Federal Accountability Act

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

This bill was last introduced in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session, which ended in October 2007.

Sponsor

John Baird  Conservative

Status

This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.

Summary

This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament often publishes better independent summaries.

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.

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Votes

Nov. 21, 2006 Passed That the motion be amended by: 1. Deleting from the paragraph commencing with the words “Disagrees with” the following: 67; 2. Inserting in the paragraph commencing with the words “Agrees with”, immediately after the number “158”, the following: “and 67”; and 3. Deleting the paragraph commencing with the words “Senate amendment 67”;.
Nov. 21, 2006 Failed That the motion be amended by: 1. Deleting from the paragraph commencing with the words “Disagrees with” the following: 118, 119; 2. Inserting in the paragraph commencing with the words “Agrees with”, immediately after the number “158”, the following: “and 118 and 119”; and 3. Deleting the paragraph commencing with the words “Amendment 118” and the paragraph commencing with the words “Amendment 119”..
Nov. 21, 2006 Passed That the amendment be amended by deleting paragraphs “A” and “B”.
June 21, 2006 Passed That Bill C-2, in Clause 315, be amended by replacing lines 19 to 25 on page 207 with the following: “provincial government or a municipality, or any of their agencies; ( c.1) a band, as defined in subsection 2(1) of the Indian Act, or an aboriginal body that is party to a self-government agreement given effect by an Act of Parliament, or any of their agencies;”
June 21, 2006 Passed That Bill C-2, in Clause 315, be amended by adding after line 27 on page 206 the following: “( e) requiring the public disclosure of basic information on contracts entered into with Her Majesty for the performance of work, the supply of goods or the rendering of services and having a value in excess of $10,000.”
June 21, 2006 Failed That Bill C-2, in Clause 123, be amended by (a) replacing line 43 on page 105 to line 6 on page 106 with the following: “selected candidate is referred for consideration to a committee of the House of Commons designated or established for that purpose. (5) After the committee considers the question, the Attorney General may recommend to the Governor in Council that the selected candidate be appointed as Director, or may refer to the committee the appoint-” (b) replacing lines 12 and 13 on page 106 with the following: “for cause. The Director”
June 21, 2006 Failed That Bill C-2 be amended by deleting Clause 165.1.
June 21, 2006 Passed That Bill C-2, in Clause 146, be amended by replacing lines 3 to 31 on page 118 with the following: “16.1 (1) The following heads of government institutions shall refuse to disclose any record requested under this Act that contains information that was obtained or created by them or on their behalf in the course of an investigation, examination or audit conducted by them or under their authority: ( a) the Auditor General of Canada; ( b) the Commissioner of Official Languages for Canada; ( c) the Information Commissioner; and ( d) the Privacy Commissioner.(2) However, the head of a government institution referred to in paragraph (1)( c) or (d) shall not refuse under subsection (1) to disclose any record that contains information that was created by or on behalf of the head of the government institution in the course of an investigation or audit conducted by or under the authority of the head of the government institution once the investigation or audit and all related proceedings, if any, are finally concluded.”
June 21, 2006 Passed That Bill C-2, in Clause 78, be amended by deleting lines 4 to 8 on page 80.
June 21, 2006 Passed That Bill C-2, in Clause 2, be amended by replacing line 1 on page 33 with the following: “(2) Subject to subsection 6(2) and sections 21 and 30, nothing in this Act abrogates or dero-”
June 21, 2006 Passed That Bill C-2, in Clause 2, be amended by replacing line 12 on page 6 with the following: “(2) No minister of the Crown, minister of state or parliamentary secretary shall, in his or her capacity as a member of the Senate or the House of Commons, debate or vote on a question that would place him or her in a conflict of interest.”

May 31st, 2007 / 12:15 p.m.
See context

Liberal

Stephen Owen Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayrand, and thanks to your colleagues.

I have just a couple of quick questions to start with.

Is it your opinion that the current Canada Elections Act provides for the conversion of loans into contributions after 18 months, under the current terminology? Has there been some doubt expressed about its not being as explicit as this is? Is that what we're trying to accomplish here, or do you see it as accomplishing that? My understanding was that these would always be converted into contributions after 18 months, under the current language. I understand it's perhaps more explicit now, but I wonder whether that understanding is correct.

I'm interested in the exceptions under proposed subsection 405.7(2). It is the exemptions to the provisions for deeming loans to be contributions. Just to make it easier, it lists a number of situations, including an unpaid amount that is subject to a legal agreement to pay. Other exemptions are being subject to legal proceedings, subject to a dispute. I'm not sure what an unpaid amount that is subject to a legal agreement to pay means. Maybe Ms. Davidson can give me that explanation. It sounds to me as though it means an agreement to extend the obligation to pay to a later date. If that is so, it's confusing to me, because it seems to subvert the intention of having it converted within 18 months.

The last question is much more general. Really I think you touched on it in your remarks. The specific concern is that the low amounts of contribution in Bill C-2, now $1,100 per individual, combined with the restrictions on who can provide loans—financial institutions—and therefore the obligations they will extract from the person they are lending to, guarantees or some sort of collateral, may create an unrealistic barrier to entry for people entering, say, a national leadership race in a party or even a nomination, and they may not have a political association to fall back on should they default. Up front, therefore, the financial institution may be very severely inhibited from extending them a loan.

May 31st, 2007 / 11:35 a.m.
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Conservative

Peter Van Loan Conservative York—Simcoe, ON

I will briefly speak to the amendments concerning loans that were presented when Bill C-2 went through, since Monsieur Godin raised the subject. I don't want to say the wording was sloppy, but the difficulty was that the wording I don't think would have achieved what I think was Mr. Martin's very good and very genuine intention. There was some awkward blurring of the line and terminology between the words “contribution” and “loan” and so on. I know the objective he was trying to achieve was what we're trying to do with Bill C-54. I believe it would not have been achieved with the amendments that were put forward at the time, and that's where it got tripped up at the time.

May 31st, 2007 / 11:35 a.m.
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NDP

Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB

I could invite you to the Standing Committee on Official Languages!

I would just like to make a few comments. At the beginning of your remarks, you thanked Pat Martin for his work. It is most unfortunate that this was not done for Bill C-2. Mr. Martin's amendments to Bill C-2, which the government rejected, are now included in Bill C-54. Had they been accepted in Bill C-2, these provisions would now be law.

I have no questions at this time. I may have some on the next round. We support this bill. It will put everyone on an equal footing. Everyone who runs for office will be treated the same way. So people will not get elected simply because they have rich friends.

May 31st, 2007 / 11:05 a.m.
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Conservative

Peter Van Loan Conservative York—Simcoe, ON

And I'm Peter Van Loan.

I'm pleased to appear today to assist the committee in its scrutiny of Bill C-54, the accountability with respect to loans bill. The bill is another important part of our agenda to strengthen accountability in Canada through democratic reform.

Our agenda in this respect is extensive and ambitious. It has three main components: strengthening our electoral system to make it more responsive, fair, and effective; second, modernizing the Senate; and third, reforming the financing of political parties to eliminate the undue influence of rich and powerful individuals.

To start, we are strengthening our electoral system by, firstly, ensuring our democracy remains fair to Canadians across the country through Bill C-31, which seeks to reduce voter fraud, and Bill C-56, which ensures fairness and representation in the House of Commons by restoring the principle of representation by population.

Secondly, we are taking steps to improve voter turnout through Bill C-55, which adds two additional days of advanced polling on the two Sundays prior to election day.

Lastly, we are also providing a level of certainty and transparency to the public by establishing fix date elections. Under legislation that was recently enacted into law, the date of the next general election will be October 19, 2009.

Through another piece of legislation currently before Parliament, we hope that October 19, 2009, is the date of the first national consultations process for choosing senators.

For the first time, Bill C-43 provides Canadians with the opportunity to have a say in who represents them in the Senate. This legislation, which represents a realistic and practical way of modernizing the Senate, is one part of our plan to do so. The other part is our bill to limit the terms of senators to 8 years from the current maximum of 45.

The last major component of our agenda to strengthen accountability through democratic reform is our legislation to reform the financing of political parties, candidates, and associations to eliminate the undue influence of rich, powerful individuals in the political process.

We committed to doing this in the last campaign, when we introduced, as our first piece of legislation, the Federal Accountability Act. On April 11, 2006 we fulfilled that commitment and on December 12 of the same year, the Federal Accountability Act became law.

The act banned corporate and union contributions, imposed tighter rules on gifts and trust funds and limited annual donations to a political party to $1,100 in 2007.

The bill being studied by this committee today builds on the Federal Accountability Act and on our commitment to eliminate the influence of rich, powerful individuals from the political process.

The bill would amend the Canada Elections Act to establish stronger rules and better transparency for loans made to political parties, candidates, and associations. These amendments would enhance accountability and increase transparency around the use of loans as a political financing tool, which is vital to ensuring the confidence of Canadians in the integrity of the political process.

