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.

[Jennifer Stoddart]

No, not that we've defined. We are doing an exercise as to the implications of Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act, as are all agencies and government departments at the request of Treasury Board. But we've just started that analysis.

Judges Act

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-17, an act to amend the Judges Act and certain other acts in relation to courts, is the bill before us. It is my pleasure to give the opposition response to this bill going to third reading.

The bill deals with judicial salaries and allowances, judicial annuities and other benefits. Bill C-17, to put it in its historical context, is the second government response to the 2003 Judicial Compensation and Benefits Commission. The previous government had introduced Bill C-51 on the same subject. Historical context is very important because the people of Canada can see that action was undertaken by all governments with respect to this stagnant file.

As usual, Bill C-51, the predecessor legislation brought in under a Liberal government, was far more comprehensive and far more meaningful. It proposed a whole bunch of items that dealt with more than just the strict recommendations of the commission. There were a number of court related reforms, including the expansion of the unified family courts across this country.

In my own province of New Brunswick, there is a serious backlog of Family Court cases. Bill C-17 did not deal with this issue. I know the member for Tobique—Mactaquac would be interested to know that there are women waiting in all judicial districts of New Brunswick for dates for hearings before justices of the Family Court to deal with serious issues of child custody and the making of payments for support and maintenance. These are very serious matters. These matters touch everyone in the country. I thought it was important to underline that they hit home; they hit New Brunswick. The paucity of regulations in Bill C-17 as opposed to Bill C-51 just show how the government is not concerned with holistic or wholesome justice reforms, but just piecemeal ones.

Sadly, Bill C-51 did not proceed beyond first reading. It died on the order paper with the dissolution of the last Parliament.

In the reference case, the Supreme Court of Canada also concluded that government delays in responding to the reports of judicial compensation commissions can damage judges’ morale. It could even cast doubt on the independence of the judiciary.

Indeed, the independence of our judiciary is very much at stake in this bill as presented. Many times courts and commissions have established how critical the financial security of judges is, not only for maintaining judicial independence and impartiality, but also for attracting persons most suited by their experience and ability to be excellent candidates for the bench.

There seems to be a general attack on the judiciary presented by the government in its totality of justice bills. When we combine the effects of Bill C-17, which strikes at the heart of judicial independence, with the effects of Bill C-9 on conditional sentences, which is taking away the discretion of judges, and when we even combine it with the process involving the approval of Justice Rothstein to the Supreme Court of Canada, although it met with great success in that instance, it still puts the independence of the judiciary in question. It is as if the government has something in its craw about judges.

The bill completes the picture in striking at the heart of the independent findings of the commission. The report of the commission, and that was the McLennan commission, recommended that federally appointed judges receive a 10.8% salary increase effective April 1, 2004. As we know, Bill C-17 proposes an increase of 7.25% as of the same date, April 1, 2004, so where does the difference come from?

The commission reviewed Canada's economic situation. I was curious to note that the minister pretended as if the commission did not review the economic conditions prevailing in society. He would therefore lead us to infer that the commission irresponsibly would avoid looking at the economic conditions pertaining in this country and still recommend a salary increase.

Of course it looked at our economic conditions, and thanks to the great economic stewardship over the past decade or more of the member for LaSalle—Émard, this country has an enviable economic situation. For the minister to say that this was not considered sufficiently by the commission is in fact wrong. It is wrong in fact and it is wrong in opinion.

Canadians can see through this. They can see that this agenda of law and order also means that judges should do as the government feels they should. They should not be independent. They should be tethered to the purse of the government and its agenda with respect to justice issues.

Instead of simply establishing whether the government had sufficient funds to comply with the salary recommendation of the independent commission, the government believes that consideration also should be given to the other economic and social priorities of the government. It is curious to note that it is not the economic and social priorities of the community, but of the government, for on the same day that the Conservatives received news of a $13.2 billion surplus, they announced cuts of over $1 billion, hurting the most disadvantaged and helpless people in the community.

Does this mean that federal judges' salaries and, most important, their independence, is not a priority for the current government? Clearly Canadians are smart enough to draw that assumption from the government's actions. It is not important that judges be independent, the government says, so it will cut their salaries. It will also find judges whose beliefs the government believes in and put them on the court.

