Bill C-2 (Historical)

Federal Accountability Act

An Act providing for conflict of interest rules, restrictions on election financing and measures respecting administrative transparency, oversight and accountability

Part 1 enacts the Conflict of Interest Act and makes consequential amendments in furtherance of that Act. That Act sets out substantive prohibitions governing public office holders. Compliance with the Act is a deemed term and condition of a public office holder’s appointment or employment. The Act also sets out a detailed regime of compliance measures to ensure conformity with the substantive prohibitions, certain of which apply to all public office holders and others of which apply to reporting public office holders. The Act also provides for a regime of detailed post-employment rules. Finally, the Act establishes a complaints regime, sets out the powers of investigation of the Commissioner and provides for public reporting as well as a regime of administrative monetary penalties.
Amongst other matters, the consequential amendments to the Parliament of Canada Act provide for the appointment and office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner along with his or her tenure, expenses, duties and other administrative matters.
Part 1 also amends the Canada Elections Act to
(a) reduce to $1,000 the amount that an individual may contribute annually to a registered party, and create a distinct $1,000 annual limit on contributions to the registered associations, the nomination contestants and the candidates of a registered party;
(b) reduce to $1,000 the amount that an individual may contribute to an independent candidate or to a leadership contestant;
(c) reduce to $1,000 the amount that a nomination contestant, a candidate or a leadership contestant may contribute to his or her own campaign in addition to the $1,000 limit on individual contributions;
(d) totally ban contributions by corporations, trade unions and associations by repealing the exception that allows them to make an annual contribution of $1,000 to the registered associations, the candidates and the nomination contestants of a registered party and a contribution of $1,000 to an independent candidate during an election period;
(e) ban cash donations of more than $20, and reduce to $20 the amount that may be contributed before a receipt must be issued or, in the case of anonymous contributions following a general solicitation at a meeting, before certain record-keeping requirements must be met; and
(f) increase to 5 years after the day on which the Commissioner of Canada Elections became aware of the facts giving rise to a prosecution, and to 10 years following the commission of an offence, the period within which a prosecution may be instituted.
Other amendments to the Canada Elections Act prohibit candidates from accepting gifts that could reasonably be seen to have been given to influence the candidate in the performance of his or her duties and functions as a member, if elected. The wilful contravention of this prohibition is considered to be a corrupt practice. A new disclosure requirement is introduced to require candidates to report to the Chief Electoral Officer any gifts received with a total value exceeding $500. Exceptions are provided for gifts received from relatives, as well as gifts of courtesy or of protocol. The amendments also prohibit registered parties and registered associations from transferring money to candidates directly from a trust fund.
The amendments to the Lobbyists Registration Act rename the Act and provide for the appointment by the Governor in Council of a Commissioner of Lobbying after approval by resolution of both Houses of Parliament. They broaden the scope for investigations by the Commissioner, extend to 10 years the period in respect of which contraventions may be investigated and prosecuted, and increase the penalties for an offence under the Act. In addition, they empower the Commissioner to prohibit someone who has committed an offence from lobbying for a period of up to two years, prohibit the acceptance and payment of contingency fees and prohibit certain public office holders from lobbying for a period of five years after leaving office. They require lobbyists to report their lobbying activities involving certain public office holders and permit the Commissioner to request those office holders to confirm or correct the information reported by lobbyists.
Amendments to the Parliament of Canada Act prohibit members of the House of Commons from accepting benefits or income from certain trusts and require them to disclose all trusts to the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. The amendments also authorize the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner to issue orders requiring members to terminate most trusts and prohibiting them from using the proceeds from their termination for political purposes. In cases where the trusts are not required to be terminated, the amendments authorize the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner to make orders prohibiting members from using the trusts for political purposes. An offence is created for members who do not comply with such orders. The amendments also provide that, in the event of a prosecution, a committee of the House of Commons may issue an opinion that is to be provided to the judge before whom the proceedings are held.
Finally, Part 1 amends the Public Service Employment Act to remove the right of employees in ministers’ offices to be appointed without competition to positions in the public service for which the Public Service Commission considers them qualified.
Part 2 harmonizes the appointment and removal provisions relating to certain officers.
Amendments to the Parliament of Canada Act establish within the Library of Parliament a position to be known as the Parliamentary Budget Officer, whose mandate is to provide objective analysis to the Senate and House of Commons about the estimates of the government, the state of the nation’s finances and trends in the national economy, to undertake research into those things when requested to do so by certain Parliamentary committees, and to provide estimates of the costs of proposals contained in Bills introduced by members of Parliament other than in their capacity as ministers of the Crown. The amendments also provide the Parliamentary Budget Officer with a right of access to data that are necessary for the performance of his or her mandate.
Part 3 enacts the Director of Public Prosecutions Act which provides for the appointment of the Director of Public Prosecutions and one or more Deputy Directors. That Act gives the Director the authority to initiate and conduct criminal prosecutions on behalf of the Crown that are under the jurisdiction of the Attorney General of Canada. That Act also provides that the Director has the power to make binding and final decisions as to whether to prosecute, unless the Attorney General of Canada directs otherwise, and that such directives must be in writing and published in the Canada Gazette. The Director holds office for a non-renewable term of seven years during good behaviour and is the Deputy Attorney General of Canada for the purposes of carrying out the work of the office. The Director is given responsibility, in place of the Commissioner of Canada Elections, for prosecutions of offences under the Canada Elections Act.
