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

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to join in the debate today. Obviously when dealing with accountability and ethics, as we are doing here with Bill C-2, one cannot get too far without bringing into the debate the opinions and contributions of the former member for Ottawa Centre, the hon. Ed Broadbent.

I will say as my own personal historical footnote, that I am not only honoured to have been returned to this place by my fellow citizens in Hamilton Centre, but I am also sitting in what was Ed Broadbent's seat in the House. I also have the honour of being in his former office. I feel somewhat responsible to ensure as much as I can, and it will be totally and woefully inadequate, that I present the thoughts of Mr. Broadbent. It is important that they be part of this debate.

Mr. Speaker, you may be familiar with the document that was put out by Mr. Broadbent and the NDP caucus before the last election entitled, “Cleaning Up Politics: Demanding Changes in Ethics and Accountability”. In the front of the document Mr. Broadbent stated:

When they find themselves in the midst of wrongdoing those with a vivid sense of right and wrong have feelings of remorse. On the other hand the defining characteristic of corruption is that feelings of remorse have been lost, replaced by the impulse to deny, perpetuate and cover-up. The Liberal party is losing its sense of remorse.

Certainly the Liberals lost a lot more than that in the last election.

Let us understand that the reason this is here is the scandal coming out of the previous government, the Liberal Party. When the Liberals were given the trust of the Canadian people to govern this great nation, they betrayed that trust. They not only had their fingers in the cookie jar, they had both hands, both feet, body and all, and a whole host of other Liberal members were into the cookie jar with them. It was disgraceful. It is one of the most outrageous scandals this nation has seen arguably since the great railway scandal. It is that big.

Today in this minority House we are attempting collectively to do the best we can to bring in rules that will deal with those who are dishonest. Honest politicians, like honest citizens, do not really need the laws or enforcement of them. They know what the laws are and they abide by them. It is the dishonest ones that require rules and oversight. We do that through transparency and accountability. I must say that to some degree Bill C-2 gets us going in that direction.

Certainly there are good things in Bill C-2. We in the NDP would like to see some changes. Hopefully, there will be some improvements at the committee stage and we can make some amendments, but notwithstanding that, this is a good start. Unless there are major changes to it, the NDP caucus will support that good start. Make no mistake that there is a long way to go. I only have a few moments and I want to pick up on at least two issues not in the bill that we in the NDP believe have to find their way into legislation if we are truly going to deal with the issues coming out of the Liberal sponsorship scandal.

The issue of floor crossing is huge. In fact, Ed Broadbent made it number one in his recommendations. He made it number one before the last election, before any of us knew anything about what the member for Vancouver Kingsway was about to do.

Let me say something that needs to be said over and over. Let us understand exactly what happened. Historians are going to have their breath taken away by this. We sort of lose track a bit because we move on. People in Vancouver have not forgotten it, but for the rest of the country things go on. People will look back and will see that before the official count was in, before he had even packed up his campaign office, the member crossed the floor, took a cabinet position and had the audacity to say that he was doing it out of the goodness of his heart for his constituents, that he did it for them. Such sacrifice is beyond what any one person should be asked to give in the service of Canadians, but we are lucky that the hon. member saw fit to put his constituents ahead of the election process, a minor little detail.

What did Ed say about this? Certainly we know how the people of Vancouver Kingsway feel. If we listen to other members from my caucus who are in that area, those constituents are angry. We may not hear it every day in Ottawa but believe me, they are not taking this lying down.

There are an awful lot of people who gave money, who worked hard and gave up their weekends and vacations to help that member get elected. Why? Because they loved the member? Some probably did, but we can bet there were an awful lot of people who were there because they believed in the platform that was put forward.

Our system is very different from the American one. In large part the American Congress is almost like a large city council. My friend the former mayor of Toronto would know much about this in terms of the wheeling and dealing that happens. We do not get elected on the same kind of platform here. That is why it matters what party we belong to, because our platform is our party's platform. In the U.S. it is a lot looser. It is not unusual for Republicans and Democrats to have personal platforms in their material that is contrary to their party, or more consistent with the other party, but that is what works in their electoral area and so that is what they go with.