After cutting a billion dollars in social programs on the same day they received the news of the $13 billion-plus surplus, how can the Conservative government argue that it is refusing the conclusions and recommendations of the independent McLennan commission in this context? Is the minority government once again putting its own partisan agenda before the needs and the greater good of Canada? Are the Conservatives once again leaving Canadians behind in favour of their own political agenda?

I am not the only one questioning the government decision to come up with another number for the judges' salaries. The Canadian Superior Court Judges Association is also concerned by the rejection of the independent commission's salary recommendations.

I know that the member for Nepean—Carleton will be very interested in the accountability aspects of the bill. Having sat with that member for Nepean—Carleton in the hearings for Bill C-2 in the legislative committee last spring, I know he is keenly interested in the issues of accountability.

How accountable is it that the recommendation emanating from the independent commission, the independent judges salary commission--and members of the House will know that Bill C-2 is replete with the word independent--was rejected by the government? How accountable is that? I can only echo the concerns of the Canadian Superior Court Judges Association. It seems to me that we would have to go a long way in the history of this country to see political activism from our judiciary.

I echo those concerns. I am troubled by what seems to be the government picking up another salary figure and justifying it by criticizing the independent commission for not having accepted its arguments in the first place. It is as if the Conservatives should have picked Gwyn Morgan or some other Tory contributor to sit on the commission so they could have had the results they wanted. That, in their minds, would have closed the accountability loop.

Once again, this is a narrow approach that we have heard a lot about in recent years from our southern and formerly governing Republican neighbours, who say, “If you're not with us, you're against us”. The government seems to reject the independence of a commission. Those members in fact reject the good judgment of our judges and they are piercing a sword in the very muscle of judicial integrity and independence in this country.

Canada does not work like that. Canadians do not like that kind of play. They like fair play. Bill C-17 is not about being for or against the commission recommendations per se. It is about independence and accountability and the impartiality of our judges.

Judges interact with the citizens of Canada, both victims and criminals, with people in the judicial system. They must be above reproach from any political incursion. They must be independent. They must have integrity. Above all, they must have the respect of all Canadians.

How are we to respect a government that does not respect the fact that people in Canada want their judges to be above politics and not to be besmirched by any cheap political process, which this non-accountability act compliant provision provides?

It is all about doing what we can to maintain the highest standard of judicial independence. We cannot jeopardize judicial independence in our system, the system that is from the common law that pertains throughout many countries in the world, and we cannot do it, foremost, to promote a partisan agenda. This is not acceptable.

Having said that, I will say that this bill going to third reading has some good aspects, as Bill C-51 did, aspects that the Canadian people should know about.

On the issues with respect to northern removal, my friend, the member for Yukon, will be interested to know that northern removal as it is defined in the bill has a bit of a negative connotation. It sounds like people are moving from the north and is something like how the member for Fort McMurray—Athabasca wants Maritimers to move out west as part of a migration program from the government. It does not mean that at all.

What it really means is that justice will be done in the northern communities of this country. We often say from sea to sea to sea, and many Canadians who live in the south do not understand the concept of that third sea, but up near that third sea, as the member forYukon will know, serving as he does on the justice committee, delivering justice to the citizens of our great northern territories is often difficult. As such, the northern removal procedures set out in Bill C-51 and now carried through with Bill C-17 will do a great deal to improve the quality of justice in the northern parts of our community.

The supernumerary provisions, the rule of 80 provisions, will allow for a much more flexible system of judicial personnel appointments throughout many of our provinces. It will allow judges who have earned the combination of years of service and age to go to supernumerary status and be available essentially as part time judges to serve the provinces in which they reside.

This may do something to make up for the government's glaring error in not following the script of Bill C-51 in appointing a unified family court, particularly in provinces that do not have a unified family court such as New Brunswick, and we hope it does. On this side, we trust the chief justices of this province to manage their courts properly. We give them the respect they are due and hope that this bill aids them in that process.

I leave members with these thoughts about the application of this act and others with respect to judicial remuneration and judicial vacancies. It is to be hoped that we can move forward in the House in a non-partisan way, realizing that the judiciary should be above all aspects of partisanship. The judiciary, when appointed, should be on a pedestal. The judiciary should be above the concerns that often occur in this place and, above all, the judiciary should be respected by the Canadian public.

