not support and, through a lot of hard work, he managed to get enough amendments so there will be some meaningful aspects to the whistleblower protection.

In its first form from the Liberal government, the whistleblower's report would go to cabinet or the minister. Now it comes to Parliament. There have been some meaningful amendments that will allow us to at least support it and send it off to committee.

Again, I do this with a certain amount of skepticism. I will explain why. I will give an example which is not exactly about whistleblower protection, but it has all the elements of what that party has created.

I have been working on a file in my riding for a number of years. It is called the JDS tax file. This situation is where hundreds of employees were wrongfully taxed on a phantom income of which they never saw one thin dime. It has been in the media and the news nationally. For a long time it has been in the local news.

It was incomprehensible. Some of these people were facing tax bills of $200,000 or $300,000 on what I call a phantom income. These people never saw this income, yet Revenue Canada was aggressively pursuing them. They were desperate. They came to see me. We took up their cause and we worked on this for a number of years. This goes back to when the current Prime Minister was then the minister of finance. We had numerous meetings with him as the minister of finance and some of his staff members, such as Karl Littler. We were close to a solution.

All this time these people were hanging on to a glimmer of hope, a thread that this could possibly be solved and they would not be put into financial ruin.

As the story unfolded, we had lots of promises and empty rhetoric, but then we got into the last election. During the last election some of these people had an opportunity to speak directly to the Prime Minister, one on one with cameras rolling. This is all a matter of public record. The Prime Minister was fully aware of the file because he had met with me on at least two or three occasions. He knew that they were tax people. He said that they would fix it, that he had told Ralph to take care of it. They got passed off from one minister to another minister. It was a very frustrating time for these people. I will get to the element of the whistleblower protection.

I shake my head in disbelief that the government would do this. I have to question its sincerity and genuineness in this.

Numerous promises to fix this situation are on the public record. There were numerous meetings with other members of Parliament. The member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca apparently became involved. Privately and on the radio he told these people that he had an agreement in place, that a deal had been struck and that their problems were solved. Then all that fell apart, and these families face financial ruin.

To add insult to injury, one family in particular, the Woods family, has been very vocal. They have been in the media. They have been telling their story. They are not being partisan. They are not on one political side or the other. They are telling their story about how they have been treated by Revenue Canada and how no one on the government has listened to their concerns.

They were frustrated beyond our wildest imaginations. Everything they worked for was on the line. This went on for three or four years. The government kept dangling carrots in front of them that it was going to resolve the matter, that a solution was imminent. We heard language from the Prime Minister's staff that they had advised Revenue Canada to cut the motor on these files. The member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca would tell them that a deal had been struck that they would only be paying pennies on the dollar. This file has been going on for three or four years. What did the government have the gall to do?

The family that spoke up, the family that was in the media trying to get the public's attention, the Liberal government punished them the harshest. The ones who were silent and were not out in the media—I do not think were treated fairly at all; they should never have been paying taxes in the first place—did not have to pay the back interest. Some of them paid 80¢ on the dollar, some paid 60¢ on the dollar, but all of the ones who never spoke up virtually did not have to pay the full amount. The families that spoke out, the whistleblowers, the families that went public, the government berated them and charged them back interest.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of cooperation the committee to a large extent tried to avoid that type of invective. I believe the plans were on the books to bring this type of legislation forward. I feel very proud to have been part of a government that did that. The fact that we managed to do that in a minority situation confirms that we expect the same attitude to prevail and we hope for unanimous passage of Bill C-11.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I too am pleased to speak on behalf of Bill C-11. I appreciate the hon. member's amendment because it sets the tone for just how conducive and cooperative the passage of this was through the committee stages.

As previous members have already explained, the government operations and estimates committee worked hard to strengthen the so-called whistleblowing legislation to ensure it would meet the needs of public service employees today and into the future. I would like to provide a few more details on the amendments that have been made.

As has been noted, the biggest issue raised in the committee's hearings was the designation of the President of the Public Service Commission as the neutral third party. She explained the committee's position and the resulting commitment of the government to propose a new independent officer of Parliament as a neutral third party for disclosures.

I applaud the committee, the witnesses who appeared and the government. This is truly a demonstration of what democracy can achieve if there is goodwill.

The work of the committee was not done with this one change. The committee and the government proposed several additional amendments to further strengthen the bill during the clause by clause review. Some hon. members have mentioned a few of these and I would like to talk a bit more about them.

The RCMP was initially excluded from the bill due to the unique and specialized nature of its operations and concerns about information security, though it would have had to establish similar disclosure regimes for its members and employees. It now explicitly is included in the bill and the committee received appropriate kudos from those parties.

In addition, other amendments were made to broaden the bill. For example, the definition of wrongdoing now includes any activity in or relating to the public sector, regardless of who carries it out. It is not restricted to an activity carried out by a public servant. As well, the proposed public sector integrity commissioner would have the discretion to undertake an investigation on the basis of information received, not only from public service employees, but also from outside the public sector.

Another amendment makes it clear that a public servant can disclose any information he or she believes could show that a wrongdoing has been or is about to be committed, or that a public servant has been asked to commit a wrongdoing. In other words, the bill requires less certainty in the mind of a public servant about a potential wrongdoing before he or she can disclose information about it. These amendments significantly enlarge the scope of the bill.

Other amendments strengthen the protection of public servants making disclosures. For example, the bill would allow for providing temporary assignments to persons making disclosures or persons who have been the target of reprisals.

The bill had required the Treasury Board to establish a public sector-wide code of conduct and indicated that organizations could also establish their own complementary codes. An amendment during the clause by clause review now makes it obligatory, not optional, that organizations establish their own codes of conduct.

Though the committee adopted several additional amendments, time limits me to mentioning just one more set. In order to reflect the positive spirit of the bill that the committee was trying to achieve, the French version replaced the more pejorative “dénonciation” and “dénonciateur” with “divulgation” and “divulgateur”. This reflects our belief that disclosing information that could indicate a wrongdoing is an honourable thing to do.

As well, the definition of a protected disclosure has been changed from one that “is not frivolous, vexatious or made in bad faith”. That has been changed to one that is made in “good faith”. These wording amendments may seem minor, but the change of a few words has captured the positive light in which the committee and the government view the proposed legislation and the positive way in which they would like Canadians to understand and support its objectives.

I also would like to offer my thanks to those who took the time to appear before the committee and to the committee itself for working so diligently and cooperatively. The bill will create a positive public sector environment that will support public servants in playing their important role in serving Canadians and the public interest.

The goal was to create a strong and efficient mechanism for disclosures, one that was broad, flexible and fair. I believe this goal will meet every potential situation.

We must remember that we did not start from zero. There was a Treasury Board policy on disclosures that had served well since it was put in place in late 2001, and it was effective. However, enshrining disclosure protection in legislation is a significant step forward.

Because of the amendments, of which I spoke, it does three main things. It sets out a very broad range of circumstances in which a disclosure investigation can be launched. It includes measures to give federal public servant sector employees confidence to come forward. It promotes and supports ethical behaviour throughout the federal public sector.

A key feature involves protecting employees from reprisal. To embellish this, they include strong confidentiality provisions to protect the identity of the person making a disclosure, reasonable time to register a complaint of reprisals, provisions for the temporary assignment of employees affected by a disclosure case and the option to make reprisal complaints to labour boards that have the authority to make orders to remedy the situation. All these are aimed at giving public servants more confidence to come forward.

The fact that it is an officer of Parliament as a neutral third party is also something quite positive. It has been mentioned and spoken about by other hon. members, but I would like one thing to be emphasized. The bill makes it very clear that public servants have the option to make disclosures directly to the proposed new public sector integrity commissioner. Using this option to use an internal disclosure mechanism, I believe is something extremely positive. There are a few other examples that we could use, but the existence of these two avenues reflects the bill's third main thrust and its overall larger purpose of building a positive environment.

The bill as it exists will ensure that what may be small matters now do not have the opportunity to grow into major situations.

With all of these in view, the codes, the values for our public servants and the fact that they exist in a vast majority of honest and committed public servants, they know they can help not only Canadians but each and every one of us as legislators. I am proud to have been part of this and to have worked with members of the committee and the government. I am proud of having had the opportunity to learn from the presenters.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I think that you would find unanimous consent to amend a section of the bill. The amendment would read as follows:

That Bill C-11, in Clause 21, be amended by replacing, in the French version, line 22 on page 12 with the following: “fait l'objet de représailles pour avoir divulgué de”.

And that is all. That will correct a concordance omission in the present text of the bill. It will simply replace the word “dénoncé” with the word “divulgué” as in the rest of the bill. I think that you will find unanimous consent to approve that amendment

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to say just how proud I am to have taken part, as a member of the Standing Committee on Governmental Operations and Estimates, in the consideration of Bill C-11. This consideration has led to significant changes to this bill, thereby greatly improving it.

Having sat in on the committee hearings, essentially from the fall of 2004 until the last day the House sat before the summer recess, I can say that the legislation has been studied extensively. As a first term MP, I was very pleased to see how a committee could achieve concrete, significant results when members operate and act in a constructive non-partisan manner to make legislation better for all Canadians and, in this case, also for the subset of Canadians who are important to us as elected representatives, namely the public servants of Canada.

The bill is very important, not only in a practical sense, but also because it would implement an important principle in the relationship between elected officials, especially those in the executive branch, and public servants.

Having worked closely with public servants over the course of my career here in Ottawa, even before I was elected, in my capacity as a parliamentary assistant to my predecessor, I can attest that Canada's pubic servants are extremely dedicated and work very hard. They are motivated essentially by their desire to contribute to this country. Their role is to offer the elected executive branch the expert and objective advice that it requires in order to implement the programs it was elected to implement. The public servants of Canada do an admirable job in providing that expert and objective advice.

However it is very important that governments in general return the loyalty that they demand and require of public servants. What that means in this context is that it is very important for the government to provide public servants with a legitimate avenue for raising flags about things like illegal activity within the public service and with respect to gross mismanagement, as my hon. colleague across the way mentioned when he listed those things that constitute a wrongdoing. One of the definitions of wrongdoing is gross mismanagement.

Bill C-11 would provide public servants with an opportunity to air and make known problems of wrongdoing that they encounter without, as in the past, having to go to other politicians in a surreptitious manner or by providing a brown envelope to a journalist. That is not the way things should be done. Public servants would now a legitimate channel to bring wrongdoings to the attention of those who could do something about them.

First, one of the amendments adopted by the committee bears mentioning because, although it was more of a symbolic change, it was important nonetheless.

In other words, the committee amended the title of the bill. Once again, this was a symbolic but important gesture that set a positive tone for the bill and for the disclosure of wrongdoing within the public service.

Initially, the French title of the bill included the words “dénonciation” and “dénonciateurs”. These words do not have positive connotations; indeed, they are rather pejorative. So the committee substituted the words “divulgation” and “divulgateurs”.

Second, the committee reversed the onus with regard to disclosure. The onus is no longer on those who disclose wrongdoing to provide absolute proof that they are not acting out of bad faith or making frivolous or vexatious disclosures. Persons who disclose wrongdoing will simply have to demonstrate that they are acting in good faith. In my opinion, this is a significant improvement in the bill.

Third—we have already heard this, but I want to take this opportunity to repeat it—the original bill gave the Public Service Commission, meaning the organization responsible for federal human resources, the responsibility to investigate complaints about wrongdoing within the federal bureaucracy. However, numerous witnesses expressed serious reservations about giving this role to a government agency that has such close ties with senior public servants and, ultimately, cabinet. The witnesses said that the commission was not sufficiently independent from the executive branch to ensure that all complaints would receive due process.

The government has responded by committing to appointing an independent commissioner who answers directly to Parliament, and not to cabinet through the Public Service Commission.

I would like to take this opportunity to give credit not only to the committee for pushing for this amendment, but also to the President of the Treasury Board, the minister responsible for this legislation, who is someone, based on my experience, who has a real interest in the structures and machinery of government and a real desire to make things work better. I believe he listened to the evidence that was brought to his attention through the committee, evidence provided by public servants, lawyers, the Information Commissioner, the Privacy Commissioner and experts from other countries who came to speak to the committee to give their opinions about how we were going about protecting whistleblowers. A great deal of credit should be given to the minister and the committee members for making this happen. It was not in the original bill and it is crucial to the bill operating as it should.

I would like to mention another interesting and significant amendment. It may not seem to be so at the moment but I believe it is significant because it sets a precedent and opens up a future debate on the issue of government entities that are involved in security matters. We are talking about the RCMP, the armed forces and CSIS specifically.

The original bill did not cover any of those entities and there were rational, reasonable reasons why this was the case, namely, that these organizations are very different from other government departments and organizations because they deal with security matters. On the issue of sensitive information, even when we are talking about the armed forces, it would not necessarily be a good thing if a superior was not aware of a complaint against him or her, and he or she was going into battle with somebody who had lodged a complaint against them. It is a very different situation that exists within an organization like the armed forces, but the committee heard some very compelling testimony from someone who had been within the RCMP and whose attempts to bring a situation to light had been difficult and had met with resistance and in fact his career had suffered as a result.

When we are talking about the RCMP, it is an important security force but we are not talking about armed conflict or about the armed forces. We are not talking about the same kinds of national security concerns that maybe CSIS deals with. The committee thought this was a good test case to see if having the RCMP subjected to this soon to be law, Bill C-11, might work, and if it does work and it is effective, then in the future, perhaps in five years when the bill is reviewed, we could include or try to include other organizations like the armed forces and CSIS.

This bill has been a big step in the right direction and we should follow its success closely over the years to come so we can improve it again in five years.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member certainly does raise an interesting question about the two exclusions, being the military and CSIS. I would commend the transcripts of the committee discussion on that matter as the member is experienced and does know that there are protocols that exist.

One of the things that is extremely important for the member to understand is that even though the military and CSIS may be excluded from the bill specifically, we have to be satisfied that their own protocols and internal codes of conduct and investigations meet the standard and values that have been laid out in the whistleblower legislation, Bill C-11.

I know that it is a little bit disconcerting that employees, say in the administrative and some minor operational roles, may not have the access to the new commissioner, but they do have mechanisms that would assist them. I thank the member for raising it, but the committee was concerned about the security issues related to those two areas.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that my hon. colleague feels that the bill still does not go far enough. However, I would just like him to realize that we started off with Bill C-25, which then became Bill C-11, and the changes that were made in committee, the 47 amendments brought forward by the government as unanimously recommended by the committee. We have had to consider what had been done. This is therefore a very significant change, compared to Bill C-25 in the last Parliament and the initial version of Bill C-11.

I would like the hon. member to describe the context, because we have to understand that the Liberal Party introduced Bill C-25, the predecessor of Bill C-11, in the midst of the turmoil caused by the sponsorship scandal. In fact, it introduced legislation to get good press before calling an election. That is what happened. In the end, it became obvious that the disclosure legislation was not creating an independent integrity commissioner, as recommended in the amendments approved by all parties. I acknowledge the excellent work done by our colleague from the Bloc Québécois, the hon. member for Repentigny. All our colleagues on the committee have managed to agree on a pretty decent bill.

I realize that, for my colleague from the Conservative Party, the bill still does not go far enough. Yet, the committee has taken it one step further. Pressure by opposition parties has transformed a bill that was simply smoke and mirrors when it was first introduced by the Liberal government. I would like to hear the hon. member on how the Liberal Party was able, before the election, to use smoke and mirrors and introduce bills C-25 and C-11, which did not really offer much protection at all. As my hon. colleague said, they could even do more harm than good to whistleblowers. How is it then that we now have a bill that was improved by the opposition parties, namely the Conservative Party, our party, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP?l

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Lanark, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-11, an act to establish a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoings in the public sector, including the protection of persons who disclose the wrongdoings.

This is a very important piece of legislation that deals with an issue at the heart of our parliamentary democracy.

A government press release issued on the same day that Bill C-11 was introduced noted that the bill is an important part of the federal government's broader commitment to ensure transparency, accountability, financial responsibility and ethical conduct in the public sector.

With a long list of deplorable examples of government waste and mismanagement like Ms. Stewart, Mr. Radwanski, the motley crew involved in the sponsorship scandal, and the latest, Mr. Dingwall, how can anyone believe that the Liberals are seriously committed to providing real protection for whistleblowers who might expose the misconducts of their cronies?

In the 1993 election campaign, the Liberal Party promised whistleblower legislation in a letter to the Public Service Alliance of Canada. Twelve years later public sector workers are still waiting for legislation that will thoroughly protect them.

My riding of Carleton—Mississippi Mills is home to thousands of public sector employees who work all over the National Capital Region and who, to this day, remain vulnerable to reprisals from their employers should they speak out and reveal wrongdoings in their workplace. Whistleblowers play an invaluable role in cleansing our institutions of rot and corruption and we should be encouraging not discouraging them from coming forward with information.

Donald C. Rowat, professor emeritus of political science at Carleton University, an expert on whistleblower laws, stated that whistleblowers should have strong protection for two main reasons. First, if they detect wrongdoing and reveal it publicly, their accused superiors are almost sure to take vigorous retaliatory action against them. Second, if they do not reveal the wrongdoing for fear of retaliation, it may never be revealed and the public interest will seriously suffer.

Having worked inside a large government organization, I know that the potential whistleblower's fear of retaliation is well founded because nearly always, those accused of wrongdoing are higher in the organization. They can easily take action against their whistleblowing subordinates. Because there is a tendency in any organization to protect its reputation by denying any wrongdoing, it normally closes ranks and ignores or even supports the retaliatory action.

Just remember the code we learned as school children, that we do not rat on people. Those who ratted were disdained by their friends. It is no different in the adult world. The individual must bravely go against the powerful organization.

As we know, in nearly every case the whistleblower ends up losing his or her job or suffering some other form of retaliation or both. It takes real fortitude and integrity to be a whistleblower. If we already had effective whistleblower legislation, how many cases of waste, mismanagement and wrongdoing would have been remedied and how many taxpayers' dollars would have been saved?

Professor Rowat noted in his comments on whistleblower legislation that the federal government appointed a public service integrity officer in November 2001 who was supposed to investigate whistleblower allegations of wrongdoing. However, because he was appointed by the government under the policy issued by the Treasury Board, instead of a law passed by Parliament, his powers of protection were weak. He is not independent of the government and does not have the power to make binding decisions or to publicize wrongdoing.

As a result his office has been criticized as feeble and toothless based on a policy of internal rather than public disclosure. In a recent annual report he has admitted that potential whistleblowers' fear of retaliation are so great that very few come forward. Most of the complaints he has received involve personal employment grievances rather than the misdeeds of senior bureaucrats.

The professor went on to say that the provisions to protect whistleblowers in Bill C-25, the predecessor to Bill C-11, were inadequate. Anonymity was not guaranteed and the bill provided no fines or sanctions against employers who retaliated, no financial or other compensation for blatant retaliation, and no rewards for whistleblowers who save taxpayers' money as laws elsewhere have done.

Former Privy Council President Coderre claimed that the bill struck a balance between encouraging public servants to report wrongdoing and protecting against disgruntled employees with an axe to grind. This reveals that he was not clear on the concept. He picked the wrong balance.

Protection against disgruntled employees is a minor problem. The real problem is the protection of whistleblowers. The law must strike a balance between the vast power of the bureaucracy and the weakness of potential whistleblowers by providing enough protection and incentive for them to be willing to risk the wrath of superiors.

Whistleblowers are employees who exercise freedom of expression rights to challenge institutional abuses of power or illegality that harm or threaten the public interest. Whistleblowers are often the best qualified, the brightest, as well as those employees most committed to the longevity of the organization. It is this loyalty that in fact causes them to risk everything in speaking out. They represent the highest ideals of public service and loyalty to the long term interests and sustainability of the organization.

In its original form Bill C-11 would have done more harm than good to whistleblowers. Thanks to a lot of hard work by Conservatives in committee and some major reversals by the government, we now believe the opposite to be true.

The bill originally required whistleblowers to report to the president of the Public Service Commission, who is not independent. Thanks to pressure from the Conservative Party, the government has tabled amendments to create an independent commissioner to hear and investigate disclosures of wrongdoing. He will report to Parliament.

However, the bill remains flawed. The Conservative Party moved several other amendments that were rejected by other parties in committee. Conservatives are not the only ones who find this disheartening. As Ms. Nycole Turmel, national president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, noted in her appearance before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates last year, “the government's reluctance to go the distance and get it right is more than a little disquieting”. Conservatives still feel that these changes should be made, and if the bill were to pass, we would make these changes when we form the government after the next election.

The bill does not prohibit reprisals against those who make disclosures of wrongdoing to the public, the media, the police, the Auditor General, the Information Commissioner or anyone outside the narrow process prescribed by the bill. A Conservative government would protect all whistleblowers.

Bill C-11 changes the Access to Information Act to allow departments to refuse to release information about internal disclosures of wrongdoing for five years. This was originally 20 years, but was amended in committee. The Conservative Party would like to see this provision removed completely and the Information Commissioner agrees. If this provision had been in effect at the time, taxpayers would still not know that their money had been siphoned off from the sponsorship program and funnelled into the Liberal Party.

Cabinet can arbitrarily remove several government bodies from the protection of Bill C-11. For example, if they choose, cabinet can remove the Bank of Canada, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, the Canada Council for the Arts, the CBC, the National Arts Centre Corporation, the Public Sector Pension and Investment Board and Telefilm Canada. Conservatives tried to change this in committee, but the other parties refused. A Conservative government would ensure cabinet cannot remove any government body from the scope of the act.

Unfortunately, the scope of the bill is still too limited in its application. Specifically, the Canadian Forces, CSIS and CSE are excluded from the provisions of the act that provides for access to a neutral and independent body. The application of this bill in their work environments will encourage silence rather than disclosure.

Members of the Canadian Forces, the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service and Communications Security Establishment are precisely the ones that should have whistleblower protection. Their work is veiled in secrecy. What better environment for wrongdoing to take place without consequences?

Members of these organizations need the powers of a neutral third party to protect the privacy and confidentiality of information while at the same time offering protection to whistleblowers. There is no valid basis for the exclusion of any government employees from the protection of the bill.

Since 1999 opposition MPs and senators have introduced 13 bills to protect whistleblowers. If the Liberals were really serious about this matter, they could have adopted the legislation of any one of these bills. Instead, they have waited until they are faced with a huge scandal and have acted to give the appearance that they are doing something.

I support the need for a whistleblowers bill to protect government from wrongdoing and also to protect those brave individuals who place their careers on the line to ensure that justice is done.

Bill C-11 certainly offers an improvement to the current situation, but it is flawed. What is really needed is legislation with no exclusions of any government employees regardless of the nature of their work, as well as real protection from reprisals. Until that happens we Conservatives consider that government whistleblower protection remains inadequate and incomplete.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat astonished at my colleague's speech, though not surprised. Obviously, we all agreed that Bill C-10 needed amending, and amended it was. We must, however, always keep in mind that this is a bill from another session. In fact, it is the offspring of a bill, C-25, —with no independent commissioner—tabled by the Liberal Party when in a majority position and reintroduced in the form of Bill C-11 in this session. This was a campaign promise. While the Liberals were campaigning, they were telling everyone that there would be a bill to protect whistleblowers. This was in the aftermath of the sponsorship scandal.

Now my colleague has just been telling us that they have been accommodating and the bill has evolved. What has evolved is the political situation in Canada. There is no longer the majority government there was before.

I will therefore ask my colleague whether she will agree with me that there never ought to be a majority government in Canada—particularly not a Liberal majority government—precisely to ensure that good bills like today's get passed.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am extremely pleased to stand to address this chamber on Bill C-11, an act to protect whistleblowers.

If I may say so, this piece of legislation, which was referred to committee after first reading, is probably one of the best examples of cooperation among groups in this chamber. All parties worked very hard to ensure the best legislation possible. I believe it is, if not the best, then among the best pieces of legislation in the world to protect whistleblowers.

I am here to speak on Bill C-11, which protects whistleblowers and must ensure that they are protected. We met with a number of organizations and amended the bill after listening to what they had to say, to ensure that it did what we wanted it to do, namely protect as fully as possible all public servants who feel the need to make disclosures, because of errors or mistakes. We wanted to ensure that public servants would feel fully protected in future. As you are aware, we managed to convince the government to create an independent agency reporting directly to this Parliament. Public servants have the right to go directly to it and to report to it if they feel uneasy or unsure about reporting directly to their superiors.

Bill C-11 is a great example of the kind of work we can do together. The bill was introduced in the House and sent to committee after first reading. It was done that way so we could make the changes that were appropriate and necessary.

