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.

Federal Accountability Act

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am working on the member's analogy of the situation and how he characterized that action. However, the member for St. Catharines was questioning the accountability of members crossing the floor.

What accountability is there in his government's legislation right now, which does not have a floor-crossing element, when the member for Vancouver--Kingsway, immediately after the election, crossed the floor for a cabinet position against the wishes of his constituents?

It is unacceptable that we are not fixing that in the legislation before us today. What credibility does the member have on this issue?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member listened almost closely enough to my response to the question. I indicated very clearly that our party is committed to accountability. Our party was elected to government to bring accountability. We introduced and delivered an accountability act that speaks to the very nature of what we need to clean up here in Ottawa.

The comment I made was very clear. Had the member been listening very closely, he would have heard what I said. Accountability is not on the other side of the House. Accountability is on this side of the House. A member chose to join this party. I think that member did so based on the fact that he knew that delivering on accountability rests in the party that is in government right now.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to hear the intervention from the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca in response to the last totally illogical comment from the member for St. Catharines.

Bill C-2 has been trumpeted by the government as historical legislation and to some degree there is some validity to that, mostly stolen ideas from our former leader and past member, Ed Broadbent. A number of the provisions within Bill C-2 were proposals that he entered into the public record by way of a report issued about 18 months ago, one that was heavily adopted by the Conservative Party at the time and now the Conservative government. As the member for Halifax just mentioned, unfortunately not all of it.

However, there are some key components in it and it is the reason our party has been willing to support the legislation, recognizing it is far from perfect and has some fairly glaring gaps in it, which I will address in a few minutes.

It is important to say that we support it. It has some fairly major advances to deal with what has been a growing level of corruption in some cases, but certainly a growing level of cynicism in the Canadian body politic toward the House and members of this House and toward political parties in our country. It is well past the appropriate time for this legislature and all political parties to address that cynicism, to respond to it and to in effect clean up our act, which the bill, and hopefully soon law, will go some distance in doing.

It begs the question that if we do this will we see a reduction in cynicism? Will we hopefully see an increase in engagement by the average Canadian citizen in politics. Will they pay more attention to it and involve themselves both at election time and in between elections in the determination of policies that are in their best interests and in the best interest of the country as a whole.

We are hoping, and I would say to some degree expecting, some positive outcome in the body politic as a result of this legislation. To that again, I want to acknowledge the phenomenally good work that Ed Broadbent did. He contributed to pushing the Conservative Party and government along these lines and, in effect, showing them the way. It is a debt of gratitude that our country owes to him as a result of all his hard work and vision in that regard.

There are a number of things that it does. It brings into play a new public appointments commission.

In terms of the level of commitment we see from the Conservative Party, we always had suspicions. Because Mr. Gwyn Morgan was in effect shuffled out of the intended role of heading up this commission, in a snit the Prime Minister said “I'm taking my ball, I'm going home”. He said that he would not include the public appointments commission in the bill. It was to heck with all the rest of us, to heck with the country and to heck with the importance of having this appointments commission to in effect clean up the patronage, which has been so pervasive. It was in the previous Liberal government and it obviously was going to be in the current government. However, when he did not get his chosen appointment, he took his ball and went home.

Quite frankly, because we have a minority government, we told the Prime Minister he could not do that and we were going to change the bill, which we did at committee stage. We got the commission back in place. All parties and all members of the House will be faced with the need to ensure that the appointments are only made based on clear criteria.

In the last Parliament Mr. Broadbent prepared a model which a number of committees adopted when they were reviewing appointments. Not as many appointments were reviewed as we would have liked, and I will not say the criteria were always followed, but it was a beginning. We have now come to a much broader scope and positive changes, we hope, in the way appointments are made to our innumerable commissions and boards.

Whether they be crown corporations or small committees, they all play an intricate part in the democracy of the country. For far too long those appointments have been based on who one knew and to which political party one belonged, which was always the party in power. Far too many of these appointments were not based on quality and merit but simply on who one knew and to which political party one belonged. Shortly that will be a thing of the past.