The Canadian public wants a judiciary that metes out justice and settles the disputes in our communities that happen from time to time in a way that is beyond reproach. It is to be hoped, with the beginning of new negotiations involving the same commission, that the next government, which I sincerely hope for the sake of all Canadians will not be a government made up of people from that side, will respect the principles of judicial independence and the integrity of our judges and adopt the recommendations when they come forward from the next quadrennial Judicial Compensation and Benefits Commission.

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Mr. Chairman, in an ideal world, I would rather have full-time, in-house staff to do all of that, but the reality now in the hiring zone in Ottawa and the public service is that it's very hard to get people for certain categories of work—notably investigators and people who know about information technology and information rights. Of course, Bill C-2's projected coming into force has only heightened that.

We are competing with many organizations, some of which are bigger and can offer the same jobs, which we want to staff, at a higher classification level. Unless we want to lie down on our mandate and not do this work, we fall back on trying to get the service through that.

Canada Elections Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member discuss the whole idea of cleaning up politics and the electoral system in the country. I want to broaden that discussion to the legislation, Bill C-2, the accountability act. It is not entirely unrelated to the subject we are talking about today.

The bill seeks to end the role of big money and corporate cash, protect whistleblowers in the public service and expand access to information to roughly 30 organizations in the government. It goes farther and has more breadth and depth in fighting corruption than any piece of legislation in Canadian history.

Why is the Liberal Party holding up the passage of the accountability act? Is the Liberal Party fundamentally opposed to accountability?

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in support of Bill C-31.

This bill should be of interest to all members and all Canadians, because its goal is to improve the electoral process, the foundation of our democratic system. There can be no doubt that Canadian democracy is a great democracy.

All members here have been through at least one election and know that the process is not perfect. They know that an election period lasts 36 days and is organized around a complex set of rules and procedures. They also know that holding general elections in 308 electoral districts is a major undertaking. In any operation of this scope there will always be room for improvement. Bill C-31 will allow our electoral process to run more smoothly.

At first glance, many changes seem to be somewhat technical, but even small operational modifications can produce concrete results in practice. Providing support for the machinery of democracy strengthens the integrity of the process as a whole.

I believe that the reforms should be greeted with the support and confidence of the candidates seeking election, the parties involved in the electoral process, the election officials responsible for the conduct of elections and, more particularly, the Canadian public, whose democratic choice is expressed through the electoral system.

The bill contains tangible improvements for everyone involved in the democratic process. That is why I support it. I would like to briefly describe a few of the changes proposed.

The most important change is that electors must identify themselves at the polling stations. As my colleagues from Quebec undoubtedly know, this measure has been in place in Quebec for the last seven years. Quebec’s Election Act was amended in 1999 to incorporate an obligation to present a piece of identification before voting. Other amendments also require that Quebecers identify themselves to vote in a referendum or municipal election.

In order to exercise their right to vote in Quebec, electors must present a Quebec health insurance card, a driver’s licence, a Canadian passport, a certificate of Indian status or a Canadian Armed Forces card, and electors who cannot do that are referred to an identity verification panel and must sign a sworn statement as to their identity. They must produce at least two other documents to the panel that establish their identity or ask another elector who has an identity card with a photograph to be their guarantor.

Those measures are similar to what is proposed in Bill C-31. I am persuaded that the process for identifying electors will work as well at the federal level as it does in Quebec. A study done by the chief electoral officer of Quebec in 2002 shows that deputy returning officers and the persons responsible for polls are generally satisfied with this provision and that it has been relatively well received by electors.

The deputy returning officers who took part in the study noted these facts: first, mandatory identification has strengthened the integrity of the voting process by reducing the possibility of fraud; second, this measure has led to increased public confidence in the system; and third, it enhances the importance of the voting process.

I believe that Bill C-31 will have the same good results, results that are really necessary at the federal level.

For example, members will recall an incident that was much talked about: an American student had voted in the 39th general election. His stated purpose was to demonstrate that the enforcement of rules at polling stations was too lax and that the opportunities for fraud were in his own words, “immense”. He succeeded.