Part 3 also amends the Access to Information Act to ensure that all parent Crown corporations, and their wholly-owned subsidiaries, within the meaning of section 83 of the Financial Administration Act are encompassed by the definition “government institution” in section 3 of the Access to Information Act and to add five officers, five foundations and the Canadian Wheat Board to Schedule I of that Act. It adjusts some of the exemption provisions accordingly and includes new exemptions or exclusions relating to the added officers and the Crown corporations. It empowers the Governor in Council to prescribe criteria for adding a body or an office to Schedule I and requires Ministers to publish annual reports of all expenses incurred by their offices and paid out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund. It adds any of those same officers and foundations that are not already included in the schedule to the Privacy Act to that schedule, ensures that all of those parent Crown corporations and subsidiaries are encompassed by the definition “government institution” in section 3 of that Act, and makes other consequential amendments to that Act. It amends the Export Development Act to include a provision for the confidentiality of information. It revises certain procedures relating to the processing of requests and handling of complaints and allows for increases to the number of investigators the Information Commissioner may designate to examine records related to defence and national security.
Amendments to the Library and Archives of Canada Act provide for an obligation to send final reports on government public opinion research to the Library and Archives of Canada.
Finally, Part 3 amends the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act to
(a) establish the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Tribunal and empower it to make remedial orders in favour of victims of reprisal and to order disciplinary action against the person or persons who took the reprisal;
(b) provide for the protection of all Canadians, not only public servants, who report government wrongdoings to the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner;
(c) remove the Governor in Council’s ability to delete the name of Crown corporations and other public bodies from the schedule to the Act;
(d) require the prompt public reporting by chief executives and the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner of cases of wrongdoing; and
(e) permit the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner to provide access to legal advice relating to the Act.
Part 4 amends the Financial Administration Act to create a new schedule that identifies and designates certain officials as accounting officers and, within the framework of their appropriate minister’s responsibilities and accountability to Parliament, sets out the matters for which they are accountable before the appropriate committees of Parliament. A regime for the resolution of issues related to the interpretation or application of a policy, directive or standard issued by the Treasury Board is established along with a requirement that the Treasury Board provide a copy of its decision to the Auditor General of Canada.
Part 4 also amends the Financial Administration Act and the Criminal Code to create indictable offences for fraud with respect to public money or money of a Crown corporation, and makes persons convicted of those offences ineligible to be employed by the Crown or the corporation or to otherwise contract with the Crown.
Other amendments to the Financial Administration Act clarify the authority of the Treasury Board to act on behalf of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada on matters related to internal audit in the federal public administration. They also set out the deputy head’s responsibility for ensuring that there is an internal audit capacity appropriate to the needs of the department and requires them, subject to directives of the Treasury Board, to establish an audit committee. The Financial Administration Act, the Farm Credit Canada Act and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board Act are amended to require Crown corporations to establish audit committees composed of members who are not officers or employees of the corporation. Other amendments to the Financial Administration Act require, subject to directions of the Treasury Board, that all grant and contribution programs be reviewed at least every five years to ensure their relevance and effectiveness.
Amendments made to the Financial Administration Act and to the constituent legislation of a number of Crown corporations provide for appointments of directors for up to four years from a current maximum of three years.
Part 4 also amends the Canadian Dairy Commission Act, the Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation Act and the National Capital Act to require different individuals to perform the duties of chair of the Board of Directors and chief executive officer of the corporation.
Part 5 amends the Auditor General Act by expanding the class of recipients of grants, contributions and loans into which the Auditor General of Canada may inquire as to the use of funds, whether received from Her Majesty in right of Canada or a Crown corporation. Other amendments provide certain immunities to the Auditor General.
Amendments to the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act provide for the appointment and mandate of a Procurement Auditor.
Part 5 also amends the Financial Administration Act to provide for a government commitment to fairness, openness and transparency in government contract bidding, and a regulation-making power to deem certain clauses to be set out in government contracts in relation to prohibiting the payment of contingency fees and respecting corruption and collusion in the bidding process for procurement contracts, declarations by bidders in respect of specific criminal offences, and the provision of information to the Auditor General of Canada by recipients under funding agreements.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I can do that, but I'm not prepared.... I'm totally in the hands of the committee and take my instructions from the committee. But I would urge against just delaying it further for another month or two so I can have an audience with the minister to discuss this. The minister's intentions, views, and position are set out on the website of the Treasury Board, so if he's not in agreement with that document, he has a very serious situation on his hands. I assume they have come forward with this protocol and have put it on the website after reflection, deliberation, and discussion.