It is amazing that we are at the early part of the 21st century and we are only finally getting to this. We look back and think about the days when a government changed and the entire civil service changed from the most senior official to the least significant part time employee. It was wholesale. To the victor went the spoils was the motto. We did away with that quite some time ago in the public service. We created a public service of a standard based on merit and substance, but we did not do that for the appointments and it continued right up until the present time. We observed in the last government just how terrible that could be. That sense of entitlement was so pervasive and was so negatively viewed by Canadians right across the country.

As the appointments come forward at all levels to be reviewed by committees, the NDP will be vigilant that criteria are based on merit and not on political affiliation. To a great degree we have substantial hope that the quality of the boards and committees and the appointments to sit on those boards and committees will substantially improve to the benefit of all Canadians.

I want to spend a few minutes on a couple of key points that are missing from the proposed legislation. One point has already been referred to by my colleague from Windsor West in one of his comments. It is an issue that the bill did not address. We tried to get it addressed in committee and it was ruled out of order. It is the issue of floor crossing.

Mr. Broadbent, in his writings on this subject, made it very clear to all of us in the House and to the country as a whole that there was a fundamental need to address this issue if we were going to clean up the democratic process in this country and the way the House and the government functioned overall. We should not have individual members of Parliament who stood for election in one party, who canvassed door to door, adopted the policies and principles of that party, and then sometime after gaining the confidence of the electorate and being elected, on a whim, or as a result of incentives offered by the government of the day or on some occasions the opposition party, responding to those incentives most times out of self-interest and not the interests of their constituents. We should not have individuals who certainly were not responsive to the vote that had brought them to their seats determining on a whim or through self-interest to leave the party to which their constituents had elected them to join another party.

We saw several very blatant incidents of that in the last Parliament, but I do not think we saw anything so crass as what we saw after the election. I happened to be driving in the car with one of my sons when I heard the news on the radio. I said, “They have to be wrong. That did not happen”. This was two or three days after the election.

The member for Vancouver Kingsway, now the Minister of International Trade, had been elected to the Liberal Party. He had sat in the previous Liberal government as a minister, and had been very vigorous, aggressive and confrontational in his attacks on the Conservative Party during the election. He led his constituents to believe that he would represent their interests, that he would stick with the Liberal policies and principles, and I sometimes think those two do not go very well together, but leaving that aside, he had convinced his electorate in Vancouver Kingsway that they should vote for him and they gave him the seat. Sixty per cent of the people voted for other parties. In any event, he took that seat under those conditions and within days switched parties.

Did he do it, as he claims, in the interests of his riding? Did he do it because he was offered the incentive of becoming a cabinet minister again as opposed to sitting as a backbench opposition member? We may never know. I suppose history will judge that, but in either event, it is wrong. It is morally wrong. It is ethically wrong. It should not happen.

Mr. Broadbent had made it very clear that his policies would have prevented that. That legislation, if he were the author of it on our behalf and on behalf of the Canadian people, would have prevented that.

That provision should have been in Bill C-2. As I said earlier, at the committee stage we moved amendments to include that provision. They were ruled out of order. We did not even get a chance to have them come to a vote at committee.

I have to say I have some doubts as to whether they would have gone through, as the sense I have of the other three political parties in this House is they are prepared to continue to permit that kind of conduct. They are not prepared to deal with the absolute anger that constituents feel when their elected member, who ran on one basis, makes that kind of abrupt change and they have no control, they have no say until the next election. They are stuck with a member like that for an extended number of years until the term is up and they can get at him again in an election. That is not good enough and it has to stop.

One of the failings of Bill C-2 is it did not address that. The government refused to address it. Obviously given the greetings that the Conservatives gave the member for Vancouver Kingsway, I suppose we should not have expected anything else from them, but it certainly belies their claims of accountability. What is accountable about that? Nothing at all.

We are stuck with that for the time being. At some point the Canadian people will get another shot at this and I believe we will respond at some point with the proper legislation that will prohibit that kind of conduct in the future.

There is another major point that is missing here. In the election and in the run-up to the election, the Prime Minister and the Conservatives made various overtures to the Canadian people about electoral reform. They even included it in the throne speech earlier this year.