Along with the Federal Accountability Act, the changes proposed in Bill C-54 will ensure that the financing of political parties, candidates, and associations is fully transparent with straightforward rules that are easy to enforce.

The amendments proposed for the treatment of loans in Bill C-54 would extend to loans the same standards of transparency that are now in place for contributions. By removing chapter 3, which allows for the use of loans to circumvent the restrictions on the source or limit of contributions, the amendments will ensure that the reforms enacted in C-2 cannot be undermined through the misuse of loans.

Specifically, the amendments would make the following changes to the treatment of loans.

First, the bill would establish a uniform and transparent way of treating loans made to political parties, candidates, and associations. It would require mandatory disclosure of terms and the identity of all lenders and loan guarantors. It would achieve greater transparency and ensure that political parties, candidates, and associations are treated uniformly, which is, believe it or not, not now the case.

Second, total loans, loan guarantees, and contributions by individuals could not exceed the annual contribution limit for individuals established in the Federal Accountability Act, which is set at $1,100 for 2007. Since loans from individuals would be treated as contributions from the time they were made, loans could not be used to circumvent the limit on individual contributions.

Third, only financial institutions and other political entities could make loans beyond that $1,100 limit. Unions and corporations would now be unable to make loans, consistent with their inability to make contributions. They could not disguise contributions as loans. Since financial institutions would have to charge commercial rates of interest, neither borrowers nor lenders could exchange favourable rates for favourable treatment.

Finally, the rules for the treatment of unpaid loans would be tightened to ensure that candidates cannot walk away from unpaid loans. Riding associations will be held responsible for unpaid loans taken out by their candidates. Those would succeed to the associations.

At this point I want to pay some tribute—and I don't want to say I'm disappointed that Monsieur Godin is here, but I am disappointed that Mr. Martin is not—because Pat Martin deserves some credit for having kept this issue on the radar screen and pressing us to move forward with this legislation. I wanted to give him due credit for having done that.

In January 2007, the Chief Electoral Officer presented recommendations to Parliament for changing the rules on loans. This was the first examination of the rules for loans since 2000.

The CEO recommended that Parliament impose additional controls on loans, make loans more transparent, and establish consistency in the treatment of loans for all classes of political entities. Specifically, he recommended the kinds of changes we are including in Bill C-54: the amendments in Bill C-54 implement the recommendations of the Chief Electoral Officer with respect to loans.

At second reading, several members expressed an interest in having the bill come into force earlier than six months after royal assent, which is the current wording in the bill. The government would like to see the changes in force as soon as possible. l would encourage the committee to discuss the matter with the Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Mayrand, when he is here next hour—how quickly the changes could be put into operation—and to feel free to encourage him and challenge him to do it as quickly as possible.

In conclusion, accountability with respect to loans is an important part of our new government's agenda to strengthen accountability through democratic reform. By adopting this bill, which updates the rules for loans and expands transparency, Parliament would demonstrate to Canadians that it remains serious in its commitment to clean up all aspects of federal political financing.

It will show that we will not allow rich, powerful individuals to influence the political process. It will show that we will continue to build upon the reforms made in the historic Federal Accountability Act.

Today, I am seeking your support for these measures and will be pleased to attempt to answer your questions.

May 31st, 2007 / 9:50 a.m.
See context

Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada

Robert Marleau

I just commented to Madame Lavallée that I think Parliament wanted to make that clear in the amendments it brought under Bill C-2 to section 4(2), wherein it has now essentially said that the head of agency has a duty to assist in every reasonable way. If you use the wrong vocabulary in your request, but your intent is somewhat clear, it's absolutely unacceptable that they would say they're sorry, but you didn't ask the right question.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

May 30th, 2007 / 4:15 p.m.
See context

Liberal

Stephen Owen Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC

Mr. Speaker, the debate on Bill C-55 provides the opportunity for us to have a wider debate as well on democratic reform.

However we might support the bill, and I support it very strongly to give greater opportunities for individual electors to get to the polls and vote, there is a difficulty with the government's approach to democratic reform as a whole. This is one other example of issues being brought to the House in both a piecemeal fashion, instead of a comprehensive way, as well as in a way that has involved no consultation with the other parties, the provinces or the public in general.

It is passing strange that we have seen a series of piecemeal bills not dealing comprehensively with either Senate reform, electoral reform or parliamentary reform, but trying to nick them off one at a time. They are done in the name of greater public engagement, when the public, nor Parliament, nor the other parties and provinces are engaged in consultation beforehand to see what might be the best way to move forward to ensure that these various elements of electoral, parliamentary and Senate reform are going ahead in a comprehensive way that makes sense with each other and do not give rise to unintended or, even worse, intended consequences of the government.

Let us look at this approach with respect to other aspects of, in this case, electoral reform. Cooperation and collaboration is immensely important, especially in this complex federation in which are fortunate enough to live. We have many levels of government, constitutional divisions of power and high sensitivities to overlapping powers and impacts that actions and legislation in one level or order of government may have on another. That is why it is so important to have full consultation. Let me speak to a few.

Bill C-56 would attempt to better reflect the constitutional principle of representation by population by adding extra seats to British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. This sounds like, in constitutional principle, a very valid objective with which to go forward.

It can be said that this is something within the individual competence of the Parliament of Canada with which provincial and territorial governments do not have to give their consent. However, that completely misses the complex nature of our country and the need for collaboration among different levels of government to make things happen in a way that best reflects the interests of the whole country and does not lead to any unintended consequences.

Bill C-56 has been introduced and it sounds good. I am a member of Parliament from British Columbia and British Columbia is to get seven extra seats to bring it up to representation by population, as with the five extra seats in Alberta. However, almost immediately we get a unanimous vote in the motion condemning this by the National Assembly of Quebec. Within a week of that, we get both the Conservative leader in the Ontario legislature plus the Premier of Ontario saying that they are against it and are considering legal action on the basis that this is inappropriate.

Since the bill has been discussed, we have heard in the last two weeks concern expressed from members from the prairie provinces, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. They feel their relative influence in the House may be slipping even though their absolute numbers stay the same. We have also heard from MPs from Atlantic Canada who may be protected in certain ways from having their absolute numbers slip, but are worried about their declining influence in the House.

That is not to say they all have to be completely taken into full account. There may be, and obviously is in this case, some kind of negotiation and collaboration that has to go forward so the range of interests in the House, reflecting the interests of the different regions of the country, is properly protected and balanced. But that requires consultation.

That is why we would like Bill C-56 to go to committee before second reading, so there can be the fullest scope for the consultation to take place and that we in committee, as members of Parliament individually, can consult with the various provinces that have various information on it.

One of the most foundational issues of conflict resolution, and there seems to be conflict in this case, is that we involve everyone in the discussion who is affected by it. They will be interested in it and perhaps have the best information about it, without trying to prejudge that.

I raise that as an issue, as a bit of a paradox of putting forward legislation that is meant to make things more democratic, when in fact it is cutting off a prior consultation that would be effective in making the democracy more effective.

That takes me to issues of the Senate, and they were raised by the government House leader. He raised the issue of Bill S-4, which would limit the terms of senators. Let me take a step back and again reflect that this is piecemeal and without adequate consultation.

There is a complaint that this has been stuck in the Senate for a year. In fact, a very important motion was put before the Senate, which is very much related to this, by former Senator Jack Austin and the sole remaining Progressive Conservative senator, Senator Lowell Murray. It would look to the addition of seats to western Canada in the Senate, to bring some proportionality to the regions of Canada, which was intended by our founding fathers, the Fathers of Confederation.

That raises the issue of distribution again, which makes it very clear why piecemeal approaches to Senate reform, electoral reform and parliamentary reform are so inappropriate. If we look at the Senate, there are three critical areas of the other place that must be respected if we are to have change. I think we all agree, including members of the Senate, that a modern democracy should not have a legislative assembly which is non-elected. It is how we get there that is important. To get there, we have to deal with three things simultaneously in Senate reform.

One is the selection process, and that could be both the terms and the fixed dates that have been suggested in Bill S-4. It also could become the selection process and the consultative elections that have been suggested in Bill C-43. The problem is that this is only one of three categories.

Another category is the mandate of the other place. Is it to be, as it is now, a mirror image of the legislative authority, only altered by convention of this place, that creates the expectation of deference at some stage after full debate in both places, or is there to be something different?

If it exactly the same, and electoral legitimacy is equal by elected senators or consultatively elected senators, however Bill C-43 puts it, then we will risk gridlock and that we must avoid. To deal with that, we must have either different mandates or offset mandates or a dispute resolution clause to deal with problems that might arise between the Houses of Parliament. Therefore, a second stage is neglected in just dealing with Bill S-4 or Bill C-43.