I want to ask one other question. I think it's important to get this on the record.

Dr. Franks, I have two items I want you to address very briefly. In your opinion, is anything in your protocol contrary to the provisions of the Federal Accountability Act? Do you recommend to this committee that we adopt the report you presented?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

I would suggest that part of our study should be to ensure that there is compliance with Bill C-2. I understand your point about the minister responsible, but is there an objection to ensuring that there is compliance with Bill C-2, because surely that--

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

Very quickly, I would point out that we already did have ministers before the committee to discuss implementation of the Accountability Act, so I'm not sure why we would need to do it again. It doesn't particularly bother us, because we're implementing the Accountability Act at the pace that was anticipated by the action plan, and that action plan was adopted by an all-party committee during the proceedings on the act itself. So implementation, as far as we're concerned, is perfectly on track, and we're more than happy to have a discussion on that, but it's already happened, so I'm not sure it merits a lot more time.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

We've been waiting for the implementation of Bill C-2. Then we learned that this secretariat has been up and running, but we have no information about the secretariat. It's my understanding that the Prime Minister presides over the Public Appointments Commission Secretariat. That was the order in council from April 21, 2006. Possibly that's changed; I don't know. But if he's still responsible, or whoever is responsible, we would like to have them come and appear before this committee to report on the activities of the secretariat.

Aboriginal Affairs

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, in three separate cases the Supreme Court of Canada was clear that the federal government had a duty to consult with first nations. Despite these rulings, the government has refused to conduct meaningful consultations. It imposes arbitrary deadlines that prevent real discussions from taking place: Bill C-2; Bill C-44; Bill C-45; nationhood; and now only seven days for consensus building on matrimonial real property.

Why does the government insist on taking such a father knows best attitude?

Canada Pension Plan

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

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to see that my hon. colleague from Winnipeg Centre is storm stayed in Ottawa with the rest of us until we try to make it out tonight.

My friend and colleague raises two important points. One is about the level of frustration that many seniors feel when they apply for CPP benefits. Most seniors with whom I have spoken have gone through the same frustration levels of applying, being denied, appealing and finally getting their benefits.

Something we, as a government, have been trying to achieve since we were elected is to streamline government services. Quite frankly, we are a government that believes in leaner, meaner, more efficient governments. I wish we could this overnight but we cannot. However, I think over time we will be able to streamline some of the processes of government and ease the frustrations and access to benefits that most seniors richly deserve. We will be working hard on that.

I would point out to my friend and colleague from Winnipeg Centre that in our latest cabinet shuffle we announced that there would be a minister responsible for seniors. The government House leader in the Senate has now been appointed the minister responsible for seniors. I know she is taking an active role in the files to benefit seniors on every level. This will be one of the areas that she will be investigating. My commitment to my friend is that I will be speaking with the minister responsible to see if we can giddy-up the process and streamline it as quickly as possible.

The other point my friend makes concerns the investment board itself and the patronage appointments that have been predominant on that board and other boards within our country over the past decade or two. I do not believe that is something that we should ignore.

As my friend knows, having worked with me on the legislative committee on Bill C-2, the accountability act, appointments to all boards and commissions must be made on merit. We felt very strongly about that when we developed the context of Bill C-2, the accountability act. I know it is a file that my friend is very familiar with because he played an integral role in getting many components, including the merit based component of boards and commissions and the appointment of a commissioner to oversee these appointments, into the bill itself.

I can assure my friend and colleague that we will be ensuring in future as we go forward, once various aspects of Bill C-2 have received royal assent and come into force, that appointments for all boards and commissions will be based on a go forward basis on competency and merit and not on patronage.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Okay, I was just going to confirm that this really needs to be a senior management leadership issue, not only in this instance but also for the Federal Accountability Act, with the whistle-blower provisions now, which people need to be informed about regarding what they're able to do, etc.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As we know—and the new legislation will change that—in the past, returning officers and assistant returning officers were appointed on the basis of their political allegiance. Mr. Kingsley has already complained about the fact that, in election periods, he had tried to solve the problem with politically-appointed returning officers but did not have the authority to do so. They would almost send him elsewhere. The returning officers would tell him that it was not he, Mr. Kingsley, who had appointed them, and that they could do what they liked. That complaint was often voiced before our committee; people complained about that.

What could you do if there were to be an election in the next few months, and you were not able to apply the provisions C-2, and, for example, you were unable to make the appointments yourself? The idea is to eliminate any political interference, to judge on the basis of people's experience and not their political views, as in the past.

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

As you know, Bill C-2 provides for changes in the way returning officers are appointed. I do not want to lay out your work plan for you, but if there is an election this spring, this should become your priority, unless you want to proceed according to the former system, under which the government of the day appointed friends or party supporters to this position most of the time.

Do you intend to establish some priorities so that returning officers are appointed following an open, transparent process?

Canada Elections Act

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to enter into the debate on Bill C-31. I would like to bring the perspective of the good people of Winnipeg Centre into this debate and I will try to accurately portray the views that I am getting from the area that I represent.

Let me say at the outset that we believe this new election law will be bad for voters and bad for the voters in the riding that I represent in a disproportionate way perhaps because it is, and I say this with no sense of pride, the poorest riding in Canada.

Low income people will be disproportionately disadvantaged by the provisions of this law, mark my words. I will make this point today, but I think we will be hearing a lot more about it in subsequent charter challenges. I say that without any hesitation or fear of contradiction. This will be challenged as a Charter of Rights and Freedoms issue.

Let me remind members of Parliament here today that section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms says:

Every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein.