The one little thing that we have seen and which is being claimed as being some form of electoral reform is the bill we saw earlier on, and I will put it in quotes, “Senate reform”. Quite frankly, it is a joke. All it does is fix the maximum number of years that unelected, unaccountable senators get to sit in the other place. This is claimed as being some kind of major step forward, which of course it is not at all.

What should have been put in place with Bill C-2 is a meaningful process to have full electoral reform. It may be worth a few shots to actually get the government to accept the reality of what the Canadian people want. Electoral reform is needed. We are out of sync with the rest of the major democracies in the world in terms of exclusively using the first past the post system. The United States is now the last democracy that uses it. England has begun to move significantly, both in Wales and in Scotland, and all the other democracies have moved in one form or another to do away with the first past the post system. They have recognized, going back 100 years in western Europe, that it does not respond properly to full democratic representation, so that every vote counts as the same, so that there is not a wide divergence in results in the reflection of the actual popular vote where a party forms the government, with a significant majority in some cases, with less than 40% of the vote.

We have seen very many examples of that in Canada, at the federal level and at the provincial level. We have seen the anomalies in New Brunswick where the government gets a little more than 50% of the vote and takes every single seat in the province. In British Columbia there were two elections where the provincial government took all but two seats. The party got less than 60% of the vote but took 97% and 98% of the seats. We have not had a government in Canada at the federal level that got a majority of the vote since around the second world war, for more than 60 years now. We simply cannot continue with that system.

I mentioned earlier in my address about the cynicism in the public generally regarding politics in Canada. It is part of that sense that people do not have control over their politicians, over their elected officials. It is not the be all and end all to that, but it is one of the significant pieces that has to be put into play.

When we hear the Conservative government extol the virtues of Bill C-2, we have to keep in mind that there are some gaping holes in it. We are going to support it because it does address some of the accountability issues. It does build in, in a number of ways, protection from some of the worst forms of corruption that we saw in the last government, and which we saw quite frankly in the Conservative government under former prime minister Mulroney. To some degree that will stop, but it is not the end, and we will not get that until we replace the first past the post system.

We are quite prepared to support this bill, but we are saying to the Canadian people and to this House that we are going to continue to work for the further reform that is needed in our democracy.

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

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed listening to the NDP member's comments on Bill C-2 and I share a number of his views. I definitely share his comments regarding the public appointments commission. Happily, opposition members who sat on the Bill C-2 committee did see fit to reinstitute that public appointments commission.

It is interesting to note that the Prime Minister ran on a platform of accountability, integrity, ethics and that a promise made would be a promise kept, but when his choice of a chair for the future public appointments commission was rejected by the appropriate standing committee of the House, he picked up his toys and said that he would not play the game anymore.

When the committee reinstituted the public appointments commission in Bill C-2 it gave very clear directions in the legislation as to what the commission's mandate would be and what authority it would have. The committee also stated:

Before making a recommendation to the Governor in Council that a person be appointed to the Commission, the Prime Minister shall consult with the leader of every recognized party in the House of Commons. An announcement of an appointment shall be transmitted to the Speaker of the House of Commons for tabling in that House.

Now that the Prime Minister has stated that he will not appoint anyone to the positions in the public appointments commission, notwithstanding the fact that opposition members reinstituted this commission and that we are confident that it will stand the test of the other House, is that not just sheer arrogance and hypocrisy on the part of the Prime Minister? Is that not the kind of behaviour that actually breeds the cynicism in the Canadian public that the hon. member of the NDP was speaking of?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I must agree with the member's characterization of the Prime Minister's conduct as being arrogant. There is just no question about that.

The role of the commission is set out very clearly. It is a major step forward in dealing with blatant political patronage at its very worst. The commission is required to do a number of things. When we hear the Prime Minister making statements that the commission will in effect not be allowed to perform its duties because he will not appoint anybody to it, breeds the cynicism that I made reference to as did the member in her question.