A third area, and perhaps in many ways in terms of the health of our Confederation the most important, is the distribution of Senate seats across the country. I notice in Bill C-56 there is an attempt to arrange for better representation. I say attempt because, as I have mentioned, the government has not done the proper consultation to get the very best answer for that. There is no enthusiasm whatsoever to contemporaneously, in looking for Senate elections or Senate set terms, look at distribution, and most important, the extraordinarily inequitable distribution across the country with respect to western Canada.

It is hard to imagine that members of the government, who represent ridings in western Canada, could possibly be in favour, including the Prime Minister, of trying to give more status, more validity to the other place as a legislative body without first fixing the inequitable distribution across the west. That is passing strange, but it is another example of doing things piecemeal without proper consultation and without dealing with them comprehensively.

Let us look for a moment at electoral reform, because this is immensely important to members of the House. It is part of the old Bill C-55, which attempts to address a small corner of electoral reform.

We have a suggested consultative process by the government, which put out tenders to hire a polling firm and then hire, some would say, a think tank. In fact, it turns out to be Frontier Centre in Winnipeg, which has published works against notions of proportionality to amend, improve and reform our electoral system. It is to hold so-called deliberative, closed door meetings in a few centres in the country, which is somehow some kind of a substitute for a meaningful public discussion on the very desperately needed electoral reform in our country.

It is worse than that, because it is in the face of two other clear opportunities, one is an exercise and another is before us, to do this properly. Again, in reverse order, we do not pretend to consult and then bring in some kind of response to that without going to the people and to the opposition and looking to parliamentary committees and other expert bodies first. This is a jury-rigged, false consultation, which will do nothing for the health of our elective democracy.

Let us look at what the other options are. The Law Commission of Canada is highly respected internationally as one of the foremost law reform bodies in the Commonwealth. Its reports are watched and followed in many other countries. After extensive real public consultation and extensive research here and internationally on electoral reform, in 2004 it published a very thoughtful deliberative piece on a mixed member proportional system. This is an independent statutory body with the responsibility to consult, to do research and to report publicly to Parliament and the Minister of Justice. It reported more than three years ago now and there has been no response, no reflection of any attention being given to that good work.

In 2004 we also had the Speech from the Throne, which was amended in the sense of its application to include electoral reform as a prime objective of the 38th Parliament. Unfortunately and unnecessarily it was interrupted by an election that was commenced in 2005. The work of a special committee to do the proper consultation on behalf of all the House of Commons was cut short.

We should be working with the opposition parties, and I hope with the government, to have a legislative committee, perhaps the procedure and House affairs committee, hold those consultations, rather than the closed door, jury-rigged type of consultation that has been set forward. That is important. Let us have the House involved. Let us look to real public consultation and let us get moving on real electoral reform.

Maybe in the wisdom of that deliberative discussion with Canadians, we can reaffirm the first past the post system we have now, but let us do it when we know there are real strains and real non-representative aspects to it. Let us have that conversation and make it a real deliberative one.

Let me turn to another aspect of democratic reform. This is one about which we have heard so much rhetoric from the government, and that is the Federal Accountability Act, Bill C-2. It is almost Orwellian in the way that aspects of this act, and aspects that certainly this side of the House supported, are actually damaging and non-democratic.

I start with observing that Bill C-2, the accountability act, got royal assent on December 14, 2006. Members will recall that this was following a number of months of very careful deliberations and amendments passed by the Senate and then accepted by the House. I think there were more than 50 of them.

There was constant deriding of the other place for having delayed that important piece of democratic legislation and yet one of the absolutely most important foundational parts of the accountability act was the appointments commission. This would apply the same principles around public service appointments that the Public Service Commission applies: objective criteria, competitive processes, transparence, real accountability. That appointments commission which was part of the act in a form that in fact the NDP put forward, a form that I put forward as an amendment were not accepted. That was five months ago .

I will end with this reflection on non-accountability. After five months, there is no appointments commission and yet every week there are dozens and dozens and dozens of order in council appointments that should have been subject to that merit based, objective, non-partisan appointments commission. What kind of accountability is that? What kind of democratic reform is that?

While I have no difficulty supporting the idea of greater advance opportunities for people to vote to increase voter opportunity and therefore voter turnout, we have to look at the whole picture and, if we are to be taken seriously as a modern democracy, deal with this in a comprehensive way.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

May 28th, 2007 / 4:05 p.m.
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Bloc

Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC

Well, in any event that is what we will remember, no matter what the member for Hull—Aylmer may think. It is about the only thing that we recall about Jean Chrétien. He cleaned up the financing of political parties. Despite what the hon. member for Hull—Aylmer says, he must also understand that was the end of secret funds.

They found a new way of operating. The Conservatives tabled a bill that, on the face of it, was rather brilliant, Bill C-2. They proceeded quickly. It was urgent because it was an election promise by the Prime Minister and it was absolutely essential that it be passed quickly. I do not know whether you remember it, Mr. Speaker. Since I am a lawyer, just for fun I took a look at it. It must have been almost as thick as the Income Tax Act, about four inches. It amended nearly 200 federal laws. The concept was enormous. The basic idea was excellent, to clean up financing.

They called it the Accountability Act. It was intended to restrict financing and ensure that no one could ever again get around a law that made it possible to donate large sums of money about which nothing was ever heard. But then something happened. We became aware of something, and I am not the one who says so. Our good Liberal friends found a way to do it. I imagine that the lawyer who found this way of doing it must have been paid a great deal more than we are. They found a good solution: loans. They call it a loan and they do not mention it again.

For those who are watching us on television, here is how it works. Suppose, for example that I am Bob Rae or the honourable member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, who is currently the leader of the opposition. Bob Rae received $705,000 and the honourable member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville received $655,000. How did they proceed during the leadership campaign? By means of loans.

What took place? Someone loaned the money. My name is Joe Blow and I really like a leadership candidate or a candidate for election but I can no longer make a donation of $20,000, or $50,000 or $100,000, as was previously the case with the Liberals and some Conservatives. So, what can I do? I give him a loan. Nobody ensures that the loan will be repaid. So, if the loan is not repaid, what does the loan become? It becomes a donation, but we do not say that. That is how the Liberals have been financed, and how, for the most part, they financed the party’s latest leadership campaign. Obviously, we obtained this information from a source, namely the Ottawa Citizen. There should be no doubt about that. It is not the newspaper that I read every day but I do read it occasionally. We can read right there that considerable sums of money were loaned to them. That is where this Bill C-54 comes into play.

If my name is Bob Rae and I receive a $580,000 loan at a 5% interest rate from someone named John Rae, who, by some unfortunate chance, is a former vice-president of Power Corporation, would I not have a debt toward this individual? The hon. member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville received a sum of money—I asked a question and we did not get the answer—from someone named Stephen Bronfman. He received $50,000 from that man for his leadership campaign. If he has not paid it back, would the hon. member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville not have a debt toward this individual should he become prime minister one day?

This is the message that I am trying to convey to the public and this is the purpose of Bill C-54. I agree with my colleagues from the NDP, and this is something we said during the study of Bill C-2. We said that there was a loophole, because it was possible to circumvent the rules by making a loan. Let us take a look beyond this legislation.

What does the Quebec Election Act say concerning loans? They are not contributions. I will read section 88, and I will try to read it slowly, so my friends opposite and especially my good Liberal friends can understand it. It says: “... are not contributions: volunteer work and the goods or services produced by such work”. Thus, the work of volunteers who are in our offices is not a contribution.

The act also refers to “anonymous donations collected at a meeting or rally held for political purposes”. There is nothing complicated there. After delivering an extraordinary speech, I pass the hat around and I collect $150 or $200. There is no problem, because this is not a contribution under the act—I am talking about the Quebec act.

The act also refers to “a loan granted for political purposes by an elector or a bank, trust company or financial services cooperative at the current market rate of interest at the time it is granted, or a guarantee granted by an elector as surety;”

I now turn to section 105, which reads:

“Every loan shall be evidenced in a writing setting out the name and address of the lender, the date, amount...”

Section 106 is interesting. Again, I am talking about the Quebec Election Act:

“The official representative shall, at least once a year, pay the interest due on the loans he has contracted.”

Therefore, we will support Bill C-54, so that it is reviewed at second reading. This bill is interesting, because we would have liked to know, from our Liberal friends, and of course our Conservative friends, who are getting loans, how the Prime Minister's leadership campaign was funded. According to some data, we are talking here about an amount of $1.1 million. Who provided financial support to the Prime Minister? I imagine that all those who are listening to us would also like to know the answer to that question.

With all due respect to this House, I believe that before going any further we have to stop playing hide-and-seek. Everyone in this House and outside, including those who are listening today, knows that it takes money to run an election campaign. Some ceilings have been set. Now, an election campaign is said to cost $89,000 per riding, depending on its size. How are we going to fund election campaigns?