However, I want to make it clear that the very great majority of voters go to the polls in good faith, solely to exercise their legitimate, democratic duty. It is almost impossible to prevent someone whose goal is to defraud the system from finding a way to do so.

Nevertheless, the provision dealing with voter identification in Bill C-31 will make it a great deal more difficult for voters with unlawful intentions to achieve their goal. The bill includes mechanisms that will allow for an investigation after the election if necessary by requiring, for example, that voters without identification take an oath. The bill will highlight the rules for voters who may believe, incorrectly but in good faith, that they are eligible to vote. It will not prevent eligible voters from exercising their rights.

Most Canadians are used to presenting some form of identification for a variety of daily activities. Unlike other levels of Canadian government where identification is compulsory in order to vote, the bill provides alternative solutions for Canadian voters who do not have photo identification.

In other words, the bill establishes an important balance between accessibility and integrity.

This bill introduces important changes that have been standard practice for a long time at other levels of government in Canada, like most of the reforms on election financing in Bill C-2. I think especially of the prohibition on donations from corporations and trade unions. The voter identification system works well in Quebec, and I am convinced that it will work well in the rest of Canada.

This bill contains numerous tangible improvements to the electoral process. I will mention only some of them. First, the voter’s date of birth will be added to the official and revised list of electors that will be used at polling stations. This measure is already in use in Quebec and represents another means of confirming the identity of a person who wishes to vote.

The Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs specifically requested in the recommendations on which these provisions are based that the elector’s date of birth not be shown on the lists given to candidates. I agree with that because it is very important to protect personal information. I see that the bill abides by this request.

I would like to highlight the fact that advance polling stations can henceforth be set up for a single polling division, instead of a minimum of two as is currently the case. This is an important change in those provinces and regions where the polling divisions are very far apart, in northern Canada, for example, or in highly rural areas. Now that the advance polling stations will be closer to the electors in these areas, it will be easier for them to exercise their right to vote.

Finally, I would like to point out that the bill contains various specific points on how the Chief Electoral Officer uses and communicates election information. For example, each registered elector will be assigned a unique, randomly generated identifier to facilitate the updating of the Register of Electors and improve its accuracy.

In addition, income tax returns can be used to enhance the reliability of the information that Canadians agree to provide to Elections Canada.

The bill also contains specific provisions on the exchange of election information between federal and provincial election authorities. This will help to improve the integrity of the federal and provincial voters’ lists and ensure that personal information is well protected.

I could go on much longer about the various advantages of this bill, but what is most important is the cumulative effect of all these improvements. These changes, taken together, enhance the integrity of our election process. Like the Federal Accountability Act , this bill will help us maintain public confidence in our democratic system. Like Bill C-2, which deals with election financing in particular, this bill contains important reforms that have been tested in Quebec. Like Bill C-2, this bill, I hope, will be passed quickly by Parliament so that it will be in effect for the next election. These measures are important for all parties concerned and for all Canadians.

I hope that this bill will receive the enthusiastic support of all hon. members and parties in the House.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is why I mentioned in my comments that enumeration seems to be the piece that should be focused on and it has not. Since we have had the centralized voter's list, it has been rife with problems. One of the problems is that we do not have that human contact when we go out and do the enumeration.

I am not happy with the provisions in the bill to designate to the district returning officer those kinds of responsibilities. As I mentioned, in Bill C-2 we are looking at changing that role and having merit based appointments which we support. Until there is time to get people up and going and trained, I do not want to hand that over to people and set them up for something that might fail.

One comment that I did not have the time to make is my deep concern about the fact that we are going to have certain private information made public. That is the reference to birth dates. I understand the need for it, but to me this is a case of concerns about big government. That is something that the Privacy Commissioner might have concerns about. The bill talks about using income tax forms as a way in which we can verify information and use birth dates. That information would be given to candidates and to returning officers.

I think that is something that we should all be very concerned about. I am deeply concerned and I know other people will be.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act.

I would like to begin my comments by quoting Alfred E. Smith, a very well-known governor of New York, a populist, a reformer in child labour and some other areas, and a solid advocate for the poor and for democracy. Many years ago, he said, “All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy”.

