Bill C-2 (Historical)

Federal Accountability Act

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

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

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Madam Speaker, there were numerous protections that we brought forward in the previous Conservative administration, starting with the Federal Accountability Act, which created opportunities for various officers of Parliament. We would not even know some of these things if it were not for the hard work done through the Federal Accountability Act. It was the first piece of legislation that Stephen Harper brought forward, Bill C-2, back in 2006, if my memory serves me correctly.

Part of that work was strengthening protections for whistle-blowers. I think there is even more that we could do now because there is a culture of secrecy and fear in the government. In some cases, I hear these things. We need to make sure that people feel not only encouraged to, but also secure in coming forward with information of wrongdoing in the Government of Canada. We should not have a culture of secrecy.

The Prime Minister spoke of “sunny ways”, “transparency” and sunlight, but we have seen everything but in the last number of years from the government with the amount of money it has spent and the money that has gone out the door. We do not even know about some of the hundreds of millions and billions of dollars that were spent during COVID. There is no traceability or accountability with respect to that.

We need to strengthen whistle-blower protections. I thank the whistle-blowers. If the Prime Minister is not going to listen to the whistle-blowers, maybe he should listen to Canadians. I am sure they are ready to pass judgment on his performance.

Witness Responses at Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, in response to my question, the member indicated that Stephen Harper first brought in the Federal Accountability Act, Bill C-2, and he was very proud of that fact.

A couple of years later, the current leader of the Conservative Party, then the parliamentary secretary to the president of the Treasury Board, was at least in part responsible for a $400-million scandal known as the ETS scandal. Members can look it up and see that it is true. I am wondering if he would reflect on that and say that the leader of the Conservative Party made a big mistake back then.

I am wondering if the member would agree that we should be focusing, contrary to what I just finished saying, a little more on the bar question, and that it is a good thing.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, if we are going to go back nearly 18 years in history, let us remember the very first action of the former Conservative government.

Bill C-2, the very first bill introduced by the Conservative government in 2006, was the Federal Accountability Act, an act that directly came as a result of the Liberal sponsorship scandal of the previous Liberal government.

That is the action the former government took to root out corruption and third parties getting rich off of government contracts. We will take no lessons from the Liberals on actions to root out corruption because the first thing the former Conservative government did when it came into power was to put in place the Federal Accountability Act, something that the previous Liberal government failed to do.

Justice and Human Rights

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am so glad I was able to catch your eye this late in the evening to rise to speak about this concurrence report.

What I wanted to do in my initial comments was to mention that I co-seconded the amendment. I know members are probably tired from this later-evening sitting so I will not add too much to the debate. I know a lot has been said on our side already about the wisdom of returning this to committee in order to confirm the independence and autonomy of the director of public prosecutions, as well the appointment to that position of Kathleen Roussel, who made the right decision in the case of the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, which was confirmed at the time by the former attorney general.

I will mention as well that the law that created the position goes all the way back to 2006, which was Bill C-2. It was created by the Federal Accountability Act. There is a reason we know who lobbies who in this place. It is because the Lobbying Commissioner and the registry were created by that very act as well. The Ethics Commissioner was also created by that act.

Actually, a lot of the accountability mechanisms that now exist in this place, which parliamentarians take advantage of to better understand their responsibilities toward Parliament and the people of Canada, were created in Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act, which was passed at the time by a Conservative minority government. It was able to work across the way with the other side for the betterment of the people of Canada, who, after the sponsorship scandal, were demanding greater ethics and accountability from parliamentarians and elected officials.

At the time, that scandal led to the creation of an independent director of public prosecutions whose decisions were to be confirmed by the Attorney General. The Attorney General would not be able to overturn a criminal prosecution and take over a case without gazetting it. I remember being a staff member working for a backbench Conservative member of Parliament at the time. The thinking at the time was that nobody would go through the trouble of trying to overturn a decision by a prosecutor who had decided not to offer a certain deal to the defence and that this would now end all political and criminal interference in public prosecutions.

Little did we know that 12 years later it would in fact happen. It would cost the political futures of two now former cabinet ministers, now former members of the Liberal caucus, and other members who have since then quit sitting on that side. Who can really blame them with everything that has been going on?

I love Yiddish proverbs so I want to share one that applies here: “Before you utter a word you are the master; afterwards you are a fool.”

From statements that have been made publicly from September, October and November to then January and February, we can see the inconsistency of the story on the side of the Liberal government. At first, the Prime Minister said that he knew nothing. In a press conference, he said that what was being reported by The Globe and Mail was absolutely untrue. This was not any digging around that the Conservatives were doing. It was in fact journalists who heard the story, corroborated it and then reported it. At the time, the Prime Minister said that it was absolutely false and there was no truth to it. We know now that statement is completely inaccurate. There is absolutely no basis to have said any of it. We know this now because the independent caucus continues to grow quickly, with former Liberal caucus members now being punted to this side of the House because they are standing up for truth.

There is a deep betrayal of justice on that side of the House in basically shooting the messenger. They have broken trust with Canadians and this is what the amendment to the concurrence report is trying to re-establish by reconfirming the independence and autonomy of the director of public prosecutions. We, on this side of the House, have faith in her work. We know that she can do the job. She made the decision, which was then confirmed by the former attorney general 12 days later. A decision was confirmed and she stuck to her guns. She decided it was the right thing to do.

I hear so much chirping from the other side of the House because they are all looking at the same polls that we are. They are looking at the opinions of Canadians, who are telling pollsters and telling us on Twitter, Instagram and social media that they are tired of this.

Canadians were sold a bill of goods back in 2015. They were told there was going to be real change, a new way of governing the country. In fact, that is completely untrue. It has gone back to the good old days of 2002-2003 and the sponsorship scandal of the 1990s that led to one of the deepest crises in our democracy at that time, which led to the Federal Accountability Act being passed in this place, requiring greater accountability and ethics from our parliamentarians, something that is sorely lacking on that side of the House.

I am pleased to be rising to speak to this matter. I am pleased to be providing my support to this measure by co-seconding the amendment to send this back to committee and to ensure we stand with those parliamentarians who have been punished by their leadership for standing up for the truth and doing the right thing. It is better to put country before party. It is better to stand up for the truth, wherever that leads us.

I just want to remind members again of this Yiddish proverb: “Before you utter a word you are the master; afterwards you’re a fool.” I hope the government sees the light on this, tells the truth, comes clean with Canadians and sends this report back to committee so it can again confirm the independence and autonomy of the director of public prosecutions.

Canada Elections Act

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House. It is particularly an honour to rise on a Friday afternoon, when so many of my friends and colleagues have joined us in the House today to listen to my speech. It is always a great honour to have so many people tuning in.

It reminds me a bit of when I was a lecturer at King's University College at the Western University when so many people would turn up for my lectures on Canadian public administration. They were always hanging on every word, until I had to wake them up, and then realized they may not have been paying as much attention as I had thought.

However, it is a pleasure to speak today to Bill C-50. As a member of the procedure and House affairs committee, I am well-acquainted with the legislation, having heard from a number of witnesses and participated in the examination of this bill.

Bill C-50 is really about legitimizing the Liberal cash for access events. So often the Liberals try to tell Canadians that they are different, that they are not like those Liberals of the past anymore. The days of the sponsorship scandal and the Gomery commission, that is not them anymore. Those days are gone. The days of being entitled to their entitlements, those days are gone, as this is a different Liberal Party. The Prime Minister told Canadians, hand over heart, that the Liberal Party was different.

The Prime Minister, when he came to office, told Canadians:

There should be no preferential access to government, or appearance of preferential access, accorded to individuals or organizations because they have made financial contributions to politicians and political parties

However, shortly after the government was elected, that is exactly what happened. We saw a string of cash for access events. High-profile Liberal politicians hosted events where donors gave significant amounts of money to the Liberal Party. In exchange, these donors got private one-on-one access with senior Liberal ministers, senior Liberals ministers who many of those donors could potentially have business with the government and could potentially have business with these same ministers. Most Canadians know this is wrong. Most Canadians know that this is not an appropriate way for ministers of the crown, those who serve our country to operate. However, with the Liberals, old habits die hard.

We should not be too surprised when the Liberals formed government that these types of cash for access events would happen. After all, the Liberals learned from the best. The Ottawa Liberals learned from their Ontario counterparts. The Ottawa Liberals learned from Kathleen Wynne, Dalton McGuinty, and their great success with fundraising through cash for access events.

I want to quote from a Globe and Mail article of July 6, 2016. The title is, “An inside look at cash-for-access Ontario Liberal fundraisers”. The article reads:

On the evening of March 2, 2015, Premier Kathleen Wynne gathered with eight guests who paid $10,000 each for exclusive face-time. Three months earlier, 22 donors spent $5,000 apiece to be entertained by Finance Minister Charles Sousa. Days later, eight people shelled out $5,000 each to attend a reception with then-energy minister Bob Chiarelli.

These were just three of more than 150 intimate cash-for-access fundraisers the Ontario Liberal Party held in Ms. Wynne's first three years in power. At the events, contributors paid thousands of dollars each to bend the ears of the Premier and members of her cabinet privately, typically over cocktails and dinner at five-star hotels or high-end restaurants.

Therefore, the Ottawa Liberals had a great road map from their friends in Ontario.

What happened once the Liberals formed government? They quickly started implementing cash for access events.

Chinese billionaires have been attending Liberal fundraisers, even though they are not allowed to donate because they are not Canadian citizens. One of these individuals, Zhang Bin, who is also a Communist Party apparatchik, attended a May 19, 2016, fundraiser at the Toronto home of Chinese Business Chamber of Canada chairperson Benson Wong, according to the report in The Globe and Mail. A few weeks later, Mr. Zhang and a business partner donated $200,000 to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, and $50,000 to build a statue of the current Prime Minister's father.

On November 7, 2016, B.C. multi-millionaire Miaofei Pan hosted a fundraiser at his West Vancouver mansion. At this event, which was of course a pay-to-play event, Chinese investment, seniors care, and real estate developments were certainly topics of discussion. This event took place while the federal government was reviewing a $1 billion bid by China's Anbang Insurance Group to buy one of British Columbia's largest retirement and nursing home chains.

In Toronto, another example of cash for access was an event with the justice minister that had a $1,500 paycheque. This was again an event with a minister who could potentially be having dealings with these same donors.

When the Liberal Party promised real change, this was certainly not what Canadians were expecting. Canadians know this is wrong. Canadians know this type of cash for access event is not right. In fact, a 2016 Nanos Research survey showed that more than six in 10 Canadians disapprove of this type of event. They disapprove of political parties holding fundraising events in which access is sold to Canadians.

One has to wonder why the Liberals are so eager to raise money through cash for access events. One reason is that they are failing to raise money through other means. Time and again we see the Conservative Party raising more than the Liberal Party. Why does the Conservative Party raise more than the Liberals? It does so because of hard-working Canadians who feel the Conservative Party reflects their views. It does so because the Conservatives have a leader who is committed to Canadians, average Canadians, and not selling access, as our friends across the way have been doing since the beginning of their time in office.

Let us go back to what this bill is trying to do. It is trying to legitimize what the Liberals have been doing. Rather than simply stopping cash for access, they would rather print new rules just to legitimize what they are doing. However, they did not have to. They already have rules in place in their mandate letters and in the “Open and Accountable Government” document.

I will quote from the Minister of Democratic Institutions' mandate letter, but the words are reflected in all the mandate letters of ministers. The Prime Minister wrote the following to his Minister of Democratic Institutions:

...you must uphold the highest standards of honesty and impartiality, and both the performance of your official duties and the arrangement of your private affairs should bear the closest public scrutiny. This is an obligation that is not fully discharged by simply acting within the law.

The Prime Minister's own letter to his ministers clearly dictates that simply following the letter of the law is not enough. They have to appear to be fully above board. This was not happening with the Liberals' cash for access fundraisers, so they brought in this piece of legislation to try to legitimize them.

The Liberal government introduced its “Open and Accountable Government” document with great fanfare. This would be the road map for a new era of transparency for these Liberals. The opening clearly states, “Open and Accountable Government sets out core principles regarding the roles and responsibilities of Ministers in Canada’s system of responsible parliamentary government.”

What are some of those requirements? What are some of those issues ministers and parliamentary secretaries ought to follow? Annex B, “Fundraising and Dealing with Lobbyists: Best Practices for Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries”, states:

Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries must avoid conflict of interest, the appearance of conflict of interest and situations that have the potential to involve conflicts of interest.