We must stop playing hide-and-seek by saying “I will get a loan from someone and forget to repay it. Since that someone really likes me, he too will forget about it”. Unfortunately, this is how election campaigns have been funded all too often in the past.

We will have to take a good look at this bill to see how it deals with this. I would like to draw members' attention to a government press release about this bill that reads in part as follows:

Only financial institutions (at commercial rates of interest) and other political entities could make loans beyond that amount. Rules for the treatment of unpaid loans would be tightened to ensure candidates cannot walk away from unpaid loans.

Loans that are not repaid after 18 months would be considered political contributions. In my opinion, this is an important point. We have to clean up politics.

Why do we politicians have such a poor image? Because too often, we conceal things from voters. We do not tell them the whole truth. We do not reveal everything about where the money for an election campaign came from. People still have this idea of the party slush fund, where someone says, “I'll give you $1,000. I expect you to do things for me, and once you're in power, I'll have an in with you and be able to get favours”. This has to stop.

I hope that this bill will help us clean up politics. The Conservatives' idea behind Bill C-54 is good. However, I hope that when the bill goes to committee, protection for whistleblowers can be added and reform of the Access to Information Act discussed.

I will start with the reform of the Access to Information Act. It is thanks to this legislation that we have all the information we have today and that journalists can obtain that information. We often hear that thanks to the Access to Information Act, information has been uncovered or obtained, or that information obtained under the Access to Information Act has revealed something. The Access to Information Act must be reformed so that it can go even further in controlling ethics.

Our good friends, the Conservatives, who boast about how they have cleaned up government, need to do their part as well. They have not done much to protect whistleblowers. When the bill goes to committee, the committee will have to find a way to strengthen that protection. People who work in departments and witness goings-on in political offices that are illicit or illegal or violate current legislation should be protected.

Whistleblowers are entitled to $1,500 for legal costs. Let us add a zero to that. One thousand five hundred dollars is not much, since there is no lawyer who will work for less than $100 an hour. This means that the person would be entitled to 15 hours. We know the whistleblowing procedures, what those who work in political offices or within a department experience, which we must respect when they decide to publicly blow the whistle or send information. They must be protected. I think this $1,500 limit for recourse must absolutely be increased. I strongly suggest that it be increased to $15,000. There would be no problem. We will see how this will be debated in committee, but I think this limit must absolutely be increased.

I hope my Conservative friends who are listening will understand that the public sector integrity commissioner must be given the power to enforce the Public Service Disclosure Protection Act. To ensure that the translation is correct, I will repeat. The public sector integrity commissioner must be given the power to enforce the Public Service Disclosure Protection Act. It is this public sector integrity commissioner who must be in charge of getting things in order and enforcing this act.

I hope my Conservative friends will understand this as well, and that the members of the committee will consider the suggestion to make it impossible for the government to exclude crown corporations and any other entity from the application of the Public Service Disclosure Protection Act. Crown corporations—VIA Rail, Air Canada or any other company under federal jurisdiction—must have access.

I will close by saying that we will be in favour of this bill, the purpose of which is to counter the misappropriation or bypassing of campaign financing rules, because it is very important. We also agree with this bill because it will fix the problem of loans, which helped bypass the political contribution restrictions.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

May 28th, 2007 / 4:05 p.m.
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Bloc

Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today on this bill and continue in somewhat the same vein as my colleague in the NDP.

In my occupation as a criminal lawyer, it is often said that the judges before whom we stand must not only be impartial but also appear impartial, free of any partisanship and able to listen to the arguments of both opposing lawyers. As we know, in the criminal law there is a crown prosecutor and a defence attorney. The court, presided over by the judge, must therefore be totally impartial.

Why do I digress in this way? Because Bill C-54 is very interesting. It recalls a bit of Quebec’s past, quite a few years ago. Without delving too deeply into history, we should remember the 1970s in Quebec. There were political parties and what was called the famous secret fund of one party.

We had a television series called Duplessis. Here we could see the hon. Donald Martineau getting a cut on all the contracts awarded by the Duplessis government. This helped to replenish the campaign funds. So anyone who wanted a government contract, therefore, had to donate to the campaign fund. The approach that the Union nationale developed in Quebec was to take its cut directly on the contracts that were awarded. We are talking here about 1945, 1950 or 1955. Unfortunately, though, this continued into the 1960s in Quebec. It was not until the Parti Québécois came to power in 1976 that a bill was introduced in 1977 under the hon. René Lévesque to clean up party finances and put an end to secret funds.

Unfortunately, secret funds still exist, or at least still existed until Bill C-2 was passed. Our friends in the Liberal Party took ample advantage of them, as did the Conservative Party. I will return to this in a minute.

What Mr. Jean Chrétien left us when he departed was a new law on party finances. It is probably the only thing that history will retain of Mr. Jean Chrétien’s presence here.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

May 28th, 2007 / 3:45 p.m.
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NDP

Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am in support of Bill C-54 and I will outline my reasons and perhaps make a couple of suggestions. I will have the opportunity to formally do that in committee but to get things rolling it is important to put some of those ideas forward in debate.

The one thing we have seen in the history of federal politics in Canada is the problem of big money influencing government, which usually results in the equation of big money plus influencing government equals corruption. We saw the Pacific scandal just after this nation was assembled. The pipeline debate certainly uncovered many problems of the association between government and money. We saw that most recently in Canada with the previous government.

One of the things we need to do is take out not only the fact that this can exist through the rules and that there will be manipulation but the perception by citizens that all of us in this place are running our campaigns fairly and cleanly, and we have not seen that. Canadians have the perception right now that there is a problem between parliamentarians and MPs who run for office and money. This bill would take away people's temptation to access loans from friends who have money to give them an advantage over those of us who do not.

Most of us observed, sadly, the most recent Liberal leadership campaign as an example. We certainly saw it with the member for Eglinton—Lawrence and others who had access to money and loans in ways that most of us would not bother trying to access. What it did was taint the whole process of how we, in the case of the leadership contest, elect leaders.

That was not the first case where this happened. We saw people, because of who they knew, accessing hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans for their leadership. The problem with that, which we have discussed in the House and in committee, is that if I receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in a loan from a friend and decide that I cannot pay it back, there is no recourse. The money is simply a loan that I did not pay back or an IOU that I did not honour.

If one were to explain that, most people would see that as simply a donation. A loan that was not paid back means money in one's pocket from someone else's pocket. That is the direct connection between how funds were raised for leadership contests and that at the end of the day the person responsible for paying back the loan really did not have to.

I recall extremely clearly that during the debate on Bill C-2, the government's accountability act, we presented an amendment because we saw that big money was influencing leadership contests. We saw that it was wrong so we introduced an amendment, which is very similar to what we have in front of us, but that is not a problem. It is something we are willing to share with the government. In fact, we have seen that happen on numerous occasions with the present government and previous governments.

However, it is passing strange that at the time the government did not see the importance of passing such an amendment to the accountability act. We had previously put forward the idea of banning union and corporate donations and thought it made infinite sense to close the loan loophole. At the time the Conservative and Liberal Parties voted against that amendment. We are happy that the government, through this bill, has seen the error of its ways and has provided us with a way to close the loan loophole.

When people have access to money, and in this case loans, there is not a lot of difference between handing that money over in a straightforward manner and doing it through a loophole. We saw this in the most recent leadership contest for the Liberal Party. It is also important to note that this has happened in the past with the Conservative Party.

It is important for us to take a look at what will happen not just in the future in terms of loans, but also to look at what has recently happened. When the Prime Minister ran for the leadership of the Conservative Party, many of us called for full disclosure of his donations. I think Canadians would like to have a gander at that. It is part of the idea of transparency.

When people donate to parties and leadership candidates, taxpayers pay money for that. It is a tax write-off. Most people will know that when a donation like that is written off, be it for the leader of the Conservative Party, or for the Liberal Party, or for the NDP, or any other party, taxpayer money is put down. Most reasonable people would say that should be transparent. Canadians should be able to see who donated money. This is extremely important when a party is nominating someone for prime minister.

I think back to not only the most recent leadership contest, but the previous leadership contest for the Liberal Party. We know there was really only one candidate and that candidate raised over $10 million. It turned out not to be a contest at all. That money did not only come out of the pocket of the leader at the time. It was also donations made on the taxpayers' dime. Why? Because of this rebate.

We have to understand that this tax credit is taxpayer money. This means that taxpayers are participating in the donation scheme. We believe leadership contests, like the last Conservative Party contest, should be transparent. We should see the full list of donors and exact numbers. Hopefully, we can agree to this in committee. The reasonable thing to do is to look at the bill not just from this point forward, but also to look at what has happened in the most recent past.