Yes, many changes have been made, not the least of which is an amendment that has been made here today to ensure that it is a totally separate agency that reports directly to the House of Commons. While it is true that the original legislation did not contain that, I can honestly say that we were given a mandate to produce the best possible legislation. Members on both sides of the House took that to heart.

At the beginning of this year the committee sent a unanimous letter to the President of the Treasury Board stating that nothing else would do but a completely independent body to deal with whistleblowers. Because of the magnitude of the change that was made necessary, the President of the Treasury Board actually took this demand to cabinet committees and to full cabinet to get endorsement. He received it. Not only Parliament but also the government supported these changes and made them possible.

It is extremely important that public servants be allowed to choose whether they file a report in their own department. Each department, crown corporation and agency must set up a committee and a plan to deal with people who want to report wrongdoings. It is important that everyone work on this challenge but we thought it appropriate that public servants have the choice of where they wish to report. Some may feel comfortable reporting to their immediate superiors. That is fine. Some may not feel comfortable. People have the choice of going directly to the independent agency to have their concerns either examined or whatever action needs to be taken at that point. All of us certainly hope that this will prevent many wrongdoings. We hope it will make people feel comfortable that their bosses or the people above them will not take action against them.

While the legislation may not be perfect, we have all worked very hard to try to capture the essence of the challenges that were put before us by all of the people who appeared before us. As a result of that, groups such as the RCMP have been included in the legislation. They were not prior to this.

There is also in the legislation a place that would ensure that any kind of losses, financial or otherwise, be paid to those people who may not have had a promotion, who may have been red circled because they had blown the whistle on some wrongdoing. I believe that is essential. It is not always extremely easy for people. People have to realize that if their bosses take any action against them because they have come forward about certain incidents, that the bosses know it will not be acceptable, that someone will listen and not only that but there could be some remuneration. The remuneration and redress so to speak can take place at any time.

The public servant has a duty to report this within 60 days of the time he or she became aware that someone took action against him or her. It could be one year or two years down the line when someone realized that he or she was never promoted and that it must have been when he or she went forward and explained what was happening and since then he or she had been red circled. If someone is just realizing that now, it is not too late. A person has 60 days in which to come forward. I am sure the commissioner would consider any kind of extenuating circumstances if the time were longer.

All parties are in favour of this amended piece of legislation. This is the way Parliament should work. It is a pity that Canadians do not see more of this kind of constructive engagement by all parties. Canadians expect this of us. It often does happen, but it is not always as obvious as we would like it to be. In this case it is certainly something that has made a difference and will make a difference in the future.

Legislation is always a work in progress. We do the best we can with the tools at hand when drafting the legislation. If we have missed something or if one part is not working the way it should, there is a five year review. That review will tell us, hopefully, what worked and what did not work. At that time we can tweak the legislation if it has not been perfect and make sure that it is in better working condition.

In the quest for perfection, we have come a long way with this piece of legislation. Time will tell us whether it is as effective as we want it to be, but we have done everything possible to ensure its effectiveness.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise on behalf of the New Democratic Party caucus to share our views on Bill C-11, the whistleblower bill. I note technically it has a much longer name, but those of us who have been working on it for quite some time call it what it is. It is a bill to protect whistleblowers in the public service.

Today in debating Bill C-11 in the House we are experiencing a good, graphic illustration of the advantages of a minority Parliament. I hope you will not consider it out of order for me to explain my comment, Madam Speaker.

As recently as June 2005, Bill C-11 was dead. It had been on life support for 18 or so months leading up to that, but clearly by June 2005, the wheels had fallen off the bill. The ruling party was not listening to the wishes of the majority of the members of the House of Commons, which is the opposition in this situation. Because of the unique nature of minority parliaments, the will of Parliament was heard. With a minority Parliament the elected members are able to make manifest the will of Parliament instead of just the will of government.

The important thing to remember as we begin the debate is that through a process of consultation and cooperation with the other legitimately elected members of the House of Commons, we arrived at a package that we could support. We revitalized Bill C-11 by an exercise of cooperation, which is rare in my experience as a member of Parliament.

Let me can compare the seven years that I spent as an opposition member in a majority government situation to the last 16 months as a member of Parliament in a minority government. I can say it is a great deal more gratifying to be in a minority government situation where the spirit of cooperation is what guides us in the best interests of Canadians, instead of the exercise of absolute power vested in the majority party which may hold power at any given time. We should remind ourselves that in our electoral system even that majority party may not represent the majority of Canadians. It is not unusual to form a majority government with 36% or 37% of the vote, but because of the nuances and inconsistencies in the first past the post system, that is the arrangement we have.

In beginning the debate on Bill C-11, we should acknowledge, recognize and pay tribute to this unique moment in history where we actually have all Canadians being represented in the decision making process of Parliament. It is good for Canadians. It is certainly good in this example.

Let me preface my remarks on the specifics of Bill C-11 by saying that in my experience as a working person and as a leader of a trade union in my past life, I know that good managers want to know what is going on in their enterprise and good managers welcome whistleblowing. It is only managers with something to hide who try to resist and oppose any kind of whistleblowing exercise. We should keep that in mind as we go into this process because it is this unique minority government's opportunity that may be leading us toward an era of greater transparency and accountability, ethics, morals and values, reintroducing some of those elements that have clearly slipped away in the exercise of power in recent Canadian history at the federal government level.

My party is committed to good whistleblowing legislation. I had a private member's bill to that effect. When I became a member of Parliament in 1997, one of the first bills I had commissioned by the legislative drafting people of the House of Commons was whistleblowing legislation. In my experience as an advocate for employees as a trade union representative, I know that workers are vulnerable and are put in uncomfortable situations in the workplace where they wish to come forward with evidence of wrongdoing but do not feel safe or able to do so.

I know that is not an infrequent experience in my own workplace, in my own working life and certainly in today's public sector. That feeling was given even more weight in my view when as members of the government operations committee, we were charged with the task of investigating the office of the Privacy Commissioner in what has become known as the Radwanski affair. Never in Canadian history has there been a more graphic illustration of the need for whistleblowing protection for employees than in that glaring example of abuse, maladministration of funds and what has been characterized as wretched excess on the part of a public servant.

Clearly the privacy commissioner of the day broke faith with the Canadian people when he used his authority to his own personal advantage. However, even though the employees in his office knew full well that these abuses were taking place, they did not feel they could come forward to anyone because under the current regime, the person they would have to report it to would be their immediate supervisor who was the culprit himself. It is an impossible, untenable situation for the worker.

Even when we provided the protection of a non-partisan standing committee of the House of Commons to interview these employees about what they knew, the employees felt compelled to bring their own lawyers. Who can they trust if they cannot trust a non-partisan, all-party committee of their elected representatives? We are supposed to be on their side, as citizens of Canada and as employees in the public service. They still could not see fit to come forward and share the information they knew without bringing their own lawyers. That, perhaps more than anything, illustrated to me that the system as it stands is broken, unfair and does not in fact protect whistleblowers. If anything, whistleblowers, if they were looking at their own best interests and the best interests of their families, would keep their lips zipped and not share the information because no one would to guarantee that they could protect them if they did come forward.

We wrestled through that and through a number of incarnations of a proposal from the government side to alter the whistleblowing regime. Successive scandals with the government made it abundantly apparent that there was a need for a change of operations as it pertained to transparency and accountability of the government. It was put off and put off until it could be ignored no more and the public outcry was such that the Liberal government could not ignore the need for whistleblowing legislation. However its first overture toward correcting the regime, which was Bill C-25, was an insult to those of us involved. It was put forward during the period of time when the Liberals had a majority government and it was a farce.

Rather than an act to protect whistleblowers, we called it an act to protect ministers from whistleblowers. It was structured in such a way that the real defence mechanism was to protect the government from people who may come forward. We criticized it in a resounding way. My colleagues from the Bloc did a comprehensive analysis of the bill and also criticized it. All 14 witnesses, the experts in the field, the leading authorities in the rights of whistleblowers, nationally and internationally, came before the committee and said that we would be better off with nothing than with what was being proposed. It was resoundingly condemned and we really had to go back to the drawing table.

At that time we struck a subcommittee. I was proud to be the co-chair of a subcommittee of the government operations committee to revisit the issue of whistleblowing and to at least develop the framework under which we could see an acceptable whistleblowing protection regime developed. I co-chaired that committee with my colleague from Laval—Les Îles and I was proud that our small working group came back with recommendations that had, I believe, captured the sentiment of the nation and the authorities and collective wisdom of the people from whom we sought input.

I think we were faithful to the spirit of the representations made to our small working group but what came forward was not something that we could support.

When we started the round of hearing witnesses on Bill C-25, we heard from people in the trade unions, university professors, lawyers who had represented whistleblowers in the past and even some high profile whistleblowers who said that what was being proposed by the government would not protect them. Even the public service integrity officer, Mr. Keyserlingk, told the committee that even as the integrity officer of the country if he were a civil servant he would not come forward and divulge what he knew because he did not believe he could protect those people. We then knew that we were going nowhere.

The point has been made abundantly clear that any time civil servants disclose wrongdoing it is a very courageous act on their part. They are not doing it out of any self-interest. They are doing it because they feel a moral obligation to report wrongdoing in the public interest.

I should also point out, just to give credit where credit is due, that it is a courageous act on the part of any government to introduce legitimate whistleblowing protection legislation because it is opening the door and inviting people to come forward and tell people what they know that may be critical of the government. I admire any government that puts forward legitimate whistleblowing legislation and protection. It shows a self-confidence and a commitment to honesty, integrity and transparency that should be recognized.

I believe that with Bill C-11 we are approaching the point where I can make that statement, that Bill C-11 will in fact, in this form, with some amendments and modifications, perhaps, or some adjustments in the administration and the application and the regulation of this bill, give public servants the security they need to feel comfortable coming forward.

That came through directly because of this minority government situation, where the opposition parties, in the middle of June, made it abundantly clear that this bill was dead without the adjustments that we were seeking and the key fundamental adjustment was that the integrity officer, the actual commissioner as such, has to report to Parliament not to the minister. It was such a glaring oversight in the first incarnation of this bill that the whole process led to the minister responsible or, in other words, to government. In other words, the poor public servant was put in the position of blowing the whistle on something the government was doing and the report went to, guess who, the government which has the absolute power and control in the employer-employee relationship over that individual. It was completely unworkable.

In the scenario being proposed now by an amendment by the opposition parties, the new integrity commissioner would be a free standing officer of Parliament, an independent officer who reports only to Parliament. That is the fundamental difference that we are proud to have achieved by consultation, cooperation and perseverance at committee.

I am very grateful and glad that the opposition parties had the strength and the foresight to resist the temptation to accept the earlier offers that were made. Those of us who have been engaged in the struggle for true whistleblower protection for eight years were very tempted. It is very seductive to be offered some improvement in the situation. However, wisely and collectively, we disagreed and said that we could do better. We said that if we were going to be one of the eight countries in the world with legitimate whistleblowing legislation that we had to get it right the first time. We did not want to introduce some half-assed version that would still have civil servants vulnerable if they did not read the fine print and then have to revisit that five years from now and try to correct it. It is better that we were patient and waited for a better working environment because we ended up with a better bill.

Bill C-11, as we know it today, has gone through the committee stage. The government referred it to the committee stage before second reading, which is significant. It is much more difficult to achieve substantial amendments after a bill has achieved second reading. The fact that the committee had it in its hands at first reading meant that the House of Commons had never voted to adopt it in principle and, therefore, this substantive fundamental change was achievable at that stage. We are doing a compressed version of debating this at second reading and report stage all at once today.

I think the public servants can take some comfort in this bill. I am hoping that with correct supervision and administration and the right regulations associated with this bill, civil servants will be protected when they come forward with knowledge of wrongdoing and that their anonymity shall be guaranteed. I hope the report does not wind up in their bosses' hands so they would know who the person was who blew the whistle. When public servants put themselves in these situations, it is not just their own futures that they are putting at risk or at stake when they disclose wrongdoing, it is their families. It is their wife's and children's futures if they lose their job, economic security, et cetera, because they came forward for no personal gain. It is a sacrifice that many civil servants would be unwilling to make.

Let us think of the benefit to the public good if whistleblowers with knowledge of wrongdoing, waste or corruption, whatever it may be, were able to come forward. The savings are of unknown benefit to the government and, by extension, to the people of Canada. If we are sincere about eliminating waste, we want to know where waste exists and we want civil servants to feel comfortable in coming forward and sharing that information with us.

It is the culture of secrecy that allows corruption to flourish. If we are sincere about stamping out corruption, we need to create an environment that is transparent and open and where public servants who have knowledge of corruption may come forward and share that without putting their own personal economic stability at risk or fear any kind of subtle reprisals that may come back to haunt them.

I should point out how critical my party was when, within a week of the introduction of the whistleblowing legislation, such as it was, the Government of Canada fired the three most prominent whistleblowers in the country. I am talking about the officials at Health Canada who had the courage to come forward and warn the Canadian public about the bovine growth hormone. Even though they were being pressured by the industry and the government to approve these hormones for general use, they said no, that they were scientists and were fearful for the well-being of Canadians. They went public and blew the whistle on that .

I think those three courageous scientists are heroes and should have been given the Order of Canada, not summarily fired by the Government of Canada. However that more than anything perhaps illustrates the vulnerability and risk that public servants find themselves in if they do divulge knowledge of wrongdoing.

Having analyzed the bill endlessly over the last many years and having watched it evolve, I can safely say that the members of the caucus of the New Democratic Party welcome the opportunity to put forward whistleblower protection in the public service. The onus will be on us, I believe, if we support the bill at these stages, to monitor and follow the administration and application of this new legislation to ensure that the intent and spirit of the legislation is delivered and lived up to by the federal government because we still have to caution public servants that they need to know exactly what their rights and protections are before they come forward.

I am actually heartened by the fact that there is an element contemplated in Bill C-11 that incorporates the office of the president of the Public Service Commission who may in fact advise public servants as to their rights and the process involved in the disclosure of wrongdoing under the context of Bill C-11. Perhaps this new role for the president of the Public Service Commission would be helpful and valuable to public servants who may be offered counsel and advice--

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Madam Speaker, first I would like to congratulate the committee members who worked on this bill. I believe it is a huge step forward. The current public service integrity officer, Mr. Keyserlingk, who appeared before the committee, needed increased powers to have more room to manoeuvre in order to clarify many situations.

I will remind members that Mr. Keyserlingk has also met people who were victims of psychological harassment. Last year, he tried to settle twenty or so of these cases, which proved to be a rather difficult task since there is no legislation dealing with victims of psychological harassment.

I am speaking on behalf of those who are subjected to psychological harassment, those public service employees who have made disclosures and against whom a reprisal was taken, not immediately, but maybe six months, a year or two years later.

In fact, the public service is a small world. Take Correctional Service Canada for example. A public servant working in a facility like that in Cowansville is subject to psychological harassment and requests a transfer. He is reassigned to Port Cartier, but there is no guarantee that someone is not waiting for him in Port Cartier, precisely because he relocated after complaining about psychological harassment.

While Bill C-11 is a very good bill, we must recognize that there is somewhat of a flaw in that respect. The bill says that a complaint has to be made within 60 days after the date on which the complainant knew, or in the board’s opinion ought to have known, that the reprisal was taken.

In reading this clause, a person who is carrying a heavy grudge because he or she was reported on, will figure, “I will wait the 60 days, but if I get my hands on him again, he better watch out”. Psychological harassment is an insidious thing; it is difficult to prove. Someone may be subjected to it six months, one year or even two years later. There is no mechanism in this legislation to fully protect those who make disclosures.

Also, reference is made to a serious offence under an act. But there could be less serious offences that bother a public servant when he gets home and, because he is honest, he decides to report them. It may not be a serious offence. Let us assume that $500 or $1,000 goes missing from an officers' mess. This person will say, “This is not a serious offence; we are not talking about $1 million, but there is still $1,000 missing”. Who can this person go to? Who does someone who witnesses less serious offences go to? If that person goes to her immediate supervisor and the immediate supervisor is the one who broke the rules, chances are that the situation will never be redressed. So, there are two little flaws.

I do appreciate the work done by the committee. But I believe it does not go far enough. Contrary to my hon. colleague who expects public servants to make disclosures, and many of them to do so, I bet there will not be that many. A few will make disclosures at their own risk, but their protection cannot be guaranteed afterwards. In fact, there is no guarantee that either their physical or emotional integrity will be protected.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Repentigny and also his colleague from Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques for their constructive contributions to Bill C-11, which went on over an extensive period of time. Admittedly we thought we had almost lost the bill at one point, but I am very pleased that everybody stuck with it. I believe, as I think the House will show by its support, that Bill C-11 is an important step in the building of confidence within the public service of Canada as defined, which also now includes crown corporations and other agencies.

I hope that as we go through this debate we will get to some other aspects of the bill. As the member will know, one of the important messages we have to give public servants is that there is a differentiation between wrongdoings and human resources issues and that it is important to understand this is not going to become a place to which all grievances will go. It is very important for us to get that message out.

The other is that the new commissioner is going to have the same powers as any other officer of Parliament, with all of the investigatory tools necessary to do this. This is one of the important aspects in terms of protecting anonymity and giving that level of confidence to the public service that allegations will be taken seriously and that this officer, who will be subject to the scrutiny of Parliament for his or her appointment, will in fact be there to represent the best interests of all stakeholders. I ask the member for his comments on those issues.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have this second opportunity to speak to Bill C-11. I will remind hon. members that I spoke on this same bill in this House on Thursday, October 4, 2004. It will be interesting to look at the way the bill has evolved in keeping with the position of the Bloc Québécois and of members of all parties. On Thursday, October 4, 2004, when Bill C-11 was before the House prior to referral to committee, I said:

However, we will give this minority government the benefit of the doubt and see whether the Liberals will listen to us at committee and be open to making a few amendments, as far as the legislative process allows.

Subsequent to that wish, 47 amendments were proposed. There were problems, however, and I will quote myself again on that:

If the Liberals really want to make this a credible position; if they really want to honour part of the promise in their 1993 red book to restore confidence in the public service, elected officials and the government; then they must establish an independent position of commissioner with this bill. We said this about Bill C-25 and we say it again, and so do the Conservatives.

In another part of that same speech, I made reference to clause 24(1) of the bill:

24.(1) The President of the Public Service Commission may refuse to deal with a disclosure if he or she is of the opinion that:

(a) the public servant has failed to exhaust other procedures otherwise reasonably available;

That was the second problem we pointed out in 2004. I ended my speech as follows:

We hope that the Liberals will act in good faith and with an open mind.

Following that speech, there were eight months of discussions in committee. Many witnesses were heard, and 47 amendments have been presented today with a view to improving Bill C-11, to making it better.

A brief aside here, if I may, to mention the contribution made by someone who worked with me throughout the entire committee process and who is no longer here, because he was an intern. I wish to comment on the excellence of the program, and also of the intern in question. Jeff Bell, of British Columbia, was with me in committee for five of those eight months, for which I was very grateful.

We heard a number of very key witnesses, including Mr. Edward Keyserlingk, who gave us his comments on the actual situation. He was the public service integrity officer and he asked that this Treasury Board policy become law, so that the integrity commissioner would have all the necessary tools to do his job properly.

We heard many things regarding Bill C-11, but I think this legislation can be defined in three very specific points. Usually, when I begin a speech, I always remind people of the issue being discussed. We are debating Bill C-11, An Act to establish a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoings in the public sector, including the protection of persons who disclose the wrongdoings. Let us summarize its content. The public servants who worked on it and who were with us throughout the process might find this summary somewhat simplistic. However, for the general public—those who are interested can read the whole bill—this legislation basically covers the three points that follow.

Bill C-11 provides for the appointment of an independent public service integrity commissioner. My friends from the Conservative Party said that it was thanks to them, to their ultimatum and to their good work, because they are good, strong and powerful. However, I managed to get them to recognize that this measure had been requested by everyone. Indeed, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP asked for it, as did all the witnesses heard, this since the beginning. There is unquestionably a degree of open-mindedness. First, the Liberals asked that this be put in the hands of the Public Service Commission. In response to the hon. member for Mississauga Centre, I will say that the main problem was that it was the minister who was tabling the report, while we want an independent officer of the House of Commons to do so.

Starting with Bill C-25, which was the forerunner to Bill C-11, between Bill C-11 in its first draft and Bill C-11 as it emerged following Committee review, the main victory for all witnesses who appeared before us in Committee, for the Bloc, the NDP and the Conservatives is that an independent commissioner will be appointed along the very same lines as the Auditor General, the Commissioner of Official Languages and the Commissioner of the Environment, with all the credibility and the recognition given to independent officers of the House of Commons. They will independently—however they wish, subject to the regulations governing them—table reports directly in the House of Commons. This is a great victory for civil servants, for public service employees who will be able to report any wrongdoing to a person they trust.

Secondly, this provides a statutory and formal framework to a civil servant who wishes to disclose a wrongdoing. What is a wrongdoing? That is an interesting question the committee discussed at length. The definition can be found in clause 8 of Bill C-11. I will read some excerpts from it.

This Act applies in respect of the following wrongdoings in or relating to the public sector:

(a)) a contravention of any Act of Parliament or of the legislature of a province, or of any regulations made under any such Act;

(b)) a misuse of public funds or a public asset;

(c) a gross mismanagement in the public sector;

(d)) an act or omission that creates a substantial and specific danger to the life, health or safety of persons, or to the environment, [other than a danger that is inherent in the performance of the duties or functions of a public servant];

The last part was subsequently added, account being taken of military personnel or RCMP officers. Their work can occasionally put their lives in danger.

(e)) a serious breach of a code of conduct established under section 5 or 6;

(f)) the taking of a reprisal against a public servant;

[(g)) knowingly directing or counselling a person to commit one of the wrongdoings set out in paragraphs above.]

The concept of wrongdoing has been defined well. As the Conservatives have pointed out—mind you, I do not want to engage in sensationalism when it comes to Bill C-11—there could be cases of the abusive use of public funds or serious mismanagement. People at the Royal Canadian Mint could have used and benefited from Bill C-11 to disclose this type of problem. The sponsorship scandal and the gun registry scandal could have been avoided if Bill C-11 had been in place.

A third point was made. First, there will be an independent commissioner. Second, wrongdoing was defined and anyone witnessing a wrongdoing now has the legal ability to disclose the situation. Third, and the last main point in my opinion, is that there will be protection from reprisal.

My colleague from Terrebonne—Blainville discussed this earlier, as did my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue. What happens to victims of reprisals? This also sparked lengthy discussions in committee. These questions come out in clauses 19, 20 and so on, under “Protection of persons making disclosures” in Bill C-11. Clause 19 states:

No person shall take any reprisal against a public servant.

It is very easy to write that into a bill, but if ever any reprisals are taken, what will happen? What can be defined as reprisal measures? The bill states:

If a public servant realizes 60 days after the date on which they knew, or in the Board’s opinion ought to have known, that the reprisal was taken, then they can make a complaint.

A person discloses a wrongdoing, waits for the entire process to be settled, is transferred laterally or protected because that is the law. They resume their duties. A month or two later, they realize they are a victim of reprisal, whether psychological or otherwise. They can make a complaint to the Board. More than that, the complaint can be presented after the same deadline mentioned in subsection 3, if the Board finds it appropriate to do so under the circumstances.

If a long time has elapsed, six months for instance, and it feels it is appropriate, the board may hear and make a determination on a complaint by a public servant who feels that a reprisal was taken against him or her.

On receipt of a complaint, the Board may assist the parties to the complaint to settle the complaint. The Board must hear and determine the complaint if it decides not to so assist or the complaint is not settled within a period considered by the Board to be reasonable in the circumstances.

What may be considered as a reprisal is also defined.

If the Board determines that the complainant has been subject to a reprisal taken in contravention of section 19, the Board may, by order, require the employer or the appropriate chief executive, or any person acting on behalf of the employer or appropriate chief executive, to take all necessary measures to

(a) permit the complainant to return to his or her duties;

(b) reinstate the complainant or pay damages to the complainant in lieu of reinstatement if, in the Board's opinion, the relationship of trust between the parties cannot be restored;

(c) pay to the complainant compensation in an amount not greater than the amount that, in the Board’s opinion, is equivalent to the remuneration that would, but for the reprisal, have been paid to the complainant;

(d) rescind any measure or action, including any disciplinary action, and pay compensation to the complainant in an amount not greater than—

(e) pay to the complainant an amount equal to any expenses and any other financial losses incurred by the complainant as a direct result of the reprisal.