This is a fundamental basic right and freedom that we established in this country. Persons wiser than I have said that the highest duty bestowed on anyone is that of a citizen in a democracy, and key and integral to that is the right and duty to participate fully in that democracy. That means exercising one's franchise to vote.

My colleague, the hon. member for Ottawa Centre, in his remarks in the House of Commons dealing with Bill C-31, quoted Alfred E. Smith, a former governor of New York, a famous populist and champion of child labour issues, et cetera. His famous quote was, “All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy”. There is no such thing as too much democracy.

Some of us are concerned that perhaps democracy was just a moment in history and in time. There are those of us who believe democracy is the highest achievement of civilization, but it is constantly at risk and under threat. If we are not vigilant and absolutely determined that we will embrace, enhance, protect, develop, promote, and strengthen democracy with everything we do, then it starts to slide. It cannot remain static. It is either improving or deteriorating. I argue without exaggeration that I believe the moves taken within Bill C-31 are detrimental and deleterious to the state of democracy in this country.

Speakers before me have made the point that requiring voter ID, the stringent new rules contemplated by Bill C-31, will have the predictable consequence and effect of less people voting. I would argue that if there is any one single problem with our election system today, poor voter turnout is the biggest problem we have. It is the failure to participate.

Roughly 60% of registered voters went to the polls in the last federal election. That is bad enough. But only about 50% of all eligible voters cast a ballot in the last federal election. If we treasure and value democracy above all else, we should find those figures very troubling.

The new changes contemplated by Bill C-31 will result in fewer people voting and ironically, or perhaps not ironically, and cruelly, the very people who need representation the most will be the most affected by these new rules. They will be disenfranchised and will not be exercising their right to vote.

I heard my colleague, the hon. member for Vancouver East, make some very passionate remarks in the House. I think I can safely argue that no one that I know in the House of Commons or anywhere else in this country makes a greater effort to encourage low income people to exercise their right to vote than the member for Vancouver East. Registration tables were set up in the Vancouver lower east side, some of the most devastated neighbourhoods and postal codes in the country. There was an effort to reach out and encourage people who were otherwise marginalized to participate and vote.

The member sounded the alarm that this bill will have a disastrous effect on the work that she does and will result in fewer people voting.

That is only one part of the bill that we are critical of today, the idea of the much more stringent rules about voter ID. That in itself would be enough to say that the NDP would not support this bill, but there is a second element to it that I find equally troubling.

I am our party's critic for ethics, privacy and access to information and serve as the vice-chair of the committee of the same name. From a privacy point of view in this era of identity theft and increased heightened concerns about the protection of the privacy of one's personal information, how could the government even consider putting the date of birth on the permanent voters list? It boggles the mind. It runs so contrary to everything we are doing, hearing and studying at the privacy committee. It is almost as if the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing in the government. It is sounding the alarm at committee that Canadians have never been so vulnerable to having their personal identity and privacy compromised and used in ways that the information was never intended to be used.

One's date of birth could be considered as one's individual pin number. That is the identifier. When we phone some place to get information about our accounts, the person at the other end will check by saying, “What is your date of birth so I can confirm you are who you say you are”. That is the identifier we use. It is the identifier crooks use too. If they have someone's name, address, phone number and date of birth, it is a recipe for identity theft. They have themselves a credit card under that person's name probably without much difficulty.

We cannot keep that information secure if it is put on a permanent voters list. I think I had 350 volunteers working on my election campaign. During an election campaign we cannot control everyone who does some volunteer phoning or some door knocking. It is not unusual to tear off a sheet of the voters list and tell someone, “Contact these 50 people and ask them to vote for our party”. This stuff will be circulated widely. It will not be controlled.

Our PIPEDA legislation mandates that anyone holding personal information must go through stringent security and privacy measures. Then on the other hand, again it is the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, the government in a cavalier way will spread all over the countryside one's name, address, phone number and date of birth on one convenient database. It is a recipe for disaster in terms of breaching one's privacy and allowing identity theft to take place. It is appalling.

In committee we are currently studying PIPEDA. Ironically, in this chamber the government is giving away the personal privacy protection of ordinary Canadians and in another room in the same building the privacy committee is seized of the issue of PIPEDA trying to enforce ever more stringent rules on the private sector so it will not divulge that information to anyone for our protection. Within the same building under the same roof we have these two competing dynamics going on: one striving to protect Canadians' privacy; the other cavalierly tossing it around the country. This ain't no beach party. This is not funny. It is not a joke.

I cannot believe we are even having this debate. I cannot believe the Liberals and the Bloc are in favour of this. We know where the idea came from, this date of birth business. Bloc members and PQ members in Quebec like to send birthday cards to voters. That is just crazy. If we are going to compromise the privacy and the personal information of every Canadian just so MPs can send birthday cards to try to endear themselves to their voters, we are really being flippant with the interests of Canadians. We are not putting the best interest of Canadians first and foremost, if that is the rationale. I do not know how they got away with it.

I do not know what the vote was like at the committee but I assume only one party voted against this idea at the committee. I think it was the NDP. I may be corrected; perhaps in the questions and comments period someone might want to correct me.