I agree with Mr. Smith. Those words are a prescription and should guide us in our deliberations. If, as some have claimed, there are ills in the system, the only way to cure the system is to open things up and have more democracy. I believe that what Mr. Smith was really referring to was the importance of opening up the process of government and of believing that democracy is not a static concept. In fact, democracy is fluid and evolves, and it can always be improved.

On the fundamental idea of improving the process of voting, or of democracy, let us make no mistake about it: my party and I support the concept and we believe that much more can be done to improve our system. To be clear, we support the principle and the spirit of Bill C-31. In fact, for many years we have called for improvements to the voting system.

But let me also be clear in saying that I have major problems with this bill. I believe it needs not just fine tuning but a major overhaul. To be clear, this bill is not the democratic remedy that will cure the body politic and what ails it right now. In fact, there is an argument to be made that the bill could make it worse.

Let us examine the origins of this bill. I think that is important. The bill started with an examination by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, just after the last election, on how to improve the integrity of the electoral system and the electoral process. In June 2006 the committee report was tabled. The government responded on October 20. The government then proposed this bill that is in front of us.

Just as a side comment on that, there is something that I find interesting. Yesterday the government said there was all party support for the report and there was a sense that we had a consensus on what is in the bill. We have to clarify that this was not the case. I think most people who were on the committee would acknowledge that. This bill and its contents are not what the committee asked for.

In fact, there was a committee report and the government response to the report, and then, I would submit, there was cherry-picking in terms of what was in the report and what is in this bill. Those are the origins of the bill. I will be cautionary here. As I said, we support the spirit and the principle, but we are being cautionary because of the way in which the government has decided to improve the democratic process.

We have concerns about some of the points in the bill. As my colleague from Vancouver East has already mentioned, one of our concerns is about requiring people to have photo ID. This is possible disenfranchisement for some people. Not everyone has photo identification. Those on the government side will say, as others have said, that it is not a problem because they can then have someone vouch for them and they can swear an oath. There are problems with that. As my colleague said, the devil is in the details.

There are many concerns around people's ability to find someone to vouch for them and concerns around having supports for that, be it because of language issues or lack of knowledge on how to have people to advocate for them. There may be unintended effects of this bill that would marginalize and shut out some of our most vulnerable citizens. I know that this is certainly not the intent of anyone in this House, but that unfortunately could be the outcome.

The way the bill is written might also leave it open to a charter challenge, for some of the reasons I have mentioned. Of course this is something that will come out in committee. It is very important to understand this. We saw, as was referred to by another member, that in the United States the electoral laws in the 1950s and 1960s were structured in a way that intended to disenfranchise people. It was part of the clarion call of the civil rights movement to change that in the United States.

I would hate to see unintended consequences that would do the same here. I do not think that is hyperbole. We have seen laws in this country that have done that. I refer to B.C. and its so-called section 80, whereby people were not able to get on the voters list until the actual day of the election simply because of a flawed enumeration system. It is important to acknowledge, with the way the bill is presently written, that a charter challenge could happen.

It is also important to note that there are other ways to deal with the concerns MPs and people in general have with the integrity of the system. It is always important to note that when we have a piece of legislation in front of us we have to look at what the problem is. Here, the problem being put forward to us is that there is possible fraud occurring. How do we change that? The government is proposing a bill that talks about photo ID, vouching, swearing oaths, et cetera. Perhaps there are other ways and I think we have proposed some.

One way to change that, as my colleague said, is a proper enumeration. We have just had two bills passed in Parliament that would affect enumeration and the electoral process. I am referring to the clauses in Bill C-2 about the appointment of district returning officers based on merit. That is a good thing. My party supported it. We supported it before the election and we certainly supported it in Bill C-2.

The bill now before us gives the district returning officer a new purview. The bill talks about who shall be given an oath and who shall be questioned, et cetera. We do not have the other piece in place, sadly, because of what is going on in the Senate. That process needs to happen. The Senate needs to pass the bill.

Before that happens, I note that I have concerns about how these people will be trained and what merit we will be basing our decisions on. How are we going to train them so that the people we have employed are going to know the intricacies of their jobs? In this bill, we are giving them the authority to question people's legitimacy and whether they should be given a ballot or not.