The committee members and myself sincerely believe that we have covered all bases to ensure that a formal framework is clearly defined so as to prevent frivolous or vexatious complaints. Think of pressure tactics for instance. We have also covered all bases to ensure that any reprisal is minimal and as difficult as possible to take against a person who has disclosed a wrongdoing.

We are not infallible however. My hon. colleague from the Conservative Party mentioned it earlier, and we want to reiterate, even though it is already in there, that this bill must be reviewed five years after coming into force. If we realize that there have been a million disclosures because the definitions are too broad or because everyone is dishonest—which I doubt very much—then we can look at what could be improved and tighten the rules. If reprisals were taken against every person who disclosed a wrongdoing, we might conclude that we misunderstood everything we heard during committee hearings.

After several months of discussions, of hearing witnesses and of negotiations, members of the Standing Committee on Governmental Operations and Estimates agreed that the three main points are the independent officer, the legislative framework to file a complaint and measures against reprisal. The members believe that these points were serious enough that we could give what I maintain is unanimous support in this House to Bill C-11, as introduced to us at this time. Of course, this support will be conditional to us being able to review this bill in five years to correct the errors that, unfortunately, we did not see while studying it.

We thus created the position of integrity commissioner. In the very unlikelihood that a wrongdoing would be committed in the Office of the Integrity Commissioner, should the Office of the Integrity Commissioner do wrongful things with public funds, a person could file a complaint before the Office of the Auditor General. Thus we believe we have established a framework for the disclosure of wrongdoings in the government.

We also changed some terms and references to give a more positive character to the bill. Indeed we now talk of “disclosure” instead of “whistleblowing” and “person who discloses” ”instead of “whistleblower”. Thanks to the concerted work of Conservative and Bloc Québécois members as well as certain witnesses heard, the RCMP is included in Bill C-11 whereas it was excluded previously. After five years, we will verify whether this is a good thing. However, not all RCMP services are included.

For the Bloc Québécois, this was a very enlightening committee because we worked not only for strictly political reasons, but also to provide a more adequate workplace for public service officers and public servants.

I would not want the bill to cast a shadow over the work of public servants as a whole and I would not want people to think that public servants are all suspicious individuals. However, thanks to this bill, we will be able to keep an eye on the work of each and every manager involved in public finances. While this is definitely not the bill's underlying objective or philosophy, unfortunately, there are still people in positions of authority who mismanage public funds. We saw it with the scandals that were mentioned earlier and that my Conservative friends are happy to remind us about. Some managers misuse public funds. The employees working under these public servants had every reason to fear reprisals for disclosing these wrongdoings.

The committee heard some sad stories. For example, three public servants at the department of Health were fired. These three scientists, who have doctorate degrees, told us that they were fired or shelved because they blew the whistle on bovine somatotropin, while their managers were adamant that they should not talk about this issue. These people are currently appealing to the civil courts, in an attempt to reintegrate their positions. The public servant who denounced the sponsorship scandal told us that he was really lucky to know someone who reintegrated him into another department, otherwise he would have been out of work. We saw how difficult it is to speak out and what the impact could be on the personal lives of these individuals, and on those of their families and friends when, after six months or a year, they would make the decision to disclose a wrongdoing. They had to put up with the reproving look of their supervisor, who would ostracize them because of their actions.

I remember another former public servant who was posted in Hong Kong. He mentioned how computer systems were open windows for those who were prepared to falsify passports for people from Asia who wanted to come to Canada. He too was fired for purportedly falsely alerting authorities when in fact he was justified in making these disclosures.

So we saw the flip side of the coin: how yesterday and today, before Bill C-11 comes into effect, those who witnessed such wrongdoing were forced to painfully disclose it. Even if only 1% or 2% of all public servants are guilty of mismanagement, the employees working under such managers must be given an official and clear framework. In my opinion, there will not be a mountain of complaints. First, the legislation will be tested when it comes into effect. Nevertheless, there will not be many complaints from the public service. Perhaps some of these complaints will be not be relevant because they can be resolved internally. The other complaints will be heard and, initially, no doubt, there will be some leading cases.

Since the government has heard that an independent commissioner is needed and since it amended the bill to reflect what stakeholders asked for in committee, I am hopeful. First, I believe that it was essential to look good after what happened. Second, I am quite hopeful that any public servants who are listening or who will find out about this bill will use it wisely.

In closing, I want to ask the government, which spends a great deal on communication and advertising, to invest a little less—but still invest—in order to inform the public service about Bill C-11 when it does come into effect. I am no expert in BBM ratings and polls, but I do not think that the entire public service is currently listening, at 1:30 p.m., to the debates in the House of Commons. First, I think that they are working. Second, I do not think that they will read Hansard tomorrow morning to see if we discussed a bill that might have a direct impact on them.

I am hopeful that the government will at least promote this legislation so that the public servants know what tools are at their disposal in order to disclose wrongdoing.

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

Madam Speaker, I am pleased the House finally has started debate on Bill C-11 to enact whistleblower legislation. This is the second legislation that has come to the House to deal with whistleblowers.

A couple of years ago Bill C-25 was introduced in the House, but it was rejected by the committee because of a few things, one key thing being the independent officer of Parliament to which whistleblowers would report was not in place. In spite of that, when Bill C-11 came to committee, that was still the case. No independent office was set up so whistleblowers could comfortably and confidently report without having the filter of a minister.

This demonstrates better than anything else that we cannot trust the government to make itself accountable for waste and corruption. Should we expect the Liberals to bring forward legislation that could clean up a systematic corruption in their government? I think not. We saw it with David Dingwall last week and we saw it with the sponsorship scandal. The government is not to be trusted with Canadians' tax dollars. It seems to be more concerned about taking care of its friends and quite frankly the Liberal Party.

What the Liberals have done with this whistleblower legislation is no different. Their bill was totally rejected by the government operations and estimates committee and was substantially and fundamentally rewritten. It had to be rewritten before the all party committee of the House of Commons would accept it. When civil servants see corrupt activity, they should be able to blow the whistle without retribution.

Bill C-11 is a triumph of committee work. The committee, consisting of members from all parties, should be proud of the work it has done with the legislation. They have taken a weak bill, which was totally unacceptable, and made it into a bill which is not perfect, but at least it is a starting point. It would allow whistleblowers to come forward with confidence and report wrongdoing. Had the legislation been in place before the sponsorship scandal, it probably would have prevented that from happening.

It is key legislation, probably the most important the government has brought forth in the last two years.

By producing the legislation, which will better protect whistleblowers, the government operations committee has demonstrated how effective committees of Parliament can be. Public servants and members of the RCMP, which was an amendment made by the committee, would have been protected by the new legislation had it been in place at the time of their disclosure. I am speaking about public servants and members of the RCMP who, because there was no legislation like this, had their careers destroyed and their lives torn to shreds. We heard from some of them at committee, and I believe most members of Parliament have heard from others. Again, it is not perfect but it will go a long way to improving the situation.

I am astounded that the government fought so long and so hard to keep the control over the office of the whistleblowers in the hands of a minister so it could filter anything that went to it. I want to talk about what happened in that regard.

Bill C-25 was the first legislation that came forth about two years ago. The committee heard from several witnesses. I was a member of that committee. In fact, the current minister in charge of the Treasury Board was chair of the government operations and estimates committee at that time. Every witness who came before the committee said that the legislation would be worthless if the government did not have an independent officer to whom they could report. What did the government do? It brought back Bill C-11 with an office of the whistleblowers which would answer to a minister, not directly to Parliament.

The committee heard from about 20 witnesses. Again, they all said the same thing, that among other changes it was absolutely essential to have an independent office for whistleblowers to which they could report.

When did the government finally give in on this? It was about June 16. On about June 14 the critic for the Treasury Board, the member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, asked a question of the minister in the House. It was a very respectful question, pointing out that the committee was bogged down, that the legislation would be thrown out by the committee if an independent office was not put in place. At that time the minister made no guarantee that he and his cabinet would agree to put in place an independent office.

On June 16 that same member put an ultimatum before the government. The ultimatum was delivered in question period in the form of a question to the President of the Treasury Board. I wish to read it so people can see what happened here. The member said that he had asked the President of the Treasury Board whether he was prepared to create an independent office to protect whistleblowers and investigate their disclosures. He went on to say that the Conservative Party, with the backing of every single stakeholder and expert, had been making this demand consistently both in the House and in committee ever since the Liberals tabled their worst and useless whistleblower bill. Then he said:

The dithering has to end now. I have an ultimatum for the minister: either he amends his bill to create an independent commissioner who reports directly to Parliament, or the Conservative Party will make sure this bill dies in committee. Independence or death, which will it be?

A bit of theatrics, but that is the question delivered by the member. It was an extremely important question. Again, no satisfactory answer.

The member delivered the ultimatum again and said, “Will the minister take it or leave it?” He still would make no commitment. However, less than 24 hours later the government against all of its efforts was forced to do the right, to back up and agree with the committee to put in place an independent office so whistleblowers could report to an officer of Parliament, set up similar to the Auditor General. If it did not, the bill would be defeated.

It is very unfortunate when we have to resort to threats, but when it comes to protecting our public servants and protecting the integrity of the public service, at that time we will use whatever measures we have to use to make things happen. That ultimatum worked. As a result of that, the independent office was put in place. That was a key part to making the legislation work.

There were several other areas which were absolutely needed as well. Allegations without evidence would now be allowed to be brought forth by whistleblowers. That was a key change to the legislation. Otherwise how would the public service get absolute evidence? It is just about impossible. Allowing allegations without having actual evidence proves this was a key change, again made by the committee under pressure.

Another key change was that a whistleblower would not necessarily have to report to his or her immediate supervisor. Imagine how ineffective the legislation would be had a whistleblower been forced to report directly to an immediate supervisor. The Liberals backed off on that one. Now whistleblowers can go directly to the commissioner should they choose. This is an important change.

Reducing the information secrecy period was a great concern to many on the committee. In the legislation there was a 20 year period where information regarding what the whistleblower brought forth and the discussions that went on around it was protected. I believe that was a cover-up protection. It would allow a government to protect the information from the general public and opposition parties for 20 years. That is completely unacceptable. The committee had it changed to five years. It is not a total victory by any means, but it is progress.

These changes and many others were made by the government operations and estimates committee. The committee really demonstrated that a committee of Parliament could work effectively and it did. I am proud of all the members of the committee.

It also went to show that the government will resist any change to make it more accountable. The government will resist to a point that it takes an unbelievable push to make the necessary changes. We did that. The committee should be proud.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, there was maybe not a fulsome disclosure in the speech about what exactly the bill is addressing. I think it is addressing wrongdoings. It is not maybe as advertised, but somehow a tool for corrupt governments.

The act under section 8, and it is important to have it on record, relates to those working in the public sector. Public servants are defined now as basically everyone, all crown corporations and agencies. The only exclusions are CSIS and the military for reasons with which the committee was satisfied.

Wrongdoings constitute a contravention of any act of Parliament or a legislature of a province or any regulations under those acts; a misuse of public funds or public assets; gross mismanagement in the public sector; an act or omission that creates a substantial or specific danger to the life, health or safety of persons or the environment, other than a danger that is inherent in the performance of those duties; a serious breach of the code of conduct, which each of the departments, agencies and corporations have to set up under the act; the taking of reprisals, which means going back on an employee who became a whistleblower; and finally, knowing directly or counselling a person to commit a wrongdoing set out in any of the previous paragraphs. Would the member care to comment?

It is extremely important that we understand that the success of Bill C-11, this whistleblower legislation, requires the support and confidence of the public service. We must make absolutely sure that as we move this forward, as we introduce it to Canadians and to the public service, we be very clear on what the bill does and does not do. It certainly does cover anyone who touches any of those areas of wrongdoing. It could include anybody in the civil service. It could include any member of Parliament, any minister or any other party over whom they have influence. It is much more substantive than simply putting it under the umbrella of dealing with corrupt government.

I would ask the member if he would set the tone for public servants, so that they understand that the committee worked hard to ensure that the best interests of our valued public servants was being put first.

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

moved:

Motion No. 1

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 2, be amended by adding after line 9 on page 2 the following:

““Commissioner” means the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner appointed under subsection 39.1(1).”

Motion No. 2

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 2.1, be amended by replacing line 30 on page 3 with the following:

“Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as a chief executive in respect”

Motion No. 3

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 13, be amended by

a) replacing lines 42 to 44 on page 6 with the following:

“13. (1) A public servant may disclose information referred to in section 12 to the Commissioner if”

b) replacing lines 17 to 22 on page 7 with the following:

“servant to disclose to the Commissioner a confidence of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada in respect of which subsection 39(1) of the Canada Evidence Act applies or any information that is subject to solicitor-client privilege. The Commissioner may not use the confidence or”

Motion No. 4

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 14, be amended by replacing lines 24 to 31 on page 7 with the following:

“14. A disclosure that a public servant is entitled to make under section 13 that concerns the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner may be made to the Auditor General of Canada who has, in relation to that disclosure, the powers, duties and protections of the Commissioner under this Act.”

Motion No. 5

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 20, be amended by replacing lines 30 to 34 on page 10 with the following:

“to the Commissioner in respect of the reprisal during the 60-day period referred to in paragraph (a) and the Commissioner has decided to deal with the disclosure, 60 days after the Commissioner reports”

Motion No. 6

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 20, be amended by replacing lines 6 and 7 on page 12 with the following:

“(7) The Commissioner has standing in any proceedings”

Motion No. 7

— That Bill C-11 be amended by replacing the heading before line 1 on page 14 with the following:

“DUTIES OF THE COMMISSIONER”

Motion No. 8

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 22, be amended by replacing lines 1 and 2 on page 14 with the following:

“22. The duties of the Commissioner under this Act are to”

Motion No. 9

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 23, be amended

(a) by replacing lines 1 and 2 on page 15 with the following:

“23. (1) The Commissioner may not deal with a disclosure”

(b) deleting lines 15 to 23 on page 15.

Motion No. 10

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 24, be amended by

a) replacing lines 24 and 25 on page 15 with the following:

“24. (1) The Commissioner may refuse to deal with a dis-”

(b) replacing lines 1 and 2 on page 16 with the following:

“(2) The Commissioner must refuse to deal with a”

(c) replacing line 11 on page 16 with the following:

“(3) If the Commissioner refuses to deal with a”

Motion No. 11

— That Bill C-11 be amended by deleting Clause 25.

Motion No. 12

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 26, be amended by

(a) replacing lines 27 to 29 on page 16 with the following:

“26. (1) The Commissioner may delegate to any employee of the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner any of his or her powers and”

(b) replacing line 41 on page 16 with the following:

“appear before the Commissioner or a person”

(c) replacing lines 7 to 15 on page 17 with the following:

“(2) The Commissioner may not delegate the conduct of any investigation that involves or may involve information relating to international relations, national defence, national security or the detection, prevention or suppression of criminal, subversive or hostile activities, except to one of a maximum of four officers or employees of the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner specifically designated by the Commissioner for the purpose of”

Motion No. 13

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 28, be amended by replacing lines 24 on page 17 to line 2 on page 18 with the following:

“28. (1) When commencing an investigation under this Act, the Commissioner must notify the chief executive concerned and inform that chief executive of the substance of the disclosure to which the investigation relates.

(2) The Commissioner, or the person conducting an investigation, may also notify any other person he or she considers appropriate, including every person whose acts or conduct are called into question by the disclosure to which the investigation relates, and inform that person of the substance of the disclosure.

(3) It is not necessary for the Commissioner to hold any hearing and no person is entitled as of right to be heard by the Commissioner, but if at any time during the course of an investigation under this Act it appears to the Commissioner that there may be sufficient grounds to make a report or recommendation that may adversely affect any individual or any portion of the public sector, the Commissioner must, before completing the”

Motion No. 14

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 29, be amended by replacing lines 9 to 14 on page 18 with the following:

“29. (1) If the Commissioner so requests, chief executives and public servants must provide him or her, or the person conducting an investigation, with any facilities, assistance, information and access to their respective offices that the Commissioner may”

Motion No. 15

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 30, be amended by replacing lines 20 to 32 on page 18 with the following:

“30. (1) In conducting any investigation under this Act, the Commissioner has all the powers of a commissioner under Part II of the Inquiries Act.

(2) Whenever the Commissioner issues a subpoena or other request or summons to a person in the exercise of any powers referred to in subsection (1), he or she must allow that person to be assisted or represented by counsel, or by any person.

(3) Before entering the premises of any portion of the public sector in the exercise of any powers under subsection (1), the Commissioner”

Motion No. 16

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 31, be amended by replacing line 40 on page 18 to line 5 on page 19 with the following:

“client privilege. The Commissioner may not use the confidence or information if it is nevertheless received under section 29 or 30.

(2) Nothing in this Act is to be construed as limiting the application of the Canada Evidence Act to investigations conducted by the Commissioner.”

Motion No. 17

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 32, be amended by replacing lines 9 and 10 on page 19 with the following:

“powers in section 30, the Commissioner must consider whether”

Motion No. 18

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 33, be amended by replacing lines 15 and 16 on page 19 with the following:

“cooperating with the Commissioner, or with a person conduct-”

Motion No. 19

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 34, be amended by

a) replacing lines 28 to 30 on page 19 with the following:

“the Commissioner by a person who is not a public servant, the Commissioner has reason to believe that another”

(b) replacing line 40 on page 19 to line 3 on page 20 with the following:

“(2) The Commissioner may not, in the course of an investigation commenced under subsection (1), use a confidence of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada in respect of which subsection 39(1) of the Canada Evidence Act applies, or information that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, if the confidence or information is disclosed to the Commissioner.”

Motion No. 20

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 35, be amended by replacing lines 4 and 5 on page 20 with the following:

“35. If the Commissioner is of the opinion that a matter”

Motion No. 21

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 36, be amended by replacing lines 12 to 37 on page 20 with the following:

“36. (1) If the Commissioner has reasonable grounds to suspect that information obtained in the course of an investigation may be used in the investigation or prosecution of an alleged contravention of any Act of Parliament or of the legislature of a province, he or she may, in addition to or in lieu of continuing the investigation, remit the information, at that point in time, to a peace officer having jurisdiction to investigate the alleged contravention or to the Attorney General of Canada.

(1.1) If the information relates to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Commissioner may remit the information only to the Attorney General of Canada.

(2) To maintain the separation of investigations carried out under this Act and those carried out for law enforcement purposes, after information has been remitted under subsection (1) in relation to any matter, the Commissioner may not — except in accordance with a prior judicial authorization — remit to any peace officer or to the Attorney General of Canada any further information in relation to that matter that the Commissioner obtains in the course of his or her”

Motion No. 22

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 37, be amended by replacing line 43 on page 20 to line 1 on page 21 with the following:

“Commissioner may, if he or she considers it appropriate to do so, request that the chief executive provide the Commissioner, within a time specified in the report,”

Motion No. 23

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 38, be amended by replacing lines 6 to 12 on page 21 with the following:

“38. If the Commissioner considers it necessary, he or she may report a matter to the Minister responsible for the portion of the public sector concerned or, if the matter relates to a Crown corporation, to its board or governing council, including, but not limited to, when the Commissioner is of the”

Motion No. 24

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 39, be amended by replacing line 23 on page 21 to line 16 on page 22 with the following:

“39. (1) Within three months after the end of each financial year, the Commissioner must prepare and submit to Parliament an annual report in respect of the activities of the Commissioner during that financial year.

(2) The annual report must set out

(a) the number of general inquiries relating to this Act;

(b) the number of disclosures received and the number of those that were acted on and those that were not acted on;

(c) the number of investigations commenced under this Act;

(d) the number of recommendations that the Commissioner has made and their status;

(e) whether there are any systemic problems that give rise to wrongdoings;

(f) any recommendations for improvement that the Commissioner considers appropriate; and

(g) any other matter that the Commissioner considers necessary.

(3) The Commissioner may, at any time, make a special report to Parliament referring to and commenting on any matter within the scope of his or her powers and duties under this Act if, in his or her opinion, the matter is of such urgency or importance that a report on it should not be deferred until the time provided for transmission of the annual report.

(4) Every report to Parliament made by the Commissioner shall be made by being transmitted to the Speaker of the Senate, and to the Speaker of the House of Commons, for tabling in those Houses.

(5) After it is transmitted for tabling, every report of the Commissioner stands referred to the committee of the Senate, the House of Commons or both Houses of Parliament that may be designated or established for the purpose of reviewing the Commissioner’s reports.”

Motion No. 25

— That Bill C-11 be amended by adding after line 16 on page 22 the following new clause:

“39.1 (1) The Governor in Council shall, by commission under the Great Seal, appoint a Public Sector Integrity Commissioner after approval of the appointment by resolution of the Senate and House of Commons.

(2) Subject to this section, the Commissioner holds office during good behaviour for a term of seven years, but may be removed by the Governor in Council at any time on address of the Senate and House of Commons.

(3) The Commissioner is eligible to be re-appointed for a further term of not more than seven years.

(4) In the event of the absence or incapacity of the Commissioner, or if the office of Commissioner is vacant, the Governor in Council may appoint another qualified person to hold office instead of the Commissioner for a term of not more than six months, and that person shall, while holding that office, have all of the powers, duties and functions of the Commissioner under this or any other Act of Parliament and be paid the salary or other remuneration and expenses that may be fixed by the Governor in Council. ”

Recommendation

(Pursuant to Standing Order 76(3))

Her Excellency the Governor General recommends to the House of Commons the appropriation of public revenue under the circumstances, in the manner and for the purposes set out in the following amendment to Bill C-11, An Act to establish a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoings in the public sector, including the protection of persons who disclose the wrongdoings.

That Bill C-11 be amended by adding after line 16 on page 22 the following new clause:

“39.1 (1) The Governor in Council shall, by commission under the Great Seal, appoint a Public Sector Integrity Commissioner after approval of the appointment by resolution of the Senate and House of Commons.

(2) Subject to this section, the Commissioner holds office during good behaviour for a term of seven years, but may be removed by the Governor in Council at any time on address of the Senate and House of Commons.

(3) The Commissioner is eligible to be re-appointed for a further term of not more than seven years.

(4) In the event of the absence or incapacity of the Commissioner, or if the office of Commissioner is vacant, the Governor in Council may appoint another qualified person to hold office instead of the Commissioner for a term of not more than six months, and that person shall, while holding that office, have all of the powers, duties and functions of the Commissioner under this or any other Act of Parliament and be paid the salary or other remuneration and expenses that may be fixed by the Governor in Council.”

Motion No. 26

— That Bill C-11 be amended by adding after line 16 on page 22 the following new clause:

“39.2 (1) The Commissioner has the rank, and all the powers, of a deputy head of a department.

(2) The Commissioner shall not hold any other office or employment in the public sector or carry on any activity that is inconsistent with his or her powers and duties.”

Recommendation

(Pursuant to Standing Order 76(3))

Her Excellency the Governor General recommends to the House of Commons the appropriation of public revenue under the circumstances, in the manner and for the purposes set out in the following amendment to Bill C-11, An Act to establish a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoings in the public sector, including the protection of persons who disclose the wrongdoings.

That Bill C-11 be amended by adding after line 16 on page 22 the following new clause:

“39.2 (1) The Commissioner has the rank, and all the powers, of a deputy head of a department.

(2) The Commissioner shall not hold any other office or employment in the public sector or carry on any activity that is inconsistent with his or her powers and duties. ”

Motion No. 27

— That Bill C-11 be amended by adding after line 16 on page 22 the following new clause:

“39.3 (1) The Commissioner is to be paid the remuneration determined by the Governor in Council.

(2) The Commissioner is entitled to be paid reasonable travel and other expenses incurred in the course of his or her duties while absent from his or her ordinary place of work if he or she has been appointed to serve on a full-time basis or his or her ordinary place of residence if he or she has been appointed to serve on a part-time basis.

(3) The Commissioner is deemed to be employed in the public service for the purposes of the Public Service Superannuation Act.

(4) The Commissioner is deemed to be employed in the federal public administration for the purposes of the Government Employees Compensation Act and regulations made under section 9 of the Aeronautics Act. ”

Recommendation

(Pursuant to Standing Order 76(3))

Her Excellency the Governor General recommends to the House of Commons the appropriation of public revenue under the circumstances, in the manner and for the purposes set out in the following amendment to Bill C-11, An Act to establish a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoings in the public sector, including the protection of persons who disclose the wrongdoings.

That Bill C-11 be amended by adding after line 16 on page 22 the following new clause:

“39.3 (1) The Commissioner is to be paid the remuneration determined by the Governor in Council.