The best practices the Prime Minister lays out were not followed by his Liberals. They were not followed by his ministers, who felt the need to raise $1,500 from donors who could have direct dealings with not only the government as whole but also with its individual departments. Under “General Principles” in annex B, it states:

Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries must ensure that political fundraising activities or considerations do not affect, or appear to affect, the exercise of their official duties or the access of individuals or organizations to government.

It is not only following the letter of the law. It is the appearance. It is ensuring that all actions are above board and are able to have the closest degree of scrutiny to ensure that those who serve as ministers of the crown, those who serve our country in high office, are not tainted by even the appearance of conflict of interest.

I am reminded of a former minister in the Harper Conservative government. Once she became aware that there was a potential that those who lobbied and who worked with her department could be attending a fundraiser hosted by her riding association, that event was cancelled and all funds raised were immediately returned. Then we fast-forward to this government. Not only is the money not being returned, but the Liberals are doubling down on these events and they have introduced Bill C-50 to do so.

This bill has had great fanfare from pretty much only the Liberal Party. In testimony before the committee, almost all witnesses were very lukewarm in their excitement about this piece of legislation. They were very lukewarm in their response to an underwhelming bill being brought forward. It could be because this bill really does not do much at all.

In fact, the media knows this. Despite the advertising of these events, the way the media is actually treated at the events is far from ideal.

Let me read from an article in The Hill Times from June 21, 2017:

A Hill journalist is calling into question the Liberal Party’s promise to make its fundraising events more open and transparent, after party staff restricted media access at a June 19 Ottawa event for the party’s top donors.

Sure, the media can know about the events. They can even show up, as long as they stay in the corner and do not talk to anyone. The report goes on to state:

Reporters were ushered into one room for an RCMP sweep prior to speeches. They were told they were not allowed to mingle, but could talk to guests registering and entering the event in the foyer of the museum.

Even a Liberal Party candidate expressed concern about how the Liberals were treating journalists:

Allan Thompson, a journalism professor at Carleton University who ran for the Liberals in the riding of Huron–Bruce, Ont. during the 2015 election and attended Monday’s event, said in an interview afterward that he had sympathy for the reporters who weren’t allowed to mingle, especially because of his background as a former Hill reporter with The Toronto Star.

It is one thing to try to legitimize cash for access. It is another thing to blatantly use this as a ploy to keep the media away and to ensure that this is actually not opening up transparency at all, unlike the former Conservative government, which, on taking office in 2006, introduced Bill C-2, the strongest measures of accountability and transparency in our country. It was a bill that banned corporate and union donations, and put hard caps on the amount of money that could be donated to political parties. Unfortunately, the good work that was begun by the Conservative Party is now being used by the Liberals to initiate and to continue their cash for access events.

Of course, there are certain exceptions and exemptions to this bill. One such exemption is what I like to call the Laurier Club loophole. Yes, donor appreciation events are included under this legislation, except for when they occur at a party convention. A perfect example of this is the Liberal Party convention happening later this year. The Liberal Party's own website boasts about the benefits of being a Laurier Club member, which include invitations to “Laurier Club events across the country, hearing from leading voices on our Liberal team” and the “opportunity to meet a strong network of business and community leaders who share your commitment to Liberal values”.

The Liberal Party is selling access through its Laurier Club. In fact, earlier this week, the chief of staff to the Minister of National Defence sent a tweet that said, “if there was a time to join Laurier Club, now is the time”, of course, referring in advance to the Laurier Club event that would be held at the Liberal convention later this year. It is cash for access, but simply another way of doing it.

I find it interesting that when this legislation was tabled, we heard from certain witnesses in committee, and one of them was Canada's acting Chief Electoral Officer. It was interesting because the acting Chief Electoral Officer had a number of suggested amendments to this piece of legislation. Why should the Chief Electoral Officer have to encourage a committee to introduce amendments? Could it be that the Liberal government did not actually consult the Chief Electoral Officer before introducing this piece of legislation, and instead, had to rely on the committee to review to take into account some of his recommendations?

Let us talk about penalties in this act. Clause 11 of the bill states:

Section 500 of the Act is amended by adding the following after subsection (1):

Punishment — strict liability offences

(1.1) Every person who is guilty of an offence under section 497.01 is liable on summary conviction to a fine of not more than $1,000.

That is one aspect of it. The other aspect is found in proposed section 384.4, which refers to the return of contributions. I find it interesting with these Liberals that if, in this situation, an event is held that does not comply with the new rules they are putting in place, the money has to be repaid, but what about an all-expense paid trip to the Aga Khan's private island? What about a trip in which the Ethics Commissioner found that the Prime Minister had violated the ethics laws on four separate occasions? What about that situation?

No, these Liberals feel there is no need to repay money in that situation. There is no need for the Prime Minister to pay back $200,000-plus that was expensed to Canadian taxpayers for an illegal and ethically challenged trip that the Prime Minister himself took. No, the Prime Minister does not feel the need to pay that back, because what is good for the goose is not good for the gander. This behaviour, by an elected member of the House, let alone the Prime Minister of this country, is unacceptable.

The bill is clear in what it intends to do. It intends to do nothing more than legitimize the cash for access schemes of the Liberal Party of Canada. Old habits die hard and with these Liberals, it is the same old Liberal Party.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

My colleague is telling me to get a life.

It is an excellent piece of work. I am thankful to all those involved. It will stand the test of time as an important document.

Let us go to the subject at hand, Bill C-50.

The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands briefly mentioned in her comments Bill C-33, and I was intrigued today in question period when the Minister of Democratic Institutions mentioned Bill C-33. In fact, I will quote her from the blues. She said, “My job is to strengthen and protect our democratic institutions and ensure they represent the values of Canadians. Through the introduction of Bill C-33 and Bill C-50, we are moving to accomplish that mandate.”

How important is Bill C-33 to the government? It received first reading on November 24, 2016, 14 months ago. Where is that bill today? It still sits at first reading, having never been brought forward for second reading. This is reflective of the entire government's legislative agenda. It introduces certain pieces of legislation to great fanfare, yet there they sit 14 months later, unmoved, at the same stage as they were when they were first introduced. This is reflective of the entire government's agenda, but most particularly of the democratic institutions' agenda.

Let us contrast that with our former Conservative government's agenda. The very first piece of legislation introduced in 2006 was Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act. What did that do? It banned corporate donations and union donations, and placed a hard cap on the maximum that an individual could donate.

The Liberal government, in the introduction of Bill C-50, is simply trying to legitimize its cash for access events. It is trying to legitimize its pay-to-play events. It is trying to legitimize that which it should not have been doing in the first place, by its own rules and its own document “Open and Accountable Government”.

I would like to quote from this document. The prelude states:

Open and Accountable Government sets out core principles regarding the roles and responsibilities of Ministers in Canada’s system of responsible parliamentary government.

Under Annex B, “Fundraising and Dealing with Lobbyists: Best Practices for Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries”, the very first paragraph states:

Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries must avoid conflict of interest, the appearance of conflict of interest and situations that have the potential to involve conflicts of interest.

This legislation would not have been needed had the Prime Minister accepted his own words, and had he and his ministers followed their own document and simply done what they were asked to do.

It goes on to state:

Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries must ensure that political fundraising activities or considerations do not affect, or appear to affect, the exercise of their official duties or the access of individuals or organizations to government.

On this specific point, the Liberal government, the Prime Minister, and his cabinet have failed to live up to the standards that the Prime Minister himself set in “Open and Accountable Government”. The Prime Minister laid out his vision. He promised to be open and transparent, and then the Liberals broke their own rules.

This is not the first time we have seen this. We have seen it time and time again over the two years this government has been in office. The Liberals are constantly placing themselves in the appearance or potential of conflict of interest. All week in this House we have heard questions asking the Prime Minister and the government House leader about the Prime Minister's unethical trip to the Aga Khan's island, for which he was found guilty on four separate counts under the Conflict of Interest Act.

The government, in only two short years, is achieving a level of ethics lapses that took the Chrétien-Martin Liberals a full 13 years to get to. It has accomplished that in two years.

Let us talk about this piece of legislation and some of the exemptions and exceptions that the government has brought forward in Bill C-50. There is one particular exception, what I like to call the Laurier Club loophole. This legislation applies to donor appreciation events, except when those events take place at conventions.

People may be wondering, what exactly is the Laurier Club? I have an answer. I went on the Liberal Party's website and found a little information about it. For the low price of $1,500 a year, anyone can become a member of the Laurier Club.

Income Tax Act

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-2, an act to amend the Income Tax Act.

Since this is the first opportunity for me to address the House at some length, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the good people of Perth—Wellington for bestowing on me the honour of serving this House as their member of Parliament. In all I do, I pledge to the good people nothing but my hard work on their behalf.

As all members know, none of us can do this job without the love and support of our family. I am certainly no exception. I could not have gone through this 11-week campaign without the love and support of my wife Justine, who has been ever patient; my darling daughter Ainsley, who was a lot younger when we started the campaign and is growing like a weed; our extended family, my parents Bill and Darlene and my in-laws, John and Laurie; and our countless campaign team members, including people like Keith and Matt, Tim and Tim, Sue, Irene, Cynthia, Lee, and Ross.

The members of that team have all been with me throughout the campaign, working from sun-up to sundown on my behalf and on behalf of the good people of Canada to advance their vision for a more perfect country. They campaigned through all weather conditions, from the heat of the summer to snow our last week in the campaign. They were there with me and with us throughout the campaign.

The great riding of Perth—Wellington comprises a number of municipal organizations. We have seven lower-tier municipalities, two single-tier municipalities, two county governments, and dozens of small towns and villages. During the campaign, we criss-crossed it all. By election day, we had knocked on over 30,000 doors from Harriston to Harmony, Mount Forest to Milverton, from Stratford to Staffa to St. Marys, and all points between.

We heard one consistent message at the doors: families were concerned about the economy and they were looking to the government to extend a helping hand. At every doorstep, in every community hall, in every church basement, and on every main street, voters were not hesitant in expressing their views. They appreciated programs like pension splitting for seniors, income splitting for families, the universal child care benefit, and the first-time homebuyers' tax credit. Each of these initiatives provided targeted tax relief to Canadians who actually needed it.

Now we have a new government, and I think it is important to highlight some of the contrasts between the current government across the way and our previous Conservative government.

When our former Conservative government came to office in 2006, we also introduced a Bill C-2. That bill was the Federal Accountability Act. It strengthened conflict of interest rules, expanded access to information to crown corporations, increased transparency in lobbying activities, and overhauled political financing rules to ban not only corporate donations but union donations as well.

Now, let us fast-forward a decade and here we are with another Bill C-2. However, let us make no mistake. This bill is nothing but smoke and mirrors in an effort to implement a misguided and misleading Liberal campaign promise. Under the provisions of this Bill C-2, the most benefits would go to those people making a significant amount of money. Those making over $100,000 a year would be quite happy with the measures that would be brought forward in Bill C-2. However, for those families who are struggling, for those families in Perth—Wellington who are trying to get by on $40,000 or $45,000 a year, this bill would do absolutely nothing.

I said, when I was first elected to this place, that I would try to work collaboratively and co-operatively with all members of this House, but I simply cannot support a measure that is not in the best interests of my constituents. Let us look at my riding of Perth—Wellington and the people who have given me the honour of representing them. Under the provisions of this Liberal bill, as many as 84,000 of my constituents would see no benefit from the bill. Nearly 80% of the residents of my riding would have no tangible benefit from Bill C-2. That is why I am voting against it and why I think all members on this side of the House will be voting against it. We understand that we need to make bills and policy in the best interests of our constituents who have sent us here to speak on their behalf.

My riding is overwhelmingly made up of middle-class Canadians. They are people like Steve and Bettie from Listowel who have three children and are trying to save for their children's education and pay their bills. This bill would do nothing for them, but it would give people making $200,000 a significant tax break. This is wrong.

What is more, Canadians were told during the election campaign that these measures would be revenue neutral. We have found out that this simply is not the case. The parliamentary budget officer said that these Liberal measures would actually add $1.7 billion to the structural deficit that Canada's new Minister of Finance is quickly building.

Where will this $1.7 billion come from? Will the Liberals cut the tax credit for first-time homebuyers? Will they cut the tax credits for families who put their kids in sports and artistic activities? Will they cut tax credits for students or apprentices? We simply do not know, because they have not told us.