Democratic reform was one of the centrepieces in our ethics package that my predecessor, Mr. Broadbent, brought forward before the last election. We are delighted to see that the government has seen fit to take on some of those ideas. I think of the scrutiny of lobbying where there is still more to do. I think of access to information. The government has really failed on that. The government brought forward fixed election dates and we support that of course. It was something that we put forward.

Mr. Broadbent brought forward the whole issue of loans in leadership contests and loans in general. We know the member for Mississauga—Streetsville had some problems in the recent election in terms of how he declared the finances for his campaign. This bill would provide Canadians with the opportunity to have a clear and transparent view of how their dollars are being used to support candidates in the election process. That is fair, transparent and just.

Mr. Broadbent made the ethics package debatable. A number of people saw the idea as something that should have happened a long time ago. When I went door to door and talked to people about our ethics package, they were hopeful the whole thing would be adopted.

The fact that we are adopting the idea of covering the loans loophole and shutting it down will be welcomed. Canadians will want to see us go back in time, not only deal with the present and a go forward basis. They will want to see us look back to how money was spent in the most recent Liberal leadership contest, with the most recent election and with the most recent leadership contest with the Conservative Party.

This is simply to ensure, as I mentioned at the beginning of my comments, that not only are the rules fair, but that the perception by citizens of their elected members is clear and pristine, that there is no shadow of a doubt as to where people received money from and that there is 100% integrity in the system. We need to do that. Democratic reform is not only about making every vote count. We believe it is something we can achieve by bringing in proportionality to the system. We also believe there should be a full view of the donations that presently elected members received or someone who participated in a leadership contest received.

The history of election financing was mentioned by one of the Bloc members, who said that this was dealt with in the 1970s in Quebec. Premier Doer of Manitoba followed suit when that province closed all loopholes and ensured that there were no donations from both unions and corporations. That was one of the first things his government did. Manitoba, as well as other jurisdictions, also dealt with the loan issue. This is not cutting edge. We are catching up, and now is the time to do so.

Some things the government can do to further the cause of accountability, when looking at financing, is to ensure that not only will the loan loophole be closed, but ensure that the Chief Electoral Officer has some oversight as well. I think this would be welcomed, particularly in the area of leadership contests.

We only have to think of the recent leadership contests of both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party. There was no transparent view or window into the financing of those leadership contests. We know millions of dollars were raised. I have already mentioned that these dollars were raised not only by individuals, but with the support of taxpayers because of the way funds are credited when people donate.

What the government really needs to do is to ensure that not only is the loan loophole closed, but that the Chief Electoral Officer has oversight to leadership contests as well. This would be another addition that would be welcomed. I know the NDP made very clear who donated to whom. It was transparent and there were no question marks. It can be done and should be done.

For the whole notion of reaffirming confidence in federal politics, this should have been done before. The NDP tried to get an amendment through in Bill C-2.

If the government wants to become accountable with respect to loans in a genuine way, we have to ensure that it allows people the ability to run for office. I know in our party one of the things we have taken on fervently is to ensure that for people who do not have the money to run for a nomination and to run for office, we must be able to support them, people who traditionally have been on the outside of politics and unable to participate.

One thing the NDP has done, particular for women candidates, is provided them with financial support. This is not done outside the party structure. It ensures that women have financial means and it provides support when needed.

We do this because it is not enough to say that we want more women nominated and elected. We have to address where there are gaps. We know historically there has been a gap for women running in politics because of their lack of access to money. This is underlined when there are predominantly male candidates, and we saw this in the leadership contest, who have access to these loans. They have friends who can loan them hundreds of thousands of dollars.

For many women, traditionally, that has not been the case. They have been unable to access money to the degree that men have in terms of the kind of loan loophole we have seen.

We need to do more to address that. We need to see more support for people who have had challenges in terms of being nominated and elected. I think of women and people from ethnocultural communities. I think of our Inuit first nations aboriginal peoples as well. This is one facet, one idea, where the time has come to close a loophole. However, we should also address the barriers that exist for those who have challenges of being nominated. That would be the next step.

In terms of what can be done to further the cause of transparency and accountability in election financing, we need to address not only what loopholes exist, how money is raised and who can donate, but we also have to ensure that all Canadians from coast to coast to coast are aware of this. When someone donates money, part of the public purse donates. We do this because we want to make the process more fair.

The first steps were taken in the seventies in Quebec, followed by the Doer government in Manitoba. This is what we are attempting to do here. I give Mr. Chrétien the credit for starting this federally, and we supported that. However, Canadians need to know that when people donate, there is a tax credit. We need to have all the evidence and information out there, so people know what they are supporting.

For many people, the problem in confidence and perception of politics is they are not fully aware of how the system works, and I do not fault Canadians. We were not as transparent as we should have been. The loan loophole is an excellent example. It is a quiet secret, this parlour conversation that went on for years about not worrying about getting money because something could be done. I think those days are over. We have to be clean, clear and concise with Canadians about how elections are funded. When people make a donation, there is a tax credit.

I know in my campaign that was something we told people so they would donate, but other Canadians who do not donate need to know that is how the system functions. We need to do a public relations exercise to say that we have closed these loopholes and that we have come in with these changes because we want to ensure there is more confidence in the system.

We need to bring the bill forward to committee, make some of the changes the NDP are suggesting, provide Canadians with the information and ensure that absolute transparency is there. We need to look to the recent leadership contests and ensure that all leadership contestants are clear about who lent them money and that this needs to be repaid. Ordinary Canadians need to know, without a doubt, how much money was donated to which candidate and exactly from where that money came. If there were loans, not only will we close those loopholes, but we will ensure it is known who received money from whom and when in the most recent contest.

The NDP supports the bill. In fact, it was our amendment at committee. We are glad to see the government has seen the light and will shine it on the electoral system. I look for the support of the other parties to get behind it as well.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

May 28th, 2007 / 3:20 p.m.
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Bloc

Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-54, which deals with electoral democracy, one of three such bills introduced by the government.

Electoral democracy is an extremely important issue. However, I must remind members, with sadness, that this is a corrective measure. In fact, had the government listened to the opposition parties, it would not have adopted Bill C-2 with the kind of haste that shows a certain lack of professionalism. During consideration of Bill C-2, representations were made regarding various shortcomings in that bill. One of them dealt with this possible loophole whereby people were using loans to circumvent the $1,100 ceiling on political contributions by individuals and the ban on contributions to political parties or leadership candidates by corporate entities. Candidates to elected office would take out personal loans from friends, from their entourage, which was a form of indirect financing.

Bill C-54 would close that loophole by proposing four objectives that I will share with the House. The bill would put in place a uniform and transparent disclosure system for all loans to political entities, including the compulsory disclosure of loans terms and conditions, and of lenders' and guarantors' names.

Bill C-54 would prevent unions and corporate bodies, with a few exceptions, not only from making political donations according to the Accountability Act, but also from loaning money to individuals.

Third, guaranteed loans for contributions coming from an individual could not exceed $1,000, which is the limit set in the Accountability Act. There is harmonization between what can be donated to a registered political party and the amount individuals can lend to candidates and registered parties.

Fourth, only financial institutions, at commercial interest rates, and other political entities may lend more than $1,000. Rules concerning outstanding loans would be reinforced to avoid candidates escaping their obligations. Loans still outstanding after 18 months would be considered political donations. Riding associations or, where there are none, political parties themselves, would have to reimburse loans not repaid by their candidates.

The bill would correct a loophole, an omission, found in the Accountability Act. The bill on accountability gave us the opportunity to reflect on the whole question of democracy. There can be no real level playing field if there is no control over donations from political parties.

My father was a labourer and I do not have any personal wealth. I must be able to run for office and be elected without any political wealth. No one would like to live with the American model where senators, to be elected to the Congress, must invest several millions of dollars. When, for campaigning, one must have personal wealth or invest several millions of dollars, what does this mean for democracy? It means that one becomes a spokesperson for registered lobbies. Thus, lobbies fund politicians.

The House of Commons, as well as the National Assembly, must be a place where arbitration occurs. Parliamentarians, no matter their political affiliation, must never become prisoners of lobby groups. Oil companies, banks or any other lobby group cannot fund parliamentarians, because, when we have to assess a bill, we must be able to do so without any strings attached. When the price to pay in a democracy requires investing millions of dollars to ensure that we get re-elected, we are not without any strings attached. This is a nice legacy that was given to us by the former prime minister, Jean Chrétien, who followed the model established by Mr. René Lévesque. We will remember René Lévesque—what a great Quebec premier—who was strong, who inspired Jean Chrétien, at least on this issue, of course. Jean Chrétien got his inspiration from René Lévesque, who, very early in his political career, had decided to put an end to slush funds and to regulate and provide a framework for funding from corporations, lobby groups and individuals, to really stick to the notion that, in a democracy, the primary value that must guide us is equal opportunity. That is the first legislation that the Parti Québécois passed in 1976.