Another concern of mine has to do with fixed date elections. Recently in this House in that regard I supported more resources being put into enumeration. That is what we heard about from witnesses who spoke on Bill C-16. I would like to see more emphasis put on a viable and sound enumeration process. That would be a better way of dealing with the problem, rather than simply asking for more ID, for referrals or for vouching for people when they might not have access to photo ID or to someone who could vouch for them.

I believe the intent of the bill is important. Quite frankly, I believe the bill was rushed in the way it came from committee and has been put before the House. I think the bill needs an overhaul, not just fine tuning. We look forward to making major amendments to the bill when it comes to committee and we look forward to hearing from Canadians on how this will affect them.

My last point is that I began my comments by saying that the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy, and if we are not careful, we will not be following that prescription. In fact, we will be doing the opposite with some of the unintended consequences of this bill.

[Tom Pulcine, Director General, Corporate Services and Comptroller, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada]

Wayne, you could help me out here. With respect to Bill C-2, we've been trying to understand the new organizations clearly. The very first step is to determine whether the new organization covered by the Privacy Act is in fact already covered by PIPEDA, because if it is covered by PIPEDA, it would have no impact in terms of our resources.

The second thing we're looking at is the type of organization it is. We look at whether it's an organization that, first of all, has a large volume of employees, because presumably there's a correlation between the number of employees and the number of complaints we could possibly have. The other aspect of the organization profile we look at is the extent to which they are resource-intense with respect to personal information. If they are, once again they're deemed likely to have an impact larger than an organization that doesn't have very much personal information.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

As you already mentioned, in your office budget, planned and unplanned spending to cover Bill C-2, are not included. In other words, they are not part of your current forecasts. However, we know that this bill will create additional work for your office.

I should like to know whether or not you have already assessed somewhat the amount of work and of spending that this is going to necessitate?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

I'm very happy to be here. I'm going to run through the history behind today's session, because it's rather surprising to note that in fact the money was recommended to us by a parliamentary panel just about a year ago, and in fact, we're here one year later on the main estimates for the same amount.

I'll be referring to the report on plans and priorities, which you have.

In both versions—French and English—this starts on page 3.

The details of how our money is spent are in that book.

We have, as you will have noticed, a 36% increase in our budget. This is due to several months of work, effort, and energy in preparing a comprehensive business plan. This plan, developed about two years ago, was developed with the assistance of an independent consultant and was based on an in-depth analysis of our situation.

We also consulted with the Treasury Board Secretariat and compared ourselves to several agencies with similar mandates, to draw on their best practices and experience. We looked at the needs of the organization as a whole and of individual branches and took into consideration our unique role as the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

I'll remind you that we have a mandate to ensure compliance with two statutes. One is the Privacy Act, which governs the public sector; and the other one is the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, which covers the private sector.

I understand that this committee was recently briefed by Treasury Board officials on the new funding mechanism for agents of Parliament. As I said, a year ago we had the opportunity to present our business case and our request for funding to this new panel. We are pleased that this panel and the Treasury Board Secretariat came to the same conclusion and recommended granting our request for the permanent funding necessary to carry out our mandate and our plan.

This plan places increased emphasis on investigations, education, and prevention in both the public and private sector. That adequate level of permanent funding recommended last year is reflected in the main estimates that are before you. We think they are absolutely crucial to fulfilling our mandate to protect the privacy rights of Canadians.

I should like briefly to explain the mission of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Parliament has signaled the relevance and importance of privacy with the enactment of privacy laws and with the creation of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. Privacy is a right seen by many as fundamental to other rights, including the right to autonomy, dignity and integrity of the person. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada protects and promotes the privacy rights of individuals on behalf of parliamentarians. That is our mission and we take it very seriously.

Increasingly, there are pressing and complex issues putting Canadians privacy at risk— the practice of sharing more and more personal information in the name of national security, personal data flowing around the globe, the use of technologies such as global positioning systems, biometrics, radio frequency identification devices and the potential of publicly available personal information being used by invasive and malevolent purposes.

I will continue with an explanation of the various aspects of our mandate.