It is not just income taxes. Bill C-2 would reduce the contribution limit for tax-free savings accounts for more hard-working Canadian families and seniors. TFSAs have quickly become one of the most effective and popular savings tools. They allow families to save more for a rainy day, whether it is a down payment on a new home, money to make much-needed renovations to their existing home, or to plan for their retirement.

Do not just take my word on it. Experts in the business community recognize the value of a higher contribution limit for the TFSA. In fact, one chief actuary from a well-respected HR firm said, “I think it’s really quite a positive move for retirement security in general”. Who said that? It was the chief actuary from the Toronto-based HR firm Morneau Shepell. I would encourage our finance minister to perhaps talk to his former colleagues about the benefits of the TFSA and the increase in contribution limits for all families.

During this past election, I spoke often about TFSAs and often got the most positive response from young people, those who recognized this was an effective tool for them to save for their future. It is ironic that the Liberal government, which claims to represent the millennial generation, would rather give millennials a selfie than an effective and worthwhile savings tool.

In December, I received an email from a constituent, Tyler, from Mount Forest. He told me the reduction in the TFSA limit would personally affect his ability to save for the future. This is simply not right.

Bill C-2 does nothing to provide meaningful tax relief to the Canadians who actually need it. It leaves way too many Canadians out in the cold. That is why I am proud to vote against the bill and in favour of my constituents in Perth—Wellington who will not benefit from it.

Bill S-4--Time Allocation Motion

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, from 2006, when we first formed government with our first piece of legislation, Bill C-2, and a number of measures since then, we have provided more tools, larger budgets and more responsibilities to independent officers of Parliament in order to hold not only Parliament but also agencies and firms beyond government accountable for their responsibilities and duties to protect Canadians.

This legislation would give the Privacy Commissioner and individual Canadians increased time of up to one year to take an organization to court if it broke the law, instead of the current 45 days. Very often data breaches happen and people may not be informed or may not be fully aware of the consequences that have happened with respect to data breaches and violations of their privacy online.

Currently, there is only a 45-day window when an individual Canadian can take an institution or a firm to court in order to get remedy with respect to the data breach that has taken place. We opened that from 45 days to one year, including empowering the Privacy Commissioner to take action on behalf of Canadians on an individual case or on a broader, more complex file. This is very important.

We want to ensure that the Privacy Commissioner has this kind of power and kind of latitude to take action because 45 days is far too narrow a window. These are the kinds of powers that the Privacy Commissioner asked for, we listened and we have included them in this legislation. This would go a very long way to providing Canadians with greater certainty in a digital world.

Opposition Motion--Prime Minister's Office

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that I am pleased to rise in the House today to talk about all of the scandals in the Senate, but that is not true. Unless someone is completely disillusioned, there is no way that they would enjoy a situation that proves, without a doubt, that democracy in Canada is slipping away. If it were just the scandal in the Senate, we could clean things up, but that is not the case. We are talking about a few Liberal and Conservative senators, but also the Prime Minister's Office.

The world is watching. I just got back from a trip to Europe, where this was being talked about. Any outsider looking at Canada sees the mayor of Toronto, the Charbonneau commission, the government's backward policies and the senators' inappropriate expenses. Meanwhile, the government is imposing unprecedented austerity measures on families and the RCMP is investigating the Prime Minister's Office.

Seriously, what a mess. The RCMP is investigating the Prime Minister's Office.

“How many criminal investigations are there in your party, Mr. Martin?”

That question must come back to haunt the Prime Minister from time to time. He asked Paul Martin that in a debate before the 2006 election, which he won.

Right back at him, how many criminal investigations are there in his party, his administration?

This party was elected on a platform of transparency. It took advantage of the sponsorship scandal to take power and do something even worse.

Talk about hollow symbolism. The first bill that the party introduced was Bill C-2, which dealt with responsibility and accountability. Ironically, this bill strengthened the Conflict of Interest Act for public office holders, among others, and created the position of Parliamentary Budget Officer. Times change.

Now, we have the same Prime Minister, but he has become arrogant now that his party has a majority. Yes, Mr. Speaker, I said that he is arrogant. Whether that constitutes parliamentary language or not, this man has the arrogance to come before the House, before the parliamentarians who represent all Canadians and the country, and to perjure himself time and time again.

Apparently, “perjure” is too harsh a word because, according to the Speaker's ruling, the Prime Minister supposedly did not deliberately mislead the House of Commons. However, the fact remains that he misled the House. If you do not know, you do not say anything. Period. You do not make things up. This man is much too intelligent not to have deliberately misled the House. That is why the opposition parties are using the tools they have left to ask the Prime Minister to tell the truth once and for all.

Does he still have the moral legitimacy to govern the country and to stand in this House? If he was able to so readily deprive the three senators of their seats, I do not see why he can continue to claim that he deserves to keep his own. Perhaps he thought he was dealing with puppets who feared his influence too much. Whatever our opinion of them may be, Nigel Wright and Mike Duffy are also very influential individuals, and they are certainly not the kind of people you throw under the bus to save your own skin.

The Prime Minister is beginning to realize that. He even had the nerve to go before his supporters in his hometown of Calgary to tell them that Nigel Wright and Mike Duffy failed to abide by the party's standard of ethics and that they acted alone. I am sure everyone believes him.

Even the members of his own caucus have doubts about his version of the facts, particularly since it contradicts the version that Nigel Wright gave to the RCMP. Many people think that Nigel Wright is an ethical person and they are reluctant to believe that he could have orchestrated this whole affair without the Prime Minister's knowledge.

A Conservative member who asked to remain anonymous had this to say to the media:

“The Prime Minister told caucus that Nigel acted alone. But it's clear now that a number of people in the room, including some senators and his chief of staff, knew all about it”.

I doubt very highly that a secret between the chief of staff and a senator—to cover the Prime Minister's behind—could have been known to so many people in the Prime Minister's inner circle without him knowing about it.

They say that the Prime Minister and his entourage knew nothing. Then, all of a sudden, four people knew, then six, seven, thirteen, and so on. Even campaign organizers Jenni Byrne and Doug Finley were in the know. It is unbelievable.

Another backbencher also told La Presse that the Prime Minister would be “done like toast” if new information surfaced indicating that he knew what was happening and had lied to his caucus.

A number of us would ask for his resignation, but I do not believe that to be true.

This has become such a major story that people are calling it Duffygate. I do not necessarily want to make comparisons, but the similarities with the not-so-distant Nixon years are troubling. At the start, no one would have believed that the American president was involved. Instead, fingers were pointed at those around him, in particular his chief of staff, Harry Robbins Haldeman, who resigned. We still do not know if Nigel Wright resigned or was fired.

The American Senate investigated and promised to punish those responsible. It was discovered that the president's inner circle lobbied to have reports regarding the involvement of the president and those around him modified. Nixon's popularity plummeted and people began to consider the likely scenario that he was involved and might have to leave the White House. Next came the impeachment motion, but Nixon resigned in August 1974, before the vote took place and after releasing a recording of his telephone calls that clearly proved his involvement. That was the final blow. Does anyone see any similarities here?

The opposition members are not the only ones who are sick and tired of this. This situation cannot go on. The Prime Minister need not explain himself so much for the opposition members, but to reassure his own caucus, the senators and Canadians in general who are waiting to see whether they can still trust this man.

The fact that the NDP has been fighting for over 30 years to have the Senate abolished is immaterial in this specific instance. The Senate is distracting us from the conversations we might have and the questions we might ask the Prime Minister about his personal ethics, his perception of his role as Prime Minister and his vision of democracy.

We do not share the same views and that is just fine. I can live with that. I have never been afraid to debate my ideas or be confronted about them. However, I thought that at the very least we all believed in the truth. Unfortunately I was wrong.

The journalist I was talking about earlier attended the Conservative Party convention earlier this year. His observation was rather sad:

Yet everyone I spoke to said that the entire Conservative party is unsettled. There is a palpable sense of disillusionment—a feeling that the leader and his staff have forgotten the party was elected on a ticket of accountability and transparency.

The Prime Minister's followers, Conservative supporters, MPs, ministers and senators do not want to believe that he had anything to do with this, and I can understand that. That is what trust is. They love their party and they love their country, and even though I do not share their views, I can see where they are coming from.

When asked about this, Senator Hugh Segal said his loyalty went beyond the Prime Minister.

...our oath to Her Majesty to do what’s right is actually more important than any other politician.

People are not fools. They have given the Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt and have been more forgiving of his behaviour than he was himself when it came to the senators he expelled with no regard for the presumption of innocence.

If he is a real leader, then he should go to bat for his team, his caucus and the people who follow him and believe in him.

People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook.

A real leader has to have the courage to do that.

Ethics

[James Moore, Conservative, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has been very clear on this matter. Indeed, it was our government, when we were first elected in 2006, that put forward Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act.

The Liberal Party talks about principled Conservatives. The truth is that Canadians were looking for a principled government, and principled Canadian voters abandoned the Liberal Party.

Opposition Motion—Parliamentary Budget Officer

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Parkdale—High Park for moving this very important motion today.

Like many of the world's democratic countries, in 2008, Canada created an entity to ensure government accountability, in the form of the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. This office, which was created by the Conservatives with the support of all parties, also ensures that parliamentarians are given accurate information about public finances.

The NDP is committed to ensuring that public funds are managed properly and is of the opinion that Canada needs a strong and independent Parliamentary Budget Officer. That is why it is imperative that hon. members support the motion moved by my colleague from Parkdale—High Park, which states:

That this House: (a) reaffirm the essential role of the Parliamentary Budget Officer in providing independent analysis to Parliamentarians on the state of the nation's finances, trends in the Canadian economy, and the estimates process; and (b) call on the government to: (i) extend the mandate of current Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page until his replacement is named; and (ii) support legislation to make the Parliamentary Budget Officer a full, independent officer of Parliament.

Passed in 2006 and supported by all parties, Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act, provides for the creation of the position of Parliamentary Budget Officer, whose role is to provide MPs and parliamentary committees with objective analyses concerning the state of the nation’s finances, trends in the national economy, and the financial cost of proposals under consideration by either House.

Under this legislation, the Parliamentary Budget Officer is also responsible for conducting research on the country's economy and finances, as well as on the government's estimates. On March 14, 2008, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons announced that Kevin Page would be the first person appointed to the position of Parliamentary Budget Officer of Canada for a term of five years. In my opinion, Mr. Page has done a remarkable job of fulfilling the mandate he was given with a team of only 14 people. In the United States, the team is made up of 200 people.

He shed light on some outrageous inaccuracies in government information presented to parliamentarians and Canadians, such as the real cost of the F-35s and the sustainability of the guaranteed income supplement and old age security programs. Mr. Page also proved that Canadians trusted him to carry out his duties and to inform the public about the state of the economy and the manner in which public funds are spent.

Over the course of his brief mandate, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has released over 150 analysis reports, with a budget of only $2.8 million. These reports include a few key reports that helped shed light on important financial details that were nowhere to be found in the government's publications.

One of these key reports was An Estimate of the Fiscal Impact of Canada’s Proposed Acquisition of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. This report revealed that no competitive bid process was held for the F-35s, and that acquiring these jets would not cost $16 billion U.S., but $29.3 billion U.S., nearly double the amount the Conservatives had announced. That is very shameful.

In 2012, the Parliamentary Budget Officer also released a report on old age security, in which he showed that the old age security system was perfectly sustainable, as our NDP colleagues have said time and again. This conclusion was echoed by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, which proved that there was no financial basis for the Conservative government's decision to increase the age of eligibility for old age security from 65 to 67.

In addition to these sporadic reports, the Parliamentary Budget Officer submits periodic reports to Parliament on the country's long-term financial viability. This is an important type of study that helps ensure that young Canadians, like me and other members in the House, do not inherit an economic mess.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer also pointed out that the Department of Finance was unable to specify the intergenerational impact of the budgetary changes, and God knows there have been many budgetary changes here, for example in Bill C-38 and Bill C-45. That is rather worrisome, since another budget will be tabled, and we have no idea what to expect.

These reports are just a few examples of the outstanding work that the Parliamentary Budget Officer and his team have done since the start of his term. In order to reinforce the exceptional work that he has done, we want to ensure that the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer can continue its work uninterrupted.

To that end, we want to see Kevin Page's term extended until a replacement is found. We believe that interrupting his term could severely impact the government's obligation to be accountable. This obligation is all the more crucial given that the government will soon be tabling its annual budget.