My understanding is that Canadians and members of this House were taken aback and insulted by the Prime Minister's attitude in saying that if he did not get his way he would go home with his ball. He appears to have shifted his position and we expect that he will make the appointments. If he does not play the proper role of the Prime Minister in this regard, including the consultation process that is required, which again was an idea that came from Mr. Broadbent, I can assure the Prime Minister that he and his party will pay in the next federal election.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I sat on the committee where the Prime Minister's nominee for chair of the commission was so-called questioned by the committee. I can say that it was the most disgusting and reprehensible witch hunt that I ever saw in my entire life. Members of the hon. member's party led the charge in eviscerating a respected, successful and proud Canadian.

This American style witch hunt was a disgrace to Parliament. Why on earth would the Prime Minister put another proud, respected Canadian through that kind of repugnant process? I think the Prime Minister is quite right not to have another solid person put through the kind of disgusting rigmarole that the member's party and others put him through.

Far from being arrogant, the Prime Minister is protecting other good Canadians from this kind of partisan attack for no good reason other than to somehow diminish what the Prime Minister is trying to do. To be part of demeaning a process and then criticizing someone else for the actions of the member's party is reprehensible.

I wonder how the member can possibly defend that kind of witch hunting and bigotry that was demonstrated in that committee against a fine Canadian.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this will be really easy. It is such hypocrisy to hear that from the member for Calgary—Nose Hill. In the last Parliament her party led the charge against Glen Murray and did exactly the same thing to him. Now she stands in the House and accuses us of witch hunts and American style politics, which is really interesting coming from the Conservative Party.

It is not me talking when I say that Mr. Morgan did not meet the criteria as the person to head up that commission. I am quoting from a really radical magazine, the Canadian Business magazine of May 22 to June 4. This is a two page article and a commentary on Mr. Morgan. We hear from the Conservatives repeatedly about how this person is such a great person.

I know I do not have enough time to read the whole article but it goes through incident after incident that Mr. Morgan was involved with in the corporate world; how he destroyed ecosystems; his attack on Kyoto; his attack in Ecuador on a whole ecosystem. He destroyed a whole ecosystem.

The company he headed up in Colorado was fined more money in one year than all the other company fines for 15 years before that. That is the kind of person the Conservatives feel is a paragon of virtue who should be heading up our public appointments process. It is a joke and it is the height of hypocrisy for the government and the member for Calgary—Nose Hill to suggest otherwise.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member for Windsor—Tecumseh has brought a real sense of moderation to many of our discussions in the House and I appreciate his remarks on the accountability act.

Floor crossing is the one area that we have not really talked about tonight and it is something that has affected people across parties, certainly governing parties over the years, and it is something that always creates a discomfort.

We had a chance to deal with this in the accountability act. The Liberal opposition put forward a suggestion on floor crossing. Because it can involve such a range of possibilities, including time from the election to the time when the member changes parties, to a member sitting as an independent, to a member having a serious ideological or principled disagreement with his party or its leader, we put forward a suggestion that would allow each situation to be judged by the constituents who elected that member. It would be a limited recall system where a petition could be called within 30 days and then 60 days to canvas 50% plus 1 of the people who actually voted but not the voter's list because that can change over time.

We thought that was a way that was fair to the MP because the MP could go back directly to his constituents and make a case to those people to whom he or she is most responsible.

I appreciate that the NDP put forward a private member's bill last year but I voted against it. I felt it was too all-encompassing and could not take into account the range of circumstances. I thought that a much more focused way that could put the MP in front of his or her own constituents and make the case and have a limited recall might be a sensible way forward.

That was ruled out of order by the chair of the C-2 committee--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. Speaking of order, I cannot tell the member that his time is up if he never looks at the chair, but the time for questions and comments expired quite a while ago, but I will give the member for Windsor--Tecumseh a minute to respond to the member's query.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Vancouver Quadra must have missed part of my speech because I spent a good deal of time on floor crossing and being highly critical of the member for Vancouver Kingsway and his conduct and this government allowing it to go ahead.

I am aware of the amendments that were brought forward. It gives me an opportunity to attack the Liberal Party members for attacking our member for Winnipeg Centre. They actually put out a press release saying that he had not dealt with it and in fact had voted against the floor crossing amendment. He complained about it. They did it a second time.