Of course, there are great moments in democracy, but there are also painful moments. As I was travelling from Montreal to Ottawa by train yesterday—and I am sure that my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue will agree with me—I was re-reading the proceedings from a symposium which took place at the Université du Québec à Montréal in 1992 about the democratic referendum process. We know very well that the liberal government led by Jean Chrétien literally stole the referendum from Quebeckers. The rules which should govern any democratic referendum were flouted.

As members will recall, Robert Burns, who was the Minister responsible for the Reform of Democratic Institutions in the René Lévesque government, had the Referendum Act passed. Drawing from the experience in other countries, he had first drafted a green paper and submitted it to a public consultation. There have been few referendums in Quebec and in Canada. There was a referendum on Prohibition, which was won by the yes side, and Prohibition was ended. There were also two other referendums in 1980 and in 1995. Since Pauline Marois will likely become the new leader of the Parti Québécois, a new thinking exercise is about to start among the sovereigntists, and we are quite optimistic. We believe that, in the short term, there could be a referendum on the political future of Quebec. Inviting our fellow citizens to a rendezvous with history is a great moment in democracy.

We all know that the sovereigntist movement in Quebec is deeply rooted in democracy, given that three different leaders founded political parties for Quebeckers to democratically express themselves about this great project of making Quebec a sovereign state. Who are those leaders?

There is, of course, Pierre Bourgault, who was a powerful orator, profound, a very good platform presence. There were people who even compared him to Henri Bourassa. Mr. Speaker, you will surely recall Henri Bourassa not because you knew him, but because you have certainly read his speeches. He was definitely an extremely powerful orator.

There were three sovereignist leaders who founded political parties to enable the citizens of Quebec to consider the sovereignist option. There was Pierre Bourgault, René Lévesque, of whom I spoke earlier, and the third, whom I knew somewhat more intimately because he was the leader of my political party, is none other than Lucien Bouchard.

You will recall that Lucien Bouchard was the leader of the official opposition in 1993. What a wonderful time it was in October 1993, when the voters of Quebec gave the Bloc Québécois the responsibility of serving as the official opposition. I remember that there were 54 members of our party seated at the other end of the House. We had succeeded in electing Osvaldo Nunez in the riding of Bourassa. We had won the riding of Anjou and the riding of Ahuntsic. It was the start of a great movement of national affirmation that has never been interrupted, but which has varied in intensity.

All of that leads me to say that we support Bill C-54, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act regarding limits on loans to candidates. However, I want to remind members that there have been some great moments in Canadian democracy: the legacy of Jean Chrétien limiting the contribution of individuals to $1,100 is certainly a great moment, but there have also been moments that have greatly tarnished democracy. Unfortunately, I feel I must recall that the federal Liberals did not observe the Referendum Act.

I, myself, am writing a text that I hope to see published in coming days, and which concerns some ideas for renewing the sovereigntist movement. I hope that the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue will do me the honour of reading it for I know he has a keen intellect and that he literally reads everything that comes into his hands. I have asked the Library of Parliament how much the federal government spent during the 1995 referendum. If I were to make a little survey among the many members of this House who are listening to me—and I thank them for doing so— to know how much the federal government spent illegally, because that was not accounted for either on the “Yes” side or the “No” side, what would be the answer?

Mr. Speaker, do you think they spent $5 million? That was the ceiling allowed under the Referendum Act. Do you think they spent $10 million or even $15 million? Well, they spent $31 million: $16 million during the referendum campaign and $12 million on promoting Canadian unity. Obviously they have the right to be federalists. Remember what Lucien Bouchard said at the Dorval airport the day after the referendum was lost to the yes side in 1995. He said that no is no, but when the day comes that it is yes, it will be yes.

The sad part about the example I am giving you of this anti-democratic bungle, this shameful behaviour by the federal Liberals by which they did not respect Quebec's referendum legislation, is that they invested heavily in propaganda and these expenses were not accounted for. They achieved this in a number of ways. How can we forget Chuck Guité. I even wonder if the name “Chuck Guité” is parliamentary since there is so much disgrace associated with his name. If ever this name becomes synonymous with disgust and becomes unparliamentary, do let me know, Mr. Speaker.

Chuck Guité was the one who broke every accounting rule imaginable and who rented every available billboard in Quebec. At the time the Clerk of the Privy Council told Prime Minister Jean Chrétien that he could not allow the national unity reserve to go unchecked.

All that to say that among the unfortunate experiences of anti-democratic bungles, there was the non respect of the 1995 referendum when three major misdeeds and abuses of democracy occurred.

First, Chuck Guité rented billboards. Then, the investigations indicate that the electoral body was unduly and artificially inflated by allowing people to vote who, if normal administrative channels had been followed, would not have had the right to vote. People were naturalized, of course. The problem is not that they were naturalized—we want to allow everyone to exercise their right to vote—but that normal administrative channels were not followed.

The Referendum Act has great democratic value.

We had the yes side and the no side. The government informed the National Assembly of the question to be debated for 35 hours. The president of the National Assembly apportioned the speaking time among the parties, the time allocated to the government and to the opposition being proportionate to the number of seats held by each.

At the time, Rodrigue Biron from the Union nationale sat at the National Assembly, as did socreds, although they were no longer called that, and their leader was Fabien Roy. The debate went on for 35 hours.

While the government has the prerogative to announce the question to be voted on at the time of a referendum, it is not allowed to spend more than those opposing its option. There lies the strength of Quebec's referendum democracy.

The yes side and the no side had equal opportunities. Both sides could speak at the National Assembly, and the public funding available to them was distributed fairly.

I am having a hard time getting over this stolen referendum in 1995. It eventually led to the sponsorship scandal. As we know, the Liberals in Quebec were all but decimated. I think there are more Bengal tigers at the Biodome, in my neighbourhood, than there are Liberals in Quebec. This goes to show the magnitude of public chastisement. It does not take anything away from the merit of the individuals involved, but it means that, next time the National Assembly decides to hold a referendum, the rules of the game will have to be adhered to.

In this Parliament, we have three bills in support of referendum democracy: one—Bill C-54—concerns loans to individuals; another concerns the selection of senators at the other place; and yet another, which we in the Bloc Québécois also support, concerns fixed election dates, something that already exists in a number of provinces. That shields us from all the scenarios of partisan vagaries, where the Prime Minister tends to call an election when his party is ahead in the polls.

I will conclude on that and I will gladly answer any questions.

May 17th, 2007 / 4:40 p.m.
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Elaine Feldman Vice-Chair, Canadian International Trade Tribunal

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee.

My name's Elaine Feldman, and as you said, I'm the vice-chair of the Canadian International Trade Tribunal. On my left is Reagan Walker, who is the tribunal's general counsel; and on my right, Randy Heggart, who's the director of procurement review at the tribunal.

Let me start today by giving you a brief overview of our mandate.

The tribunal's an administrative tribunal, operating within Canada's trade remedies system. We are an independent, quasi-judicial body that carries out its statutory responsibilities in an autonomous and impartial manner and reports annually to Parliament through the Minister of Finance.

The tribunal hears cases on dumped and subsidized imports, safeguard complaints, and appeals from customs and excise tax rulings. When requested by the federal government, the tribunal also provides advice on other economic, trade, and tariff matters. The tribunal also hears complaints about federal government procurement. I'm appearing today to discuss that aspect of our mandate with you.

Bid challenge began in Canada on January 1, 1989, with the coming into force of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. At that time, it was handled by the Procurement Review Board. The United States has had a similar mechanism in place since the 1930s.

The bid challenge portions of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Agreement on Internal Trade, what we call the AIT, and the World Trade Organization Agreement on Government Procurement, the AGP, came into force on January 1, 1994, July 1, 1995, and January 1, 1996, respectively. The government mandated the tribunal as its reviewing body for bid challenges under these agreements.

I have provided to the committee a briefing document on the provisions and coverage of the three trade agreements, and now I will provide a quick summary of the key objectives and provisions of these agreements.

Generally stated, the objective of procurement review in Canada is to ensure that procurements covered by the trade agreements are conducted in an open, fair, and transparent manner, and, whenever possible, in a way that maximizes competition.

As a party to NAFTA and the AGP, Canada has agreed to provide suppliers from the other countries that are parties to this agreement with an equal opportunity to compete with Canadian suppliers for contracts involving specified classes of goods and services, including construction services bought by certain government departments, agencies, and enterprises, such as crown corporations.

The signatory countries have reciprocated by opening up their government procurement opportunities to Canadian business. These agreements guarantee national treatment and non-discrimination for goods and services originating in Canada, as well as to the suppliers of such goods and services.

Some notable exceptions to the coverage of these agreements are communication services, transportation and relocation services, shipbuilding and repair, and goods and services related to military operations, such as armaments and vehicles. The agreements also allow exemptions for reasons of national security and for small and minority businesses.