For the sake of accountability, it is also crucial that parliamentarians continue to benefit from the financial expertise of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Under no circumstances can we support the elimination of this office. Can the Conservative government confirm in this House that the PBO will be replaced by the end of his term? If not, can the Conservative government assure us that Mr. Page's term will be extended? I have my doubts, because the Conservatives, it seems, have plenty to hide.

This motion also seeks the government's support for legislation to make the Parliamentary Budget Officer a full, independent officer of Parliament. The Conservatives have repeatedly attacked Mr. Page because he has constantly pointed out their fiscal mismanagement in various areas. This should come as no surprise, though, given that the Conservatives attack anyone who dares disagree with them.

For example, the Conservatives got rid of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy because its reports and recommendations were inconsistent with the government's objectives. It was a purely partisan decision, one that was incompetent and irresponsible.

These constant political attacks indicate the need for a strong, independent Parliamentary Budget Officer. The NDP also wants the selection process for the new PBO to be open and transparent. It may be difficult for the Conservatives to be transparent, but we can always hope.

Many Canadians are worried that the government will not fill the position or will appoint someone who is unable, or unwilling, to do the work as clearly, concisely and independently as Mr. Page has done.

It is therefore imperative to remove any ambiguity and inconsistency regarding this position, which is provided for in the Federal Accountability Act. In fact, according to David Good, a professor at the University of Victoria, the confusion resulting from legislation serves only to:

...increase partisanship and the scoring of political points rather than channelling substantive information to elevate the level of debate to assist parliamentarians in the scrutiny of the budget and the estimates.

As a member of the Library of Parliament staff, the Parliamentary Budget Officer does not have the same independence as officers of Parliament. As my colleague said earlier, the Conservatives have sometimes asked the PBO not to table certain reports, which meant that the information in question was not available to parliamentarians—we, the MPs—or to the general public.

Making the PBO an officer of Parliament would give Parliament access to an independent research capacity, thereby improving its access to important information.

The Conservatives claim that the Parliamentary Budget Officer is impartial, so then why are they opposed to the PBO becoming an independent officer of Parliament?

In closing, I urge all members of this House to vote in favour of the motion moved by the hon. member for Parkdale—High Park because Canada needs a strong and independent Parliamentary Budget Officer who will help to ensure the sound management of public funds.

It is important that taxpayers have confidence in the government and in all members of this House and that we assure them that expenditures and revenues are managed in a fair and responsible manner. Canada needs a Parliamentary Budget Officer who will let the facts speak for themselves so that they are not interpreted in one way or another.

The PBO successfully fulfilled his mandate. All parties supported the creation of the Parliamentary Budget Officer position and, if the current government votes against this motion, it will be admitting that it no longer considers fiscal accountability to be a priority. We in the NDP want transparency.

Government Operations and Estimates

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. colleague across the way for her collegiality in working together and representing my old hometown of Edmonton, on the south side of Edmonton where I grew up. I know we have the same interest and desire to ensure there is openness and transparency and that the information is available for all parliamentarians, as I mentioned, and for all Canadians.

Specifically, as a committee member free to work on resolutions, the government has clearly stated that we are implementing these as the ones recommended to the committee, where we will discuss them. The ones that have other implications will be passed through other committees.

The bottom line is that we have already implemented several measures for transparency, including via Bill C-2, which came into play in December 2006. We continue to use technology to make information available.

As the member mentioned, in 1998 and 2003 there were two reports tabled and 75 recommendations. Unfortunately, the previous government did not implement these recommendations. We are still moving forward with our plans to ensure open and transparent government and the understanding of government, and after spending nine years in local government—

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege and honour to rise in the House this evening to contribute to this debate on the estimates and supply.

As a member of the government operations committee, I can say we have definitely had a very rigorous and fulsome debate on this issue. I just want to give a brief recap of where the government has come from and where it is going, moving forward in an open and transparent manner.

The supply process of which the estimates are a part is one of the cornerstones of Canada's democratic government. It dates back to the British feudal system and the development of Parliament as a check on the spending authority of the monarch.

Although the system has evolved since then, its overall principle has remained the same. No payments can be made out of the consolidated revenue fund without the authority of Parliament. The legislative process, including supply, is the mechanism through which this authority is given. The supply process is rooted in both law and parliamentary tradition.

Estimates present information in support of supply bills, and while there have been changes to the presentation of estimates over time, there have been only a few changes to their fundamental form and content. These were largely as a result of recommendations from parliamentary committees.

I am pleased this evening to recognize the significance of the committee's work, as well as the significance for parliamentarians of today and the future, who will be better able to serve Canadians as a result of the committee's efforts.

I was especially encouraged by the scope of the study and the range of views and perspectives presented to the committee. As I mentioned, we had a variety of witnesses from across Canada and around the world giving their input and sharing their wisdom and experience.

I believe this shows the complexity of the issues being studied and the approaches to improving them. In short, the committee has taken considerable time and effort to review the evidence, and its effort is a good start to reforming the estimate process.

I would now like to summarize the government's overall response to this report. First of all, we agree with almost all of the recommendations directed to government. As members know, some of the other recommendations were directed to parliamentary committees and the House of Commons, as has been alluded to this evening.

We have taken note of these other recommendations and offered observations or comments where appropriate. Let me elaborate briefly on the recommendations directed to the government.

Recommendation 1 is that the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat complete its study of accrual-based budgeting and appropriations and report back to Parliament by March 31, 2013. We agree. This is consistent with our response to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts report tabled in August 2012.

Recommendation 2 is that the Treasury Board Secretariat transition the estimates and related appropriation acts from the current model to a program activity model—that is, taking the current model and moving to a program activity model. We are going to assist the federal departments with this process and prepare a timeline for this transition by March 31, 2013, and transmit this timeline to our committee.

We consider this to be a very significant recommendation to come from a report, a change in the vote structure, so that estimates align with specific strategic outcomes and program activity spending, providing a clear, traceable line between authorities, strategic outcomes and related program activities. The government is committed to developing and consulting on a cost-effective means of implementing this recommendation.

Recommendation 7 is that the government identify separately, in the main estimates and the supplementary estimates, all new funding that is included in the votes and that it be cross-referenced to the appropriate budget source.

Once again the government agrees. We will identify new programs that are receiving first-time funding in the main estimates and the supplementary estimates with the appropriate source of funds from the fiscal framework.

Recommendation 12 is that the departments and agencies include tax expenditures in the reports on plans and priorities, as determined by the Secretariat, to best fit their mandate.

Currently, the expenditures are included in the Department of Finance's tax expenditures and evaluations report. We agree in principle with this recommendation. We are offering a little different approach in the sense that tax expenditures are the responsibility of the Minister of Finance. The allocation of tax expenditures to other departments could be subject to interpretation. Tax expenditures are estimated on the basis of the calendar year, not the fiscal year. We have to make sure there is an understanding that one is based on the calendar year and the other on the fiscal year.

The government believes that information on tax expenditures should not be included in the reports on plans and priorities of other departments and agencies.

Having said that, to give parliamentarians a broader perspective on government expenses, the government will coordinate the release of the tax expenditures and evaluations publication with that of the main estimates on or around March 1 of each year. We will also add a reference with a hyperlink to the tax expenditures and evaluations publication in departments' RPPs. This will include a note indicating that the tax measures in the publication are the sole responsibility of the Minister of Finance and directing Department of Finance officials to provide briefings on the publication at the committee's request. As the committee recommends, Department of Finance officials will update the committee.

Recommendations 4, 5 and 16 are linked. Recommendation 4 is that departments' reports on plans and priorities, otherwise known as RPPs, should contain financial information by program activity for three previous fiscal years and three future years. We are looking at three past and three forward, giving the committee a good perspective and parliamentarians an understanding of the six-year time span. The government agrees with this recommendation. This information should be made more readily available. The secretariat will also look at the electronic presentation of the reports on plans and priorities.

Recommendation 5 is that the reports on plans and priorities include an explanation of any changes in planned spending over time and any of the variances between planned and actual results by fiscal year, as available. Once again, we agree. The secretariat will provide guidance to departments to enhance the appropriate sections of the reports on plans and priorities and the departmental performance reports.

Recommendation 16 is that the government develop a searchable online database that contains information on departmental spending by type of expense and program. We agree.

Recommendations 4, 5 and 16 are also linked to our open government initiative. Open government is about sharing government information with Canadians. Therefore, the recommendations are timely. There are widespread possibilities for the use of open data to support the desire among stakeholders for better information on estimates and supply.

Once again, it only makes sense that we should take advantage of technology and recent initiatives to do that. I must say that the President of the Treasury Board has been a strong advocate already in many ways of implementing technology to help put this information online and make it more accessible, not only for parliamentarians but for all Canadians.

In short, the government agrees or agrees in principle with all but one of the recommendations directed to it. We disagree with the recommendation regarding the establishment of a fixed tabling date of February 1 for the budget. As a member of the committee, there was a lot of debate on this particular issue and, in the opinion of the government, this would restrict the government's flexibility to respond to global and domestic economic conditions. I understand flexibility is needed especially during these uncertain times globally, with the fiscal crisis that we have come through and uncertain times in the future.

In many cases, these global and domestic imperatives play a determining role in decisions related to budget timing and the government should not be bound by arbitrary dates that constrain its ability to respond to a dynamic economic environment. This is not a partisan issue. It is in the best interests of whichever party is governing our country at the time to make it sure has the flexibility required to make the best decisions for the specific economic situation at the time, at home and around the world.

The report also contains many recommendations directed to other organizations, including standing committees, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs and the House of Commons, where we are this evening, which is not within our purview to comment on. This speaks to the thoroughness of this work and the wide perspective with which the committee carried out its review.

Overall, our agreement with most of the recommendations directed to the government is a positive result. It is a testament, I believe, to the committee working very co-operatively, as alluded to by previous speakers, with the desire to improve the system and to the government's commitment to advancing accountability and transparency in our public institutions. It also speaks to the ability of parliamentarians to work together across party lines for the good of Canada.

Strengthening accountability and transparency was part of the government's promise to Canadians when we were first elected in 2006. January 23, 2006, as a matter of fact, was when I was first elected. The platform was accountability and transparency and we brought in Bill C-2 in that year, the toughest legislation on accountability. We continue to move forward as an open and transparent government. We have not wavered from that commitment and have been hard at work since then. I will provide a few examples.

One of the first things we did after coming into power was bring in the Federal Accountability Act, Bill C-2, and its accompanying action plan. When the legislation received royal assent in December 2006, we immediately acted to reduce the influence of money in elections. As a result, a law prohibiting contributions to political parties by corporations, unions and organizations and lowering the limit on individuals' political contributions came into force on June 12 of that year.

We also gave the government watchdog, the Auditor General, additional powers. Only individuals could contribute. Unions and corporations were prohibited.

If we look at our friends to the south, it is just a mess down there the way the money has taken over. It was such a prudent decision by the government that we brought this in and brought some reasonableness to the debate that happens during our elections across Canada.

We made deputy ministers the accounting officers who must appear before parliamentary committees as accounting officers accountable for the management of their departments.

We put in place measures to provide Canadians with broader and better access to more information from public organizations than ever before.

We extended the Access to Information Act to cover the Canadian Wheat Board, five foundations, five agents of Parliament, and most crown corporations and their wholly owned subsidiaries.

We also introduced measures to strengthen ethical conduct in the public service.

We conducted open and extensive consultations with lobbyists and Canadians related to regulations on the Lobbying Act to ensure that lobbying and government advocacy is done fairly and openly.

We brought into force the Conflict of Interest Act and named a Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner so that Canadians had the opportunity to voice their concerns about unethical behaviour in government and to hold violators accountable.

To give these accountability measures teeth, we introduced new criminal penalties and sanctions for anyone who commits fraud against the Crown, as consequences for their actions, which is only appropriate.

All these reforms helped restore Canadians' trust in our public institutions. However, we did not stop there. We also committed to ensuring that parliamentarians have the information they need to consider estimates and supply bills. We have already taken steps to improve financial reporting and to support parliamentary scrutiny of estimates and supplies.

We have amended the Financial Administration Act to include quarterly financing reporting. This ensures that parliamentarians and Canadians have access to information on government spending on a timely basis.

Financial data sets are now being posted on the Treasury Board Secretariat website and the Open Data portal. The President of the Treasury Board is very aggressive in this matter and wants to use technology to ensure that the information is available to all parliamentarians and Canadians.