(2) The Commissioner is entitled to be paid reasonable travel and other expenses incurred in the course of his or her duties while absent from his or her ordinary place of work if he or she has been appointed to serve on a full-time basis or his or her ordinary place of residence if he or she has been appointed to serve on a part-time basis.

(3) The Commissioner is deemed to be employed in the public service for the purposes of the Public Service Superannuation Act.

(4) The Commissioner is deemed to be employed in the federal public administration for the purposes of the Government Employees Compensation Act and regulations made under section 9 of the Aeronautics Act. ”

Motion No. 28

— That Bill C-11 be amended by adding after line 16 on page 22 the following new clause:

“39.4 (1) The officers and employees that are necessary to enable the Commissioner to perform his or her duties and functions are to be appointed in accordance with the Public Service Employment Act.

(2) The Commissioner may engage on a temporary basis the services of persons having technical or specialized knowledge of any matter relating to the Commissioner’s work to advise and assist the Commissioner in the performance of his or her duties and functions and, with the approval of the Treasury Board, may fix and pay the remuneration and expenses of those persons. ”

Recommendation

(Pursuant to Standing Order 76(3))

Her Excellency the Governor General recommends to the House of Commons the appropriation of public revenue under the circumstances, in the manner and for the purposes set out in the following amendment to Bill C-11, An Act to establish a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoings in the public sector, including the protection of persons who disclose the wrongdoings.

That Bill C-11 be amended by adding after line 16 on page 22 the following new clause:

“39.4 (1) The officers and employees that are necessary to enable the Commissioner to perform his or her duties and functions are to be appointed in accordance with the Public Service Employment Act.

(2) The Commissioner may engage on a temporary basis the services of persons having technical or specialized knowledge of any matter relating to the Commissioner’s work to advise and assist the Commissioner in the performance of his or her duties and functions and, with the approval of the Treasury Board, may fix and pay the remuneration and expenses of those persons. ”

Motion No. 29

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 40, be amended by replacing lines 22 and 23 on page 22 with the following:

“officer, the Commissioner or a person acting on behalf of or”

Motion No. 30

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 41, be amended by replacing lines 26 to 30 on page 22 with the following:

“officer or the Commissioner, or any person acting on behalf of or under the direction of a senior officer or the Commissioner, in the performance of the senior officer’s, or the Commissioner’s, as the case may be,”

Motion No. 31

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 43, be amended by replacing lines 6 to 8 on page 23 with the following:

“43. The Commissioner and every person acting on behalf of or under the direction of the Commissioner who”

Motion No. 32

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 44, be amended by replacing lines 16 to 20 on page 23 with the following:

“44. Unless the disclosure is required by law or permitted by this Act, the Commissioner and every person acting on behalf of or under the direction of the Commissioner shall not disclose any information that”

Motion No. 33

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 44.1, be amended by replacing lines 26 to 29 on page 23 with the following:

“information under this Act by the Commissioner or any person acting on behalf of or under his or her direction.”

Motion No. 34

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 45, be amended by replacing lines 30 to 38 on page 23 with the following:

“45. No criminal or civil proceedings lie against the Commissioner, or against any person acting on behalf of or under the direction of the Commissioner, for anything done or omitted to be done, or reported or said, in good faith in the course of the exercise or performance, or purported exercise or performance, of any power or duty of the Commissioner under this Act.”

Motion No. 35

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 46, be amended by replacing line 39 on page 23 to line 3 on page 24 with the following:

“46. The Commissioner or any person acting on behalf of or under the direction of the Commissioner is not a competent or compellable witness in any proceedings, other than a prosecution for an offence under this Act, in respect of any matter coming to the knowledge of the Commissioner, or”

Motion No. 36

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 47, be amended by replacing lines 11 to 16 on page 24 with the following:

“or on behalf of the Commissioner is privileged if it was said, supplied or produced in good faith; and

(b) any report under this Act made in good faith by the Commissioner is privileged, and any fair and”

Motion No. 37

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 48, be amended by replacing line 21 on page 24 with the following:

“Commissioner”

Motion No. 38

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 49, be amended by

(a) replacing lines 28 and 29 on page 24 with the following:

“Act, the Commissioner shall not disclose any information”

(b) replacing line 11 on page 25 with the following:

“(2) The Commissioner may disclose any informa-”

(c) replacing line 18 on page 25 with the following:

“(3) The Commissioner may disclose any informa-”

(d) replacing line 30 on page 25 with the following:

“permitted by subsection (3), the Commissioner must”

Motion No. 39

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 50, be amended by replacing lines 13 and 14 on page 26 with the following:

“by the Commissioner to the chief executive under this Act may”

Motion No. 40

— That Bill C-11 be amended by adding after line 11 on page 27 the following new clause:

“54.1 (1) Each person employed in the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada in the administrative unit known as the Office of the Public Service Integrity Officer assumes, on the coming into force of this section, a position in the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner.

(2) Nothing in subsection (1) is to be construed as affecting the status of any person who assumes a position in the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner by reason of that subsection.”

Motion No. 41

— That Bill C-11 be amended by adding after line 11 on page 27 the following new clause:

“54.2 To the extent that the charges and expenses are in relation to the Office of the Public Service Integrity Officer, any amount appropriated, for the fiscal year in which this section comes into force, by an appropriation Act based on the Estimates for that year for defraying the charges and expenses of the federal public administration within the portion of the federal public administration known as the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada, and that, on the day on which this section comes into force, is unexpended is deemed, on that day, to be an amount appropriated for defraying the charges and expenses of the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner.”

Motion No. 42

— That Bill C-11 be amended by adding after line 11 on page 27 the following new clause:

“54.3 Disclosures under the Treasury Board Policy on the Internal Disclosure of Information Concerning Wrongdoing in the Workplace that are being dealt with on the coming into force of this section are to be continued as though they had been made under this Act.”

Motion No. 43

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 55, be amended by replacing lines 25 and 26 on page 27 with the following:

“that Act, or by the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, in relation to or as a”

Motion No. 44

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 56, be amended by replacing lines 1 and 2 on page 28 with the following:

“20. The Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, for the purposes of the Public”

Motion No. 45

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 57, be amended by replacing lines 19 and 20 on page 28 with the following:

“10(2) of that Act, or by the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, in relation to”

Motion No. 46

— That Bill C-11, in Clause 58, be amended by replacing lines 6 and 7 on page 29 with the following:

“that Act, or by the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, in relation to or as a”

Motion No. 47

— That Bill C-11 be amended by adding the following after line 13 on page 29:

“58.1 The schedule to the Act is amended by adding the following in alphabetical order under the heading “Other Government Institutions”:

Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner

Commissariat à l'intégrité du secteur public”

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate members agreeing to dispense with the reading of the motions so we can get into this debate because I am here to celebrate. I am here to celebrate an awful lot of hard work by a lot of members in the House and a great many public servants and others outside this chamber.

The bill has been a long time in coming. We have had a great deal of discussion about the need for it. An enormous amount of work was done prior to this particular bill coming forward. As members will remember, an earlier bill was dealt with in a previous Parliament, and there also was a great deal of very open and straightforward debate on this that has led to substantial improvements in the bill.

In a way, what occurred in committee on this bill is what a great many of us who are concerned about the role of this chamber have always wanted to see happen. We took a difficult public policy question and we put it before the House at first reading. The government put in front of the House a structure and a proposal that it thought would work to address the issue that was at hand. The committee looked at that and it heard from many witnesses. The committee agreed to accept portions of it and decided to ask for changes in areas where it did not have the confidence to change and then made changes in areas that it could. The result of that is that we have a much better bill and one that will serve the public servants of this country and Canadians exceptionally well.

It is no secret that I came forward with a bill that was modelled on this function being handed to the Public Service Commission. The original bill had a recommendation that it be contained within the executive and was structured that way. When I was given the responsibility for this portfolio I felt there had been a great deal of concern about that in the debate on the previous bill and certainly that model was inconsistent with the recommendation that had been put forward when I was the chair of this committee in the House when we first were looking at this.

Therefore I came forward with a proposal that we would put this responsibility under the President of the Public Service Commission. I felt that was a very reasonable way to deal with this and there were lots of reasons to argue it and I shall not re-argue it because the committee disagreed with me. However the committee did not just disagree with me. It called in many witnesses and heard from many people. I have to say that I was persuaded when I heard the arguments. I also spoke to individuals who had made representations. I was trying to sort out why an independent body, such as the Public Service Commission which has nearly a 100 year history in this area, would not be an acceptable home for this.

I came to the conclusion, which hon. members had come to earlier, that this was not a satisfactory solution to this problem. I have informed the committee members of this and have given them copies of what the bill would look like with these amendments in it. I have the full support of the Prime Minister to create a new parliamentary officer who would be the home and the person responsible for carrying out these responsibilities. This office will have the same relationship to Parliament that the other parliamentary officers such as the Privacy Commissioner and others have. It is a major improvement in the bill and members of the committee are to be congratulated for the very hard work they did.

However I would like to go a step further because in a sense this is exactly what we want. In a minority House and in the period just before a potential election where some call what occurs in here the silly season as everyone vies for position and tries to make headlines, there are times when one despairs of whether or not the place will settle down and grapple with a significant and important public policy decision and there certainly were times when I despaired when hearing some of the debate.

However at the end of the day I have always been a strong believer that if a group of people are put around the table and given a complex problem, those diverse opinions will lead to something better. The work of this committee has proven this.

It is important to underline that the committee is chaired by the member for Vegreville—Wainwright. One of the vice-chairs is the member for Winnipeg Centre, who was also the co-chair of the subcommittee of this committee when it wrote the original report on whistleblowing. The other vice-chair is the member for Mississauga South. The membership of the committee are the following members: the member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River; the member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain; the member for Ottawa—Orléans; the member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry who is my critic on this particular file and I know worked exceptionally hard on this bill; my parliamentary secretary, the hon. member for Sudbury, who again put an enormous amount of time in as we worked through all of the changes in the approach to this particular bill; the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London; the member for Lac-Saint-Louis; and the member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques who was herself in a former life a public servant and added a great deal of value to the debate as she tried to sort out how this would affect her work as a public servant. That is also true of the member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry.

We also had the valuable advice of the member for Abbotsford who always brings a certain colour and, dare I say, unique perspective to these debates. Frankly, having worked with him many times in the past, I found his interventions quite helpful. I consulted him a couple of times as I was trying to sort out some of the testimony that I had heard.

We also had the active involvement of a couple of other individuals from this House who are not full members of the committee but nonetheless came to the committee and substituted for people and who played a very important role: the member for Nepean—Carleton who was an active participant in the debates that led to the creation of this bill; and the member for Repentigny.

It is that community of individuals in this House from both sides who took time and energy. I know a lot of negotiation went on because some of the points of this bill and some of the positions were quite far apart.

I want to assure the members of the House that the motions that have been laid before the House are the ones I committed to putting before the House exactly as I presented them to the members. The one thing the committee did not have the competence to create, that is competence in the sense of did not have the legal authority to create, was the new office. It takes a royal recommendation because it involves the spending of more money. As the committee was going into clause by clause I committed to bringing forward those amendments. This has been done and the royal recommendation has been provided. The office can with the passage of this bill be created.

It did not stop there. I think that was the most significant change from the previous legislation but there were other changes. The scope of the bill has been broadened. The RCMP, which was initially excluded from the bill, is now included in the bill. The definition of wrongdoing has been clarified to make it clear that wrongdoing includes any activity in or relating to the public sector, not just activities of public servants.

More flexibility has been given to the labour boards to extend the deadlines for reprisal complaints. Bill C-11 would truly create an environment that encourages the reporting of misconduct in the federal public sector and it would be swift to incur action to deal with allegations.

The bill now allows for providing temporary assignments for public servants who are involved in a disclosure of wrongdoing or a reprisal complaint process in order to ensure even great protection, if necessary, during an investigation.

The bill would protect public servants making disclosures and treat fairly those against whom allegations are made. The bill now gives greater encouragement to public servants to disclose information about a possible wrongdoing. They do not require certainty about whether a wrongdoing has in fact occurred or is about to occur before making a disclosure.

In the end, the bill is not just about catching wrongdoers. It also aims to create a positive public sector climate that will support the important role that our public service plays in our parliamentary democracy.

In addition to the Treasury Board code of conduct, under the bill each public sector organization would have to establish their own code that reflects the unique circumstances within their own departments.

The bill also requires me, as the minister responsible for the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada, to actively promote ethical practices in the federal public sector. I think that is an important requirement.

When we went forward and began to get into this, I did quite a bit of consulting, in and outside of government. It is fine to talk about ethics, and we can frame behaviour with a set of rules, but what we really want is behaviour that comes from within.

One of the companies that is always rated very highly internationally for its ethical practices is General Electric. When I talked to people at General Electric and read about how they approach this, I found that so much of what really drives it is the inculcation of it in everything they do. It is represented in the speeches, in the instructions and in the communication that takes place in the organization at all levels, from the chairman of the board right on down. Every new person who comes into the organization is involved in it. It is not a one-time thing where they go by and post a code on the wall; it is part of the language of the organization.

I take that responsibility very seriously and will be speaking about that in the not too distant future.

I said when I came before the committee that I was looking forward to the members' input and I wanted this bill to be the best it could possibly be. I think they have achieved that and have produced a piece of legislation that will serve us very well.

In closing, I would like to recommend this bill to the House. I have noted that we have put down the amendments which I promised to put down to ensure the adjustments to this bill. I believe there may be one other amendment that is a technical change just to line up the French and English versions on an issue.

I understand that the other parties have been true to their desire to get this bill through the House. I thank them for facilitating this.

I commend the bill to the House. I again want to thank the members for it. I hope we will get speedy passage of the bill through this chamber because we still have to take it into the Senate and I know there will be a great deal of interest there. We need to have that discussion with the other place. Then perhaps we can all stand in this House and watch the proclamation of this particular piece of legislation, which the members of this House have had such a strong hand in creating.

[The Deputy Speaker]

There are 47 motions in amendment standing on the notice paper for the report stage of Bill C-11.

Motions Nos. 1 to 47 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the table.

I will now put Motions Nos. 1 to 47 to the House.

Business of the House

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to lay out the business for the next week.

We will continue this afternoon with Bill C-55, which is the wage earner protection program. Then we will proceed to the second reading of Bill C-57, the financial institutions bill, followed by second reading of Bill C-54, which is the first nations oil and gas and moneys management act.

Tomorrow we will consider report stage and, if possible, third reading of Bill C-25 respecting Radarsat. I understand as well that there are some ongoing discussions about the disposal of Bill C-63, amending the Canada Elections Act. We would also like to deal with Bill S-38 respecting the spirits trade and Bill S-31 respecting autoroute 30.

On Monday we propose to commence report stage of Bill C-11, which is the whistleblower bill. We would like to give this bill priority all week in the hope of completing all of the remaining stages.

We would then return to any business left over from this week and, if there is time, begin consideration of Bill C-44, the transport bill; Bill C-28, the food and drug legislation; Bill S-37, respecting the Hague convention; Bill S-36, the diamonds bill; and Bill C-52, the fisheries bill.

With respect to the business of supply during the present period, Mr. Speaker, I will reconfirm that you confirmed to the House that there will be seven allotted days during this period. In response directly to the opposition House leader's question, as per our discussion at the House leader's meeting this past Tuesday, we understood we would schedule the supply days after the Thanksgiving break.

In any event, it will be a topic that I look forward to discussing with House leaders at our meeting this coming Tuesday, so that we can in fact schedule all the required opposition days.

[The Speaker]

It has been brought to my attention that a clerical error has been found in the report to the House on Bill C-11, the public servants disclosure protection act.

In the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, a subamendment to clause 24(1)(b) was not recorded correctly in the English version of the report. Regrettably, the report to the House and the reprint of the bill have included this error.

Clause 24(1)(b) should read as follows:

(b) the subject-matter of the disclosure is not sufficiently important or the disclosure is not made in good faith;

Therefore, I am directing that a corrigendum to the report be prepared to insert the correct words in the English version of clause 24(1)(b). In addition, the working copy of the bill will be corrected in its next edition after third reading.

Committees of the House

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to present, in both official languages, the ninth report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

The committee has studied Bill C-11, an act to establish a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoing in the public sector, including the protection of persons who disclose the wrongdoings, and has agreed to report it with amendment.

An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

1989 was one of the best years in a very long time.

If we have a $500 billion debt and exceptional economic performance, why would we not pay down some of the debt when times are good? If we choose not to pay down some of the national debt when times are good, what realistic opportunity do we think there would be to pay down debt when times are not good? It is unbelievable. The debt to GDP ratio was 40% some odd and peaked at 68%. It is now down to 38%.

If we get our fiscal house in order, it means a lot of things can happen. The fiscal dividends, the savings on interest because we have paid down debt, is an important annual annuity which provides the cash flow necessary to fund programs.

Let me recap. We have a budget that was introduced in Bill C-43. It passed in this place with the support of the Conservatives. They had absolutely no objections to any of the four key items. They never spoke once about why we should not agree to those four items or why they were inappropriate. They also never talked about the cost being too much. The knew the incremental cost was just 1% of spending.

What was the real issue? The real issue for the Conservatives was not the content, substance and cost in Bill C-43. They wanted the government to fall. They wanted to force an election. That is the only reason we have been doing this. It could not be any other way. Why would they vote for and pass Bill C-43, the main budget, and defeat a minor item to throw us into an election, which effectively wipes out the main budget anyway? It makes no sense.

In the meantime what happened was the reality of what Canadians wanted from us was becoming clear. It was becoming clear that Canadians wanted us to work hard, to do everything possible to make the minority government work because they did not want an election. That is the difference.

Now there are other situations. There are other dynamics going on, but we have to listen to Canadians. Notwithstanding anything that has gone on so far, we have some important work yet to do, whether it on Bill C-38, the civil marriage act or other bills. We have child pornography legislation coming up.

We have a very important bill coming out of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates on whistleblower legislation, Bill C-11, which will offer more tools within the civil service to provide greater accountability and transparency in the way it operates. It is an extremely important bill.

We had the bill in the last Parliament. We finally brought it back and we were given the opportunity to shape it. There is a great deal of work. There must be at least another 20 bills that are in various stages of the legislative process which have important contributions, admittedly, by all members of Parliament. Good work has been done.

To force the government into an election at this time is not only to rebuke Canadians with regard to whether they want an election, but also it says to Parliament that they do not care about all the work that has been in the process. It was done for naught and let us come back some other day.

The Liberal government decided to listen to Canadians, to come up with a responsible budget, to collaborate and co-operate with other parties who were prepared to work together to make the minority Parliament work.

We are continuing on that track. The government will continue to work. Bill C-48 will pass. We will show Canadians that despite the efforts of the Conservative Party this will be one very successful government.

Message from the Senate

[John McKay, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I remind the hon. member and all those who are still listening at this hour that the Prime Minister and the government vowed to get to the bottom of this matter and that is exactly what they have been doing.

I will note for the hon. member and others that in December 2003 one of the first acts of the Prime Minister was to cancel the sponsorship program. The Prime Minister acted quickly and decisively to eliminate any possibility of the recurrence of sponsorship related problems.

He then announced the appointment of Justice John Gomery as an independent commission of public inquiry to examine the behaviour and to take evidence about the advertising programs, with a view to developing recommendations.

Then the Prime Minister in February 2004 announced the appointment of Mr. André Gauthier as special counsel for financial recovery. He in turn, through the Government of Canada, filed a statement of claim in the Superior Court of Quebec against 19 defendants claiming $40.8 million. This is further evidence of the government's desire to get to the bottom of this and to effect any recovery that can be effected.

In February 2004 the government also announced that it would introduce whistleblower legislation in anticipation that this issue needed to be addressed. That commitment was fulfilled with the introduction of Bill C-11. It is a bill that is now before committee. We are confident that once it returns from committee it will be approved by Parliament.

In February 2004 we announced reviews that would be undertaken on possible changes to the Financial Administration Act and the accountability of ministers and public servants. On February 17, 2005 the President of the Treasury Board tabled his review of crown corporation governance. As a result, the Access to Information Act will be extended to 18 crown corporations.

I am sure members will agree that these various measures demonstrate our commitment to get to the truth and ensure public confidence in the ability of both the government and the Department of Public Works and Government Services.

The Prime Minister and the government have been completely clear that any funds that have been inappropriately received by the Liberal Party through means that are considered to be inappropriate will be returned to the Canadian taxpayer. I would like to reiterate once again and repeat what the minister has said time and time again, that we should not comment on the day to day testimony of the Gomery commission as that would prejudge the work of Justice Gomery.

All of us on this side of the House look forward to the report of Justice Gomery and whatever that may entail. The RCMP continues to look into this matter. Charges have already been laid and the RCMP will follow the facts wherever they may lead.

May I reiterate that the Liberal Party, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Public Works and Government Services have made it absolutely clear that any funds that have been inappropriately received will be returned to the Canadian taxpayer. The government cannot keep that promise until we have all the facts and all the facts will only be available to us when Justice Gomery reports.

Whistleblower Legislation

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

Mr. Speaker, for two years this government has dragged its feet on the need to protect public servants who expose corruption.

Bill C-11 is bogged down in committee because it ignores the recommendations of every expert and stakeholder. They all agree that an independent commissioner is an essential part of effective whistleblower legislation.

Will the minister commit here and now to creating a truly independent commissioner to investigate disclosures of corruption?

Budget Implementation Act, 2005

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Madam Speaker, today I will be addressing a part of the budget that has not received very much attention, which is the impact it will have on Canadians with disabilities.

We know that hon. members opposite already support significant parts of this budget, such as the Atlantic accords, the increased support for the military and now the veterans charter. Many also actually support the whistleblower legislation under Bill C-11 which is now being drafted to protect federal employees. Therefore, it should be very easy for them to support the budget solely on the basis of what it will do for Canadians with disabilities.

I am also personally pleased that members of the Conservative Party see the benefits to Canadians on many other factors. I sincerely welcome their professed public support for the government's budget for Kyoto and the environment, for cities and communities, for the gas tax for municipalities and for first nations, for our child care agreements with the provinces and territories, for post-secondary funding, and for the GST rebate which has been promised to be honoured and now totals $600 million annually to communities of all sizes. I welcome their support for pensioners getting increased benefits, for our plans for affordable housing and making real progress on homelessness, and for improvements to the Income Tax Act which will take 860,000 Canadians off the tax rolls. Those who are least able to afford paying income tax will no longer have to do that. This includes 240,000 seniors on fixed incomes.

I know that they will support our proposals for even more aid for our farmers and agricultural sectors. We thank them for supporting the increase in funding for federal development agencies. For the people of Thunder Bay--Rainy River, it would mean significant benefits especially in the areas of broadband services, telemedicine and distance education.

If there ever were a budget that would tackle poverty head on, this is it. What I will speak to is the potential tragedy that would happen if this budget did not pass and how detrimentally it would affect persons with disabilities.

The Conservatives and the separatists will hurt hundreds of thousands of Canadians with disabilities if they stop these improvements, so I ask them now to help pass this budget. Since they agree with most of it already and have publicly stated their intent to honour many parts of it, it should be very easy, once I have finished speaking, for them to agree that this budget is one of the best ever.

In December 2004 a task force recommended improvements to the tax treatment of Canadians with disabilities and their families. The task force was composed of representatives from the disabled communities across the country. Its 25 recommendations resulted in a series of changes that will result in a $107 million investment in this budget year, should the budget pass. This would grow to $122 million by 2009, again should the budget pass.

In essence, the recommendations will broaden and clarify the eligibility criteria of the disability tax credit. It will expand the list of disability supports allowable under the disability supports deduction. It will increase the maximum credit under the refundable medical expense supplement from $571 to $750 per year. It will increase the child disability benefit, moving claims from $1,681 to $2,000 per year. It will double the amount that caregivers may claim for medical expenses under the disability tax credit from $5,000 to $10,000. It will make a $6 million investment with $1 million ongoing funding to help the CNIB enhance its library services across the country.

This is one report. Often in government we hear of reports gathering dust or being put on the shelf. Regarding the recommendations of the technical advisory committee, we know for certain that the report did not have time to gather dust or even make it to the shelf. It is action-oriented and it has been implemented as recommended, suggested and spoken to by the Minister of Finance. Whether it happens depends on the members opposite. I realize there are no representatives from the Conservative Party listening to me now, but I hope they will read this in Hansard .

Let us just talk about it.