What did Ed Broadbent say about floor crossing, recognizing that this was before we saw the wishes of over 80% of the people in Vancouver Kingsway being ignored? He said:

Democratic accountability should mean no M.P. can ignore his/her voters and wheel and deal for personal gain: No MP should be permitted to ignore their voters' wishes, change parties, cross the floor, and become a member of another party without first resigning their seats and running in a by-election.

Some feel that is unfair and that it is a little too restrictive, but two weeks after the election? We are not saying that members are prisoners of their caucuses, if we approve the proposal put forward by Ed Broadbent and the NDP. We would say that for whatever reason, if a member feels the need to leave his or her caucus, the member would have that mechanism. The member could sit as an independent and finish the term and choose to do what he or she wanted to do after that.

We are not captives of our caucus. If caucus is doing or saying something or taking a position that members cannot live with or is not in the best interests of their constituents, then they may sit as independents. But if members want to make the big sacrifice that the member for Vancouver Kingsway did and go to cabinet and be forced to take another $60,000 or $70,000 a year, if that is their lot in life, then they have to go back to their constituents and get their okay. That is not unreasonable, not when we think about the implications. Let us look at this House, at one vote and how it matters. This is an area that needs serious consideration.

My time is rapidly winding down, but I also want to talk about another key area. This is very big. The fact is that there are still not the kinds of controls and transparency we need around party leadership races. As Ed Broadbent and the NDP said:

Set spending limits and transparency conditions on leadership contests within political parties: Parties are largely financed by the [taxpayer] and the same principles pertinent to the public good should apply to the internal affairs of parties as they do to electoral competition between parties.

That certainly is true when the person who wins that party leadership becomes the prime minister of Canada; it is not unreasonable for the House to say that the mechanism by which one can become the prime minister will have as much control, whether it is through a general election or whether it is done inside one's own party. The fact remains that there must be accountability. Money still plays far too big a role in Canadian politics. I like the idea that we are no longer allowing union or corporate contributions. In my opinion, the further we keep politicians away from money, the better the democracy we are going to have.

These are just a few of the areas that we believe need a lot more work. Certainly out of respect for the work that Mr. Broadbent did in this place and the commitment that our leader and the NDP caucus have around these issues, we are going to be on top of the bill. We are going to follow it very closely. We are going to push really hard. Hopefully members of other caucuses will be open to some of the amendments that we want to make because we want to improve this. We are here to get something done. We are here to make things better. Bill C-2 is a good start, but there is more to do and the NDP is ready to roll up its sleeves and get that work done.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague who just spoke was referring to one who is in the chamber who served as the mayor of Toronto. Being one who was present, and I think he was looking in this direction, I would like the record to be correct. In the interests of not maligning those who really were the mayor of Toronto, I was the chairman of Metropolitan Toronto and I appreciate my colleague giving me that recognition.

The member spent a great deal of time talking about floor crossing, and I do believe that is important, but I think the House would also be interested in what his party has talked about as democratic accountability and open government.

My colleague also has served on the public accounts committee. From the perspective of members of the House who want to see more accountability through this House and through elected members, and based on his experience and coupling that experience on the public accounts committee with the recommendation to establish a parliamentary budget authority, which I take would reinforce the efforts of committee to hold the executive into account and the administration into account, I wonder if the member would give us his opinion.

Would he give us his opinion with respect to his experience on the public accounts committee and whether that recommendation, and through the public accounts committee, would even further close the accountability loop in a manner that we would all like to see?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for York South--Weston and I recognize the minor error. I would just say that from the viewpoint of Hamilton, when we thought Toronto, we thought the hon. member. I was pleased to have been in the municipal world when the hon. member was there.

The member raises some very good points. I do not think I am in any way avoiding the answer, but to step it out one, Justice Gomery made quite a number of recommendations as a result of his inquiry. Many of those affected the public accounts committee. I am pleased to say that I am back on that committee again. I am looking forward to the work that will go on there.