In addition, the form and content of reports on plans and priorities and departmental performance reports have been continually improved. Departments and agencies now post their reports of total annual expenditures for travel, hospitality and conferences on their websites. This is on top of other transparency measures already in place, such as proactive disclosure of travel and hospitality expenditures for ministers, ministerial staff and senior government officials detailed in the Public Accounts of Canada.

Let me add that the government has strengthened these internal audit policies and standards and has worked with the audit community to support professional development and capacity. As a result, we have a professional, independent appraisal function in place.

Heads of departments and agencies have to ensure that completed internal audit reports are issued in a timely manner, made accessible to the public and posted on the departmental websites for the public to see. I know it is hard to believe that this was not required in the past. We are holding department heads accountable. In fact, we have been recognized by the Office of the Auditor General for the significant progress made in improving the quality of internal audit across the public service.

Our record on advancing accountability and transparency in Canada's public institutions speaks for itself. We have bolstered parliamentary oversight of organizations, strengthened the rules and tightened scrutiny of government expenditures.

The agreed to recommendations from this committee will do even more to strengthen the understanding of government expenditures.

To fulfill the estimates' time-honoured purpose, such changes are necessary and welcome.

In closing, I once again congratulate the committee for working so hard to improve a process that is at the very heart of Canada's parliamentary democracy. It has been an honour and a privilege to be part of the committee, working together very collegially and in a non-partisan way. I thank the members for their efforts. I look forward to implementing many of the recommendations and to continuing to advance accountability and transparency in the government as these recommendations work through our government operations committee and other committees throughout the House of Commons.

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

Mr. Speaker, as I begin my speech this evening, I have to say that I have never seen a situation in the House where the government essentially sends in one player to rag the puck on a debate that is of such fundamental importance to Canadians, which is the tax dollars that are sent to Ottawa and how that money gets spent. Fundamentally, it is about the democratic process and democratic accountability. It is clear from the speech and the response to questions we have just heard by the government member that the Conservatives do not want to talk about accountability. It is especially shocking given that we are here tonight debating a report that was recommended by all parties at the committee stage.

To now have a motion calling for this report to be sent back to the committee for further study really does a disservice to all of the hard work done by the committee, to all of the witnesses who appeared before it, to all of the work done preparing the report and to the seriousness with which I know my colleagues on this side of the House take this subject. The subject is, of course, the tax dollars Canadians send in, how the money is spent and how it is accounted for.

The estimates we deal with here in Parliament are significant sums of money. We are talking about $254 billion of Canadians' tax dollars. Of that amount, $160 billion is committed through statutory agreements, but $94 billion worth of Canadians' tax dollars is what Parliamentarians debate and decide on. That is what we are talking about this evening with respect to this report on financial accountability. It is about how we account for this money in a way that is organized, clear and task-specific so that, when members of Parliament are representing their constituents and looking at the estimates, we know clearly and precisely what it is we are talking about.

Budgets are about how money gets spent. That is what the estimates detail. It is about the decisions government makes. An example is the fact that we continue to have a number of people who are unemployed, a level 25% higher than before the recession started, with 1.4 million still out of work. The fact that we still have these people facing a human crisis every day is certainly of concern to Parliamentarians and something we should be dealing with through the estimates process, especially when only 40% of Canadians are able to even get the employment insurance benefits that they and their employers have paid for through premiums. Therefore, how we deal with unemployment is one area of concern.

Another concern is whether or not we are investing in infrastructure and transit. In my city of Toronto, the Board of Trade estimates that lack of transit investment is a $6 billion drag on the economy of our region, which is especially shocking given that the direct and indirect benefits of transit investment would create hundreds of thousands of construction jobs, not to mention the general importance to our economy, our environment and the daily lives of Canadians.

Whether or not we are spending money on other kinds of infrastructure and whether or not we are providing affordable housing is of concern. My area, the GTA, delivers about 20% of Canada's GDP, but it is increasingly becoming an unaffordable place to live. A decision was made by the government not to invest in affordable housing, even though it would have created many new jobs for Canadians and made life more affordable.

All of these decisions are important for parliamentarians to review through the estimates process, and it is fundamentally the work of parliamentarians. I commend the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates for the work it has done. There are a number very positive recommendations in this report, which generally we in our party supported. We want to see adequate information, because we do not have a lot of time to assess the estimates that are given to us. One of the recommendations is about providing more time to parliamentarians, but making the whole process more coherent, providing clearer, more consistent, more reliable information so any member of Parliament could have a common reference point to study the spending plans of the government. That is certainly something very basic that all Canadians expect of us.

There are many positive recommendations in this report and a terrific amount of hard work that has been done. It is astonishing that the Conservatives want to send this report back again to the committee. They want to rag the puck just as they are doing tonight in this House by not treating this report seriously. That sends the message to Canadians that the Conservatives do not treat the spending of their tax dollars seriously and they are basically saying they have noblesse oblige, that whatever they decide is up to them and that parliamentarians and therefore Canadians should not be able to provide adequate scrutiny.

There is one area in which the report is sadly deficient, and this again fundamentally comes down to transparency and accountability, and that is in the role of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. It is well known that the Parliamentary Budget Officer's position was created in order to provide transparency and accountability and to ensure there was an independent analysis of the financial numbers that are before members of Parliament, taken out of the politics of the daily cut and thrust of Parliament.

When this position was created under the Federal Accountability Act, Bill C-2 at the time, it was touted by the government as doing just that. It was to prevent some of the problems of previous governments, whereby spending was overestimated, deficits were overestimated and then at the end of the year we were able to see that the numbers were not very accurate all along. It was also important in the wake of the sponsorship scandal that there be this kind of more stringent accountability. The position of the Parliamentary Budget Officer was created, and it was a significant step forward that we supported.

However, what we were calling for, and continue to call for today and have recommended in this report, is that the Parliamentary Budget Officer's position be as an independent officer along the lines of the Auditor General, so that the Parliamentary Budget Officer could have full access to all the information that he or she would need to conduct the work of the PBO. It is a shocking state of affairs today that the PBO has been driven to the point of saying he needs to take the government to court to get the basic financial information he needs from government departments to do his job.

I have introduced a private member's bill, Bill C-381, calling for the Parliamentary Budget Officer to be made an independent officer of Parliament, like the Auditor General, so he would have full access to the resources and numbers he needs and the full authority to do his job in the way that I believe Canadians expected when this position was first created.

I thank my colleague for Ottawa Centre who, prior to my introducing this bill, had introduced a similar bill calling for the independence of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. It was a groundbreaking position when it was created, but the position has failed to have the full authority the PBO needs to do the job.

It is not just New Democrats who are saying this. We had excellent testimony, before the committee, making this recommendation. I would like to quote one of the witnesses, Dr. David Good, Professor, School of Public Administration, University of Victoria, who said:

First, I would make the Parliamentary Budget Officer a full agent of Parliament to assist parliamentarians and committees. I think the role and mandate of the Parliamentary Budget Officer needs to be clarified and strengthened by making the office legislatively separate and independent of the Library of Parliament, thereby operating as a full agent of Parliament. A confused mandate, which I think we've had since its creation, only serves to increase partisanship and the scoring of political points rather than channelling substantive information to elevate the level of debate to assist parliamentarians in the scrutiny of the budget and the estimates. As a full agent of Parliament, the Parliamentary Budget Officer would have authority to have greater access to documentation.

That is exactly what my private member's bill would do. However, we do not need a private member's bill to make this change for the Parliamentary Budget Officer. It could be included as a recommendation to this report. We have added it as a supplementary recommendation. It ought to be included, and the government can make that a reality.

The current mandate of the PBO includes providing independent research and analysis to government on the government's estimates and financial management. In fact, it has been the PBO that has had groundbreaking reports that have been more accurate than the government's own numbers.

A case in point is the work the PBO did on the F-35s. It was through his office, as opposed to the government, that parliamentarians first became aware that the cost estimates by the government for the F-35 procurement program were wildly off the mark, to the tune of billions of dollars. It was the PBO who alerted Parliament, and therefore Canadians, that this was a problem. The accounting the government was providing to Canadians was very different from its own internal accounting by billions of dollars. In fact, it was the PBO's numbers that were accurate, and the numbers the government was issuing publicly were not.

Similarly, there was the PBO's costing of the impact of the government's crime bills and what they would mean in terms of greater costs for the criminal justice system and greater costs for provinces due to greater incarceration rates. The PBO's numbers have, in fact, been more accurate in that regard.

In the accounting for our military engagements, the PBO has been very helpful as well.

When the Parliamentary Budget Officer comes before the finance committee, he is able to tell us more accurately, and I believe more frankly than the government, the impact of budget decisions. For example, when the PBO came before the finance committee this spring to talk about the impact of the government's budget, he told the finance committee that the austerity decisions, the cuts being made to programs and services by the government, would be a drag on the overall economy, would lead to greater unemployment and would reduce the GDP of Canada.

Sadly, that is what has been happening where governments have been pursuing austerity measures in countries around the world. We are seeing Europeans belatedly coming to the realization that many of the cuts they are making to budgets are creating more of a drag on their economies and increasing unemployment in those areas.

The PBO has been very frank and very helpful, and for his efforts he has been the target of significant criticism and attack by government members. When the PBO came before the finance committee, government members have been excessively aggressive and dismissive, which is unfortunate because of the valuable information he has been able to provide.

We just heard from a professor from the University of Victoria. There are other witnesses who gave similar testimony. We heard from Dr. Joachim Werner, associate professor of public policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science. His recommendation was:

—to protect and enhance the role of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. A number of countries are creating similar institutions, and the Parliament in Canada has really been at the cusp of this development. Internationally, the Parliamentary Budget Officer of Canada is very highly regarded, and it's certainly a major change, in my view, at least, in the degree the parliament in Canada has access to an independent, highly professional research capacity.

He was very complimentary. However, he said:

I believe that some adjustments are possible to the legal framework for the Parliamentary Budget Officer. In particular, this role could be strengthened, or the status be strengthened, if he were a full officer of Parliament.

In that regard, we on this side have recommended that the government take immediate action to make the Parliamentary Budget Officer an officer of Parliament, and further that the Parliamentary Budget Officer be mandated to report to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates with respect to its estimates work.

We believe that this would help parliamentarians. It would help Canadians understand estimates. It would help us understand the budget process and it would enable the PBO to do the job that Canadians expect him to do and that he is endeavouring to do today. However, if he has to go to court to get the information he needs, then clearly something is broken in the process.

I see I do not have a lot of time left, but in concluding I note a section of the report from the committee that talks about the underlying principles of Canadian parliamentary financial procedures, going back to the days of the Magna Carta signed by King John of England in 1215. Basically it was recognized that when aid or supplies were required, the king needed to seek consent, not only to impose a tax but also for the manner in which the revenues from that tax would be spent. They proclaimed later on in 1295 that “what touches all should be approved by all”.

We contend that in order to be approved by all, it needs to be understood by all. Canadians need to know what we are debating, what the numbers represent, what the full significance is of the estimates in order to do our jobs and in order to be approved by all.

Opposition Motion—Canada Elections Act

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate on the motion brought forward by the NDP member for Hamilton Centre.

I would like to begin by stating that as the government that brought in the Federal Accountability Act bringing lasting and significant change to address accountability in government, we are not opposed at all to this motion. Our government fully supports transparency and accountability. It is for this reason that we in the Conservative Party have been open in making all of our records available to Elections Canada officials as they get to the bottom of allegations made in Guelph. Such actions as were alleged in Guelph are unacceptable and we will continue to do all we can to assist Elections Canada investigators.

However, the opposition parties are using this motion to yet again continue their baseless smear campaign with more unsubstantiated attacks in the House of Commons as well as in the media. Over the course of the debate today, they have made, and I am sure they will continue to make, more false allegations and launch more smears against Conservative MPs and candidates, and what is worse, the volunteers and supporters of our great party. It continues to be clear that those members do not have any information on which to base their attacks. Indeed, it is hearsay.

I would like to use my time today to speak about government action that brings true accountability and not to continue a baseless smear campaign for political advantage.

When I speak of accountability, our government is one of accountability. In 2006 when we first came to power, it was on a promise to bring back accountability to the way government works. That is exactly what we have done.

One of the first major pieces of legislation that our government brought forward was the Federal Accountability Act. In fact, I know Bill C-2 was the first bill brought forward by our government in 2006. The act, and its action plan, was one of the most comprehensive initiatives ever undertaken to address accountability in government and it has made lasting and significant changes to the way government works.