Then we heard from the Liberal Party. A university professor who teaches constitutional law, the member of Parliament for Vancouver Quadra, made a very good speech full of good facts and figures of all the things to be careful about. He raised the caution of the voter ID situation. He raised the caution about the date of birth. Then his party is going to vote in favour of it. I do not understand it. I do not accept that more thorough and comprehensive enumeration will protect the interests of either one of those issues.

I will say there is important work that needs to be done in the Canada Elections Act. I wish we were having a serious debate about cleaning up some of the atrocities that I have witnessed in election campaigns.

One of the favourite tricks of the Liberal Party of Canada is to clear out senior citizens homes, especially in Chinatown in the area I represent, and then at the polling station, as each individual senior gets off the bus, the seniors are handed a piece of paper with the name of the Liberal candidate and a big X beside it. That is illegal. The Liberals think illegal is a sick bird. They do not really have any concept of right and wrong. I have maintained this before. However, if investigations were to take place on the Canada Elections Act, I would love to see that addressed, because where I come from it is illegal.

As far as actual voter fraud goes, we were kind of led to believe that this act is necessary because of the preponderance of voter fraud. In fact, all we can go by is the actual experience. In the 2006 election campaign, one person was charged and convicted of voter fraud. It was a person who voted even though he was not yet a Canadian citizen. He voted for all three parties or something and got 30 days' community service. In the previous election in 2004, there were no cases; not a single person was charged or convicted of voter fraud. In the 2000 election, there were three individuals convicted of voter fraud.

Where is the experience? Where is the empirical evidence that voter fraud is so rampant that we have to take these heavy-handed measures and risk disenfranchising many--I will not say thousands and I will not say millions--possibly disenfranchising a lot of low income people who do not have the economic stability to provide the right kind of ID?

Where do we get off jeopardizing the personal privacy rights of every voter in the country by putting their DOB on the voters list based on that kind of flimsy evidence? If we could have pointed to a thousand cases, I still would have argued that would not warrant the heavy-handed measures of Bill C-31, but the Conservatives can only point to four cases in the last three federal elections.

We know there is funny business going on, but it is not voter fraud. It is not the permanent voters list. It is not people misrepresenting themselves.

The Conservative members have said that it is going on like crazy, that it is going on all over the place, but we just never catch the people. That is not good enough. That kind of reasoning is not justification for changing the legislation. We need hard facts, and the hard facts are that there were four cases in the last three elections out of 24 million votes cast. Mercy. Statistically insignificant would be the way scientists would phrase that percentage. I cannot even figure out how many decimal points of 1% that would be.

I do not agree with Bill C-31. I fundamentally disagree with it.

The one thing I wanted the government to do was clean up the loans issue, if we are to deal with elections at all. Somehow the government left a loophole we could drive a Brinks truck through, or maybe a Mazda, in terms of loans as opposed to donations.

In Bill C-2, the federal accountability act, we severely limited the amount of money that individuals can donate to an election campaign, and we completely banned any union and corporate donations, which was the right thing to do. Get big money out of politics. Nobody should be able to buy an election in this country. However, we left a big loophole where we can lend a candidate any amount of money or we can lend ourselves any amount of money and never pay it back. How is that different from big money buying influence in Canadian politics? Frankly it is a bit of a no-brainer, because if the loan is not paid back, Elections Canada deems it to be a donation in 18 months.

What they did in one famous case on the Liberal side is that 24 hours before that 18 months was up, they took out another loan and paid off the first loan with the second loan, so now another 18 months would go by. Who is ever going to police whether those guys ever pay off their leadership loans in conjunction with the rules? I believe it will be lost in the sands of time and we will have been made fools of, because we will have knowingly and willingly watched those people violate the spirit and the letter of the election financing laws.

If we were going to address any shortcoming or inconsistency in our Canada Elections Act, election financing should have been addressed, especially if we are going into a federal election. Every well-off MP, or any MP that has a big financial backer or corporate sponsor now knows that Elections Canada is completely feckless, completely unable to police, to stop or to do anything about these massive loans.

When is a loan not a loan? If one never pays it back, it is a donation, right? That is the only conclusion I can come to. There are guys lending themselves a quarter of a million dollars. No one person is allowed to donate a quarter of a million dollars to any election campaign, even their own, but they are allowed to lend it to themselves. I cannot do that. Ordinary Canadians cannot do that. The whole idea was to level the playing field so that nobody had a disproportionate competitive advantage because of who they knew or what corporate backer they had or if their daddy was rich. That was the whole idea. Well, that is out the window now. It is making a mockery of the election financing laws.

Our time in the House of Commons would have been better spent trying to get that fixed before the next federal election campaign, because it is going to snowball now. Every Tom, Dick and Harry who has no conscience is going to take advantage of that loophole. Those of us who have morals and ethics I would hope might have a contributing factor in stopping people from doing that, but others who have a paucity of ethics and morality will take advantage of that loophole, and it is perfectly legal, apparently. Elections Canada cannot do anything about it.

The new requirements for voter ID will add further barriers to voting for marginalized people, for low income people, and will seriously undermine the right to vote. I think we are going to see a charter challenge.