Seventy million dollars is already in place as part of ongoing measures for the disabled. Therefore, the budget plan contains $37 million in new measures for persons with disabilities, $37 million more this year along to help address those needs and to take people off support and to continue to allow them a dignified normalization of life to which they are entitled.

I will go over a few of those things. All through the budget debate many other issues seem to have taken more spotlight. Once members have a chance to realize how significant these are to people with disabilities, then I am sure that we will gain even more support for the budget.

Let us talk about recommendation 3.2. It states:

To further improve the disability supports deduction, the committee recommends that:

The cost of such items--

To some of us they may seem like small things and things that many people take for granted, but they had not been considered before. This is where the committee, again, composed of representatives throughout the disabled communities of Canada made their suggestion. It goes on to state:

--as job coaches and readers, Braille note taker, page turners, print readers, voice-operated software, memory books, assistive devices used to access computer technology and similar disability-related expenses be added to the list of expenses recognized by the deduction.

That estimate of cost was $5 million a year. It was accepted. It can be implemented. It will be a promised kept if the budget passes.

The next one recommended that the maximum credit under the refundable medical expense supplement be increased from $562 to $1,000 and continue to be indexed to the cost of living. The cost of this is $20 million a year. It was accepted by the Minister of Finance and I thank him for his very receptive response to the recommendations of the committee. We also thank his department and staff for implementing this. It is a promise that will be kept if the budget can be passed.

When we talk about limiting the expenses claimable under the medical expense tax credit by care givers from $5,000 to $10,000 for those with dependant relatives eligible for this credit, at an the estimated cost $5 million a year. It was accepted and it will be implemented. It is a promise that will be kept if the budget passes with the support of the House.

Recommendation 4.3 suggested that the federal government increase the amount of the child disability benefit by $600 to raise the total maximum benefit from $1,653 to $2,253 and that this amount continue to be indexed to the cost of living. This indexing becomes very important in this section, particularly so disabled people do not have to worry about constantly coming back to us. This will cost $15 million annually, again accepted by the committee, accepted by the minister, willing to be implemented, a promised kept if we can get support for the budget to see it turn into reality.

As chair of the committee, I ask all members of the House to not destroy the benefits addressed in this part of the budget. We are well on the way to formulating our first national disabilities act.

Now that members have been asked within the provisions of civility, order, decorum and respect to support the budget, they have to understand that if it is not supported how many pensioners, seniors, children and others with disabilities will be detrimentally affected. If for no other reason members do not want to support the budget, this section alone would make it worth their while for the good will and benefit to Canadians with disabilities.

I know in my riding when I was mayor and when I first decided and was encouraged to run, community groups that represented the disabled organizations took a lot of time to help me to push the provincial government into passing its first disabilities act. Those people now are still being represented. I have seen, as the chair of our subcommittee on disabilities, that there is widespread support.

We are so close to having this come to fruition. Many recommendations of our task force representing the entire nation have been accepted so willingly, so promptly and so effectively. It troubles me greatly to think that Thursday night people would vote against the budget and cause so much damage to people with disabilities. Therefore, I ask members now--

Ukrainian Canadian Restitution Act

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

Madam Speaker, I am happy to hear that we are determined to get to the bottom of this, but how many years later are we determined to get to the bottom of this?

The Prime Minister acting to stop the sponsorship program as soon as he was appointed is an awful lot like what we say back home: closing the barn door after the horse is already out. The money has gone missing. The friends have been paid. The Liberal Party has run two or three elections with the dirty money now, but now we have closed that barn door as tight as we can.

On the matter of the civil litigation to get our money back from the Liberals' friends, these are the same companies and friends who just had to pick up the phone to get the government to send them money on some cheap sponsorship deal for putting logos on trains or names on golf balls. They had only to pick up the phone for that to happen.

Now we have to sue them in order to get the money back. What happened to these friends? Are they no longer close? Do we have to beg through the courts now to get the money back?

The member mentioned Bill C-11, the whistleblower legislation. A fine attempt is being made to do that and in committee we are working hard at it.

[Walt Lastewka, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Madam Speaker, to respond to the hon. member for Elgin—Middlesex—London, I welcome the fact that he has asked for an adjournment debate on this question. It is important that members of the House and Canadians as a whole understand how determined the Prime Minister and the government are to get to the bottom of the matter.

I find the member's opening remarks totally wrong. Let me remind the House that the Prime Minister's first act following his appointment in December 2003 was to cancel the sponsorship program. In other words, the Prime Minister acted quickly and decisively to eliminate any possibility of a recurrence of sponsorship related problems.

The government announced the establishment of an independent commission of public inquiry, headed by Justice John Gomery. The commission has been given full authority to examine past behaviour in the sponsorship and advertising programs with a view to developing recommendations to prevent any such abuses or mismanagement in the future.

The Prime Minister announced on February 10, 2004, the appointment of André Gauthier as special counsel for financial recovery. His mandate was to pursue all possible avenues, including civil litigation, to recover funds that were improperly received by certain parties involved in the delivery of the now cancelled sponsorship program.

On March 11, the Government of Canada filed a statement of claim for $40.8 million in the Superior Court of Quebec against 19 defendants, firms, businesses and individuals. This is further evidence of the government's desire to get to the bottom of the matter in which sponsorship funds were used. As well, the statement of claim may be amended should additional evidence become available which would support such a change.

Our government also announced in February 2004 that we would introduce whistleblower legislation to protect those who come forward to report mismanagement in the public sector, a commitment that has since been fulfilled with the introduction of Bill C-11. The bill is now before committee. We are confident it will be approved by Parliament and come into force in the near future. I welcome the member to participate in the discussion of Bill C-11.

As well, in February 2004 we announced that reviews would be undertaken on possible changes to the governance of crown corporations and to the Financial Administration Act on the accountabilities of ministers and public servants, as well as measures to strengthen the audit committees for crown corporations and to consider extending the Access to Information Act to all corporations.

On February 17, the President of the Treasury Board tabled his review on crown corporations and governance. As a result, the Access to Information Act will be extended to 18 crown corporations.

I am sure members will agree with these various measures that demonstrate our commitment to get to the truth and to ensure public confidence in the ability of both the government and the Department of Public Works and Government Services to manage taxpayers' dollars.

The Prime Minister and the government have been completely clear: if funds have been received inappropriately those funds will be returned to the government. The fact is that we will not be able to address these issues until Justice Gomery reports. I await Mr. Justice Gomery's report. Hopefully there will be no interference from the opposition.

Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to take part in the debate on Bill C-283, introduced by the hon. member for Newton—North Delta.

I want to start by reading a section of Bill C-11, an Act respecting immigration to Canada and the granting of refugee protection to persons who are displaced, persecuted or in danger. Unfortunately, I only have the English text with me. I want to read subsection 24(1), which states in English:

A foreign national, who in the opinion of an officer, is inadmissible or does not meet the requirements of this Act becomes a temporary resident if an officer is of the opinion that it is justified in the circumstances and issues a temporary resident permit, which may be cancelled at any time.

I draw this to the attention of the House because in my opinion, the private member's bill that is being presented cannot be supported in that there are already mechanisms in place to allow visitors to enter Canada under the normal criteria. Let me deal with a few of the objections that I have with the bill.

The first one is that the bill discriminates against those who do not have the means to post a bond. Let us face it; the kind of bond that would have to be posted would have to be important enough in terms of money. We are thinking $20,000 or over. Anything under that would not be a deterrent for anyone. Who could afford $20,000 or more if that person was from a developing country and wanted to come and visit a member of his or her family here? The posted bond would have to be very high, $20,000 or more, and in case of default how would this money be collected?

More important, this is the beginning of what we on this side of the House see as a two tier system for immigration. God knows we have tried hard enough on this side of the House over the last 50 or 60 years to actually reform the immigration law in this country to make the immigration law as non-racist and as non-discriminatory as possible and as non-discriminatory against people who have little or no money.

This is a bill that discriminates for people who have money or who have a sponsor who has money. This would be a two tier system.

I also see a great danger here, namely the danger that consortiums, immigrant and refugee smugglers will take advantage. How? Money is put aside and a person who wants to come here, but was previously refused the possibility of coming to Canada, is smuggled in. Once the person arrives in Canada, he is forced to reimburse his sponsor with interest. And how would this reimbursement be made? It would be through years of poorly paid labour, as we have already seen. We saw it several years ago when a large number of people came here illegally by ship from southwestern China. These people just dropped out of sight. They arrived in Canada and were never seen again, even though money had been deposited. This sum will have to be high enough. At that point, it is the sponsored person who has to reimburse it, and at what price.

Another point is that people who have money and who have been refused, and I emphasize the point that they have already been refused entry into Canada, would be able to enter regardless of any reason for which they had been refused as long as they had the money. I refer to this two tier system which I mentioned before.

There are already a number of possibilities which are available to people wishing to enter Canada as temporary visitors. I have just mentioned section 24(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, but that is done without a bond. That can be done without the person asking for money.

In the case of a family emergency, a marriage or a baptism, or tragically there may be a sudden death in the family, I am chair of a caucus where we have made a number of simple recommendations to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration so that these requests can be quickly dealt with and people can arrive in good time for the ceremony for which they have asked to come to Canada. There are ways for these people to come without having to post a bond.

There is no reason to deny a request unless there are real serious reasons for it, and the bill does not even touch this matter. There may be some cases, and there are cases, where when a tourist wishes to come to Canada he or she is refused because there is not a strong attachment shown to his or her country of origin and the officials are afraid he or she might not go back. There are sometimes some very real reasons that person cannot enter Canada. Certainly this bill does not even touch this particular aspect.

Clause 5 of the bill adds subsection 7 to section 183 of the act and reads in part:

Despite any other provision—

(a) may not work or study while in Canada

(b) may not apply for an extension of their authorization to remain in Canada—

When tourists arrive in Canada and have a tourist visa valid for a few weeks or months, there is a real possibility for them to apply for an extension of their visa, not once but twice. In this bill, though, it would be impossible for these people to extend their tourist visa.

I would like to mention, notwithstanding anything that a member of the opposition might have said, that this bill really does run against the Geneva convention, the protocol on refugees of 1956. It is very important. Some of the people opposite might think that our charter is not important. They might think that the Geneva convention is not important, but on this side of the House we think it is fundamental.

Canada would be forced to ignore the Charter of Rights and Freedoms under the UN convention for the protection of refugees and to return individuals to their countries because of the bond stipulated return. What would happen if while that person was here as a visitor to Canada a conflict erupted in his or her home country, as has been the case in Chile, Honduras or Iran? Does that mean we would send that person back to his or her home country in spite of a non-conflict over there? This is totally against our rules and regulations. This is against the kind of commitment that Canadians have made to those people who come and are on the international scene.

I would like to bring members' attention to some very recent changes to the immigration policy which show that the Liberal government has been very open to immigration and continues to be. The government is very open to the kind of difficulties that families may have when they want a family member to come here to visit. On February 18 the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration changed the policy to allow family class members to remain in Canada while their applications are being considered. How could anyone say that we are against immigration? This is something that makes it even easier for family class members to be sponsored. This will go a considerable way to reduce any backlog and deal with administrative concerns.

Of course there is a large number of people who want to come, but through these recent changes the backlog will be reduced.

In conclusion, I would like to emphasize the fact that, in order to be eligible under Bill C-283, the applicants would have to have been refused entry into Canada. The reasons for this refusal would have to be examined first before these people could be told: “You have money, you can enter.” In no way does this bill analyze the reasons for the refusal.

Canada is a country to which people gain entry by having money. There are a certain number of neutral criteria.

Financial Administration Act

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-8. I am a little disappointed by the lack of response from the hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke. Bill C-8 affects mainly two aspects, one of which is very important and that is official languages. My colleague from Sudbury emphasized this very well. I think she would agree it is sad to see that the Conservative Party critic has no idea how the Official Languages Act will apply or influence the new tenor or philosophy in the federal public service.

I gave them a chance to say a few words about it. During the election campaign there was some bad press, but sometimes people are quoted out of context. We thought we would give our opponents a chance and allow them to say a few words about this. We will have to wait for the next time to get an explanation on their party's position on this.

This is the second time I am speaking to Bill C-8. As I was saying, I listened closely to the speech by my colleague from Sudbury, who summarized this bill very well. I will mostly repeat what she said. However, I will try to make concrete arguments on certain aspects of the changes made by this bill.

One of the main objectives of Bill C-8 is to amend the Financial Administration Act to establish the office of the President of the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada. That is clause 1. This bill only makes official what has already been done. Indeed, on December 12, 2003, Michelle Chartrand was appointed by order in Council, order PC-2003-21-13, President of the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada.

The president of the agency has the powers of a deputy head of a department and is appointed by cabinet and can be removed at any time. This is not so for the Commissioner of Official Languages or the Auditor General, which is not a problem, I simply want to clarify that there is a difference in terms of their status and independence from the House.

The powers of the president are assigned to him or her by the Treasury Board, not by Parliament. Clause 1(2) provides that the President of the Treasury Board is responsible for the coordination of the activities of the Secretary of the Treasury Board, the President of the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada and the Comptroller General of Canada. As I recall—correct me if I am wrong—this provision was amended in committee to add that he or she is responsible for the coordination but must also be accountable. I thought that was what I heard the hon. member for Sudbury say.

Why should the president be accountable? Hon. members know that the wording is important when amending bills or drafting legislation. Allow me to say a few words about the ambiguous nature of the word “coordination”. Clause 1(2) provides that the President of the Treasury Board is responsible for the coordination.

I was official languages critic for a few years and I have learned that, in theory, the Minister of Canadian Heritage is responsible for the coordination of the Official Languages Act. In practice however, the minister with the least responsibility in connection with the Official Languages Act is the Minister of Canadian Heritage.

If the Minister of Canadian Heritage is the minister responsible under section 42 of the Official Languages Act, this should also be the minister responsible—I realize I am not speaking directly to Bill C-8, but I just want to make a quick point about the word “coordination”—for implementing the official languages action plan. But this responsibility was assigned to a different person at the time, namely the current Minister of the Environment.

The Official Languages Act provides that the Minister of Justice is responsible for part of the act, that the Minister of Canadian Heritage is responsible for the coordination, that the Prime Minister shall appoint a minister responsible for the act, that the President of the Treasury Board—as the agency's secretary—is responsible for the act as it relates to the public service, with the result that the individual responsibilities have been diluted to the point that no one is responsible for anything anymore.

When they appear before the committee and are asked why they have failed with regard to some aspect of the legislation, there is full latitude—since there are 22 individuals responsible, so none—for them to say that it is not them and that someone else is responsible.

That is why the Bloc Québécois amended one little word that may seem completely inconsequential. However, given our experience with the Official Languages Act, this little word is extremely important. In fact, this amendment means that the President of the Treasury Board is no longer the only one responsible for coordination of this legislation, but accountable for it too. Consequently, if there is a problem, he cannot say that it was the fault of the commissioner, the president of the agency, his brother-in-law or anyone else; he is the one who is ultimately responsible.

We know too that ministers appeared before the committee—Gagliano, to name just one—and they told us that ministers are not responsible for their department. In this case, the minister responsible is the President of the Treasury Board. This is the first question I asked him when he appeared before the committee, “Are you responsible for your department? If you are not responsible for your department, there is no point in our asking you questions, since you are not responsible for anything”. To my great surprise, he said that he was responsible for his department. If he is responsible for his department, he is therefore accountable for the actions taken during his mandate. That is why the Bloc Québécois sought this amendment—and we are happy that it passed—to subclause 1(2), which provides that the President of the Treasury Board is responsible and accountable for the coordination of activities.

Further on in the bill, they are amending—as I have said, and will keep on saying—the Canada School of Public Service Act, section 2, and the Official Languages Act, section 3, to ensure that the president of the agency is an ex officio member of the school. The second point is an interesting one, The supposed purpose is to ensure that it is the president of the agency, rather than the president of the Treasury Board, who will provide the Commissioner of Official Languages with any reports concerning the monitoring and auditing of observation by the federal institutions of the principles, instructions and regulations originating by either himself or the governor in council concerning official languages.

The purpose of all that verbiage is to say that the head of the agency will be the one to provide the COL with these files.

I have another problem here. When the president of the agency receives these reports and passes them on to the COL, there should be both responsibility and accountability in place. This is not the case. The person who receives them and passes them on is not assigned any responsibility.

I filed a complaint nearly a year ago to the COL about the Treasury Board. My complaint was that the Treasury Board policies and action plans state in black and white that it will not comply with the Official Languages Act. It is not set out in so many words that: “We are going to go against the Official Languages Act”, but it is there in connection with the position designated bilingual. For instance, it indicates that 60% of army positions designated bilingual are staffed with unilingual anglophones, and that in a specific sector, 22% of positions designated bilingual are staffed with unilingual anglophones. Finally, Treasury Board writes that it has an action plan whereby, in the next two, three or four years, they will bring those figures down by 2%, 3% or 4%. It we look at this carefully, what that comes down to is stating “We hereby inform you that we will continue to break the law for the next three, four or five years.”

I thus filed a complaint with the Commissioner of Official Languages and that complaint was deemed to be in order and is currently being investigated. Accordingly, when people say that the president of the agency will receive the annual reports relating to the implementation of the Official Languages Act and will be in charge of follow-up, I have a little problem. Indeed, what was done before was not proper. We are renewing what was done before. It will not be proper.

I seem to recall, Mr. Speaker, that you too used to sit on the Standing Committee on Official Languages. You must have heard this part of my pet question, which goes like this, “Why is a unilingual person hired to fill a bilingual position, if the hiring criterion is being bilingual?”

I often asked the question of all the ministers who appeared, namely how many lawyers in the Department of Justice are not lawyers, but carpenters, who managed to get hired on a promise that they would eventually become lawyers. My impression is there are none. How many people who formerly worked at Jean Coutu's have been hired in the Department of Finance as accountants on the promise that eventually, since they know how to operate cash registers, they will become accountants? I think that the hiring criterion to be a lawyer in the public service is to be a lawyer. Similarly, the hiring criterion to be an accountant in the public service is to be an accountant. Why is that the hiring criterion to be bilingual in the public service would not be to be bilingual?

In this respect, I would be willing to accept—it is called non-imperative staffing—that we extend this criterion to the public service as a whole, if we want to apply it this way. In other words, if criteria do not matter, let us hire truck drivers—for whom I have a lot of respect—as management executives or accountants at the Treasury Board, on the promise that they will one day become accountants.

You know that, with exception clauses, some people are being hired in designated bilingual positions, on the promise that they will become bilingual one day. Afterwards, they go through their career as unilingual employees in the designated bilingual position. Then, when they retire, other people make sure that their farewell party is in one language, because they would not understand if it was in another one.

Bill C-8, in transferring the current powers of the President of the Treasury Board to the president of the agency, does not solve this problem, which I think is very serious. I heard Conservative members say there was somewhat of a void. However, this is a problem that we would like to see corrected in a speedy and concrete fashion with the new agency. However, we do not have much hope.

The bill also has a number of transitional provisions, consequential amendments and coordinating amendments to tie Bill C-8 with the coming into force of certain sections of the Public Service Modernization Act, that is Bill C-25.

So, we must make the connection between Bill C-25 and Bill C-8, which I will do briefly. Indeed, I spent too much time on official languages, but it is a subject dear to my heart. Since the essence of the work of the Human Resources Management Agency and of its president is to implement the provisions of the Public Service Modernization Act, it is important to remind the House about the main comments of the Bloc Québécois on this bill.

In the 2001 Speech from the Throne, the government said that it was undertaking:

—the reforms needed for the Public Service of Canada to continue evolving and adapting. These reforms will ensure that the Public Service is innovative, dynamic and reflective of the diversity of the country-able to attract and develop the talent needed to serve Canadians in the 21st century.

Bill C-25 contained four significant measures to reform the public service: it amended the Public Service Staff Relations Act; it repealed the Public Service Employment Act; it amended the Financial Administration Act to transfer certain powers with respect to human resources management to the Treasury Board; and it amended the Canadian Centre for Management Development Act to pave the way for its merger with Training and Development Canada, and the eventual birth of the new Canada School of Public Service.

In fact Bill C-25 significantly changes the legislative and institutional framework for the management of human resources in the public service. The role of the Treasury Board increases considerably with the consolidation of employer responsibilities. The Public Service Commission will refocus its activities on the protection of the merit principle and political neutrality in staffing.

This is an important principle. I have sat on committees with certain Liberals. One of the positions taken by the Bloc Québécois is that returning officers in each riding should be appointed based on their ability, merit and skills, rather than being appointed by the Prime Minister.

The Liberals are opposed. I keep telling them that I am sure that some Liberals will continue to be appointed as returning officers because there have to be a few competent ones in the bunch. They need not worry. I am not suggesting they will be the majority, but there could be five or six appointed in the 308 ridings. They need not worry. People can still be appointed on the basis of their qualifications.

Bill C-25 also dealt with the protection of whistleblowers. It has since been amended and has now become Bill C-11. It is under consideration at the Standing Committee on Governmental Operations and Estimates. It is designed to allow the disclosure of wrongdoing. The Bloc Québécois has two main reservations with respect to Bill C-11. First, there should be an independent officer of the House—like the Auditor General or the Commissioner of Official Languages—whom the employees throughout the public service could trust and whom they could tell about wrongdoing taking place in their departments or workplaces.

We have seen how difficult working for his department became for Mr. Cutler after he brought the whole sponsorship scandal to light. I am not referring to the minister, because I am not allowed to refer to Minister Cotler by name. I have to refer to his riding. I was talking about Mr. Cutler, the government employee.

Mr. Cutler had problems in his department when he disclosed what happened in the sponsorship program. We want to make sure public servants can divulge such information not to their supervisor, but to an independent officer of the House and that the public servant is protected from retaliation. All of this is laid out in Bill C-25.

Let me come back to Bill C-8. I do not know if I was sufficiently clear, but the Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-8, despite our many reservations. We have reservations about certain aspects of the bill, especially when it comes to the Official Languages Act. We support Bill C-8 because its purpose is to refocus some existing legislation and correct some legislative and administrative measures.

We are in favour of this bill because, despite several omissions, it will ensure better cohesion for human resources management within the federal public service. The Bloc Québécois accepts the principle of the bill since it is the first step to improving the coordination activities involved in human resources management in the Canadian public service. However, we will continue to expose the omissions that we feel are far too important.

While we reaffirm our confidence in and our admiration for the federal public service and while we say that it needs Bill C-11 to allow public servants to disclose possible acts of wrongdoing, we would not want to go as far as the President of the Treasury Board, who said on his website that, being the President of the Treasury Board of the very best country in the world, he wanted to have the best public service in the world. I have not checked today, but last October, when I made my first speech, this is what appeared on the President of the Treasury Board's website.

Again, I have a lot of respect for public servants. We must have an exemplary public service, that is respected and that respects itself. I hope that Bill C-8 will give these people better working conditions and that other laws will also allow them to tell us about serious wrongdoing. I know that we are dealing with a huge machine and a huge public service. Unfortunately, as we say “man will do what man will”. There will unfortunately always be wrongdoing. However, serious wrongdoing, such as we have seen lately, must be disclosed promptly to prevent serious situations like that to undermine public confidence in the politicians and the public servants.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on a bill introduced by my colleague, the member for Burnaby--Douglas.

This is the second time the New Democratic Party has introduced legislation to convince Parliament of the importance of expanding the definition of family for the purpose of family reunification under our immigration program. This issue of vital importance to new Canadians who are here and established and to the country as a whole.

I understand from the debate to this point that there are some real concerns on the part of Conservative and Liberal members. I hope to be able to persuade them to see the wisdom of at least allowing for a further review of this critical issue so that a thorough vetting can take place at committee level and so that Canadians who have real expertise in this area will have their voices heard and considered.

This is a matter of great importance for immigrants now in Canada because nothing is stronger than the bonds of family. Nothing makes more sense in terms of building a community and a country than allowing new Canadians who are established here to bring in close family relatives.

As part of this approach, we are asking Parliament not to judge what constitutes family and not to apply a narrow cultural definition of family. We are asking Parliament to look at this from the point of view of people around the world who see family on a broad basis, who see family encompassing many relatives within that unit as part of the support they give one another and as part of the bonds of love that exist within that unit.

We are pleading with parliamentarians today to recognize that family is more than the typical nuclear two parent, a couple of kids and a house with a white picket fence. We are saying to parliamentarians that for many new Canadians it is critically important to have sons, daughters, brothers and sisters who are over the age of 22 with them here in this country.