We strengthened and streamlined how government works in our country while making it more effective and more accountable to Canadian voters. Our actions helped to earn back the trust of Canadians in their government institutions. The Federal Accountability Act amended 46 existing statutes and created two new ones. Some of these changes came into force at royal assent on December 12, 2006, while others were subject to coming into force dates set out in the act or established by order in council.

The introduction of Bill C-2 was accompanied by the federal accountability action plan which organized the various elements of the Federal Accountability Act along 14 themes. As well, it set out related policy initiatives. We reformed the financing of political parties along with donation limits. We banned secret political donations, although the NDP has since elected to take some of those, it appears. We strengthened the role of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner and the Auditor General. We toughened the Lobbyists Registration Act and cleaned up government polling and advertising. We strengthened access to information legislation bringing crown corporations under the access to information legislation, as well as auditing and accountability within departments.

The record very clearly shows our Conservative government does not just believe in open government, we in fact have provided open, transparent and accountable government for each and every Canadian. Ours indeed is a government of accountability.

With respect to the current situation, since Elections Canada began looking into reports from the media and other sources about a specific case in the riding of Guelph, our government and the Conservative Party of Canada have been open and transparent with all of our records, making them available to Elections Canada so as to assist in its investigation. The Conservative Party did not organize or know about any such activities in the riding, but the opposition continues to launch baseless smear campaigns against our party. If the opposition members truly wanted to support Elections Canada and its work in this specific case, they would do as we have done and provide all of their records related to calls they made during the last election: absolute transparency.

Both parties opposite spent millions of dollars on hundreds of thousands phone calls during the last election, and they have thus far refused to disclose these details to Elections Canada officials. Why is this not their top priority instead of continuing their baseless smear campaign? Canadians need to ask themselves that very essential question. If any untoward behaviour is uncovered, the Conservative Party of Canada demands that all those responsible be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

As for the motion before the House today, to have the government table legislative amendments which would strengthen the powers of the Chief Electoral Officer in the wake of these exaggerated allegations, I am not opposed. However, it must be said that the Conservative Party of Canada has provided all of our information to Elections Canada to assist it so we can get to the bottom of what has happened in the investigation going on in Guelph. We do this willingly. There is currently nothing preventing the NDP or Liberal Party from giving over their own information willingly to Elections Canada officials. As the Prime Minister has stated, we have been very clear about the Conservative Party of Canada's activities. All the calls made by the Conservative Party are documented. All of those records are available to Elections Canada. We will be looking forward with great interest to see what documents exist on the NDP's and Liberal Party's telephone activities during the campaign.

The Conservative Party of Canada ran a clean and ethical campaign and would never tolerate such activities as have been alleged by the parties opposite. The Conservative Party was not involved with these fake calls in Guelph. If anyone on a local campaign was involved, he or she will not play a role in a future campaign. Voter suppression is extremely serious and if anything improper occurred, those responsible should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The job of a political party, and indeed our job as politicians, in a campaign is to get voters out to the polls. We do not engage in voter suppression.

However, the exaggerated allegations and baseless smear campaign which the opposition parties continue to press demean the millions of voters who cast legitimate votes in the last election. The opposition paid millions of dollars to make hundreds of thousands of phone calls during the last campaign. Before they continue with these baseless smears, opposition members should prove their own callers were not behind these reports.

The motion before the House lays out three points: Elections Canada investigation capabilities be strengthened, to include giving the Chief Electoral Officer the power to request all necessary documents from political parties to ensure compliance with the Elections Act; all telecommunication companies that provide voter contact services during a general election must register with Elections Canada; and all clients of telecommunication companies during a general election have their identity registered and verified. The Conservative Party is thus far the only party that has documented all calls during the campaign and made all of those records available to Elections Canada. Why are we the only ones who have done this? Yet the opposition members continue to run a baseless smear campaign against our government, launching false allegations against dozens of Conservative MPs and candidates.

I would like to take a few moments to address some of the facts in the opposition's allegations.

After weeks of unsubstantiated attacks in this place and in the media, it is clear that it has no information to back up its claims in this smear campaign. Canadians rejected this type of mud slinging in the last election.

In the case of the electoral district of Guelph, as has been stated previously, the Conservative Party of Canada has made available to Elections Canada all information in regard to our calls made during the campaign. It is obvious that the Conservative Party was not involved with the alleged calls in that riding. If something improper did occur, we expect that those responsible will be fully held to account.

The NDP and the Liberal Party have made a number of new allegations about similar deliberately misleading calls made in other ridings during the last election, in which we, the Conservative Party of Canada, categorically deny any involvement. However, when the interim Leader of the Opposition was asked eight times for evidence on CBC's Power and Politics, she was unable to provide any evidence at all. We have heard that from the member for Timmins—James Bay. We have heard it from the interim leader of the Liberal Party. They have no evidence. They are simply throwing out baseless allegations.

The NDP claim that South Shore—St. Margaret's received fraudulent calls. However, the NDP riding association president, Wolfgang Ziemer said it is not true. He said, “There's just no way that I can add any fuel to this fire, if there is a fire. I have no idea how the riding got on” the list.

The Liberals claim that Wellington—Halton Hills received fraudulent calls, but the Liberal candidate said it is not true. “Barry Peters said he doesn't recall hearing about any suspicious calls either while out door-knocking nor back at the office”. That was reported on Global News on Thursday, March 1.

The Liberals have claimed that in some ridings Liberal supporters received calls at inconvenient times that could be described as harassing from people who identified themselves as calling from the Liberal Party of Canada. However, the Liberal Party paid millions of dollars to make these calls and hired firms to say these exact scripts to Canadians, but the Liberals have not yet released the scripts, nor have they provided their call records. We have to ask why.

In the Liberal campaign in Haldimand—Norfolk, Bob Speller complained that harassing calls were being made on his behalf late at night, but his campaign paid First Contact $4,062 to make calls. The Liberal candidate in Niagara Falls, Bev Hodgson, has complained that harassing calls were made on her behalf at night. Her campaign paid First Contact $11,300. The same goes for the Sydney—Victoria Liberal candidate, Mark Eyking. His campaign paid First Contact $11,753.

There is a pattern here: First Contact, First Contact, First Contact.

The Liberals have claimed these calls originated in the U.S., but the Liberal Party is the party that sourced its voter phone calls from the U.S. during the last election. A CBC investigation conducted during the campaign traced some of these calls, the calls that the Liberals have been complaining about, back to Liberal-affiliated call centres. The CBC traced these calls back to Liberal-affiliated call centres.

Let us not forget that this is the same Liberal Party that recently revealed that one of its own backroom operatives, Adam Carroll, was behind a dirty, sleazy, underhanded campaign of vicious, anonymous smears against the Minister of Public Safety. Yet this is just the latest in a long history of shady Liberal practices that indeed harm our democracy.

During the 2011 election, Liberals were caught and charged for stealing opponents' election signs, a violation of the Elections Act. Also during the 2011 election, Joe Volpe and a campaign worker were caught taking Green Party literature directly from people's mailboxes. It is ironic that Mr. Carroll, as I mentioned earlier, the one who committed the dirty, sleazy, underhanded attack campaign against the Minister of Public Safety, also happened to work on Mr. Volpe's campaign.

In 2004 the Liberal Party had callers running a push-poll, and you might remember this, Mr. Speaker, asking about how people felt about the Conservatives being taken over by right-wing Christians. It was outrageous. Actions like this even made Liberals like the current member for Scarborough—Guildwood condemn their party's activities.

We must not forget the sponsorship scandal where Liberals admitted taking envelopes filled with cash, which were never reported, and giving them to so-called orphan ridings to fund their campaigns.

It is up to these same Liberals to prove that these are not Liberal calls before they continue making their extreme, baseless allegations and undertake yet another vicious anonymous smear campaign against dozens of decent, upstanding Conservative MPs and candidates from the last election.

In conclusion, dirty tricks such as these led to the fall of the Liberal Party and to a clear call for more accountable governments. Here, our Conservative government was elected on a platform of accountability, and with the Federal Accountability Act we helped to earn back the trust of Canadians in their government institutions.

While I do not oppose the motion brought forward by the hon. member for Hamilton Centre, I strongly oppose and reject the baseless allegations and unsubstantiated smear campaign by the parties opposite.

Our government and the Conservative Party of Canada have been nothing but open and transparent with Elections Canada about all the calls made during the last election. On their part, the Liberals and NDP, as I have said many times in this House, spent millions of dollars on hundreds of thousands, and millions, I would argue, of phone calls during the last election. If the opposition truly wants to support Elections Canada, they should provide all of their records relating to the calls they made during the last election, just as the Conservative Party of Canada already has.

It is interesting that this debate has been brought to the floor of the House of Commons today. Of course, we know what the motivations of the member are in doing so, to further propagate the baseless, unsubstantiated smear campaign that we have seen in this House for some days. However, Canadians are not fooled by this. I have received messages from people from coast to coast to coast, from campaign volunteers, everyday people who got out and voted, people who are asking why the House of Commons is not concerned about their priorities. They want to know what is going on with the House of Commons.

It is clear that voter participation was not suppressed in the last election. The member who spoke previously was not fulsome in his answer in suggesting that he was talking about percentages while I was talking about numbers in absolute terms. He knows very well that the percentage of voters between the 2008 campaign and the 2011 campaign went up, not down. He knows that full well. He is just not providing that information to the House, and that is too bad.

We saw voter participation increase in virtually every riding in the country. That is wonderful, a great statement that we have in fact turned around a bit of a trend. We have turned it around, and how did we do it? We did it by providing more, not less, days to vote. We turned it around by encouraging each and every Canadian voter to get out and vote.

The Conservative Party did what other parties do. We contacted Conservative Party supporters and encouraged them to get to the polls. We won a strong, stable, national Conservative majority government and are proud of that. Based on that strong, stable, Conservative majority government, Conservatives are undertaking the priorities of Canadians by protecting the economy and providing more hope and opportunity for Canadians. We are focusing on the priorities of each and every Canadian, including protecting victims by bringing in new crime legislation.

Conservatives are also doing more than that. We are moving against past egregious acts, like the long gun registry. Other members have mentioned Nipissing—Timiskaming. I think the voters in Nipissing—Timiskaming spoke out loud and clear in the last election when it came to the long gun registry. We cannot forget about that.

We also cannot ignore the fact that the Liberal Party wants people to forget about what it ran on in the last election. That is why it is launching this baseless, unsubstantiated smear campaign. It ran a campaign of higher taxes and wasteful spending. At a time when Canadians are concerned about that, when they see foreign countries undergoing difficulties as a result of wasteful spending, that is what the Liberal Party ran on. That is why voters did not vote Liberal.

We see a collection of failed Liberal candidates coming forward, stepping up and suggesting that something untoward happened and that this is the only possible way they could have lost the election. However, in virtually all of these ridings, certainly all of the ones I have seen mentioned, voter participation was up. More people voted, not less.

More of those people voted Conservative, because they saw us as the only party fit to guide this country through this difficult global economic time. They put their faith in the Prime Minister of this country. They put their faith in the Minister of Finance of this country. They put their faith in Conservative candidates from coast to coast to coast. They put their faith in those volunteers who were doing the hard work of knocking on doors. They put their faith in each and every person who came up them, friends and family, and said they were going to vote Conservative.

That is how Conservatives won the last election. We won it with hard work. We won it with dedication. We won it with a vision and a plan, an aspiration to make Canada even greater than it ever has been, because we believe Canada's best days are ahead.

As I have said, Conservatives have no problem providing additional authorities and supporting this motion that is before the House, but let us also be clear: ours is the party that is providing transparency, ours is the party that has brought accountability to Canadians, ours is the party that believes in open government, and ours is the party that is delivering on the promise that we made to Canadians. We can never forget that.

First Nations Financial Transparency Act

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising to speak to Bill C-575 and I will begin by quoting article 4 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It reads:

Indigenous peoples, in exercising their right to self-determination, have the right to autonomy or self-government in matters relating to their internal and local affairs, as well as ways and means for financing their autonomous functions.

It is troubling today that we are speaking to a bill on which there appears to have been absolutely no consultations with first nations in this country.

This bill is, in part, entitled, “an act respecting the accountability”. I would argue that this legislation has very little to do with accountability and much more to do with reporting. It would simply add another layer of reporting to bands that are already overburdened with reporting.

The bill would not ensure that chiefs and councils are accountable to the people who elect them. The bottom line is that it is up to the nations themselves to determine what is fair and reasonable compensation. I want to refer briefly to the Indian and Northern Affairs Canada website. This website has a couple of items about setting salaries and disclosure of salary information.