My Office oversees compliance with the two federal privacy laws I just mentioned. We act as an independent ombudsman, and are probably best-known for our role as a complaints investigator. However, our responsibilities go far beyond reacting to complaints about possible privacy breaches. We use several other complementary powers in large part aimed at preventing such breaches . We are an investigator but we are also an auditor; a public educator and advocate, a researcher, and an expert privacy advisor.

As an auditor, in both the public and private sectors, we conduct audits and reviews, and verify compliance with privacy laws. We also work to educate governments, departments and businesses about the importance of protecting privacy and about their legal obligations to do so. We help the public better understand their privacy rights and act as their advocate when necessary. We conduct research on emerging privacy issues and use that expertise to advise Parliament, government and businesses. And, finally, we challenge the application and interpretation of the laws, and analyze the legal and policy implications of government proposals.

Privacy issues increasingly do not recognize national borders. Our mandate of protecting Canadians' privacy rights requires that we work more closely with our international colleagues to explore common approaches to the protection of personal information. I'm the chair of an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development--the organization known as the OECD--multinational group that is examining ways to foster international cooperation and facilitate the cross-border enforcement of privacy laws. We are also participating in efforts by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, APEC, to develop privacy guidelines. We will continue to work with our international colleagues to develop harmonized approaches, to share knowledge, and to build effective relationships. To that end, we will be hosting the international conference of data protection and privacy commissioners in September 2007.

I know many members of this committee have heard me outline our various mandates before. I'm doing so again today because I want to stress that we're using our permanent funding, which is the subject of our appearance today, to fulfill activities that are within our mandate. Our permanent funding is imperative in order to carry out the duties and responsibilities entrusted to us by Parliament.

I'd like to briefly recap the history of our financial situation, Mr. Chairman, because it's a bit unusual.

I am appearing here today with my staff to respond to any queries you might have about the new level of funding proposed in this year's main estimates. Before this, the level of permanent funding under the Privacy Act was made many years ago, possibly before 2000, maybe in 1997. The PIPEDA funding, which represents close to two-thirds of our annual budget, had been approved in 2001 for three years only and was renewed through supplementary estimates for the following two years as an interim solution.

We needed experience and time to evaluate the appropriate level of resources before making a long-term funding request and commitment. The resource levels in the main estimates now include the necessary funding for the Privacy Act and a renewal and an increase in funding for PIPEDA. We believe this permanent funding is adequate and necessary for the stability of our office.

I would like to now move to some of the recent actions of the office in order to improve the accountability of the OPC.

In the last few years, we have pursued an ambitious agenda to correct any deficiencies in the management of the organization. Audits and evaluations of our office by the Public Service Commission, the Auditor General of Canada, and the Canadian Human Rights Commission have all been positive. We have implemented a thoughtful, systemic process to determine our organizational needs. I believe this office is a stable institution now and is worthy of the trust of Parliament and the Canadians it serves.

Also on the issue of accountability, the proposed Federal Accountability Act, Bill C-2, will make our office subject to both the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act for the first time. We support the spirit of this initiative, and this is a welcome step. But it will certainly have a further impact on our resources, and this is being examined at the present time.

I'd like to tell you about our priorities for this fiscal year.

Our top priority is still clearing a backlog of complaints. We are streamlining our investigation approach and building a larger investigation team, but we are faced with the challenges of recruitment, training, and an increasingly complex privacy landscape.

On the audit side, we are intensifying our activities to encourage greater compliance and to proactively assist in the development of a robust privacy management regime in both the public and the private sectors. For example, we recently completed an audit of the Canadian Border Services Agency, and we've launched two major private sector audits.

We've been initiating a number of more proactive communication efforts in order to meet our public education mandate.

We're also preparing the next international data protection and privacy commissioners conference.

In the meantime, our research branch is supporting independent privacy research projects on topics such as workplace privacy and health care privacy and initiating both internal and external research into emerging issues and trends to help citizens and policy-makers understand current challenges. With the issues becoming increasingly more complex and technology-driven, it is important that in addition to undertaking our own research, we draw on outside expertise.

The policy and legal services branch, of course, assists us in becoming more proactive and through OPC-led initiatives, notably in the courts, affecting systemic change in information-handling practices.