I want to acknowledge the work that my colleague from Ottawa Centre has done on both of these issues, the voter ID issue and the amendments that he sought to put in place on Bill C-31, which we debated last week. The amendments made it to the floor of the House of Commons and then they were summarily dispatched to the trash heap of history, but it was a noble effort and he tried his best, given the limited cards he was dealt to do the honourable thing and the right thing with this.

I want to acknowledge my colleague from Western Arctic too, who has been a champion on this issue, because in the northern regions and in first nations communities, the idea of addresses and photo ID is a big problem. There are no street addresses on a lot of first nations reserves and people do not have photo IDs.

I know that this is a matter that my colleague from Ottawa Centre has brought to the Privacy Commissioner. I hope the Privacy Commissioner sees things the way we do. I hope that we can look forward to a favourable ruling from the Privacy Commissioner that will say that the government is wrong, that it is putting the right to privacy and the personal information of Canadians at risk when it has a permanent voters list with names, addresses, dates of birth and phone numbers on it. It is just folly.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

On the procurement ombudsman in the Federal Accountability Act, what stage are we at in the appointment process? When will this office be up and running? Do you have any timelines on the implementation of it?

Criminal Code

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak in favour of this bill. After listening to the comments from the hon. member for Joliette, it seems the Bloc is more concerned about the dangerous offender than the victim, or the young child who has been abused, injured or sexually mistreated, or the mother or father of that child, or those potential children who might be abused. If we pass this legislation, this could otherwise be prevented.

As we know, safe streets and communities are important to all constituents in Canada. We are rightly proud of the history of having safe streets and homes, but times are changing and Canadians are experiencing not only an increase in crime, but an increase in a crime of the most heinous kind, one that is violent and abuses the sanctity of people, particularly children. They have called upon the government to take action. They have called upon the government to pass legislation not only in this area, but in other areas as well. We cannot ignore this problem. We must roll up our sleeves, do the job that needs to be done and work in committee to get the bill passed.

During the last election, we promised Canadians that we would crack down on crime, and that is exactly what we propose to do. We promised, we made a commitment and we are moving on it. We have tabled Bill C-27 in that regard.

In a nutshell, Bill C-27 deals with dangerous offenders and provides for ways of dealing with them. In particular, it also deals with section 810, peace bonds, which can put certain restrictions upon them should they ever get released.

To make it clear, many are calling upon the government to take action. Recent events in the area of Whitewood, Saskatchewan have brought many constituents together. They have presented a petition to the government asking for action. They have said that dangerous offenders should not be out on the loose or if they are released, they should be subject to some of the severest of conditions, so the public is not endangered by their actions. They have not only united the community in that area, but all of the constituency that I represent, including Saskatchewan, as well as provinces beyond.

We have received petitions signed by up to 24,000 to 25,000 Canadians who urge this government to take action. Today, I had the opportunity to file those petitions. It is fitting that we would do it on the day we are introducing Bill C-27, the dangerous offenders legislation. Let us see what they call for in that petition.

They have asked the government to proceed with changes to the justice system in legislation that would result in harsher penalties for convicted pedophiles. They have asked for mandatory or compulsory electronic or other forms of monitoring of pedophiles upon release from custody. They have asked for compulsory public notification and movements of convicted pedophiles. They have asked that we ensure repeat offenders are designated as dangerous offenders.

Why has this situation incited such an interest in the many constituencies, people and communities of Canada? Because the public is fed up. People have had enough of this easy justice, especially where people have been convicted of the same serious offences on at least three occasions, offences that require two or more years of jail time. They are saying there comes a point in time where something needs to be done. These people need to be contained or released under very strict conditions.

I am quite pleased to say that the Government of Canada has responded to the petition that my constituents have filed, and its response is interesting to note. It says that the Government of Canada is fully committed to protecting children from sexual offenders. In the last Parliament, Bill C-2 introduced mandatory minimum penalties for many sexual offences committed against children. These offences are, therefore, not eligible for a conditional sentence of imprisonment.

Also, a number of criminal law reform initiatives have recently been introduced in this regard, including: Bill C-9 to restrict the availability of conditional sentences, which I just mentioned; Bill C-22 to increase the age of protection; Bill C-27, regarding dangerous and high risk offenders, about whom I speak today; and Bill S-3, regarding improvements to the national sex offender registry.

As introduced, Bill C-9 would toughens penalties for a number of sex offences, including offences against children, by making it clear that the conditional sentence is no longer available. Who could argue against that? Bill C-22 would better protect against youth adult sexual predators by raising the age of consent from 14 years to 16 years.

Who opposes this legislation? The opposition parties, the Liberal Party, the Bloc Party and the New Democratic Party have been obstructionist in committee. They have taken clauses out. They have watered them down. They have made them almost of no effect, when just the opposite is what the people of Canada expect. They expect us to get at least that tough, and tougher. They try to use the argument that it might not be constitutional.

However, these individuals, these victims, need protection, and that is exactly what we are about to do. Most Canadians are calling for us to take that action. It would be a good point for the opposition to take that into account, get behind us and have this legislation passed, as opposed to delaying it in committee.