However, I would say to the hon. member that there were a number of things flowing from the inquiry that could also be in Bill C-2. I recall that for the actual public accounts committee itself, Justice Gomery said there should be more resources and more independence. The member will recall that there times when we wanted to get further legal advice; it was more a matter of having a staff assignment rather than a question of whether or not they could be unbiased, and I want to be very clear about that. It was a matter of having the resources, in other words, of having a staff lawyer assigned to the committee who would be with us and know the corporate history and the issues and be able to give us advice along the way. Because it was a very legal process we went through, in that it involved personal information, people's rights, et cetera.

There is another thing that the committee would have been given the power to do had Bill C-2 incorporated those recommendations. The committee would have been given the power to ensure that deputy ministers were held accountable for their legal responsibility. Right now in terms of transparency and accountability, the minister rolls in and says, “I make the policy decisions and the department is run by the deputy, so I really cannot answer that one because it is about the mechanics of the ministry”. The minister says to speak to the deputy.

Okay, so we bring in the deputy minister. He rolls in and we ask the deputy, who says he can speak to some of the mechanics of what happened, but that most of this relates back to the policy and he does not make policy decisions, that the minister does. The deputy says we need to ask the minister. I am not making this up. This is how it works and anybody who was on the committee watched this.

Then we get to the second and third tiers of the bureaucrats in trying to get at the answer, and of course when it is a political issue, they are not going to get involved if they do not have to because there is no win. But deputy ministers have a legal framework of responsibility and Justice Gomery was saying that it should extend to going to the public accounts committee and answering for all decisions made by the deputy or his or her staff with regard to all areas of legal responsibility. It would end the ability to have this merry-go-round whereby one person comes in and says it is not really his or her job, but to ask so-and-so. When so-and-so comes in, the answer is no, we have to go back to someone else. We can go around and around with this.

Had Bill C-2 incorporated this, we could--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Joliette.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be taking part in this debate on Bill C-2, the federal accountability act. To start with, like a number of my colleagues, I will point out that the title of the bill is not correct in French, and that an amendment which should be unanimously agreed to by this House would make the French title of the bill the Loi sur la responsabilité.

Our spokesperson on this subject, the member for Repentigny, said at the beginning of his speech that the Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-2 in principle. Obviously, the entire question of ethics and good governance has been central to our debates in recent months, starting from the specific point when the Auditor General submitted her report on what is now commonly called the “sponsorship scandal”. In the last months of the session preceding the election, we therefore had ample opportunity to discuss all aspects of that scandal in this House.

I would remind the people listening that the Bloc Québécois did not wait for the Auditor General’s report. In our 2000 election platform, we had already identified the advertising agencies that had obviously benefited from the diversions of funds resulting in the sponsorship scandal. In recent months, we have spoken at length about the question of ethics.

The recent campaign was an opportunity, particularly for Quebeckers, to punish the Liberals for their negligence in managing public funds, and particularly for the fact that a portion of those public funds ended up in the coffers of the Liberal Party of Canada. And so Quebeckers punished the Liberal Party very severely: it now has 13 members in Quebec, when Mr. Trudeau once had 74 of the 75 members. This is an indication of the extent of the harm that this scandal caused in terms of public trust in the Liberal Party of Canada, but also to politicians as a class, unfortunately. It was therefore entirely appropriate that one of the first bills introduced by the minority Conservative government deals with ethics. I think that we are all very glad to see this.

The Bloc Québécois participated in the Gomery commission, and submitted a report that included 72 recommendations, some of which have been incorporated in Bill C-2. We are very pleased with this. On the other hand, there are things missing, gaps that we want to address over the course of the parliamentary process that will lead to passage of this bill. I would reiterate that the Bloc Québécois supports it in principle, for the very obvious reasons to which I have referred.

We are very pleased to see that returning officers will be appointed by Elections Canada based on merit, under Bill C-2. Of course, we would hope that, as in Quebec, returning officers will be selected after a public competition is held. We will have an opportunity to come back with this proposal and argue its merits to all of the members in this House.