Last year, my office began taking a stronger stance with respect to recommendations made to private sector organizations in my letters of finding at the conclusion of an investigation. We began telling organizations that are the subject of well-founded complaints to implement our recommendations or we would take the matter forward to Federal Court. Unfortunately, there are no sanctions under the Privacy Act, which is one of the reasons it needs an overhaul. It's unacceptable that the private sector is held to a higher standard for privacy protection than the federal government. I think we should be an example and I refer you to a paper that we did, at the request of this committee, which we tabled with you in June. We look forward to presenting it to you at a further date.

In conclusion, the goal of our Office is to implement our business case within the next two years. At that point, we will need to take another look at our activities and funding needs. I believe we need to constantly challenge ourselves to find better ways to carry out our mandate and get the job done. And the privacy environment is constantly changing; we need to adapt with it. And our privacy laws need to keep up with the times.

We hope you will agree with the parliamentary panel's recommendation of last year. The increased permanent funding is necessary to ensure that we can effectively protect and promote privacy—the services we offer to Canadians on behalf of parliamentarians.

We want to do the best we can in carrying out the responsibilities that have been entrusted to us. And we need to have the tools to do our job of protecting Canadians' right to privacy.

This Mr. Chairman, brings to an end my preliminary remarks.

I would be very happy to take the questions you may have on our budget and our functioning.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

So unfortunately you—not maybe to the same degree as some of the other deputy ministers, who just seemed to be revolved around and around--had the opportunity to at least stay in one position for a while. We've identified that as a problem, and the new Accountability Act would make the deputy ministers responsible.

At what point do you feel comfortable? You've been in this position. You arrive in a new department, and sometimes these departments deal with very different matters and are structured very differently—CIDA, Fisheries. How long would you estimate it would take you to establish enough comfort to sign off on reports?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Chair, with the greatest of respect—and it must be just the role you play, and I understand the line between the bureaucracy and the minister—this really is not getting us too far. At some point you have to get engaged with us and go back and forth and actually.... Maybe we need to go in camera so that you have a higher comfort level, but with the greatest of respect—and I'm not faulting you—Chair, this is not engagement. This is question and answer, and it's nice, it's helpful, but it's not what we're undertaking here.

We're trying to develop a whole new protocol. We need some ability to provide a comfort zone for the staff, so that they can interact with us in a way where we're going back and forth and working through problems and saying, “Okay, we see what you're saying. We identified that problem. The way we do it now is this, and Bill C-2 is going to affect it this way. What else can we do?” We Have to have that engagement. Otherwise, Chair, this is helpful for a Q and A, but we're not developing protocol this way.

I'm not faulting you. Please don't take it that way at all; I didn't mean that. But this is a little frustrating. We're chasing our tails here, and at some point—it may be down the road that it is built in—we have to have more give and take if this is really going to be a joint project, or we're just going to be an island unto ourselves, doing what we think is best and throwing it out there, praying like hell that somebody cares enough to do something about it.

Thanks, Chair.

[Wayne Wouters]

Under our system, which is going to be reinforced again by Bill C-2, at the end of the day the deputy head is responsible for the day-to-day management of the departments. We undertake assessments of the management competencies of the departments. We then identify them and work with them. We will say, over the next year these are three or four areas that we think you should work on; we'll work with you. Of course, part of my overall assessment of a deputy head will take that into consideration. We basically provide that oversight function with the deputy heads to ensure they follow through and address some of the deficiencies they have in their own departments.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

I will clarify my question further. With regard to the difficulties that you face in implementing new management policies — we know that Bill C-2 will be soon adopted and that it will generate other responsibilities —, do some departments pose more specific problems than others do? If so, what are these problems?

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I won't take too much of my own time.

Just quickly, on the three pages of your brief that we have, Mr. Wouters, you talk about non-compliance and state, “as I mentioned earlier, Treasury Board has a role in addressing non-compliance, particularly where the non-compliance is systemic or creates whole-of-government risks.” It's not like government just was created today or that the Federal Accountability Act is really going to change anything. In what situation where you have non-compliance does it create a whole bunch of risk? Am I misunderstanding something here? Can you give me an example of when that would happen?