The member for Winnipeg Centre, who was representing our party on that committee, made it clear that we were strongly in favour of legislation that would prohibit, once and for all, floor crossings, not the representation that was made by the Liberal Party members in their personal attack on him.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the member for Scarborough—Rouge River.

I want to say straight off that I do not agree with Bill C-2, which is being debated at third reading tonight, and the fate of which, if I understand correctly, has already been decided. When time is up, it will be declared passed on division. I therefore want to put my opposition to this bill on the record.

There are too many complications and too many provisions that have not gelled sufficiently and have not been given enough thought. Too many problems may arise out of this bill, if it were somehow to be passed in the other chamber as it now stands.

Let us hope that those in the other chamber will have the time they need, and the will, which they certainly have, to fine-tune the bill, to fix it and improve it, and that the government will allow them the time they need to do that.

I will mention some of the reasons why I am opposed to this bill. I may have a chance, in the 10 minutes I am allotted, to explain some of them in more detail.

First, there is the question of post-employment restrictions. I believe that the period specified, five years, is unreasonably long. That is one of the reasons I do not support this bill.

I know that there was a brief discussion tonight about how returning officers will be selected. I had an opportunity to appear before the standing committee, I talked about this, and I will come back to it.

There is also the question of the contribution limit that Canadians will now be subject to.

There is the question of the Access to Information Act, which has not been resolved at all. On the contrary, we seem to be going off in the opposite direction from where we should be going.

There is the entire question, which was referred to tonight, of the effect of this bill on the public service and the inflexibility that will result.

There is also the entire question of the omnibus nature of the bill. This often means that some of our colleagues try to take advantage of the situation and introduce amendments to other bills. There have been at least two examples in this case. One well-intentioned colleague—I am not questioning his intentions—wanted to change the structure of the National Capital Commission, without any discussion on that subject having taken place.

Another colleague also wanted to introduce the idea of switching parties into the bill, for a member to be able to cross the floor.

I would have been against this bill, if the virtually totalitarian big brotherism of the provision that public servants who inform on other public servants would be paid $1,000 had not been deleted. In that case, the committee had the wisdom to delete that clause of this omnibus bill before us.

There is also the entire question of the general climate of the debate on this bill. This has been a cause of extreme concern for me, and this is where I will begin.

It is very easy to use a broad brush when you want to tar as widely as possible on the whole question of corruption. The government says that this is the main reason for this bill. Forgive me if I doubt that rationale. Forgive me for thinking that in some cases, there are partisan motives behind the government’s decision to concoct this bill, which is really a crazy quilt, a patchwork of pieces that clash with each other, provisions that will complicate everyone’s life without necessarily achieving the intended objectives.

The Bloc Québécois said that this bill would do nothing to prevent future scandal. I hope the Bloc is wrong, but I am not sure it is. I hope it is wrong. If another scandal were to surface during the tenure of my colleagues opposite, for whom I have great respect, the temptation to use that same broad brush would be very strong. Then all of Parliament would be sullied.

When they were in opposition, I often asked my colleagues across the way—who are now in government—to be careful with their comments and circumspect in their accusations and their tendency to wantonly and unfairly cast aspersions on all and sundry.

I hope that the tables have not turned.

As I said, it would probably be very tempting for members on this side of the House to do the same thing. Of course, they are the ones who would suffer, along with the rest of Parliament. We must therefore take great care not to be motivated solely by partisanship when discussing public policy. We must consider the common good and good governance.

This is why I will vote, or rather, would have voted against the bill, because we know the vote has essentially been carried on division. I guess that makes me a dissident.

The five years that is being required is far too long. If the government insists that certain persons will not be able to work in their field for five years, we should perhaps consider the costs this will incur. It could well be that we are obliged to issue severance pay for two years, two and a half years or three years. That has not been provided for.

Take the case of Elizabeth Roscoe. I do not know her. I met her only once or twice at society parties. This lady is being denied the chance to work for five years in her field, when she served the Prime Minister for two weeks during a transition period. It is unacceptable that the rules should have been changed retroactively. A Parliament should never legislate retroactively, and in this case we seem to be doing that. I am opposed to it.