Another thing we are pleased to see in Bill C-2 is that the Registrar of Lobbyists will be independent. It seems to us that it is extremely important that the person responsible for registering lobbyists be totally independent of the government and have the resources to do that job.

We know that the practice of lobbying is growing. I imagine that all our new colleagues who were elected in the last election of January 2006 must have been a little surprised to see the number of pressure groups who wanted to meet with members of Parliament to express their concerns to them and the solutions that they had to offer for the problems they identified.

I consider that it is absolutely proper, in a democracy, for hon. members to receive input from groups of lobbyists. However, we must avoid the excesses that we saw with the previous government.

For that reason, the independence of the registrar is important. Moreover, as in the case of the Ethics Commissioner, it is essential to ensure that the registrar has the resources to fulfill the mandate that the House has established.

Concerning the Act to regulate the funding of political parties, the Bloc is pleased to note that the suggestion from Quebec and from the Bloc Québécois has been included. That suggestion dealt with a prohibition on corporate donations. It has been part of the Quebec legislation from the very beginning. In reality it is a step forward to ensure that there is no blemish on the independent judgment of hon. members and parties. Personally, I do not believe that corporate donations could buy the consciences of some of our colleagues but they have created negative impressions among the public. Once those donations have been eliminated, the public image of all politicians should have a higher standing among the population.

There is a last element with which we agree and that we are pleased to see in Bill C-2. That is the strengthening of the powers of the Auditor General, in particular, the fact that in future she will be responsible for overseeing the administration of crown corporations. I recall that the Bloc Québécois had introduced a bill for that purpose. The government’s decision to adopt that measure is good news.

However, there are a number of elements that we do not agree with. As a result, I will take some time to analyze and comment on the bill. The amending of the Access to Information Act has been put off to a later date. A draft bill was introduced—if I may call it that—and yet we have been discussing amendments to the Access to Information Act for decades, to make it more accessible and to broaden its application. So it is not something new.

It is a shame that the Conservatives, who had promised—in fact, it is in their election platform—that the recommendations of the Information Commissioner and the Privacy Commissioner concerning amendments to the Access to Information Act would be implemented, have now decided to put that off until later. They made a promise and the Bloc agreed with that approach. In spite of that, they have decided to delay, while the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, during the previous session, rejected a proposal by the then Minister of Justice who wanted to postpone any changes in order to further study the recommendations of the Information Commissioner and the Privacy Commissioner. The committee, including the Conservative members, rejected that position and unanimously accepted the commissioner’s report as the basis for legislation. The committee also called on the government to introduce legislation without further delay.

It is amazing to see how the Conservatives are in a lot less of a hurry to give the media, the legislators and the public in general a means of gaining access to government information than they were when they sat on the opposition side. This is very strange.

As I pointed out at the beginning, during the study of this bill, the Bloc Québécois will want to improve the proposed legislation by adding the items I have just mentioned.

The Bloc has also identified some flaws, such as the idea of a financial reward to public servants who disclose wrongdoings. The Bloc recognizes that the strengthening of the law protects those who report questionable or dishonest practices. We believe that this is extremely important.

In closing, I will remind members that, with regard to the Access to Information Act, the bill proposes that only three of the nine foundations be subject to that act, and I did mention how unfortunate it was that the Conservative government did not keep its promise. This is very strange. Why these three foundations and not the other six? There is no logic to this decision.

As a political party that cares about democracy and the strengthening of democracy—and this is true for Canada as well as for Quebec—we will have an opportunity to bring forward amendments to this bill. I am convinced that all members will support the suggestions from the Bloc Québécois. They will aim at making the bill better and more complete, which has always been our goal as a constructive and vigilant opposition.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, recently we learned, contrary to the contents of the federal accountability act, that the Conservatives have been engaging in a practice that would seem to contradict what they state. A member of the transition team, which hired the new Conservative government officials, chiefs of staff, deputy ministers, et cetera, is now a senior lobbyist in Ottawa, lobbying the very people who she hired for the government.

Clearly, this is either an oversight or a blatant undermining of the spirit of the accountability act. Would the hon. member agree with me that this type of lobbying should be outlawed, barred and specifically cited in the federal accountability act?