On setting salaries, it says:

The determination of an elected official's remuneration in a First Nations community is ultimately established by the First Nation government.

Under disclosure of salary information, there are already provisions for disclosure of salary information. It says:

In addition to federal funding, First Nations may derive revenue from other sources, such as band-owned businesses and arrangements with other levels of government. This revenue may be used in a variety of ways, potentially including salaries for elected officials. As with other levels of government, duly elected officials of First Nations are responsible for determining their compensation. In accordance with provisions in their funding agreements, First Nation councils must provide the Department with audited financial statements annually. Under these agreements, these audited statements are to be made available to members of the First Nations communities.

We can see that there is something in place to provide this information to first nation communities.

It goes on to say:

The Department does not, however, disclose information regarding the compensation for individual Chiefs or council members to the public due to legal considerations including the Privacy Act, case law such as the Montana decision....

I did not hear the member talk about how what she is proposing does not contravene the Montana decision where it clearly outlines that this kind of public disclosure was not appropriate.

We have heard about the Auditor General, but I specifically want to refer to testimony. I talked about the overburdening of reporting. On May 9, 2006, when the Auditor General was before the special committee on Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act, she said in her testimony:

On first nations, we make reference to a reporting study that we did back in December of 2002. When we looked at a number of first nations to see how many reports they actually had to produce for only four government departments, we found that they had to produce 200 and more reports in a year.

Later on, she said:

Four of the reports were audited financial statements, and another 52 reports were dealing with financial matters. There is often a financial report for each individual program as well as an overall financial report.

She went on to say:

At the time, we said that there really needed to be a streamlining of the reporting, that there had to be a consolidation of reports. We asked if it wouldn't be better, quite frankly, to have people delivering front-line services rather than filling out reports.

She went on to say that they were going to do an update on the status report but that a lot of reporting and audit already goes on in first nation communities. In fact, she confirmed that 96% of all first nations filed their large annual report on time and without incident.

One really needs to wonder what the purpose is of this legislation.

There are already a number of financial instruments in place that govern reporting. I want to refer to the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act. This particular act sets out how grants and contributions are made to first nations and regulations made under this act govern contribution agreements like the Canada-first nations funding agreement.

I obviously do not have time in my short time to go through every section, but section 4.7 deals with accountability to members and it outlines principles of transparency, disclosure and redress. Section 4.8 on accountability to recipients outlines the principles of transparency, disclosure and redress.

Some aspects of the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act outline what happens if one defaults or does not comply with the legislation. So there is currently a mechanism in place that deals with the reporting of various financial aspects of how bands are managed.

I want to touch briefly on a section of the Indian Act. Section 83(1) states:

...the council of a band may, subject to the approval of the Minister, make by-laws for any or all of the following purposes...,

(d) the payment of remuneration, in such amount as may be approved by the Minister, to chiefs and councillors, out of any moneys raised pursuant to paragraph (a);

We can see that in the Indian Act, the minister has oversight on remuneration and this is usually done by a band council resolution.

The Conservatives put together a blue ribbon panel in 2006 but virtually nothing in that blue ribbon panel has been enacted. However, one item on page 8 of the blue ribbon panel said that fiscal arrangements with first nations governments were complex, reflecting not only the varied circumstances of the 630 first nations in Canada, but also that payments to first nations governments are or ought to be more like intergovernmental transfers than typical grants and contributions.

I can assure hon. members that when we are looking at intergovernmental transfers, I cannot image the government asking the provinces to justify how much they pay their premiers, their MLAs or their MPPs. If the Conservative blue ribbon panel was recommending intergovernmental transfers, it does recognize a different kind of relationship.

I want to touch briefly on the AFN accountability measures. In 2005 and in 2006, the Assembly of First Nations made a number of recommendations to the Conservative government in terms of working together around accountability. There was a January 2006 report that said accountability for results. The report used the principle from the Auditor General. The report says that the Auditor General of Canada has defined accountability as a relationship based on the obligations to demonstrate, review and take responsibility for performance, both the results achieved in light of agreed expectations and the means used. The report then goes on to talk about adapting the principles for accountability of the Auditor General.

The Assembly of First Nations represents chiefs and councils throughout this country. Its members do not speak on behalf but they have a role in terms of facilitating. They are clearly in support of the Auditor General's principles. These principles are as follows:

Clear roles and responsibilities. Roles and responsibilities should be well understood and agreed on by the parties.

Clear performance expectations. The objectives, the expected accomplishments, and the constraints, such as resources, should be explicit, understood, and agreed on.

Balanced expectations and capacities. Performance expectations should be linked to and balanced with each party's capacity to deliver.

Credible reporting. Credible and timely information should be reported to demonstrate what has been achieved, whether the means used were appropriate, and what has been learned.

Reasonable review and adjustment. Fair and informed review and feedback on performance should be carried out by the parties, achievements and difficulties recognized, appropriate corrective action taken, and appropriate consequences carried out.

The Assembly of First Nations offered to engage in a collaborative process to develop the kinds of concrete initiatives that would allow all parties to implement the Auditor General's principles. However, here has been no action. It is a bit puzzling why we have a private member's bill before the House that did not engage in consultation, has not examined the instruments that are already available to government to look at that reporting relationship, does nothing to address the fact that chiefs and councils end up reporting to Indian and Northern Affairs and not to the people in their community. It is quite unusual that we would have a bill that could have a profound impact on how people operate and yet has not taken any of those reasonable steps to ensure that it is not opening up something that it simply cannot control.

Strengthening Fiscal Transparency Act

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

moved that Bill C-572, An Act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act (Parliamentary Budget Officer), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Windsor—Tecumseh for seconding the bill.

In the election campaign of 2005-06, the Conservative Party put forward a number of initiatives on accountability. After that election, a legislative committee was struck and Bill C-2 was presented. It was an omnibus bill. There were many different initiatives in it. Our party supported a good lion's share of the initiatives. All parliamentarians worked very hard on that bill to ensure that the ideas put forward in the election campaign, such as the New Democratic Party's ethics package to bring transparency and accountability to Parliament, and the initiatives of the Conservative Party, would be put into place. That would have strengthened oversight in terms of the governing party.

Part of that was to ensure that we had truth in advertising. Perhaps I can quote from the Conservative Party platform of 2006:

Ensure truth in budgeting with a Parliamentary Budget Authority

In the spring of 2004, the Liberal government told Canadians that the 2003-04 surplus would only be $1.9 billion. In fact, it was $9.1 billion. In 2004-05, the Liberals spent about $9 billion at the end of the year to reduce their surplus to only $1.6 billion.

There were differences between the projected surplus and what was actually announced by the then Liberal government.

The Conservatives went on in their platform to say that they would create an independent budget office that would have independent overview of the finances of the nation. We supported that. We thought that was the way to go. We thought it was a progressive thing to do for transparency and accountability in government.

That begs the question of why this bill is needed. If this office had been created and the Parliamentary Budget Officer had been nominated and functioning, why would this bill be needed?

It took a while to get the office up and running. Many of us had concerns from the beginning as to where this office would be and the independence of the office and the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

If I were to ask Canadians from coast to coast to coast if they thought the Parliamentary Budget Officer was an independent officer of Parliament, most people would say that makes sense. The nomenclature suggests that the officer would be an officer of Parliament, but sadly, that is not the case. This bill seeks to ensure that it is the case.

The intent of the bill is to ensure that the Parliamentary Budget Officer is independent. Like other officers of Parliament, the Parliamentary Budget Officer would be given a mandate that does not just state that the position is one of an officer, but actually in function the position will be an independent officer of Parliament. This complements the initial initiative of the government to have this office.

The bill would take the Parliamentary Budget Officer out of the scope and ambit of the Library of Parliament and make it a stand-alone officer similar to the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. Currently appointment is made by the Governor in Council from a list of three suggestions from the library committee. Instead, with this bill, after consultation with leaders of every recognized party in the House of Commons and approval of the appointment by resolution of Parliament, the Parliamentary Budget Officer would be named. This is exactly the same as how we appoint the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner and other independent officers of Parliament.

The bill would include in law the qualifications for the Parliamentary Budget Officer, namely, experience and knowledge of the federal budget process and appropriate educational background, including a graduate degree in economics and/or financing and accounting.

Currently there is no legislated rule on tenure. We put that in the bill. The bill would set the tenure at seven years, with the possibility of reappointment and the possibility of removal by Governor in Council. It would also create possibilities in law for interim appointments. That is obvious, if there is a need for that.

The bill states that the Parliamentary Budget Officer would have to be independent of any other employment. It would give the Parliamentary Budget Officer the rank of a deputy head of a government department. Again, this is a rank similar to the Chief Librarian or to the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner.

The bill would not make any fundamental change to the mandate, but it would qualify that the Parliamentary Budget Officer products should be independent. In other words, the Parliamentary Budget Office cannot become a reproduction service. The office has to provide independent analysis.

With regard to the release of reports, currently there is nothing guiding the process of releasing the reports. New legislation would give the Parliamentary Budget Office the mandate to release its findings and products to all parliamentarians in a way that would promote fiscal transparency.

Also, there would be no changes to rules governing access to information and confidentiality. That is important for obvious reasons.

The bill would give powers similar to other officers of Parliament when it comes to hiring staff. Again, that is absolutely critical if we are going to have an independent lens on the country's finances.

As well, the bill would require the Parliamentary Budget Officer to present an estimate of the office's annual budget to the Speaker, which would then be sent to Treasury Board for inclusion. This would replace the current structure, where the Library of Parliament decides the Parliamentary Budget Officer's budget.

I have touched on the history of the PBO. It was created in 2006 as part of the Federal Accountability Act. The Conservatives had committed to creating the position in their election platform of 2006. It was in their platform, to ensure truth in budgeting, and that is why we supported it. We believed that was necessary.

Instead of creating the independent officer, however, in Parliament we ended up with an unfortunate circumstance. Again, this is not to be hypercritical of the government but to understand that after two years of the PBO in place, there needs to be some changes in terms of the structure and the function. Instead of situating it where it is now, in the Library of Parliament, the government needs to make sure there is true independence.

It is a matter of basic accountability. When the government comes to the House asking for a change in legislation or the passage of a budget bill, MPs should be fully aware of the fiscal implications of the decisions before them. That was exactly the inspiration for this office and this officer, and that is what we need to make sure happens.

In 2008 some argued that the budget office was an extension of the library and reported to the Chief Librarian. In structure it does that. However, most people would rather see it as an independent office of Parliament that publicly posts its findings and is not subject to a gatekeeper, in this case the Library of Parliament, of which I am a frequent flyer, for the record; I support the admirable work it does.

What have the Parliamentary Budget Office and the Parliamentary Budget Officer delivered to this House? Many things.

Members will recall that twice the House of Commons was asked by the government to extend Canada's military operations in Afghanistan without being provided the estimated costs. I think that was the first project for the PBO. It was only after the PBO responded to my request and told us the estimates for the mission in Afghanistan that we were actually able to get an idea of how much it was going to cost.

I go back to the Conservatives' concern when they were in opposition regarding the mission in Afghanistan. They asked four very cogent questions that I think we all should have been asking at that time: What is the mandate of this mission? What are we going to be doing? What is the breadth and length of the mission? What is the cost?

Simply put, I was asking the PBO to give us an estimate of the cost of the war at that time.

Also, the PBO has helped us to understand the estimates. The blue book is extremely important. It tells us where the government intends to spend money. Needless to say, for new members it is a bit overwhelming when they first get the estimates. It is the kitchen table budget that we should all be looking at. It tells us exactly where, by ministry, the money is going to be spent.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer is mandated to help us with this process. However, he or she needs to be given the independence to do that appropriately so that there is no arbitrary nature in terms of how he or she does the work, such as holding back reports, perhaps, or not being given the appropriate requisite funding to do the job.

Passing the estimates is the most important thing we do in this place in terms of the functioning of government. However, and you probably noted this when you were first elected, Mr. Speaker, the speed at which the estimates pass through this place is phenomenal.

Opposition motion—Lobbying Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I was on the Bill C-2 committee. The hon. member talked about fighting it all the way. I do not recall that. I recall meeting three or four times a week working to get the legislation, which was very rushed and very large in scope, to a decipherable level. I do not think the member remembers that because I do not think I saw him at those committee meetings.