On that point, I should remind the House that there are many in the system who are now ineligible to join with family because the system is backlogged. The process may have been started when they were 9 or 10 years of age but they were not able to get into the country, and now, because they are over the age of 22, they are automatically excluded. Is there no justice when it comes to uniting families in terms of brothers, sisters, sons and daughters? That is just one element of what is wrong with our current system.

Equally important, let us not judge the importance of having uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews. For many immigrants those family members are considered to be intimate members of the family. They bring support, they nurture and they care for one another, and hence reduce the burden on the state because of the built in mechanisms for ensuring that there are ways to break down the barriers of isolation, loneliness and despair when one enters a new country.

Let us look at this from the national point of view as well.

As my colleague from Burnaby--Douglas has already said, the government has failed to meet its 1993 election promise of a 1% population target for immigration. The government has yet to accomplish that fundamental goal of allowing 225,000 to 250,000 new immigrants every year into this country. That policy was put in place for a good reason. We need immigrants to come to Canada. We need them for the sake of ensuring our survival and ensuring that we are able to pay for the programs we will need when we get old, such as social security and pensions.

Let us not lose sight of the fact that at the rate things are going, by the year 2010 or 2011 our only growth in the labour force will happen because of immigration. By the year 2025, given the way our birth rate is in this country, our only population growth will come about as a result of new immigration.

Let us not be short-sighted. Let us not cut off our nose to spite our face. Let us not assume that we will be flooded with so many new applications that we will not be able to handle them.

I want to remind members of the Liberal government that they changed the definition of family in Bill C-11 to include grandparents but there was no deluge of grandparents knocking at the door trying to get in. People come on a basis that is reasonable, as the need arises and according to the needs of the family. Similarly, we will not see a deluge of people suddenly knocking down the doors of immigration demanding to get into this country because of one little bill that calls for a more enlightened and broader definition of family.

I urge members of the government and the Conservative Party to look at the wisdom of studying this matter further.

My constituency of Winnipeg North is probably one of the most diverse communities in a spectacularly diverse nation. People have come from all over the world and settled in my community of Winnipeg North. They have contributed in numerous ways to the health and well-being of our whole society and have made an enormous contribution to our identity, to our economic survival and to our ability to reflect the values of diversity, tolerance and understanding.

My constituency has said with one voice that we should listen to them, that we should expand the definition of family so they can bring loved ones here who are now not eligible. They ask that we listen to their voices by way of their pleas, their stories and the hundreds and hundreds of signatures that they have delivered to Parliament in support of a once in a lifetime provision for family reunification.

I urge members of the House to support this very important contribution to our immigration policy.

Whistleblower Legislation

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

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-11 would allow the government to cover up corruption like the sponsorship scam.

The minister says that this would protect the identities of whistleblowers but the information commissioner plainly states that “there is no merit to the government's argument”. In fact other sections of the bill say explicitly that the confidentialities of whistleblowers will not be guaranteed.

Why will the minister not just admit that this bill is all about protecting the corrupt government, not honest public servants?

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

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-11 will enable the government to cover up scandals like the sponsorship scandal. The minister cleverly claims to be protecting people making complaints, but the Information Commissioner refutes this. Elsewhere in the bill, the statement is made that honest informants will not be protected.

Will the minister admit that the purpose of this bill is not to protect honest public servants, but to support a corrupt government?

Whistleblower Protection

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

Mr. Speaker, the government's Bill C-11 contains no new mechanisms for whistleblowers to report reprisals to their employers. It contains no punishment for employers who discipline whistleblowers. As a matter of fact it explicitly refuses to protect whistleblowers who go public. Yet it authorizes departments to hide disclosures of wrongdoing for up to 20 years. The bill is designed to protect a corrupt government, not whistleblowers.

When will the government stop using honest public servants as an excuse for a bill designed to hide corruption?

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

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-11 is cause for alarm. Using the sponsorship scandal as an example, the Information Commissioner told us this morning that this bill would allow a minister to hide for 20 years information on an issue disclosed by an honest whistleblower.

Will the President of the Treasury Board admit that he is preparing the biggest cover-up in parliamentary history?

Financial Administration Act

[Françoise Boivin, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

It is with pleasure, and above all conviction, that I rise in support of Bill C-8, introduced for second reading by my honourable colleague, the President of the Treasury Board of Canada.

This bill is evidence of our concrete commitment and support to those whom we all consider the most important resource government possesses for fulfilling its obligations and meeting the needs of the people it serves.

I am referring to the tens of thousands of Canadians who have decided to join the public service and serve the public, which includes themselves. It is my great pleasure to have many of them in my riding of Gatineau.

They, like many of their fellow citizens working in other sectors, have to cope with working environments that are changing more and more rapidly and becoming more and more competitive, complex and demanding.

Whether their area is health, education, economics, the environment, social welfare, justice or community security—areas, among others, of concern to Canadians—there are many and more complex challenges facing federal public servants.

These challenges require knowledge, skills, abilities, professionalism and a capacity to manage change as never before on the part of our employees. All of that is within the context of an environment characterized by ever faster technological advances as well as an increasingly competitive labour market that comes with its own set of challenges in terms of human resources management, in particular, in the areas of recruitment, training, professional development and retention.

Compounding these challenges are the expectations of a population that is demanding a well managed, highly effective public service where each dollar counts, a public service that is able to quickly adapt its priorities, and above all, meet high standards in terms of accountability, ethics, transparency, openness and accessibility.

However, the list does not stop there. In addition to these challenges, which I would qualify as external, our public servants must deal with major internal changes. Those internal changes have become crucial in meeting the needs and expectations of the Canadian population in an effective and sustainable way. In our country, as in many other countries around the world, governments must modernize their public sectors. In Canada our citizens and Parliament are demanding better information and increased accountability, more integrated services, systematic reallocation of public resources to the most pressing public needs and, of course, maximum return on each dollar invested.

In order to do this, the government needs to strengthen and modernize management, and support it with much more efficient, rapid and intelligent systems and structures for information, planning, monitoring and decision-making.

Thus, in a context of rising expectations and limited resources, the government must significantly improve the way it manages information and resources, implements programs, provides services, and accounts for its expense and results.

In that respect, our government has firmly committed to this end and is actively working on several key initiatives in order to reinforce our public sector management. In particular, we can point to the government restructuring of December 12, 2003, the setting up of a thorough and continuous review of government programs and spending, Bill C-11 on the protection of whistle-blowers, strengthening of controls, results-based management and accountability frameworks, and re-engineering of the ways internal and external services are delivered.

Thus, once again, we have to realize what is at stake and the scale of the changes, challenges and work that must be done. Success will depend very much on the commitment and efforts made by everyone, including public servants. Still, for real success, our employees must have the best tools available and be guided and supported by exemplary leadership at all levels, in all fields and in all departments and agencies of the public service, especially in the central agencies.

I am proud to support the bill that would give the Public Service human resources management agency of Canada a legislative basis, an agency whose main objective is supporting employees across the public service, an agency whose priority is to modernize and foster excellence in human resources management and leadership, and an agency that is at once a champion of employees and managers, a strategic partner of departments and agencies, an expert in human resources management and an agent of change.

Therefore, as a central agency focused on human resources management, it has a key role to play in supporting the entire public service and helping it to successfully overcome the many challenges facing our employees, employees, who, as I mentioned earlier, constitute the government's most precious resource.

I will echo my colleagues by saying that not only does the bill reflect the government's commitment to strengthening and supporting excellence in human resources management, but it also constitutes a vital instrument that will unquestionably facilitate the agency's work.

I had the privilege of hearing most of the speeches on Bill C-8 by members from the various parties here in the House. I would be remiss in not responding to some of the statements heard during the debate on C-8, among others, remarks concerning the government's attitude toward its most important resources, and also the very relevant question about official languages, always asked the same way, from the Bloc Québécois members.

I can state that, with respect to the government's attitude to human resources, everyone agrees that they are our most important resources. I do not think anyone will deny that fact. Any differences are in the methods we use to reach our goals.

Before I came to this House, I spent almost 20 years working in labour relations and staffing, doing workplace assessments, and so on. Perhaps it is what I saw in my former life that makes this issue so important to me. This is not easy to achieve and must be worked at constantly. I am proud to be part of a government and especially to support the President of the Treasury Board, my hon. colleague, who, in every meeting I have had with him, has always made a point of trying to reach this level of excellence. We are seeking a relationship of mutual respect with our employees. This requires constant effort from both parties. It is an ever-changing process.

In terms of official languages, yesterday we heard all sorts of things. My hon. colleague, the member for Repentigny, made a point of quoting the Internet, and sometimes the dictionary, in his speeches. When he is talking about official languages, he might want to quote the Commissioner of Official Languages. I think that would be far more effective than the Internet or the dictionary for criticizing the government.

What I regret sometimes about debates on the issue of official languages is that the impact of Bill C-8 gets distorted. The amendment to the Official Languages Act, in my view, simply specifies that it is the president of the agency, and no longer the Secretary of the Treasury Board, who sends any report prepared under the authority of the Treasury Board to the Commissioner of Official Languages. Furthermore, the bill states very clearly that official languages is one of the agency's responsibilities, and this integration within the agency provides even greater visibility.

What I dislike about the attitude of the members opposite is when they complain that the Commissioner only mentioned things that do not work. I would like to draw their attention to the great successes. I have the pleasure of being on the Standing Committee on Official Languages and I have already attended the two meetings that have been held. Thus, I have perfect attendance at the committee. I had the pleasure of listening to the Commissioner of Official Languages, who told us that not everything done on this side is bad.

In the showcase of success stories, .there is the Leon Leadership Award for 2003-04. The Commissioner of Official Languages, Dr. Adam, tells us about Michel Dorais, the deputy minister of Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Reference is also made to the head of the Public Service Award for Official Languages, and Western Economic Diversification Canada. These are more great things being done in Canada, which the Bloc Québécois often fails to mention, preferring to focus on what is not working.

Among the success stories are Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, a partnership in Newfoundland and Labrador, a partnership in Edmonton, and even the United States embassy. Following a study conducted by the Commissioner of Official Languages raising concern about the fact that the United States embassy official website was in English only, the website was made bilingual. Other success stories include a French-language service policy in Saskatchewan, info-health services in French in Manitoba, services in French from the Ontario Provincial Police, even the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Sherbrooke, a partnership in Nova Scotia, and the list goes on.

I am hearing good things. There is no doubt that other things need improvement. The fact is that everything keeps changing in life. It is important that those watching us, taxpayers, do not get the idea that nothing good is being done in official languages. It is up to us to be vigilant and to ensure that progress continues to be made.

That is what I had to say on Bill C-8. From what I have heard so far, I gather that the vast majority of members in this House will be supporting the bill. That is what matters, in the end, because it will do our public service good and allow it to achieve the level of excellence that this side of the House has never been afraid to achieve, whether others like it or not.

[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.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-11, which is going to committee before second reading.

I have listened very carefully to the government's defence of this whistleblower legislation. Except for the last member, I have been very disappointed with the Liberals' defence of this legislation which will really do nothing to improve the culture of corruption that we have been facing for years. The last member has given me hope that the Liberals are going to hear some of the suggestions that we are putting forward. He talked about an independent commissioner. That is what we need. That is one of the serious flaws in this legislation.

Let me talk about why it is needed. The phrase “culture of corruption” is often used. This is a plague on taxpayers. It is a plague on Canada. It is a plague on democracy. We need something to address this. That is why this bill could become a very important piece of legislation if it is amended to ensure that it truly becomes whistleblower legislation and protects those people in the public service, in crown corporations, in the RCMP who may see or suspect that there are problems and something that has been going on behind the scenes that should be corrected.

The words I have just used may seem a bit harsh, but I want to talk about my experience here in Parliament over the last 11 years. It will make it abundantly clear why we need something like this.

I was first elected to the House of Commons in 1993. I thought when I came here we would get the information that we need to do our job. I have become disillusioned. I was wrong. The government has done its best, or in this case its worst, to keep me and every member of this opposition Conservative Party in the dark.

Here is a fact. In the past 11 years, I have filed 496 access to information requests, nearly 500 access to information requests. If I randomly selected one of those, for example the one that I just received last week, and I showed it to the House, but I am not allowed to do that because we cannot use props, members would be shocked to see how much of it was whited out. In this last case it has been blacked out. There are huge black sections where information has been hidden from me and by extension all Canadians because the government is covering up some of the serious problems that exist behind the scenes.

In my experience we need more openness and transparency in government. We need to have bureaucrats who are working behind the scenes able to come forward and disclose things. Why do I get these access to information requests that are blacked out? That is the case with many of my replies; they come back and there are more blanks than there is information.

I believe it is because public servants are afraid to give me the documents I am requesting. They are afraid they might be fired, demoted, red circled, or punished in some other way if they release documents that are an embarrassment to their minister. That is not right.

We need to do the opposite. We need to encourage public servants to share the truth with members of Parliament. A good bill to protect whistleblowers would go a long way in alleviating the fears of public servants.

Let me also answer another question. Why should Canadians care about whether we have effective whistleblower protection? It is obvious from my introductory remarks that it is a key element in making democracy work. Let me explain.

Democracy cannot function effectively if there is not a free flow of information. We need to know what is happening behind the scenes in government. That is very important in our system of government here, that there be transparency, that government be open and accountable and that we know what is happening in all of the different divisions of government.

How, by extension, can Canadians make an intelligent and informed decision at election time if they do not have information? I submit that this information has been hidden from Canadians because we have not had effective whistleblower legislation and because access to information and all of the other mechanisms that should provide information to us are not working.

For democracy to work, we must have that free flow of information so that when Canadians go to the polls, talk to their members of Parliament or observe what is happening here, they will know actually what is happening.

Whistleblowing legislation can be an important part of a free flow of information. I would even go so far as to say that it should be the duty of public servants to disclose things that are not honourable or not honest going on behind the scenes. I think we should go way beyond this legislation and provide an incentive, a reward for those who are honest and honourable and want to do the right thing.

We as Conservatives have been pushing for this for a long time. In speeches that I made back in 1994 I was already saying that we needed effective whistleblowing legislation. My colleague from Newton—North Delta has been submitting legislation for years but the government has completely ignored it. Through private members' business he has tried to get whistleblowing legislation debated and passed in the House. The government has finally brought something forward. I just wish it would be more effective.

One of the problems that whistleblowers could address, which is one with which I am very familiar, is the gun registry. I have tracked this issue for a long time. The government hides information about what is going on behind the scenes. Problems are not reported.

I feel that one of the key problems with the legislation is that the reporting that the whistleblower does goes first of all to the people above him or her and to the minister. It does not encourage disclosure to some independent commissioner. That has to be foundational in any legislation for it to work.

The way the bill is set up now it would have the exact opposite effect. It would allow the minister or senior bureaucrats to put the thumbs on these people and deal with them in a way behind the scenes that we will not even know about. In fact, I believe this would have the opposite effect, which I will explain more in a minute.

We have been offering ideas to the government for years on effective legislation but it did not even consult us when it came to drafting the proposed legislation. I thought in a minority Parliament this would happen but it has not happened yet. My hope is that it will.

I believe that the proposed legislation is the government playing politics, at least what I see so far. By that I mean that the government is creating an impression that it is doing something effective just to get votes. It is actually pulling the wool over the eyes of the public by giving the bill a name, such as whistleblower legislation or public servants disclosure protection act.

I think we have to go beyond that. We have to find a mechanism for potential whistleblowers that would reward them rather than punish them. I think it will have the opposite effect.

In the bill's present form it should not be called the public servants disclosure protection act. It should be the public servants disclosure prosecution act. The way it is structured it would allow the people in positions of authority to actually put down potential people who would like to come forward.

I have a news release by the public servants that was put out on March 22 of this year which actually supports what I have just said. Because the integrity commissioner reports to the minister and not to Parliament and because whistleblowers must go to supervisors first instead of the commissioner, this cannot work. They would be punished rather than rewarded for doing something honourable.

In conclusion, I would like to say that the bill should include all public servants. The government should not be able to cherry-pick who it applies to. It should include the RCMP and crown corporations.

The key thing that has to happen, which the Conservatives have supported, is that we must create a truly independent body to receive and investigate the disclosures of wrongdoing by all public servants, either publicly or through formal channels. The bill falls short of that and we need to fix it so it will be effective. It is a good idea but, in its present form, unacceptable.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-11 with regard to its referral to committee after first reading.

I was the chairman of the government operations and estimates committee in the last Parliament which dealt with the previous bill on whistleblowers. As such, I am acutely aware of the sensitivities that the public service raised with the committee as well as interested parties. Members will know that the issue of independence within the process was extremely important and was expressed by many interveners. As well, the issue of whether or not crown corporations were under the umbrella of this legislation became an important consideration.

I am sure these will continue to be principal elements of discussion at committee. It is one of the reasons that it is probably advisable that the bill go to committee after first reading, so that the committee has the opportunity to examine the fundamentals of the bill to make sure we get it right. That is in the best interests of all and certainly of our public service.

The bill encourages public service members to report wrongdoing in the workplace and protects those who make such disclosures. There is ample evidence why this protection is absolutely necessary.

We went through the process with the former privacy commissioner, Mr. George Radwanski, who ultimately was found in contempt of Parliament. We found ample evidence of rewarding those who played ball and other negative consequences to those who were concerned about what was going on within that department.

I think a consensus point for all hon. members will be that we need to protect the public servants if, as and when they bring to the attention of parliamentarians allegations of misappropriations or other wrongdoing, et cetera.

As a chartered accountant, I am subject to the rules of professional conduct of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants. Those rules obligate me to report to an independent person within the Canadian institute any suspected allegation of wrongdoing of another chartered accountant in the conduct of his or her business. I do not have an option. In fact, if it is subsequently determined that I knew but did not report, under the terms of that code of conduct, I would be equally culpable as the person who did the wrongdoing.

That is the kind of principle that should be part of the normal culture within the public service. I believe the public service wants to have that openness to be able to bring to the attention of someone suspicions. I think suspicions are a starting point, not full knowledge. Indeed it is not really up to the public servant to make the full case. It is important that that case be brought to the attention of independent persons outside their own department so that the details can be established. In the event that the concern is not properly founded, that can properly be discussed with the public servant raising the issue. There are some fundamental principles that could be built into the bill.

It is important for members to familiarize themselves with the bill. In our new committee of government operations and estimates there is a feeling of camaraderie and goodwill. We want to do good work on behalf of Canadians and we all respect the good work that is done by our excellent public service.

I would like to spend a few moments on the preamble. The preamble is very important. We often forget about reading the preamble in bills. It is an important statement not only to our public servants, but to Canadians. It sets the context for right doing and it recognizes the Public Service of Canada as an important national institution, part of the essential framework of our parliamentary democracy.

The preamble also acknowledges the public interest in maintaining and enhancing the confidence of Canadians and the integrity of our public servants, who it recognizes may sometimes be torn between democratic values and loyal service to the government of the day and their right to freedom of expression. This is a very important aspect to be reflected within our legislation. The bill is structured to give them a clear and safe avenue to raise the concerns and the confidence that they will be addressed.

The bill also provides that employee concerns be addressed at a source where they can be resolved the fastest. It also provides for critical safety valves for the protection of a person. Anonymity is a very fundamental part of that protection.

There are three parts of Bill C-11 that deal with the promotion of right doing. More specifically, the bill requires the Treasury Board of Canada to establish a code of conduct for the public sector. The importance of the code is such that Treasury Board must consult with the bargaining agents in its development and must table it in Parliament.

Bill C-11 also allows chief executives, being the deputy heads of departments and chief executive officers of crown corporations, to establish codes of conduct in their own organizations. These codes must be consistent with the code established by Treasury Board.

I point out that the federal public service and many public sector organizations already have good, strong codes for employees but the bill goes further in supporting employees to live up to those codes. The proposed legislation gives those codes the teeth they need to be effective, that is to say that serious breeches of these codes are also one of the definitions of wrongdoing within Bill C-11.

Any public servant who is asked to act contrary to the code of conduct would now have under the proposed law a safe avenue for refusal.

The proposed legislation also requires the minister responsible for the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada to promote ethical practices in the public sector. This would allow the important work on values and ethics that has been ongoing in the public service for almost a decade to expand and improve support to managers and public servants.

I must admit that there are some areas of the bill on which there will not be total consensus among the various stakeholders. Certainly the crown corporations issue is going to be raised again. I think the committee will have an opportunity to assess the best interests not only of our public servants but also of Canadians at large.

With regard to the protection and values, I know that the committee is very anxious to ensure that all our public servants feel that this bill provides them with the necessary protections so that there would not be negative consequences to their raising allegations of any wrongdoing. That is good parliamentary practice. It is certainly good business practice.

I am sure that the committee looks forward to hearing witnesses on the bill to ensure that we do get it right the first time.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Madam Speaker, I count it a privilege to rise in the House and speak to the matter of the bill we are debating today. Certainly Bill C-11 is a significant and important bill and we have to give due diligence to it. I appreciate that many of the comments that have been made are valid ones.

Let us look at the purpose of the bill. It is “to establish a procedure” for the reporting or disclosure of wrongdoing and to protect those who so report, and to set a code of conduct. The bill states that the code of conduct would be set by Treasury Board and a minister must consult with the employee organizations' certified bargaining agents. That is well and fine. The bill goes on to state, “Every chief executive may establish a code of conduct applicable” to their particular department. The bill does not give any guidelines as to what that code of conduct ought to be or should be. I find that there is a bit of a looseness there in terms of the definition and who may be involved in that process. I would like to see something that would define what the general guiding principles of the code should be in order that the parties may work toward that end.

When I look at the process, which is one of three important things, I find a fundamental flaw in the process, that is, it happens internally. Subclause 10(1), dealing with the disclosure of wrongdoing, states that “Each chief executive must establish internal procedures to manage disclosures of wrongdoings made by public servants...”. Either the process should be set out in legislation or it should happen altogether independently and outside of the employee-employer relationship. If the employer sets out the process, as we will see in the subclauses following subclause 10(1), it becomes an internal matter and probably will be the reason why many wrongdoings will not get reported. They will not be reported because of this internal process.

Subclause 10(2) states that each chief executive “must designate a senior officer to be responsible for receiving and dealing with” those disclosures. This is again an internal process, and in regard to a lower level officer, this is actually not defined. The definition of senior officer in the definition section of the bill simply states “a senior officer designated under subsection 10(2)”. Clause 10(2) does not define who that is. It simply states that it must be someone appointed by the chief executive officer. We do not even know who that would be. To continue, clause 12 indicates that a public servant may disclose a wrongdoing to a supervisor within the system.

So what do we have in the bill? We have a supervisor, we have a senior officer and we have a chief executive officer. If we look at that process, we will see that it is totally internal, totally within the structure, and it will be the primary reason why public servants may find it difficult to report a wrongdoing, particularly if it relates to that person's department or those levels of employees. It is my view that the bill should provide for an independent, external reporting mechanism and an external person who could receive the disclosures so that they could be dealt with without any fear of reprisal or without any intimidation.

In fairness to the minister, clause 13 indicates that there may be a disclosure of wrongdoing to the president of the Public Service Commission but it preconditions that disclosure and that is where the problem lies. It states, “if...the public servant believes on reasonable grounds that it would not be appropriate to disclose the matter to his or her supervisor...”.

Why should the public servant be placed in the position of a judge or the judiciary to decide if there are reasonable grounds or not? If there were an independent, external person or agency that determination would not have to be made. The very simple question would be, “Is there a wrongdoing?” If it looks bad enough, the public servant could report it to someone and let them decide whether there is a prima facie case to proceed. The onus should not be put on the employee, the public servant.

Clause 13 goes on to state that a public servant may disclose a wrongdoing to the president if there are “reasonable grounds” or where “by reason of the subject-matter or the person alleged to have committed” the wrongdoing, it would be inappropriate to report to that person.

Again, who decides the issue of the subject matter of the wrongdoing and whether the person would justify the reasonable grounds to report to the president? That is far too great an onus to place on an employee or a public servant. All the employee should be required to do is report the matter to an independent person or body which would make the decision on whether the process needs to proceed. That would provide the comfort level people would need in this particular issue.

I realize that there must be balance in this process. I notice that clause 40 of the bill deals with the other side of the coin by saying, “No person shall, in a disclosure of a wrongdoing...knowingly make a false or misleading statement, either orally or in writing”.

I think that is the other part of the balance that we need to be careful of. We need to ensure that those types of things do not happen. In order to ensure that, there must be a consequence for those who knowingly make a false or misleading statement. In the previous Bill C-25, there was a provision as to what would happen to those who would be in that category, and there would be some disciplinary action. This bill does not deal with that in clause 9 and I would suggest that it should.