[Naresh Raghubeer]

Sir, the federal government spends over $600 billion annually, and there's no great concern when the Auditor General is obliged to audit that amount of money. Parliament has just approved the Federal Accountability Act, which raises the bar for accountability for all departments of the Government of Canada. It shouldn't raise any alarm or any concern to want to apply those same standards to CIDA.

[William Corbett]

The investigator's manual makes a lot of it public. As I say, it needs to be updated with the legislative developments under Bill C-2. Once we have it updated, more of it will be made public. I have a publicly available document on communications with the public and with the complainant. The two press releases are on the website, so there's information there.

I'm trying to think of what isn't available. As far as particular cases go, we maintain confidentiality of the complaint and the investigation until the point we advise the complainant what our disposition is going to be. But that's not publicly available either. The two exceptions were the press releases I put out.

The work is to maintain confidentiality. The principles are all described in publicly available documentation.

[William Corbett]

I'm using two terms here: one “complaints”; and the other “referrals”. For complaints, I'm talking about those that are not from Elections Canada, that casework that comes from other sources. For referrals, I'm using that term to describe cases that come from within.

Concerning the process for compliance and enforcement, as soon as my office receives a complaint or a referral, it is assigned to one of my legal counsel to complete a preliminary assessment. The assessment determines whether or not the conduct that's the subject of the complaint or referral falls within the specific offence provision within the act and what, if any, investigation is required.

As commissioner, I'm authorized under section 513 to start an investigation if it's considered in the public interest to do so. I don't act on mere speculation or assumptions. I look for some objective and reliable indications that a specific breach of the law may have occurred. In that context, we often seek clarification of a complaint, particularly from a member of the public, and further details of the complaint—tombstone data, dates, places, documents, who else might have been a witness to something, basic stuff from which we can make a determination of whether an investigation should take place and to launch an investigation.

After reviewing the information provided, counsel prepares a brief report analyzing the complaint and setting out a course of proposed action. If an investigation is recommended, the report will also set out a plan for that investigation developed with the chief investigator. Many referrals do not require further investigation at all. Many referrals are divergent without investigation or simply closed because they don't merit investigation. At any given time, we have approximately 40 cases under investigation.

I review the report of counsel and decide what action is to be taken and provide some general directions to the investigators. In effect, I approve the plan before it's carried out.

When the investigation is complete, counsel will prepare a second report, which analyzes the results of the investigation to determine whether there's reasonable cause to believe an offence under the act has been committed, and may recommend a disposition of the case. I do receive interim reports from time to time, primarily because I'm nosy and I like to know what's going on.

It's my responsibility to determine whether we should recommend a prosecution, propose a compliance agreement, consider a caution letter or some other communication, or take no action at all. During an election period, an injunction may be considered to stop something or to have something done, set something straight quickly. We've never had to apply for an injunction, but just having the power has an interesting effect.

In every case, at the end of the process we write to a complainant and explain the outcome of the complaint. This isn't necessarily so with the referrals internally from Elections Canada, but for every other complainant, they hear what happened.

Concerning the enforcement tools provided by the act, there are two principal tools that are described carefully in the act; those are compliance agreements and prosecutions. The act, however, recognizes that other measures may be taken.

Compliance agreements are essentially a voluntary agreement between me and the person or organization that is shown to have contravened the act. These were added by Parliament to the legislation in 2000. These have been increasingly used to obtain compliance with the act. They have the advantage of obtaining compliance without resort to the courts, which, as you know, is a costly and time-consuming process. To ensure transparency, a summary of these agreements is published in the Canada Gazette and is found on the Elections Canada website.

In these cases, there's clearly a violation of the act admitted by the responsible person, but it is not thought necessary to prosecute. This provides some greater flexibility in the enforcement of the act, and it supplements, but does not replace, prosecutions.

There are instances in which the public interest warrants prosecution whether the person involved wants a compliance agreement or not. Before a prosecution is recommended to the Director of Public Prosecutions--and as I pointed out, this postdates December 12--the commissioner must be satisfied that there's sufficient evidence to prove an offence beyond a reasonable doubt and a reasonable prospect of conviction at trial. If that is the case, then the second consideration is whether a prosecution is in the public interest, taking account of a number of public interest considerations, such as suitability of alternative modes of enforcement, the degree of seriousness of the alleged offence, and aggravating and mitigating circumstances in the case.

These regulatory offences are in effect like another criminal sanction that flows from a prosecution under the act, so the analysis is just as demanding as if you were taking a criminal prosecution forward and includes the respecting of protections and rights afforded by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

There is a great deal of informal enforcement and compliance, and I say “informal” because the tools we use are not specifically addressed in the act. There are numerous referrals from Elections Canada that involve modest, inadvertent, technical apparent violations of the act. Failing to file a report on time is an example, and those are numerous. We receive a large number of referrals from Elections Canada that involve modest, inadvertent, technical apparent violations of the act. You might wonder why they send them to us. It is because they see it as my responsibility to decide no, not theirs, and that's a responsibility in the legislation.