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question.

I think we have all been able to see that the Conservatives in power do not have quite the sense of ethics and good governance that they had in opposition. This is a little disturbing, for we would have expected more consistency on the part of that party, even though, as I mentioned, the bill is a step in the right direction.

There have indeed been actions on the part of the government that are incompatible with sound ethics and good governance. The hon. member has just mentioned one. The appointment of Michael Fortier as senator so that he can be in Cabinet and represent the Montreal region is another. The fact that, two weeks after the election, the Minister of International Trade crossed from the Liberal Party to the Conservative Party is another major ethical issue.

In no way has the Ethics Commissioner cleared this affair. He has said that it is the responsibility of parliamentarians to tighten the law so as to avoid this type of situation. For what happened between the election on January 23, 2006 and the decision by the Minister of International Trade to move from the Liberals to the Conservatives? Probably a telephone call from the Prime Minister. If so, it was not the political environment that caused the Minister of International Trade to change his plans.

I always give the following example. When Lucien Bouchard, who was a Conservative, decided to go independent and found the Bloc Québécois, something fundamental in Canadian history happened, namely the rejection of the Meech Lake Accord. That was justification for leaving one party and creating the Bloc Québécois.

In the case of the Minister of International Trade, opportunism and his political career were probably the only criteria for his decision. In that sense, I am in complete agreement with the hon. member. One does not sense a political will on the part of the government to make a real change to ethics in this Parliament and this government. In my view, the weeks ahead will be very telling.

To close, I would mention that the Prime Minister’s relations with the media are also worrisome. The fact that the Access to Information Act is being brushed aside is consistent with his refusal to work with the media toward better publicizing the analysis and political directions of his government. This is prompting a great many questions and is inconsistent with Bill C-2.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a simple question for the hon. member for Joliette. It concerns the process for selecting the conflict of interest and ethics commissioner. As we know, the commissioner is selected by the Prime Minister alone.

Does the hon. member not think it would be a good idea to have a process established by a committee of this House or some other mechanism along the lines of this bill, which would be fair and transparent?

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

I totally agree with the hon. member, Mr. Speaker. All programs of the public appointments commission, which is responsible for overseeing appointments made by the Prime Minister, come under him, because appointments are generally made by the Prime Minister's Office.

We end up with exactly the same kind of situation as previously, when the Ethics Commissioner was appointed by Prime Minister Chrétien and responsible for monitoring ethics within government. This is very much like asking the fox to guard the hen house.

I believe that all these very important players in our parliamentary life ought to be selected by the House.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-2, a very important bill.

First, I thank the member for Winnipeg Centre, who is our lead critic on this bill and on the question of ethics. He has done a brilliant job of focusing the debate on the issue before us.

We are very aware that this is a massive bill. It is a very weighty document, and it is a lot of material to go through. I think from the point of view of the public interest and public concern, it is very important that we focus on some of the key issues and ensure that this is actually followed through.

Just before the election, when the whole sponsorship scandal was in full flight and was raised every day in the House, I remember being in a coffee shop in East Vancouver getting a cup of tea when somebody came up to me and talked about the sponsorship scandal. The person looked at me and said, “Well, what do you expect. We don't expect any different”. That comment really struck me. It spoke to the deep level of cynicism, unfortunately, that people have about politics, the political process and this place. They shrug their shoulders. They do not expect anything different from the people in Ottawa, or anywhere else for that matter. I find this very disturbing.

The Liberal corruption and sponsorship scandal was an issue that was raised and very hotly debated in the House every day. However, it was also an issue that went so broad and deep that we all ended up suffering from, this growing cynicism about electoral politics and the political process. That is a very difficult thing to get at.

On the one hand, the bill sets out very strenuous rules about ethics, conduct, conflict and public interest. On the other hand, it is very hard to legislate ethics. Ethics comes from an environment. Unfortunately, we have become very used to an environment where, as Mr. Gomery himself said, the culture of entitlement was very prevalent in this place. That is what we are up against.