As a party to the AIT, the federal government has agreed to provide all Canadian suppliers with equal access to procurement opportunities involving most goods and services, including construction services, in the government departments and agencies and crown corporations listed in the AIT.

The AIT prohibits the federal government from discriminating against goods or services of a particular province or region and the suppliers of such goods or services and those of any other province or region. The AIT imposes constraints on procurement procedures aimed at promoting equal access to procurement for all Canadian suppliers.

Although most federal government procurements with a value of over $25,000 are covered by the AIT, notable exceptions are advertising and public relations services, health services, and social services.

The AIT contains exemptions for national security, for measures with respect to aboriginal peoples, and for measures that are part of a general framework of regional economic development. The AIT also allows preferences for Canadian goods and suppliers and for Canadian value added, as long as those are consistent with Canada’s international obligations.

I would now like to talk briefly about how the procurement review process is carried out at the tribunal.

Suppliers may challenge federal government procurement decisions that they believe have not been made in accordance with the requirements of NAFTA, the AIT, or the AGP.

Potential suppliers who believe they have been unfairly treated during the solicitation or evaluation of bids or in the awarding of contracts on a designated procurement may lodge a formal complaint with the tribunal.

A potential supplier is encouraged to attempt to resolve the issue first with the government institution responsible for the procurement.

If this process is not successful or a supplier wishes to deal directly with the tribunal, the supplier may ask the tribunal to consider the case by filing a complaint.

When the tribunal receives a complaint, it reviews the submissions against certain criteria. If the tribunal decides to conduct an inquiry, the government institution is sent a formal notification and a copy of the complaint itself. An official notice of the complaint is also published in MERX and in the Canada Gazette.

If the contract in question has not been awarded, the tribunal may order the government institution to postpone awarding it pending the disposition of the complaint.

After receipt of its copy of the complaint, the government institution responsible for the procurement files a response. The complainant and any intervenor are sent a copy of the response and then have the opportunity to submit comments. Any comments are forwarded to the government institution and other parties to the inquiry.

Once this phase of the inquiry is completed, the tribunal reviews the information on the record so far and decides whether a public hearing is necessary or whether the case can be decided on the basis of the information on the record. Generally, cases are decided without a public hearing.

The tribunal then determines whether the complaint is valid. If the complaint is found to be valid, the tribunal may make recommendations to the government institution, such as to re-tender, to re-evaluate, or to provide compensation.

The government institution, as well as all other parties and interested persons, is notified of the tribunal’s decision.

Recommendations made by the tribunal in its determination are by statute to be implemented to the greatest extent possible.

The tribunal will ordinarily award reasonable costs to the complainant or the government institution, depending upon which one is successful the case.

In the last five years, the tribunal has received 330 procurement complaints. Consider that during the same time period there were more than 100,000 contracts for goods and services above $25,000 issued by Public Works and Government Services Canada alone. Although the complaints represent only a small percentage of the procurements performed by the federal government, their small numbers belie a significant impact on the integrity of government procurement through the disciplinary and instructional effects of complaints found valid.

Of those 330 complaints, 315, or more than 95%, were filed by Canadian suppliers. As you can see, the procurement review mechanism at the tribunal has primarily become a vehicle for Canadian business to address its concerns with the way some government procurements have been conducted.

With 18 years of procurement review experience in Canada behind us, it is important to emphasize some key lessons.

Truly competitive procurement processes require open bidding, clear procedures, and transparent criteria for selection.

Such a process enhances the integrity of the procurement system in Canada, invigorates the delivery of government services, and translates into savings for the taxpayer.

One of the intended purposes of the Federal Accountability Act is to ensure that the bidding process for government contracts remains fair, open, and transparent. Along the same lines, the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement and its successor, NAFTA, required that Canada adopt and maintain bid challenge procedures for procurement in order to promote fair, open, and impartial procurement procedures. The formal process of procurement review at the tribunal allows Canada to meet these obligations, as well as similar ones under the AIT and the AGP.

Before opening the floor for questions, it is important to set out the areas within which I am able to answer questions. I am speaking today in my capacity as vice-chair of the tribunal. Our mandate is to ensure that federal government procurements respect the obligations set out in our domestic and international trade agreements. I am thus able to answer questions on the provisions of the trade agreements and on the tribunal's procurement review process.

As an adjudicator, however, I am not at liberty to speak to individual cases. Moreover, I must stress that the tribunal administers these provisions of the trade agreements but has no policy responsibility with respect to the trade agreements. I am therefore unable to speak to government policy.

Mr. Chair, I would now be pleased to answer any questions you and your colleagues may have.

May 17th, 2007 / 3:45 p.m.
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Rob Walsh Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons

Mr. Chairman, I have with me Ms. Melanie Mortensen, legal parliamentary counsel, from my office. She was with me on May 10, 2007, when we appeared in front of the subcommittee.

This document basically summarizes the presentation we made on May 10. I don't propose to take up the committee's time going through it in any detail, but suffice it to say, the first part deals with Bill C-2.

I appreciate that members of the committee are only just seeing the document now. We put it together as quickly as we could in the time available since the last meeting.

The first part deals with the Bill C-2 problems. Basically what we're saying there is, as we said on May 10, subsection 6(2), in our view, ought to be removed and subsection 64(2) modified, and section 21 removed and section 30 amended. Section 13 of the members' code, in my view, is sufficient for the purposes of section 21.

Again, the idea behind all of that, as I said last time, was to separate the supervision and the control of discipline of members from that of public office holders, in particular members and parliamentary secretaries, the latter group being subject to the Prime Minister's code, now the Conflict of Interest Act when that comes into effect. Members of Parliament, in my view, should be governed by the members' code, which is attached to the Standing Orders of the House, and that is in keeping with the constitutional separation of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

The next part of the paper deals with trusts—in particular, section 99 of the Federal Accountability Act. Again, I don't propose to go through that. It's very straightforward in terms of what it proposes—again, the same idea that members of Parliament, with regard to trusts, should be governed by the members' code as opposed to provisions of the Parliament of Canada Act. However, if the purpose of the trust restrictions is electoral in nature, then perhaps these provisions could be statutory, but in the Canada Elections Act as opposed to the Parliament of Canada Act.

Right now, they're being proposed for the Parliament of Canada Act, and we simply feel that, as statutory provisions, that's the wrong place for them. If they must be statutory with respect to members of Parliament and if the electoral aspect is what the object is here, the mischief being sought to cure, then the Canada Elections Act would be the place for that.

If, on the other hand, that isn't the objective, but simply because trusts present potential conflicts because of the benefits they offer to members, ostensibly, then it should be something dealt with under the members' code.

The third part then deals directly with the conflict of interest code. You may recall that at the previous meeting of the subcommittee Ms. Mortensen took the subcommittee through various provisions of the code that we felt warranted attention. We have simply reiterated those in the pages that follow. In the interest of time, I won't go through them again in any detail, but certainly they're available to the committee and to the staff to review with reference to any eventual report the committee may choose to make.

That would be all I would say at this point by way of a presentation.

May 17th, 2007 / 9:40 a.m.
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Conservative

Daniel Petit Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC

The sponsorship scandal made a lot of noise in my province and in that of Mr. Ménard and Mr. Lemay, who are specialists in this field.

Do you think that the Director of Public Prosecutions will be sufficiently independent from the government? I participated in the study on Bill C-2 and I think he will be. However, I would like to know whether or not the Director of Public Prosecutions will be sufficiently independent from political parties in power in order to pursue issues that the public does not like. In addition, do you have the financial resources required to do this?

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

May 11th, 2007 / 10:50 a.m.
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Bloc

Pauline Picard Bloc Drummond, QC

Mr. Speaker, in response to the question by the hon. member from the Liberal Party, I would say I agree that this should be made retroactive. I have denounced the fact that the governments, whether Liberal or Conservative, try to be squeaky clean during the election campaign, but once in power the same thing always happens.

The Bloc Québécois is in favour of Bill C-54 because it will put an end to certain practices, which will allow greater transparency. What I have denounced are the flaws in the accountability act, Bill C-2. There are major shortcomings that need to be corrected.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

May 11th, 2007 / 10:25 a.m.
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Bloc

Pauline Picard Bloc Drummond, QC

It is my pleasure to speak on behalf of the Bloc Québécois about Bill C-54, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (accountability with respect to loans). Basically, this bill seeks to prevent individuals from bypassing campaign financing rules. Naturally, the Bloc Québécois will support it.

The bill would also correct another problem with the government accountability act, also known as Bill C-2. Why another problem? Because unfortunately, during the study of Bill C-2, it became clear that the Conservative government was more interested in passing the bill quickly than in really fixing ethical problems, even though it presented the bill as its key piece of legislation to clean up campaign financing and governance. Sadly, the hasty treatment made for a very incomplete key piece of legislation.