So there are some complaints of minor violations that don't even warrant a compliance agreement, and certainly not a recommendation for prosecution. In many of these cases a caution to the offending participant is the appropriate response and is likely all that is necessary to obtain compliance in the future. For these cases, I developed something called a commissioner's caution letter. This letter sets out the facts as indicated from the information available to my office. It sets out the prohibition in the legislation. It sets out the offence in the legislation, and the penalty provisions in the legislation. Having brought the offending conduct to the person's attention, the letter then invites the person to contact counsel if the facts are wrong--if we have the facts wrong, get back to us. But if not, the letter requests that the conduct not be repeated.

This is something I developed in September when I first took the job, because it seemed to me we needed another tool to deal to deal with a variety of minor matters that were still violations of the act. In some cases there were so many of them that they needed to be addressed.

Those receiving the caution letter are asked to acknowledge receipt by returning a signed copy of the letter. Since September, 86 caution letters have been sent out for minor violations of the act. For example, we received over 100 referrals-for-nomination contest reports filed late. Some of them were a week late; some of them were six months late. We did a triage and took the more serious ones. But with that number of late reports, obviously there was a problem in the system. So we sent out about 47 caution letters for roughly 150 referrals advising people of the responsibility under the legislation and that it had not been complied with.

The response to these caution letters has been very positive indeed. In addition to people's sending back the acknowledgement letter, I have received lengthy letters from people explaining why they violated the law, how they violated the law, that they wouldn't do it again, apologizing for it. I had one in the Maritimes where a radio station had broadcast in the black period. The response was from the broadcasting organization, indicating they would change their policy. They got it wrong at one station, but they would change their policy and make that known to all the stations within their broadcasting network.

So the response was quite positive. A number of people indicated that they liked the caution instead of something else--most would. A number of these letters came back on party letterhead from official agents or otherwise. Anyway, I was quite pleased that it received such a positive response.

Another tool we may use is this. During an election, informal compliance can be achieved simply by contacting party officials, who will informally rectify conduct that we find may be in violation of the act. This is done simply through a phone call. In other words, the parties will self-regulate. We use that phenomenon or that propensity to set things right. If something that we think is in violation of the act is happening in a particular constituency, we'll contact the party and ask them to fix it. And they do.

In terms of press releases, since taking office I've authorized two press releases that summarized the results of two investigations. The first one dealt with an investigation into allegations of wrongdoing in the vote in Desnethé--Missinippi--Churchill River, Saskatchewan, that huge riding in northern Saskatchewan. The second dealt with alleged voting irregularities in Edmonton Centre. We had received a number of complaints with regard to both of these.

We had done an extensive investigation, which determined that there was no wrongdoing and no significant irregularities in the voting in either electoral district in the 2006 election. However, there had been considerable media coverage at the time of the election, which left the impression, in both of these cases, that there was wrongdoing and that the result of the vote may not have been reliable. In the public interest, I felt this impression needed to be addressed and the public record set straight. A public statement was the only effective way I had of doing this. As for the future use of press releases, it will be a case-by-case matter. It's not something I necessarily hope to do regularly. But in these two cases, I felt strongly that the public was left with the impression that there was something wrong.

Public Prosecution Service of Canada. This is the name of the new prosecution service in the federal government that is responsible for all federal prosecutions, including Canada Elections Act prosecutions. With the enactment of Bill C-2, the prosecution function has been transferred to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The decision to prosecute and the conduct of the prosecution are now the responsibilities of the DPP. If the decision is made to prosecute, the DPP will instruct me to have the charges laid. That's the way the system works. I make a referral to the DPP after an investigation is made. The decision-making role in relation to investigations remains the same. It's with my office.

Once an investigation has been completed, the principles I have described will be applied in order to determine whether a referral and recommendation to the DPP should be made.

I have met with the Public Prosecution Service and have been assured that our referrals will be given prompt assessment by that office. My concern was in regard to yet more delay in the structure, and I'm doing my best to see that doesn't happen.

My general observation during the course of my work as commissioner is that Canadians, by and large, want to act in accordance with their statutory responsibilities. There's tremendous support for the law here among Canadians in general. Once informed that there's a violation of obligations, many immediately react positively and are quite prepared to ensure conformity with the law. In addition, political parties are often instrumental in ensuring that their own members comply with the law, and they are generally an effective ally in obtaining compliance with the act.

It's important to recall that the commitment of all stakeholders to abide by the rules ensures the harmonious unfolding of an electoral event and the public confidence in the electoral process. My own approach to achieving the goal of compliance with the act is to use mechanisms that will achieve compliance, without the prosecution of charges, wherever possible. The Public Prosecution Service supports this approach, and the courts do as well. Consequently, the prosecution of charges should be reserved for the more serious violations of the act.

Every time I've decided to initiate a prosecution--when I had that responsibility--I asked myself some questions: Is it in the public interest to prosecute? Has there been a wilful violation of the act? Is there an absence of remorse? Is there a refusal to comply? Every time, I ask myself, do we need to prosecute this case?

As you know, I must act independently in the decision-making and maintain the confidentiality of matters under investigation by my office. This reflects my obligation of fairness to anyone dealing with the office and the privacy interests of individuals. So I'm somewhat constrained in responding to certain kinds of questions--matters that are under investigation, for example--because this would have an impact on the ability of my office to carry out its responsibilities. I'm also somewhat reluctant to offer legal advice on hypothetical questions and, for that matter, policy advice, which this committee is much better suited to than I am.