The bill is significant and it is an important document. The NDP will be examining it in great detail and we will be offering suggestions about how to make the bill a better instrument. However, it is also incumbent upon us, as members of Parliament, to think about our own personal conduct.

I am reminded of the speech that Mr. Broadbent made when he announced to the House that he was leaving Parliament after many decades of public service. He spoke about the dignity of members and the respect that we needed to have for each other and for this place, and the service we provide to our constituents. We cannot legislate that kind of thing. It comes from us in terms of how we conduct ourselves, and that is something for which we all bear responsibility.

Another thing I want to raise in a general sense around the bill is this. It always bothers me, when corruption scandals erupt and so much public attention is on them, as there should be, that the role of the civil service and civil servants gets dragged into them. It becomes something that is dishonourable.

The NDP have enormous respect for people in the civil service. I think people act in a very honourable way, yet they see all this stuff going on around them, the accusations, the wrongdoing, the cover-ups and the secrecy. Hundreds of thousands of people work for the public service, whether in Ottawa or in our local communities. They go out day after day on the front line and try their very best to do the right thing, and they do the right thing. They are the ones who provide the service, but they are also the ones who get a lot of the flak because of this culture of entitlement and cynicism.

It needs to be said by us all that we value the work of our public servants. We recognize the role they played in exposing the secrets that had been hidden within the government. It was a very bold thing to do and it took a lot of courage.

I want to thank and pay tribute to all of those civil servants in the public service who work so hard and provide the service to our constituents and the people of Canada. They are very honourable people and should be held up as a role model of what we should be doing as parliamentarians.

A lot has been said about this bill and a lot more will come. There are some aspects that are quite disturbing that are not covered. My riding is Vancouver East. The riding next door to me is Vancouver Kingsway. The day that the member for Vancouver Kingsway crossed the floor and became a member of the government my phone was ringing off the hook. There were e-mails instantly from people in my own riding, but also from Vancouver generally. These people felt so betrayed by what was done by that member.

I think that member has a difficult time showing his face in the city of Vancouver and attending any event. There is a fundamental feeling that the most basic form of accountability is to your voters. Bill C-2 does not deal with that. We have to ask the question as to why this bill, if it is about ethics and dealing with ethical practices, does not deal with this most fundamental question of honouring the vote of the people who elect us as members in this place?

I know that the member for Vancouver Kingsway has heard a lot from his constituents. I also want to lay it at the door of the Prime Minister. It was the Prime Minister who set up this arrangement just a few days after he spoke about the new government being the most transparent, the most accountable, and that he wanted to bring back the public trust. To me and to many people, it is quite incredible that within a few days of saying those words we would have this action take place, where the voters of Vancouver Kingsway had their trust betrayed by a member who crossed the floor and a Prime Minister who basically participated in that act.

There are other issues that we wish were included in the bill, including the issue of democratic electoral reform. Again, this gets at the question of accountability and ethics as it relates to election practices themselves, the way we conduct our elections and the way we are voted into office. I am very proud of the fact that we in the NDP have championed the issue of democratic electoral reform. We are not going to give up on that issue.

We are very concerned that there is nothing in this bill that deals with electoral reform. It is an issue that we will keep pressing with this government and with all parties because we believe there is a real public appetite to democratize our electoral system. When people vote, their vote should actually count. We want the House of Commons to reflect the way people are actually voting. This is something we will definitely keep pressing.

We are also concerned that Bill C-2 does not go far enough in terms of the limits that need to be placed on practices around lobbying. As the member for Winnipeg Centre outlined in his comments, we still see this going on. We see practices where the relationship with the government and lobbyists and people being appointed and favours being done is still there. It is still happening.

Although the bill does go some distance, we believe that it does not go far enough in limiting the way that lobbyists act. Canadians can expect to see amendments from the NDP when the bill goes to committee.

The same is true of the appointment process. Mr. Broadbent had put together a very good package to deal with appointments. While this bill contains some of those elements, it is still within the purview of the PMO and basically gives a veto to the PMO. We think that is something that needs to be further reviewed to ensure that there is clearly an independent process.