At the time, the opposition parties, the media and Democracy Watch pointed the problem out, but the government refused to act. As a result, there were huge gaps in terms of ethics, and now we have to fill those gaps. For example, it provides little protection for whistleblowers and does nothing to improve the Access to Information Act. I will come back to that later on.

Bill C-54 will fix the problem of loans that allowed individuals to bypass political contribution restrictions. When the Conservatives introduced the bill, they pointed out that during the most recent Liberal leadership race, several candidates had taken out big loans to bypass financing restrictions. It may be that several Liberal candidates did this, but let us not forget that the Prime Minister himself has not disclosed all of the contributions he received during the 2002 leadership race.

By way of explanation, I would like to remind the members that Bill C-2, which addresses government accountability, introduced new restrictions on campaign contributions, limiting any individual's annual contribution to a registered party or candidate to $1,100. Furthermore, Bill C-2 reduced the amount a union or business could contribute annually to a registered party or candidate to $0. Basically, contributions from unions and businesses are no longer allowed.

Unfortunately, it was still possible to circumvent these restrictions by taking out personal loans. As I have already mentioned, we saw this when several candidates in the recent Liberal Party of Canada leadership race took out sizeable loans from individuals and financial institutions. La Presse even reported the amounts of the loans, which totalled hundreds of thousands of dollars, obtained by the current leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, the current deputy leader of the party, and by Bob Rae and Gerard Kennedy. I would like to remind the House of those amounts. Bob Rae, who was defeated by the current leader of the official opposition, owes $580,000 to John Rae, the vice-president of Power Corporation. The current leader of the opposition borrowed $430,000. The current deputy leader of the Liberal Party borrowed $170,000, and Gerard Kennedy borrowed $201,000.

The subterfuge of using loans gave candidates access to enormous sums of money. This bill would correct such issues. As I was saying earlier, however, the accountability act fails to address a number of ethical problems. For example, the whistleblower protection issue has not been resolved. Several Conservative election promises concerning whistleblower protection did not make their way into the Accountability Act. As we all know, during the January 2006 election, the Conservatives made a number of election promises regarding this issue.

First of all, they wanted to ensure that whistleblowers would have access to adequate legal counsel. However, former Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act, imposes a $1,500 limit on legal costs, which is incredibly low. Thus, under the Conservative government, whistleblowers must be able to pay for their own legal counsel if they want to disclose wrongdoing.

Second, they wanted to give the public sector integrity commissioner the power to enforce the whistleblower legislation. This was not in the bill.

They wanted to guarantee protection to anyone who reports wrongdoing within the government, not just to public servants. This is not in the Federal Accountability Act.

They wanted to take away the government's ability to exempt crown corporations and other entities from the application of the whistleblower legislation. This is not in the accountability act either.

Another problem that the Federal Accountability Act has not solved is the reform of the Access to Information Act.

On April 5, 2005, the Liberal government released a discussion paper on reforming access to information. This document met with general criticism, even from the Conservatives. In addition to doubling the minimum administrative fees charged to the public, the proposal by the former Liberal Prime Minister, the member for LaSalle—Émard, maintained all the exceptions provided for in the legislation.

In fact, in 13 years, the Liberal Party never managed to introduce a valid reform of the Access to Information Act. For its part, the Conservative Party promised during the election campaign to reform the Access to Information Act. To quote the Conservatives' election platform, “A Conservative government will implement the Information Commissioner's recommendations for reform of the Access to Information Act”.

We are still waiting for this reform. When will the government decide to carry out this reform, as promised?

The truth is that now that they are in power, the Conservatives, like the Liberals before them, are in less of a hurry to reform this legislation. Moreover, the Information Commissioner recently noted that this is a general trend. He said, “The reason that action, not more study, is required is that governments continue to distrust and resist the Access to Information Act and the oversight of the Information Commissioner”.

Despite the shortcomings of former Bill C-2 on accountability, Bill C-54, which is before us today, proposes four types of changes.

First, the bill establishes a system of uniform, transparent reports on all loans to political entities and provides for mandatory disclosure of the terms of those loans and the identity of the lenders and guarantors.

Second, the bill would prohibit unions and corporations not only from making contributions, in accordance with the Federal Accountability Act, but also from lending money.

Moreover, loans, loan guarantees and contributions from individuals could not exceed the limit set out in the Federal Accountability Act, which is $1,100 for 2007.

Lastly, only financial institutions, at market interest rates, or other political entities would be able to lend money exceeding that amount. The rules for unpaid loans would be tightened so that candidates could not default on their obligations. Riding associations would be held responsible for their candidate's unpaid loan.

Despite this bill, which we are in favour of, in a few short months the Conservative party has built up a track record that shows a lack of political will to obey the rules and put an end to the culture of entitlement.

Denouncing the sponsorship scandal that took place when the Liberal Party was in power, Mr. Justice Gomery said that it was time to do away with the mentality behind the culture of entitlement and the attitude people in government have that they can do anything they want and are accountable to no one. This is not how things should be. This is certainly not what Quebeckers and Canadians want. To avoid this attitude, there must be open and transparent management of public funds and taxpayers' money. The Conservatives have unfortunately not set a good example.

In December 2006, the Conservative Party admitted that it had failed to disclose the receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Chief Electoral Officer. The money was registration fees collected from Conservative delegates attending the Conservative Party's May 2005 convention. The report said that in being forced to treat convention registration fees as donations, the Conservative Party discovered that three delegates, including the Prime Minister, had exceeded their annual contribution limits of $5,400. The Conservative Party was forced to reimburse $456 to the Prime Minister and to two other delegates.

Here is another example: a closer look makes it clear that this government is being influenced. The Prime Minister, when in opposition, reprimanded the Liberals for the comings and goings between political offices and lobbying firms. Yet, since taking power he has appointed a former lobbyist as the head of National Defence. This party denounced the lobbyist culture associated with the running of the Liberal Party. At that time we agreed with our Conservative colleagues. You could say that power changes political parties and makes anything possible.

We can see what the appointment of a lobbyist has done to National Defence. We can see that the Prime Minister now has a serious credibility problem with regard to his lobbyist minister. It is true that this appointment has paid off for companies that sell military equipment. We believe that the Minister of National Defence should have considered the taxpayers, who clearly want more humanitarian action than war.

The Prime Minister did not stop there with his partisan appointments. He also appointed Sandra Buckler as his director of communications. We should remember that the Conservative government decided to maintain the contract with Royal Lepage relocation services, in spite of a devastating report by the Auditor General. In 2005, this company hired Ms. Buckler to meet with the members of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, which had serious doubts about the spending of public money by Royal LePage and which was examining the possibility of referring this matter to the Auditor General. It is likely that Ms. Buckler was not paid by Royal LePage to convince the members to refer the matter to the Auditor General. In this case, whose interests came first, Ms. Buckler's or the taxpayers'? To compensate her, the Prime Minister appointed her director of communications of his cabinet.

In April 2006, the Prime Minister tried to appoint Gwyn Morgan, a Conservative Party fundraiser, to the position of chairman of the new public appointments commission. This appointment was blocked by a parliamentary committee dominated by opposition members.

I have another example of how this government is maintaining the culture of entitlement. It awards contracts to Conservative friends. This government awarded a communications contract to Marie-Josée Lapointe, a former member of the Prime Minister's transition team. This contract goes against the spirit of the accountability act, former Bill C-2, since political staff are not allowed to receive contracts from the government in place for 12 months after they have left. The contract was cancelled half way through.

This government also uses public funds for partisan purposes.

In March 2006, the Conservative government awarded an $85,000 contract to gauge public support for the Conservative Party's five electoral priorities. In July 2006, the Conservative Party awarded a contract to Strategic Counsel in order to poll public opinion on various political issues. The very partisan report identified the environment as a very important issue for the government's re-election. It should be noted that Strategic Counsel is run by Allan Gregg, who was the Conservative Party's official pollster under Brian Mulroney and Kim Campbell.

What is more, the Prime Minister has made dozens of partisan appointments within the machinery of government. When the Conservatives were in opposition they denounced such practices. Now that they are in power, why are they doing the exact same thing? Do they believe it is their turn to do whatever they want? The Conservative Party should be accountable to the public for its actions.

In closing, I want to reiterate that the Bloc Québécois is in favour of Bill C-54, but it finds it regrettable that the other problems I have just mentioned have not been resolved by the Conservative government.

Taxpayers deserve to have a government that is above reproach. Neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives have lived up to these expectations. That is why most people in Quebec vote for the Bloc Québécois. Our party is the only one that is not negatively influenced by power. Our only goal is to defend the interests of Quebeckers and they realize that. They can be assured of our full commitment to that goal.

When all the parties represented in this House understand the importance of integrity and transparency, our democracy will only get better. Quebec and Canadian taxpayers deserve that; let us govern accordingly.