Finally, as I look at clause 24 of the bill, I see that it states:

The President of the Public Service Commission may refuse to deal with the disclosure if he or she is of the opinion that

(a) the public servant has failed to exhaust other procedures otherwise reasonably available;

It does not say what those procedures are. It does not say that it refers to applying through the supervisor or through the senior officer or executive officer. It just does not say so and it leaves that discretion solely in the hands of the president of the public service. I do not think that is right.

If we were to have a independent body dealing with the matter, a body separate and apart from the employee-employer relationship, we would see that discretion being exercised. The clause goes on to state that the president may refuse to deal with the disclosure if “the subject-matter of the disclosure is not sufficiently important...frivolous or vexatious or made in bad faith” or if “there is a valid reason for not dealing with the disclosure”.

What is that? What would that be? And do we want to leave it in the hands of someone who is tied to the employer?

Also, if a decision is made not to hear that process, there is no provision for appeal. There ought to be provision for an appeal. It seems to me that when employees or public servants are required to either go through the internal process or leave it in the hands of the president without having recourse to disagree with that opinion, there needs to be some objective person or body to deal with that.

I feel that when we deal with legislation such as this, when it is far-ranging, when it deals with wrongdoing of various kinds, we must ensure that for those who are legitimate, those who are not acting in bad faith, those who want to bring to the attention of the House the fact that there is something wrong within a department, there must be an easy process. That process must be separate from the internal workings, which have their own machinations of power. If people can have that assurance, the process will flow smoothly. It will be someone making decisions that will be based on an objective basis and not on bias, not on feelings and not on relationships. I think that is very important.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-11, the whistleblower protection act, which like every other act tabled by this government has its failures and omissions. We will try and fix that. Unfortunately, we only have three hours of debate before it is hived off to committee.

As will be recalled, only a few minutes ago I rose on a point of order to see if I could ask a question of the Liberal member who spoke immediately before me. It seemed to me that she was reading a speech prepared by the Treasury Board, rather than giving the House her own observations on the bill.

We have had far too many speeches in this House prepared by the government bureaucrats behind the scenes. The government members come in here and present them as if it were their own ideas, which they are not.

I have not had the time that the bureaucrats at the Treasury Board have had to look at the legislation. I have had a quick look at it and I already see some problems with it. The Liberal member made some reference to the retroactivity in the bill, which goes back to February 10 or 11. That of course was the day the sponsorship scandal broke upon the land. It says that there will be no recourse or recriminations against anyone who discloses anything to a parliamentary committee on or after February 10 .

Members may recall that we had Mr. Cutler before the committee. His career had been sidelined and basically terminated, although he was still maintained in the public service. However, his capacity for promotions and advancement within the public service were completely stopped because he blew the whistle back in 1996 on the sponsorship program. Of course that had an audit. We know from the Gomery inquiry that the external independent auditors agreed with their employer, the Government of Canada, to water down the contents of their external independent audit so it would not look quite so bad as what they found it to be.

In addition, they were precluded from going to other sources to look at documents. If they had, they would have perhaps uncovered this whole rats nest of problems of the sponsorship scandal back in 1996. Because the government constrained them and then leaned on them to water down their report, we ended up with something that they subsequently claimed did not blow the whistle. However, Mr. Cutler's career was sidelined.

The public accounts committee in its second report this past spring said:

That a mediation process involving the Public Service Commission and the Public Service Integrity Officer be established to resolve matters relating to federal employees past or present who have allegedly suffered monetary loss or career damage as a consequence of having reported instances of wrongdoing with regard to the Sponsorship Program; and that the instances that have been judged to have merit be reported to the House.

As far as I am aware, the President of the Treasury Board is still obviously cogitating on this complex matter. I am not aware that he has reported to the House on the issue of Mr. Cutler who would not be covered by this legislation, although the government takes all kinds of credit for saying that it has backdated it, that all is well and that nobody needs to worry. However, Mr. Cutler's career has come to a crashing end and he has not been dealt with at this point in time. That issue needs to be resolved if the government is to have any integrity on this matter.

I said I have taken a quick look at the bill and I see some problems with it right off the bat. I have looked at clause 5 which says that the Treasury Board will establish a code of conduct for the government. Then it goes on to say that each deputy minister can have his or her own code of conduct. If a person is transferred from department A to department B, all of a sudden that person is working under a different code of conduct. We would have thought that it would not have been a big thing for the Government of Canada to say that integrity is integrity in this department and that department and indeed every department.

Why does every department have its own code of conduct? It is the same way perhaps that the government thinks there should be a code of conduct for MPs and a different one, with perhaps even lower standards, for cabinet ministers. These convoluted problems build complexity into the issue rather than make it simple, clean and obvious so that it will work.

I also have looked at clause 10, which says that each deputy minister and chief executive officer must establish internal procedures to deal with disclosure. In the next paragraph it say that if the department is big enough, the person can designate it to someone else. Then when we get down to subclause (4), we find out it negates paragraphs 1 and 2 by saying they do not apply if the chief executive or the deputy minister declares that it is not practical to do so. Complexity in these issues allows the government to wriggle around and say that it is complying with the legislation, when perhaps it is not complying with the legislation at all.

Again, on the sponsorship scandal, as we know the deputy minister, Mr. Ran Quail, said that he was kept out of the loop. He did not know what a middle manager in the far end of his department was doing. We never did get the answer at the public accounts committee as to why the organizational chart of his department showed at the far side the sponsorship program under the leadership of Chuck Guité. He was completely and absolutely independent from everybody else in the department.

We have this concept of checks and balances. If someone wants to get an invoice out of the Government of Canada, that person sends a request to somebody else who checks to see that the goods are received, which is confirmed by somebody else, and so on. Then when it seems to all work together, someone sends out the money. Mr. Guité was able to do that completely.

When Joy MacPhail, the deputy minister at Public Works, the successor to Ran Quail, was asked why the organizational chart was that way, she said that she did not have a clue, and she was the deputy minister. Mr. Quail did not have a clue what was going on either. We have a serious problem with deputy ministers coming to committees saying they do not know the answers when they are supposed to have them.

Then it turns out that the minister, Mr. Gagliano, was dealing with Mr. Guité, a middle manager, bypassing the deputy minister. All was well because these guys were getting along famously, as far as we can understand. Now we are finding out at the Gomery commission that a few other people around the department were not happy with what was going on. We were aware of this in the public accounts committee.

The issue is that these people were being intimidated. They were being told they could not blow the whistle. The political staff in the minister's office were all in cahoots, by the sounds of it, to engineer this $100 million disappearance of funds from the Government of Canada.

That brings me to clause 23. It says that the president of the Public Service Commission, who will be the person doing the investigations, cannot do an investigation if anybody else in government is doing one Superficially, one may say that is okay. However, everyone may recall the sponsorship program, which actually broke two years earlier, where $600,000 each was paid for three contracts and only one was received. The second one was just the same report with a new cover, and there was no third report.

The government referred that to the Auditor General. She reported that the situation was so bad. She was incensed and alarmed, and she said that she would to do a full audit. Because the Auditor General is involved, the public service commissioner is denied the right to be involved. It does not sound right to me.

This bill is full of holes. Now that the government does not have a majority in the House, I hope we will fix the problems with the legislation at committee.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Rivière-Du-Loup—Montmagny, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to this bill today. The Bloc's critic, the hon. member for Repentigny, has covered our party's position very well. Still, there are some additional elements that can be added for information purposes.

Perhaps we should look at the debate on this issue, the protection of whistleblowers in the public service, in the context of the sponsorship scandal we are now experiencing, for which a commission of inquiry has been established. The debate should be viewed in this context because public servants who might have wanted to denounce the situation could not do so. We saw this again in the testimony yesterday afternoon. Some people, who took their orders from former minister Gagliano and other ministers of the Liberal government that had organized this system, were very uncomfortable about blowing the whistle.

That such a bill, a second version of a previous bill, is now being considered is because there is a need to ensure that the government can no longer use its authority to blackmail public servants who want to do their work in good faith,and who want to report excesses like those we have seen in the sponsorship scandal.

The Bloc Quebecois thus agrees in principle with this bill as such, which gives the president of the Public Service Commission a third-party role, which applies protection against reprisals retroactively to February 10, 2004, and which prolongs the time limit for presenting complaints relating to reprisals. Certain improvements to the original bill had already been made several months ago, before the election.

Nevertheless, when the Bloc Quebecois analyzes this bill, it sees there are still major improvements to be made. Such improvements must be considered before we decide if we will vote for or against this bill when it comes back from the committee.

Fortunately, committees now have a majority of opposition members, because the principle of minority government—our current situation—has been applied. Therefore, opposition MPs will be in the majority. That will be a concrete example of each member having more influence. Since the minority government is a result of the sponsorship scandal, that is a concrete example of the action that should be taken. Let us hope that an acceptable bill will emerge from the committee.

The first recommendation for change that the Bloc Quebecois will put forward is to replace the president of the Public Service Commission by a third party acting as an officer of Parliament. In other words, we do not want the president of the Public Service Commission to be both judge and jury, receiving complaints while at the same time being the head of the public service as a whole. Should that be the case, we would find ourselves in the same situation we were in for years with the ethics counsellor, who reported to the Prime Minister and who would bend with the wind depending on what the Prime Minister said. The Prime Minister would start by making a decision, and then the PM-appointed ethics counsellor would come and say that the Prime Minister was right or that the Minister of Finance who became the Prime Minister was right.

It later turned out that several of these decisions were indefensible, that they were defended only because, essentially, the decisions were made for the man hired to make them by the one paying him to do so. We would not want this kind of situation to happen again under this legislation because, when a public servant decides to make a disclosure, this is not easy or gratuitous; this is an action that has public ramifications. We must make sure that public servants can trust the person to whom they make their complaints, so that we do not end up with no one making complaints because the person receiving them is both judge and jury. We have seen this before in other situations, and we want it to be corrected.

In addition, with respect to the need to exhaust other procedures, the Bloc Quebecois is very concerned about certain consequences. Bill C-11 says, and I quote:

1. (1) The President of the Public Service Commission may refuse to deal with a disclosure if he or she is of the opinion that

(a) the public servant has failed to exhaust other procedures otherwise reasonably available;

This means that when someone makes a disclosure in good faith, it becomes public knowledge and the person is then told, “You may have a good case, but you should have gone through this or that process before doing this”, namely the disclosure. There is a danger that this clause might be interpreted as meaning that a whistleblower must have exhausted all procedures before the courts in order to be protected under the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act. This would negate the positive effects of this legislation.

It is as if the government had put the principle forward but set up all kinds of obstacles and roadblocks to prevent public servants from fulfilling their role regarding disclosures.

If the President of the Public Service Commission is acting as judge and jury, and if public servants must first exhaust all procedures other than those provided in this bill, this legislation will not have any effect. Even if we pass this bill, it will not achieve the results that the legislator had hoped for.

The Bloc Quebecois also wants another amendment. We wonder about the lack of transition measures that would allow a whistleblower to ask, for example, for a transfer or a paid leave. In the sponsorship scandal, if the public servants involved had made a disclosure without the existence of transition measures, the situation would soon have become unbearable for them.

When he testified before a public committee, former minister Gagliano said he had nothing to do with the whole thing, when, in fact, he was up to his neck in the transactions. In addition, the current Prime Minister claimed that he did not know about this scandal, when in fact his office intervened to obtain a $250,000 grant.

Certainly a public servant who had disclosed a situation like that ought to be allowed to change work locations to avoid any unpleasantness. This is another factor that can discourage disclosure, because people know that they will not have an easy time of things afterward.

We would also like to see a right to grievance adjudication to give unionized public servants recourse to it. Thus, it would be possible to restrict the number of procedures a public servant must undertake when faced with a disciplinary measure relating to a disclosure. This would eliminate cases of multiple proceedings, and was one of the recommendations in the Professional Institute of the Public Service's report of May 6, 2004.

These are amendments we feel are important. As far as the union role is concerned, I would add that we would like to see the legislation modified to specify that public sector employees have the right to be represented by their bargaining agent at all stages of the disclosure process.

We have already seen cases of employees coming before a government representative with insufficient knowledge of the procedures. We need only look at how disadvantaged people are when it comes to the Employment Insurance Act. The burden of proof lies with them, while on the other side there are investigators and other people paid to do this sort of thing. The pressure on the individual can be pretty heavy.

When a disclosure comes from union members, it would be important for them to be able to call upon a union representative to accompany them if they felt it appropriate and provide a helping hand with the process.

We would also like to see the legislation apply to the armed forces and the RCMP. There is no need to say much on this, since we have a very special situation in Canada with the sponsorship scandal. Investigations have been called for. The RCMP itself is involved in them, but we also know that the RCMP profited from this scandal through transfers of money. Funds were also transferred to ad agencies. As a result, the RCMP was both judge and accused. These agencies ought not, therefore, to be exempted from application of this legislation.

I think the sector they work in is very sensitive. There have been wrongdoings committed in the past by members of the administration and senior management, which should be disclosed. The same is true of the Canadian Forces.

Look at the saga of the submarines, which, unfortunately, ended in the death of an officer. Maybe if we had had proper legislation, we might have had disclosure, which would have stopped the problem before it began. The submarines could have been confined to port three or four years ago rather than after the accident and their seaworthiness checked before they set sail.

So, there is no reason for the RCMP or the Canadian Forces to be excluded from the application of this bill. The Bloc Quebecois hopes these amendments will be heard.

In the past when amendments were moved, it was hoped they would be passed. We debated the amendments in committee. As I was saying earlier, now, with this minority government, opposition members will make up the majority on each committee. Each member will have a greater role. These amendments will have a chance to be passed. I hope so.

I hope when this bill returns from committee that it will be changed significantly in keeping with the Bloc Quebecois position so that we can finally have a proper and effective Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act.

In the future, situations like the sponsorship scandal need to be eliminated at the source. We have to be able to nip the problem in the bud rather than go through something like what we are going through now. The integrity of the entire government and elected officials is compromised. Let us hope that bill will be amended along the lines of what the Bloc Quebecois proposes.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act. Bill C-11 was introduced on Friday by my hon. colleague the President of the Treasury Board of Canada.

Bill C-11 establishes a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoings in the public sector. However, this bill is not just about a procedure for disclosing and investigating wrongdoings. This bill goes beyond that.

Bill C-11 would create an environment that would encourage public servants to report misconduct in the workplace, an environment in which public servants who report wrongdoing would feel safe from reprisals or even the threat of reprisals. It would create an environment in which both those who make disclosures and those accused of misconduct could rest assured that the case would be investigated fairly, objectively and in confidence.

I was a member of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates and Chair of the Subcommittee on Whistleblowing. It was the work of this committee, in part, that encouraged us to conduct an investigation first and then table a bill.

Some hon. members may recall a disclosure bill introduced by the government last spring. Because of the subsequent election call, that bill did not progress through Parliament. After the election the Prime Minister made a public commitment to early reintroduction of the disclosure protection bill. The proposed legislation is one element of the government's work to ensure transparency, accountability, financial responsibility and ethical conduct in the public sector.

Bill C-11 is not what it was before; it is not just the number of the bill that has changed. Bill C-11 is different from its previous version and surpasses it on many levels.

The previous version of the bill received a lot of attention in this House, in committees, in the public service and in the media. The government welcomed the attention and interest it received. In fact, as some hon. members of the House may recall, the government referred the bill to committee for consideration before second reading, in order to give members the opportunity to make a significant contribution to its content. The committee sat for several days and heard representations from more than a dozen organizations.

The government heard their views and took them into account in the follow-up measures.The current bill provides whistleblowers with a very different form of protection than did the bill presented in March.

What were the opinions that we heard? The most common and most important concern had to do with the fact that the proposed impartial third party did not have the independence or authority necessary to effectively receive disclosures of wrongdoing, conduct investigations on them and report the findings.

We took note of that concern and have enhanced the independence of the third party. We have also appointed the president of the Public Service Commission, the PSC, as the impartial third party. Not only will the president of the PSC receive disclosures of possible wrongdoings, but she will investigate them and make appropriate recommendations based on the investigation results.

The PSC is an organization with almost a century of experience playing an independent role in government. It is the oversight agency for federal staffing, working in a neutral fashion to protect the integrity of the appointments process and ensuring that it is based on merit.

Bill C-11 would boost the legal authority of the president of the PSC to investigate disclosures under part II of the Inquiries Act. This would include the power to subpoena and the authority to enter offices in the course of an investigation. The bill would also authorize the president to make special reports directly to Parliament.

The current government listened to what it was told. We have strengthened the independence of the third party and increased his or her powers. We have also made it very clear in the bill that public servants will have the right to disclose wrongdoings directly to an impartial third party if they do not feel comfortable using the internal process set up in their department.

The confidentiality provisions also had some stakeholders worried. They feared that under some legislation, like the Access to Information Act, the government might have to identify parties to a disclosure case, which could prevent some public servants from speaking out.

Once again, the government has listened. Bill C-11 proposes amendments to the Access to Information Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronics Documents Act and the Privacy Act to strengthen the ability of chief executives to protect the identity of parties to a disclosure case.

A third concern was that the previous bill did not adequately protect whistleblowers from reprisal. Again, the government took that concern into consideration.

The new bill would strengthen reprisal protection. It doubles the time period during which a public servant can make a reprisal complaint and makes it clear that the clock starts ticking on the day the public servant becomes aware of the alleged reprisal, not the date that it occurred. It would also ensure reprisal protection for authorized public disclosures.

As requested, Bill C-11 would also provide retroactive protection to February 10, 2004, for disclosures made in the course of a parliamentary proceeding or official inquiry.

We listened and we responded, and we are prepared to listen again to the informed views of our colleagues in the House, the proof of which is our intention to have the bill proceed to committee after first reading.

To conclude, I would say that Bill C-11 reflects the spirit and intent of the recommendations that were made about the previous whistleblowing bill. I look forward to hearing the positive comments hon. members will be making in committee and at subsequent stages of the legislative process.

[Gurmant Grewal, Conservative, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the constituents of Newton--North Delta to participate in the debate on Bill C-11, an act to establish a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoing in the public sector, including the protection of persons who disclose the wrongdoing.

It has taken more than a decade for the government to accept the need for whistleblower legislation. It took a lobby by the whistleblower community, public outcry, official opposition pressure, highlights by the media, my Bill C-205, and a series of scandals including the George Radwanski affair, the gun registry cost overruns, the HRDC scandal, the scathing report by the current public service integrity officer, and the sponsorship scandal, for the Liberals to finally make good on their 1993 red book promise. Even now it is obvious that their hearts and souls are not in this legislation.

Up to now it seems that the Liberal government's policy has been to control occupational free speech rather than permitting it. They have bullied whistleblowers, intimidated and harassed them, fired them from their jobs, and have ruined their professional and personal lives rather than rewarding them as is done in the United States and other countries.

The Liberals have always believed in secrecy, confidentiality and cover-ups rather than transparency, accountability and corrective action.

Bill C-11 fails to respond to the cynicism of public servants and lack of confidence. It fails to provide adequate protection. It does not promote a climate in the federal public service that encourages bureaucrats to expose wrongdoing and corruption in government.

The biggest problem with the bill is that it authorizes the president of the Public Service Commission to report through a minister rather than directly to Parliament. The minister will then have 15 days, five more than in the previous bill, to table that report in Parliament, more than enough time to plan his counterspin.

For over a decade the PSC has been the third party. It had a mandate to deal with harassment complaints, but was given no authority or mandate to provide any restitution for damages. The public interest is served when employees are free to expose mismanagement, waste, corruption, abuse or cover-ups within the public service without fear of retaliation and discrimination.

Under Bill C-11 only those who make disclosures through the prescribed channels and whose disclosures meet specific criteria are protected. That is not good enough. If whistleblowers want to safely make a disclosure under this legislation, they must report to a supervisor first or ensure they have reasonable grounds for going directly to the president of the PSC. This disclosure must not be deemed unimportant, frivolous or vexatious, and the person must not go public. That is shameful. These provisions describe a process for containing disclosures, not encouraging them.

The scope of Bill C-11 has been somewhat improved from the previous bill when it was first introduced. Some crown corporations have been included. However, the legislation still excludes the RCMP, military personnel, CSIS, CSE and others. This means that a whistleblower, like RCMP Corporal Robert Reid, who had to go public when the authorities covered up his investigation of visa selling in the Hong Kong immigration office, would have no protection under this proposed legislation. What good is a whistleblower protection bill when it cannot provide protection to whistleblowers?

Aside from these important exclusions, the bill includes several other government agencies listed in the schedule to the act; however, cabinet may amend the schedule at any time even after the act is passed in Parliament. That gives blanket power to cabinet. As a result the government could create roadblocks anytime as it deems itself embarrassed and federal government employees may find themselves without whistleblower protection.

Bill C-11 prescribes no punishment, fines or sanctions for those who make reprisals against a whistleblower. Reprisals must be reported within 60 days of the time the whistleblower knew or ought to have known a reprisal was taking place. Although this is twice as long as the time allowed in Bill C-25, the timeline is still far too restrictive.

As I mentioned earlier, three years ago, in the face of government opposition, I introduced legislation to protect whistleblowers. That was a time when many members and many people did not know what whistleblower protection was all about. Last year the Liberals refused to support my bill. They simply lacked the political will to provide protection to whistleblowers. When I blew the whistle on whistleblowing, the Liberals had their ears plugged. They did not even want to go there.

Next week I will be introducing that legislation again because the present legislation is not capable of providing legitimate protection to whistleblowers.

My bill is unique and comprehensive. It is unique because whistleblowers like Brian McAdam; Joanna Gualtieri, founder of FAIR, Federal Accountability, Integrity and Resolution; and Louis Clark, executive director and founder of GAP, Government Accountability Project in the U.S. were consulted to take advantage of their experiences. I thank them for their input and help in drafting my bill.

Let us compare my bill and the government's bill. My bill would permit public servants to disclose alleged wrongdoing to public bodies, including the media, whereas Bill C-11 attempts to keep allegations within the department and restricts the person's right to go to the public.

In my bill an employee who has alleged wrongdoing and suffers from retaliatory action as a consequence would have the right to bring civil action before a court, whereas with Bill C-11 employees must take their claims of reprisals to an applicable labour board whose deliberations could be a very long and tedious process.

In my bill every employee would have a duty to disclose wrongdoing, whereas Bill C-11 warns that disclosure must not be unimportant, frivolous, or vexatious.

In my bill a supervisor, manager or other person of authority who harasses a whistleblower would be subject to criminal prosecution and face a fine of up to $5,000. As well, they would be subject to personal liability for any resulting damages that may be awarded to the employee pursuant to any civil or administrative proceedings. Bill C-11 prescribes no punishment for those who make reprisals against whistleblowers. Where is the protection?

In my bill, an employee who successfully blows the whistle would be recognized with an ex gratia award, whereas Bill C-11 makes no reference to these rewards, even though the current public service integrity officer states that rewards are essential. The government forgot about that.

In my bill, written allegations would be investigated and reported upon within 30 days of receipt, whereas in Bill C-11, no deadlines are set. That means it is open ended, maybe there would be an investigation or maybe not. It only says that investigations are to be conducted as informally and expeditiously as possible.

When I drafted my bill, public service whistleblowers were consulted extensively, whereas the Liberals bullied the whistleblowers and they have not even talked to the whistleblower community.

Whistleblowers should be praised, not punished. They should not pay for their public service by putting their jobs on the line. In fact, I would allow the government to steal from my whistleblower bill and put it into its bill. I am a small l liberal as far as my bill is concerned.

I will ensure that the government definitely looks at my bill in committee. I will allow it to liberally steal from my bill as much as it has been stealing part and parcel from the platform of the Conservative Party.

I believe the bill will be amended in committee, otherwise I would be forced to vote against the bill and force the Liberals, as well as all members in the House, to pass my bill and not the government's bill.

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

Madam Speaker, let me start by congratulating you on your new position. I am sure you will do very well. It is nice that I have the opportunity to stand and speak before you this first time in this session.

I must take this opportunity as well to thank the people of my riding of Sudbury for sending me to Ottawa for a fifth consecutive term. I hope they keep sending me many more times.

I also very pleased to speak on this legislation. It is such an important part of what we can do to ensure that there is a process and that public servants are protected when they blow the whistle on any form of wrongdoing.

As the House knows, the bill was introduced last Friday by the President of the Treasury Board. I believe the bill will build an environment that encourages public servants to report cases of wrongdoing in the workplace. It does so by setting out an objective and complete process to govern the disclosure of wrongdoing in the federal public sector.