It is the same thing for returning officers. I know that my colleagues are listening to me on the other side and on this side. When I appeared before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, I said that the way that returning officers were chosen had to be improved. But I also said that we had to be very prudent about what was proposed. If we give an authority the ability to choose certain people and to dismiss them from their service, we will likely be asking ourselves questions about the governance model, that is, whether it is the right one.

This is what the bill seems to be proposing. So I must necessarily stand in opposition to it. I am hesitant. I have doubts about the wisdom of this. Maybe I am wrong. I hope I am, but Parliament will have to be very vigilant about this situation.

The issue of contribution limits is probably another shocker. There is an incongruity here in the discourse of the party opposite. On the one hand, when the Prime Minister was with the National Citizens Coalition, he fought in court. He appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada to affirm the right of individuals to contribute as much as they wanted. If this bill were adopted, I would be subject to a limit of $1,000. However, any company or individual could contribute, in the riding I have the honour to represent, over $3,000, or $150,000 at the national level. In fact, third parties are not subject to the same limits. I believe that this is not only unfair, but probably unconstitutional. I would like this measure to be confirmed and tested before the courts, because in my opinion, what we have before us at the moment is pure partisanship, a purely partisan attempt unfortunately supported by the New Democrats, as regards its coming into force as soon as the bill receives royal assent.

Those are two of the reasons. There is also the whole issue of access to information. The Information Commissioner issued a special report on this matter. He wondered how it was that the government, which had said it would be going in the opposite direction, was tabling a dozen measures that made access to information more difficult.

Given this whole list of measures, I find myself obliged to oppose this bill. I repeat that I sincerely hope that the other chamber takes the necessary time and has the necessary will to correct these shortcomings. I also hope that when this bill comes back to us, we have an opportunity to do likewise in this House.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the presentation by the member for Ottawa—Vanier. I am surprised at the lack of recognition that MPs in general have received in the past few years, mainly because of the 13 years the Liberal Party spent in power.

The Bloc Québécois sees gaps and shortcomings in the current bill. It is certainly not perfect. Nevertheless, it seems to me that it can help us gain a little more recognition from the public, whom we would like to convince of our legitimacy and the importance of representing them here in Parliament.

I would like to ask the member for Ottawa—Vanier whether he thinks it is worthwhile at least to take this opportunity to improve the situation. Regardless of what people may think about the responsibilities of the previous government, he could demonstrate his good faith while he is in opposition and show that there is hope of improvement in the years to come.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, once we have discussed it, the hon. member will not question my good faith.

That is not the issue. I am now a member of the official opposition. My role is to oppose what the government proposes, as constructively as possible. I must question, go beyond what is being presented, see if there are any contradictions and see if there are better, more effective ways of doing things.

First, the bill before us is an omnibus bill. That in and of itself should have rung a bell. For the past 30 or 40 years opinions have been expressed in this House on omnibus bills and their nature. I get the feeling that some of these opinions have not changed.

There are artificial delays. There is absolutely no reason, expect for the government's desire to say all summer long that it did this or that, to do this now. Given the complexity of this bill—a complexity the members opposite themselves have acknowledged—we should have taken the time needed to do this right. Instead, the committee sat from dawn to dusk for two weeks and worked for six weeks. That is what I am opposed to. I am somewhat opposed to the content, but also to how we arrived at it. Again, I hope the other place will take the time it needs to come up with a better product than we are coming up with tonight.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question will be quite brief.

I would simply like the hon. member to tell us what he thinks of the fact that comprehensive reform of the Access to Information Act is being postponed until later.

Could he tell hon. members what he thinks of this aspect in particular? Is he against this inaction, this refusal to act—for that is what it is—when the government had an opportunity with this bill?

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that this government promised the opposite during the election campaign.

The Information Commissioner said on more than one occasion that he wanted certain things done. The government across the floor, that is, the Conservative government, promised to do them, but it is not. We might ask ourselves certain questions. That is what the commissioner is doing.

What is disappointing about this debate is the NDP's position. I must admit, they put up a good fight to improve access to information. The result was capitulation. They capitulated and say that they achieved some amendments. These few trivial amendments essentially allowed them to save face. The bill, in relation to access to information, is the opposite of what it should be, even with NDP support.