Finally, as many members have remarked, it is questionable as to why the government chose to leave out its access to information reform package that was promised. We all know that when there is an environment of secrecy, there is also an environment of corruption.

The promised package of reform on access to information, opening up information and providing access to people, is a fundamental part of the spirit of this bill. The fact that it is not here is really a contradiction to what the government has put forward. We are very concerned that it is not here and again we will be pressing that in committee to ensure that those questions are raised and that there is indeed a commitment to bring forward the reform for access to information.

We will be giving this close scrutiny in committee. It is a substantial bill. We need to ensure that it is actually followed through and that it does not fall or stall under its own weight, whether it is in the House or in the Senate. We believe that elements of this bill must go through and that we must work in the public interest to bring back public trust and confidence in what we do in this place.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, through the past terms of Parliament, the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates took approximately 17 months of meetings, reviews, calling of witnesses, and drafting and passing legislation for the whistleblower act. That legislation was awaiting royal assent, but obviously that will not happen.

This part of the proposed act would cause a total recommencement of this entire process, which occurred at considerable expense to the government by calling witnesses from essentially all over the world.

Generally, in a minority government situation, it was clearly the prerogative of the other parties to defeat that legislation, even in committee, or insert those amendments that they felt were necessary because it certainly would have carried.

I am asking the member if her party has a particular perspective on the recommencement of this legislation and if her representative actually felt that it was good legislation because it did pass unanimously through the committee stage and on to first, second and third reading?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, while I am not the critic and I am not a member of that committee, I would point out that the NDP has been very consistent in wanting to bring forward whistleblower legislation and have it pass through the House.

I would point out to the member that the original introduction from the President of the Treasury Board under the Liberal government was so poor that it actually did fall to the committee and the opposition parties to go back and redo it, and to come forward with another package. In fact, many people thought the bill that was brought forward was actually worse than the status quo. That was kind of an interesting situation and I do not think we should forget that.

It is a priority for the NDP to put in place whistleblower legislation that protects people's rights. There are some aspects of the current provisions in Bill C-2 that we have concerns about in terms of the compensation that is being put forward, but we have been on this from day one.

It is one of those issues where the former government had so much time to deal with; however, like so many issues, it was a record of broken and failed promises. That legislation could have happened a long time ago if the government were truly in favour of it, but what it brought forward was not very good and it had to be redone by the committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, the distinguished member is absolutely right when she says that the previous Liberal government brought forward a piece of legislation on whistleblower protection that was so chronically flawed that every whistleblower in the country opposed it.

The Liberal government claimed it wanted whistleblower protection, yet it took two years not to pass whistleblower protection. It sent it to committee, loaded it with flaws, bogged it down with bureaucracy, and interrupted it with scandals that had to be investigated before that committee. Ultimately, after two years of promises, in fact after 13 years of promises, the Liberal government never passed into law whistleblower protection.

The reality is that the Liberals are now making the case that we need to slow down on the accountability act because they do not want the accountability act. They do not want whistleblower protection. They do not want to extend the Auditor General's control. They do not want to broaden access to information. They do not want any of those things.

I wonder if the hon. member and her party will continue with their record of supporting accountability to help this government pass swiftly into law the accountability act, despite efforts to block it by the Liberal Party.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have been very clear that the NDP sees this as a major priority.

We are also very aware, though, that this is a major bill. What is it, 270 pages in length? It does require a lot of scrutiny and we will do that very carefully. It is really important that we focus attention on ensuring that the bill gets implemented and that it does not get stalled. There may be some amendments. That is why it will go to committee.

In terms of the whistleblower legislation, the history is there, but it is important, if we are genuine in our intent to actually have whistleblower protection and if the government is genuine in its intent in having accountability and ethics, to work in a very constructive way to get the bill to a place where there will be all party agreement. I do not know if that is possible.

We will certainly have some amendments and that is legitimate, but our intent is to improve the bill to make it the best it can be to restore the--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Order, please. The Chair recognizes the hon. member for Malpeque on a point of order.