With this bill, public servants who disclose wrongdoings will be protected from retaliation or threats of retaliation. In addition, both those who make the disclosure and those about whom it is made can rest assured that investigations will be conducted in a fair and objective manner and that their privacy will be protected.

As most members know, the predecessor of this public servants disclosure protection bill was introduced in March. Consideration of this bill by Parliament was interrupted last spring when an election was called. The bill was debated in the House and reviewed by the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. It was even referred to this committee before second reading to give members an opportunity to make a significant contribution early on, which they did.

I am pleased to say that Bill C-11 benefited from discussions on the earlier bill. One key area where the proposed legislation has been strengthened is around the nature, independence, powers and accessibility of the neutral third party.

The neutral third party is the person to whom public servants can report wrongdoing directly. While each department must set up an internal disclosure mechanism, if a public servant feels uncomfortable using that internal system, and this is very important, he or she can go directly to the neutral third party. The neutral third party would also investigate allegations of wrongdoing and make recommendations on his or her findings.

The previous bill proposed a public sector integrity commissioner to act as a neutral third party. Some stakeholders worried that the commissioner would not have enough independence or power to be an effective recipient or investigator of reports of alleged misconduct. This is why the new bill assigns the role of neutral third party to the president of the Public Service Commission.

The Public Service Commission is the organization responsible for protecting the integrity of the federal staffing process. Its overarching goal is to provide Canadians with a highly competent, non-partisan and representative public service, one in which appointments are based on merit.

Bill C-11 confers upon the President of the Public Service Commission the tools and powers required to fulfil this new responsibility. The bill confers powers on her under part II of the Inquiries Act, in particular the power to summon persons to appear, and to have access to offices as part of an investigation. The President of the Public Service Commission may also set the deadline within which chief executives must act on her recommendations.

Some hon. members might question the connection between staffing matters and wrongdoing. I would point out that other governments that have adopted similar legislative measures have found that most disclosures of wrongdoing have been personnel-related human resource management matters.

In fact, the integrity officer referred to a similar phenomenon in his first annual report. It makes sense, therefore, to assign responsibility for disclosure of wrongdoing to an organization with a mandate to oversee federal staffing.

This role suits the Public Service Commission for another reason as well: next year the commission will be assuming more responsibility for audit and evaluation when the new Public Service Employment Act comes into effect.

The President of the Public Service Commission made reference to this in her statement in response to the introduction of this bill, saying that the proposed responsibilities fit well with the direction set for the Public Service Commission by the new Public Service Employment Act.

I know that some hon. members continue to be concerned that the president of the Public Service Commission is not neutral enough, not independent enough, not powerful enough to take on these additional responsibilities.

The commission has a long history, almost a century of playing an independent role in government. It is justifiably proud of its established tradition of protecting the merit principle in federal staffing. The Public Service Commission has a reputation for both service and independence in performing very similar functions around staffing, as are proposed in the bill for disclosure.

Some might argue that the Public Service Commission is not independent because its annual reports to Parliament are submitted through a minister. I would like to point out that Bill C-11 clearly and explicitly authorizes the president to make special reports directly to Parliament at any time and on any matter within the scope of her powers under this proposed act.

This is not a timid organization that hesitates to demonstrate its independence, an organization that is unwilling to use its power. Let me read a portion of the Public Service Commission's most recent annual report, tabled in Parliament last October. It says:

Under the Public Service Employment Act, the Commission has the authority to revoke an appointment and impose corrective action if an inquiry determines that a fraudulent practice or breach of the Regulations during a selection process has occurred. During the past year, the PSC revoked 20 appointments.

As a result of investigations, the Commission also removed from eligibility lists the names of 13 candidates to prevent their appointment. The Commission ordered other corrective actions in 120 competitive processes that had resulted in appeals that were upheld. These actions included orders to conduct new assessment processes, consider additional candidates, or cancel selection processes. No departments/agencies had their delegation authorities revoked; however, a number of actions were taken to help departments manage their delegated authorities better.

These are not the words of a shrinking violet organization. These are the words of an organization clear and comfortable in its powers, authority and oversight role.

Assigning the neutral third party role to the president of the Public Service Commission is a strong, effective, practical and reasonable option. The government believes that the president has the independence and legal powers required to effectively receive reports of alleged wrongdoing, carry out the investigation and make recommendations on corrective action. I would like to point out that it is not only the government that is of this view. Assigning this role to the president of the Public Service Commission was an option put forward by the previous all party government operations and estimates committee in its 2003 report on the issue.

I am convinced that this energetic and effective bill will create an environment in which public servants will feel confident in reporting wrongdoing. I encourage hon. members to support its progress through Parliament.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak this morning on Bill C-11.

Before I do, I would like to do what needs to be done during a person's first speech after the opening of a new Parliament: thank those who sent me here. I thank the people of the riding of Repentigny, the many campaign workers and the people who have supported me since my first election in 1993 and continue to do so. I would also like to welcome some new municipalities to my riding, namely the two L'Épiphanies, L'Assomption, Le Gardeur and Saint-Sulpice.

It is important, and appropriate as well, to provide a little background, a brief review of how and why we find ourselves today with Bill C-11 before us, one of the first bills to be introduced in this 38th Parliament.

As the President of the Treasury Board has said, this bill originated with the member for Bourassa, among others, as Bill C-25. Amendments have been made, and a degree of open-mindedness on the part of the Liberals may be seen. Improvements are still needed, however.

As we are all aware, the roots of Bill C-25 lie in the sponsorship scandal. During the hearings of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts we, unfortunately, heard public servants testify that they did not make public what was going on in front of them, for fear of reprisals.

Perhaps in a few months, or a few years, we will find out that other public servants were hesitant to speak out about the firearms scandal. That program was slated to cost $2 million or $3 million, and now is up to $2 billion. This is even more scandalous than the sponsorships. Perhaps this bill will make it possible for public servants to tell us what really went on.

I believe there are good intentions behind Bill C-11. Its purpose is to enable public servants to disclose wrongdoings when they become aware of them in the performance of their duties.

When the bill goes to committee, however, it will be very important to examine whether it will really meet its intended goal: to make it possible for public servants to disclose acts and omissions within their position or work unit.

It is important to know how Bill C-11 will differ from the Policy on the Internal Disclosure of Information Concerning Wrongdoing in the Workplace—a policy that already exists. Too often the Liberal government tries to reinvent the wheel. When something does not work, the government sets out to reinvent something new.

What does Bill C-11 add to the Treasury Board Policy on the Internal Disclosure of Information Concerning Wrongdoing in the Workplace? In committee, we will have to come up with a meaningful answer to this question to avoid simply creating something new again that falls short of the expectations for this bill.

My colleague from the Conservative Party of Canada was quite passionate in expressing our disagreement with certain aspects of this bill. He disagrees with it and so do we. However, we will give this minority government the benefit of the doubt and see whether the Liberals will listen to us at committee and be open to making a few amendments, as far as the legislative process allows.

We also have a serious problem with the fact that the third party—in this case the person ultimately responsible for receiving complaints and disclosures—is the President of the Public Service Commission.

I would point out that two complaints from the Treasury Board and National Defence were deemed admissible in connection with a serious breach in the application of the Official Languages Act within the public service and National Defence.

At that time, the Public Service Commission did have a president. We have seen how, even though there was someone responsible, the Canadian government, the public service, could ignore the rules and administrative procedures and contravene certain acts and regulations.

As my Conservative colleague was saying and as we have been saying concerning Bill C-25—this is not a new position for the Bloc Quebecois—we think it is very important for the designated third party to be independent; it cannot be the president of the public service, or like Howard Wilson, a phony ethics counsellor who has coffee with the Prime Minister to tell him whether he agrees and what it is he agrees with.

We want the person in such a position to be truly independent. Look at the credibility Sheila Fraser has when she presents her reports and the credibility she enjoyed when her report of February 10 came out on the sponsorship scandal. She is an independent officer of the House.

Look at the credibility of Dyane Adam, when she presents her reports once a year—now three times a year, if I am not mistaken—because she is an independent officer of the House.

If the Liberals really want to make this a credible position; if they really want to honour part of the promise in their 1993 red book to restore confidence in the public service, elected officials and the government; then they must establish an independent position of commissioner with this bill. We said this about Bill C-25 and we say it again, and so do the Conservatives.

If they do not want to do this, they must give us rational arguments and explanations. If they refuse, they will be sending the following message, as my Conservative colleague said, to the people: we want to look as if we are solving the problem to get it out of the way, and people will forget about it when something new comes along.

We feel there must be an officer of the House, someone appointed by and responsible and accountable to Parliament, like the Auditor General or the Commissioner of Official Languages.

I wonder about certain aspects of the bill. Take clause 8. I see the President of the Treasury Board is listening attentively. So, we might even be able to get some answers for the beginning of the committee's work: subclauses 8 (c), (d) and (e) read as follows:

This Act applies in respect of the following wrongdoings:

(c) a gross mismanagement in the public sector;

(d) an act or omission that creates a substantial and specific danger to the life [...];

(e) a serious breach of a code of conduct [...];

Why were the terms “gross”, “substantial” and “serious” used in each case? If I am a public servant, is the fact, for example, that Jean Carle buys for $165,000 worth of golf balls with Jean Chrétien's initials on them serious or not?

For a public servant, is the fact that we buy all our sweaters from Jean Lafleur of Communications Lafleur serious or not? What is serious in a wrongdoing that should be disclosed to a supervisor?

The President of the Treasury Board will have to tell us, at least in committee, what is deemed to be serious. All wrongdoings that can be disclosed by a public servant under clause 8 will have to be serious. What is serious? It will probably be up to the line supervisor, who will unfortunately be the culprit, to decide whether the wrongdoing is serious or not.

I saw some pretty serious stuff in the sponsorship scandal and I hope that everyone would have agreed that these were serious wrongdoings.

We also feel that, in its present form, a second aspect of the bill is flawed. I am referring to the requirement to exhaust other procedures.

Bill C-11 provides, and I quote:

24.(1) The President of the Public Service Commission may refuse to deal with a disclosure if he or she is of the opinion that:

(a) the public servant has failed to exhaust other procedures otherwise reasonably available;

This means that a public servant who is not an expert in parliamentary procedures—in the case of Bill C-11, for example—who contacts the President of the Public Service Commission—if he is the one in charge, although we do not want this to be the case—will be told to go back to square one. It is already difficult enough to disclose a wrongdoing, so if this is the route disclosure will take, we will insist on getting some clarification on clause 24(1).

I will conclude by asking this question: What about the public servant who files a complaint under this procedure? Do we let that person continue to work with his colleagues? Perhaps there should be some transition measures. Will the union be able to continue to support the public servant who made the disclosures? The bill is silent on this issue.

The government will have to explain in committee why the armed forces and the RCMP are excluded from the application of this bill. We think they should be included.

In conclusion, we support the principle of referring the bill to a committee. We hope that the Liberals will act in good faith and with an open mind. We want to amend this legislation which, in its present form, is unacceptable to the Bloc Quebecois.

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

Madam Speaker, I wish I could say it is an honour to speak today to Bill C-11, the government's latest attempt to contain disclosures of wrongdoing in the public sector, but the bill tabled by the government is really a disappointment.

We are only in the second week of Parliament and already it is obvious how the government intends to operate. Last week I listened to the same throne speech for at least the third or fourth time. It has hardly changed since the Liberals took office more than a decade ago. They pull it out, dust it off and make Canadians listen to it all over again. I guess they have to keep using it because it is so hard to think of new ways to say absolutely nothing for 45 minutes.

Then I took part in an emergency debate on BSE. Why are we still talking about this issue a year and a half after the U.S. border has been closed to Canadian beef? How many emergency debates has Parliament heard on this issue? How many more will we have to hear before we correct the problem?

Bill C-11 is yet another case of déjà vu. It has all the major deficiencies we saw in the government's last phony attempt to legislate in this area.

The government has been touting Bill C-11 as a major revision of Bill C-25 but in reality only the window dressing has changed. The last bill would have created a toothless commissioner who would hear a disclosure of wrongdoing and then feed it right back into the system that was responsible for the wrongdoing in the first place. Of course everyone with any interest in the bill said that it was a farce. Now the government says that Bill C-11 addresses everyone's concern. That could not be further from the truth.

Instead of setting up a distinct office, the bill authorizes the president of the Public Service Commission to receive disclosures of wrongdoings from public servants and to investigate them.

Under the bill, the president of the Public Service Commission will report to a minister and not directly to Parliament.

This is exactly the same reporting system that the last bill had, and the exact reporting system that caused the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, the public service ethics officer, every opposition party and the media to condemn the last government bill. I do not know why the government thinks it will get an easy ride on this bill.

The reporting process proposed in Bill C-11 creates opportunities for the same kind of interference that apparently took place with respect to an audit report on the sponsorship program that was prepared for Public Works and Government Services. Somewhere between the draft and the final report it was mysteriously watered down so it did not raise any of the alarms it should have raised.

One cannot make someone responsible for rooting out and correcting wrongdoing in government and then have that person report to someone in government. One cannot tell someone “We cabinet ministers are going to give you a well paying job, decide how much power you have, how much you will get paid, how high your operating budget is and how long you stay in office. Now sit down with me and tell me what is wrong with government”. It just does not work.

Anyway, the president of the Public Service Commission needs to receive disclosures of wrongdoings in order to prepare a report. Here again, the Liberals have seen to it that the bill is worded in such a way as to deter disclosures of wrongdoings instead of supporting them.

The Public Service Commission works hand in hand with cabinet, Treasury Board and deputy heads of government departments to address all kinds of issues concerning terms and conditions of public service employment. Public servants regard the Public Service Commission as part of senior management structure. They will not be inclined to disclose wrongdoings in their departments to anyone so closely tied to their departmental and political bosses.

I was a member of the public service for 22 years. I served as a union president of an association in Sudbury, Ontario and later in management in Sudbury, Ottawa and Cornwall.

You can believe me when I say that most public servants will think twice before disclosing any wrongdoing by their bosses to the president of the Public Service Commission. This government institution is just not the right one to listen to and protect whistleblowers.

What is needed for this job is a truly and completely independent body, its resources, operations and chain of accountability must be completely separate from the government of the day and from the public service.

The bill would require public servants to report wrongdoings of their masters to their masters. In fact, it expressly states that public servants cannot even go to the president of the Public Service Commission unless they have already disclosed the matter to their direct supervisor or they have what the bill calls reasonable grounds for not reporting to a direct supervisor. If a public servant discloses wrongdoing through any channel not sanctioned by the bill, then the public servant will not be protected from reprisals. If a public servant reveals government wrongdoing to the public, then the public servant will not be protected from reprisals under this act.

That is totally unbelievable. The government is basically saying that it is all right to punish public servants who dare to tell taxpayers when their money is being wasted. It is all right to discipline public servants if they tell Canadians about abuse of power and corruption. It is all right to do that.

That is simply indefensible. When a public servant takes the initiative to draw attention to wrongdoing involving public money or the public trust, that public servant should not only be protected but he or she should be applauded. Telling Canadians when bad things are happening to their tax dollars is a public service. It is incredible that the government cannot understand this.

This bill tells federal public servants that the only authority to whom they can disclose wrongdoings within their departments without fear of reprisal is someone who reports to the government in office.

Even when someone reports wrongdoing through the prescribed channels, if the boss fires that person to get even, the person has no recourse except what is available right now.

Bill C-11 sets up no new mechanism to receive reports of reprisals against whistleblowers. Those who are punished for coming forward in good faith to make disclosures of wrongdoing have to bring their plight to the attention of the applicable labour boards. They could have done that without the bill. It gets worse.

If someone makes a disclosure through the prescribed channels and his or her boss takes reprisals against the person for it, what happens? The individual complains to the applicable labour board and has to suffer while the case makes the long difficult journey through the labour board process where finally it is found that the individual was unfairly punished for doing the right thing, but nothing happens. The person who took reprisals against that individual is not even punished. The individual making the disclosure receives no reward or retribution for his or her suffering. The person gets back only what the ordeal cost him or her in terms of money and job status. Nothing else happens.

On one hand the bill says that public servants deserve to be punished for making disclosures of wrongdoing to the public, but on the other hand it says that supervisors in the public service do not deserve to be punished for taking reprisals against those who disclose wrongdoing, even through the proper channels.

The bill is clearly intended to contain disclosures of wrongdoing and not to facilitate such disclosures or to protect those who make them.

The Conservative Party would support an act that created a truly independent body to receive and investigate all disclosures of wrongdoing by all public servants and to protect those public servants from reprisals. Bill C-11 would not do that.

All 308 members of the House would say, without exception, that the employees of our public service are one of our country's finest resources. Today every member of Parliament has a chance to show their respect for public servants by providing them with legislation that reflects our respect and commitment to them.

I urge every member in the House to seriously consider the bill and to support the changes that need to be made in order to ensure that public servants realize how much the House values them.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move:

That Bill C-11, an act to establish a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoings in the public sector, including the protection of persons who disclose the wrongdoings, be referred forthwith to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to start by recognizing a lot of hard work that has gone on in the journey that has brought the bill before the House. A number of the members of the original Standing Committee on Government Operations were seized of this when we began work on the original Bill C-25, which was not the bill that presented whistleblowing in the last House but the Bill C-25 that was the Public Service Modernization Act, which came before the committee more than a year ago.

At that time, when we were first looking at how we restructure the way in which services are provided to public servants and the way in which we manage our public service, there were concerns raised about the adequacy of whistleblowing, the identification of wrongdoing within the public service.

While looking at it, the committee noted the fact that the Public Service Commission was undergoing a change, that it had been around for a very long time as that entity which stood to ensure high quality ,meritorious appointments into the public service of Canada, but there was a feeling that through the modernization we wanted to delegate more of that responsibility to line ministries to facilitate a better process, better accountability and faster accessing of new employees, et cetera, and that the Public Service Commission should evolve into more of an audit function, that it would become the auditor of the human resource function as opposed to the manager of the human resource function.

This was a fairly substantial change. As we approached that debate in the bill, there was a lot of discussion about what that meant for public servants and for departments. It was decided, really, on a motion from the member for Etobicoke North. The committee agreed to modify the appointment process for the president of the Public Service Commission and took the appointment process from the parliamentary officers, the privacy commissioner and the access to information commissioner. That is what was used and that is what is embedded in the legislation now for the Public Service Commission.

When the work came about to hire a new president for the Public Service Commission, that person was, as is contained for the other parliamentary officers, presented to the House, presented to committee and approved by motions in both Houses. This was done to ensure greater independence for that organization as it begins its journey to this new role.

That is important, I think, because when we moved into the work on whistleblowing, the committee had had an experience with the then privacy commissioner's office and encountered some of the difficulties that are inherent in the way our system was structured. In particular, there was a problem that a lot of public servants were experiencing at that time in that it was unclear to them, or certainly their confidence in the current system for bringing forward concerns about wrongdoing was not strong enough to allow them to overcome their fear of what it would mean to their careers.

The committee, having had that experience, then undertook a piece of work that was co-chaired by the member for Winnipeg Centre and the member for Laval—Les Îles. They took a look at the experiences we had had with dealing with whistleblowers and they took into consideration some studies that had been done and some examination of what the workers were saying and came forward with a series of recommendations.

One of them was that it was not sufficient to have a policy base for this, that we had to have a legislative base for it. The second was that it should be embedded in an organization that was by definition independent so the organization would be independent of the management infrastructure of government, and that it should have a framework both for assessing the validity of the concern and, having ascertained that there was a legitimate concern, for it to have powers to protect a person so that there would be no impact on his or her career in the future.

I am pleased to say that the Prime Minister, upon coming to office, supported the development of a bill with these provisions. That bill was presented to the previous Parliament by the member for Bourassa.

The committee had a period of time to look at it. I believe it heard 14 witnesses who came forward with testimony from some of the associations and unions that represent workers, as well as others. The committee was properly and heavily engaged in that work when the election was called.

I had the opportunity, having been given the responsibility for the bill, to review all the work that had been done and, with the support of the Prime Minister, restructured the bill to address some of the concerns that had been raised. Rather than go through all of the bill, I think it is important today to simply frame those areas where the bill has been modified, and modified in direct response to concerns raised by people before the committee and by members of the previous committee.

Before I get into the three areas where there were specific concerns, there are a couple of things that I think are also important additions. The preamble of the bill recognizes the importance of the federal public service as a “national institution” and commits the government to establishing “a Charter of Values of Public Service to guide public servants in their work and professional conduct”.

The definition clause of the bill sets out, among other items, the range of public sector employees the proposed legislation covers. It will apply to employees in all sectors of the public service, including crown corporations and executives.

However, there is one area where there have been concerns raised which the bill does not address directly. It does not encompass them in this legislation. This includes members of the security establishment, CSIS, the uniformed members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the uniformed members of the Canadian Forces. It is important to make that distinction. The bill does cover civilian members of the armed forces defence department and civilian members of the RCMP, but in the case of the uniformed forces, they are required under this legislation to establish comparable codes themselves within those unique areas. They will be subject to that legislation or will be able to account to the codes they establish, but they are not encompassed directly in the civilian procedures.

The bill requires the Treasury Board to establish a code of conduct for the entire federal public service. Chief executives, that is, deputy heads of departments and chief executive officers of crown corporations, may also establish codes of conduct for their own organizations. If so, their codes must be consistent with the one established by the Treasury Board.

A new feature of the bill also commits the government to consult bargaining agents on the development of a code of conduct.

The next section of the bill defines wrongdoing, which has not changed from the previous bill. The proposed legislation then sets out the procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoing. Each chief executive must establish an internal disclosure mechanism, including the appointment of a senior officer to take disclosures and act on them. A public servant who believes that he or she is being asked to commit a wrongdoing or who believes that a wrongdoing has been committed may report it to his or her supervisor or to the designated senior officer.

However, the public servant may also report wrongdoing directly to the president of the Public Service Commission if he or she feels it would be inappropriate to disclose it to the supervisor or senior officer, or if he or she has disclosed it to one or the other of these people and believes the matter has not been addressed.

I would like to emphasize this. A public servant has the choice of using his or her organization's internal disclosure process or going directly to the proposed neutral third party for disclosures, the president of the Public Service Commission. This choice was also part of the previous bill, but in response to confusion among stakeholders we have made the language clearer. I think there was a lack of clarity as to whether or not the individual had to go first to the internal mechanisms. It was felt that in serious cases people should have the right to go directly to the independent party.

Now that I have made mention of the president of the public service, I want to skip ahead in the bill to talk about the responsibilities of the president of the Public Service Commission.

Some hon. members will remember that the previous bill proposed the creation of a public sector integrity commissioner as the neutral third party. As I said earlier, there was concern about the power and independence of the proposed commissioner. That is why this new bill assigns the role to the president of the Public Service Commission.

The PSC has a long history, almost a century, of playing an independent role in government. It is proud of its long tradition of protecting the merit principle in federal staffing. The president of the Public Service Commission would have the same reporting relationship to Parliament for disclosure of wrongdoing as he or she, in this case she, has for staffing. For example, the president of the Public Service Commission would be required to make annual reports of disclosures to Parliament.

It is true, as many hon. members know, that the president submits these annual reports to Parliament via a minister. However, in addition, the bill authorizes the president to make special reports directly to Parliament at any time and on any matter within the scope of her powers under this proposed act.

This new role of the president of the Public Service Commission is backstopped by new investigative powers for disclosure.

The bill would give the president powers under part II of the Inquiries Act. This would include the power to subpoena and the authority to access premises in the course of an investigation. The president would also be able to set deadlines for chief executives to respond to her recommendations.

Assigning the neutral third party role to the president of the Public Service Commission is a strong, effective, practical and reasonable option. I must admit that it was not, by the way, an idea that the government came up with alone. It was an option put forward by the previous all party government operations and estimates committee in its 2003 report on the issue. I would recommend that piece of work to members of the House. It was co-chaired by the member for Winnipeg South and the member for Laval—Les Îles. The former member for Châteauguay and the member for New Westminster—Coquitlam were also heavily involved in the development of that report.

My time has run out so I will leave it to the debate. I have already met with the critics and I would be prepared to meet with any of the critics for further discussion and briefing should they require it.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Bill C-11. On the Order: Government Orders

October 8, 2004--The President of the Treasury Board--Second reading and reference to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, of Bill C-11, an act to establish a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoings in the public sector, including the protection of persons who disclose the wrongdoings.

Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act

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

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-11, An Act to establish a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoings in the public sector, including the protection of persons who disclose the wrongdoings.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)