My question is pretty simple. It has been almost four and a half years since those deliberations and the election that brought his party to power. Why did the Conservatives not do this sooner if they are in such agreement with it? Is it because they have revelations that many of their parliamentary secretaries, who are members of Parliament as well, had private meetings with the people who he says the public want to know about? They want to know about it because now they cannot know about it because under the regime that his party put in place four and a half years ago, it was not required.

First, why the delay? Second, what are the new measures that he spoke of about going further in a most robust and quick manner that are forthcoming after this four and a half years?

Opposition Motion—Lobbying Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I was on the legislative committee for Bill C-2 studying the Federal Accountability Act along with the member for Nepean—Carleton and others. I really do think that we overlooked the idea of parliamentary secretaries because I have now reviewed transcripts and the material, and it does not seem that we discussed it. We did discuss a hierarchy of government office holders, public office holders, which really means government officials with anything to do with files that the government is working on.

Every Friday parliamentary secretaries answer questions. The Conservatives started putting parliamentary secretaries back on committees. We forget that, but parliamentary secretaries, and I do not want any more swelled heads over there, are really more important in the government than they had been in the past, so why should they not be included in this if they have a circle of influence with the government?

To deny this motion is to admit to all the parliamentary secretaries that, including the member for Nepean—Carleton, whose head quite clearly is as large as this chamber, they are of no importance. I might agree with that, but I agree with the amendment too.

Opposition Motion--Lobbying Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the motion presented by our Liberal colleagues. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my colleague from Châteauguay—Saint-Constant for her presentation and the very good work she does on behalf of the Bloc Québécois on all things related to ethics and on the Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Committee.

As my colleague stated, the Bloc Québécois will support this motion for a number of reasons. Unfortunately, the time allotted to me is too short to speak in detail about each one. Therefore, I will outline the reasons and spend more time on certain points.

One of the Bloc's reasons for supporting this motion is that we condemn the fact that a program such as the green infrastructure fund, which has a $1 billion budget—yes, that is the figure—is administered by a parliamentary secretary.

Furthermore, the Conservatives have not kept their promises to the people and democracy. I remember well that, in 2006, in the wake of the Liberal sponsorship scandal, the Conservatives played the transparency and ethics card. They boasted that their party would set things right, clean house, and champion ethics. They almost called themselves the Mr. Cleans of federal politics. They promised to wash everything cleaner than clean. That was the Conservative claim.

In 2006, when the current Prime Minister came to power, one of the first bills, Bill C-2, known as the Federal Accountability Act, sought to clean house in a number of areas.

Unfortunately, with time, we realize cannot see any difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives. They conduct themselves exactly the same way. Anyone who was not out of the country or cut off, for whatever reason, from modern communications such as the Internet, or traditional media such as newspapers, radio or television, will have seen how the Conservatives conducted themselves in the case of Mr. Jaffer and the member from Simcoe—Grey. The more witnesses who appear before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, the more we learn about the illegal lobbying activities of Rahim Jaffer.

Members will recall that Rahim Jaffer is the husband of the former status of women minister, who was kicked out of the Conservative caucus for unknown reasons. When he was in opposition, the Prime Minister accused the Liberals of hiding things, but since he took power, he has done exactly the same.

The Conservatives' actions now make it clear that they have not kept their promises to the people and democracy. When opposition members demand answers in a parliamentary committee or ask questions during question period, they are not doing it for themselves; they are asking on behalf of the people who elected them democratically in each riding to represent them and their needs in Ottawa.

That is democracy. People trust Bloc Québécois members and our party because we defend their interests in Ottawa. That is surely why the Bloc Québécois has won a majority of the seats in Quebec since 1993, in the last six elections. The public realizes that the only party who can truly defend the interests of Quebec in Ottawa is the Bloc Québécois.

Unlike the members of the old, traditional parties, both the Liberals and the Conservatives, we have no majority to protect in the west, in Ontario or in the Maritimes. Our only loyalty lies with Quebec, all the regions of Quebec, and with Quebeckers.

The Conservatives have hardly made ethics and transparency a government priority. Instead, they have promoted the culture of secrecy and cronyism, expressed as “Tell me who you know, and I will tell you how I can help you.” That is exactly what Rahim Jaffer does when he makes contact with his former Conservative Party buddies, the people he sat here with.

Let us not forget that Rahim Jaffer is a former chair of the Conservative caucus. That is why the government cannot turn a blind eye and wash its hands of this situation like Pontius Pilate by saying that meeting with a parliamentary secretary is not the same as meeting with a minister. That is why I made it clear from the outset that this Conservative government has a parliamentary secretary that manages a fund worth about $1 billion.

When Mr. Jaffer, an illegal lobbyist, has a meeting with this parliamentary secretary, there is no denying that some lobbying is going on. That is why the Liberal motion to include parliamentary secretaries makes sense and that is why the Bloc Québécois is in favour of the motion.

We are pleased to see the Liberals take this approach and we hope that if they return to power one day, they will remember that the wrongdoings in the sponsorship program went on for more than six years because of the culture of secrecy in Ottawa.

For that reason, we in the Bloc Québécois are calling for two things that go hand in hand: first, an appropriate access to information system, because the public has the right to know and to be informed; and second, effective whistleblower protection. These two conditions are indispensable for true transparency. We do not want superficial transparency nor transparency based on complacency just because the Federal Accountability Act has been passed. That is why the Conservatives are literally laughing in our faces. In the absence of those two things, the Federal Accountability Act is nothing but smoke and mirrors.

In closing, in supporting the motion, the Bloc Québécois is calling on the Conservatives to keep their election promises on ethics, and those on lobbying in particular. There are other loopholes in the act. I do not have enough time to go over them, but the different parties will be talking about this all day. For these reasons the Bloc Québécois is in favour of the motion.

Balanced Refugee Reform Act

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the character of a nation is often defined by how we treat people in desperate situations who come to our shores seeking asylum, safe haven or a better life.

Canada has two sides. One is very generous. If we look at the situation at the turn of the last century, tens of thousands of Irish immigrant refugees fleeing the potato famine arrived at the shores of Canada. Some came to Toronto. At that time the city of York only had 20,000 to 30,000 people, and yet 50,000 Irish refugees came to its shores.

At that time many of them were sick. The people of the city of York could have said they were not welcome, that they were afraid of their diseases and that they should go home, and then could have sent them away. Instead the medical officer of health and many of the residents in the city of York opened up their doors, were very generous and helped to treat them, even to the extent that one of the Protestant medical officers of health died of the disease.

However, there is another side and face to Canada's immigration policy. We can remember many Jewish refugees who tried to come to Canada and were sent away. At that time there were two successive immigration ministers who basically did not want to welcome them. We sent them home. We refused them entry.

At the end of that period, only 5,000 of them came to Canada. We know that had we opened up our doors during that period, many more thousands or tens of thousands of lives could have been saved. They could have found homes and started their families in Canada. That was a dark page of Canadian history.

Much later, in the 1960s, we sent Indians back on the Komagata Maru, some to their death. Again, that period was not a proud time in the history of immigration policy in Canada.

As we go into this debate on this refugee reform bill, Bill C-11, perhaps what we should do is remember that history and that reputation for generosity and for sharing what we have, versus a government that was obsessed with narrow national self-interest. At that time there was also an obsession with elections. We could see these people coming to our shores, either as people seeking new opportunities or as queue-jumpers or people who wanted to scam our system. That is a different way of seeing people who come to Canada.

We know that how we treat these refugees sometimes determines their life or death. If we send them back, sometimes they go to prison or end up being tortured. Some endure beatings or starvation, so in many ways we have to be very cautious.

We have seen examples. A young Mexican woman came to Canada twice, trying to leave the drug lords in Mexico. She was refused refugee status. After the second time she returned to Mexico, she was kidnapped by the people she was originally trying to run away from, and in June 2009 she was found dead with a bullet in her head. How we treat refugees really does sometimes mean life and death.

As a principle of a fast and fair refugee determination, what we want to see is high-quality initial decisions. Get it right the first time.

Let us make sure we keep it non-political and have an independent body make all the decisions. Let us keep the laws simple and not have unnecessary rules or a complicated process. We should also make sure we have the necessary resources in place so that we can avoid backlogs. We should always remember that human lives are at stake and adhere to human rights standards.

As New Democrats, we have long proposed a fast and fair refugee determination process. We have said that all appointments of Immigration and Refugee Board members should be done through an independent appointment commissioner with set criteria.

Right now members are picked by their merits. However, if the minister has 10 names in front of him, he can pick person A versus person B. Persons A and B are both supposed to be qualified, but perhaps person A happens to be a failed Conservative political candidate or someone who donated money. That person could be picked over person B, who happens to have no political background whatsoever. It is very important that an independent appointment commissioner be set up through the Federal Accountability Act, Bill C-2, which was passed in 2006. Those kinds of appointments should be done through an arm's-length commissioner.

Number two, New Democrats have said that we need to hire more permanent refugee protection officers to clear the backlog. That is a no-brainer. If there is a backlog, hire more officers to clear the backlog.

Number three, make sure there is legislation so that the unscrupulous immigration consultants who are telling people how to lie cannot practise. We need to crack down on them, ban them, punish them and throw them in jail. We need to ensure that we ban them from the Immigration and Refugee Board hearing room so that these unscrupulous middle people cannot coach refugees on how to lie.

On the flip side, we must provide legal aid for proper representation. Refugees often come to Canada penniless. Whether they are Jewish, Irish or Indian refugees, when they come to Canada they often do not have money for a court system, so we must provide legal aid to some of the most desperate people.

Number four, we have also said that we must set up a refugee appeal division so that consistent decisions would be made based on law and fact. In fact Parliament mandated such an appeal division in 2001, and successive former Liberal governments chose to ignore it.

Since 2006, the new Conservative government could have implemented all of these recommendations, but through the years it emptied out the refugee board. When it came to power, it did not want to reappoint the Liberal cronies to the Immigration and Refugee Board, so the minister at that time became paralyzed by uncertainty and took no action. He stopped most of the appointments and left the board mostly vacant. The number of refugees waiting their turn for the board to decide their fate grew larger by the day because there was no one around to make the decision.

Critics watched the situation, grew alarmed and said this was going to be disastrous. Even the Auditor General said in one of her reports that the whole system was collapsing and that the government should do something, because it was taking far too long to appoint and train people and it was costly. Against this backdrop, two years later the board is now full, but the minister is now trying to address a crisis that was created partially by his own party.

Bill C-11, the refugee reform act, has a few merits.

One, the process is speedy. Yes, the refugees want to be united with their loved ones, so refugees who come to our shores want us to make fast decisions so that they can bring some of their children and their loved ones who are in refugee camps or urban slums in poor countries to Canada and be united with them. Speed is good.

Two, the bill establishes an appeal process for some refugee claimants. That also is good.

Three, it provides more funding to the Immigration and Refugee Board to clear the backlog. However, we would prefer to see much of the funding go to the Immigration and Refugee Board and the protection officers instead of most of it going to the CBSA, the Canada Border Service Agency and to the Department of Justice to appoint more Federal Court judges. We would prefer to see more refugee claimants as each year's target. We do not believe 9,000 is an adequate number. In 2005 there were 25,000 refugee claimants that were approved in Canada, inland applications were approved.

There is one more aspect in the bill that is good, an assisted voluntary return program, so failed and destitute refugee claimants can get a little help to return to their homeland.

However, this Conservative refugee reform bill has serious flaws.

Problem number one is the safe countries list. The introduction of safe country of origin means the minister has the power to create two classes of refugees: those who have the right to appeal and those who do not have that right.

Claimants who would be particularly hurt would include women making gender-based claims, for example, the one that was raised in the House today. Mrs. Sow was beaten by her second husband. She found a safe haven in Canada, but her case was denied.

Claimants who are most hurt in the safe countries designation would also include people claiming refugee status on the basis of sexual orientation or sexual identity. In many countries that otherwise seem fair and peaceful, there can be serious problems of persecution based on gender or sexual orientation. In 50 years of studying human rights, the international community has learned that there is no country that can easily be declared safe. That is why fundamentally this is a serious flaw in the bill.

Problem number two is that the first hearing is not done by people with any independence of the department or the minister. Bill C-11 sacrifices fairness in the hearing of refugees' claims and centralizes the power in the department and the minister. That is a substantial problem because it really should be an arm's-length group of people who make the first decision. We have seen countries on the safe countries list that have a huge number of appeals and do not allow those appeals to be successful. Making a right decision at the beginning is critically important, and having the first hearing done by officers is not the proper way to do it.

Problem number three is that if those refugees come from safe countries and have no right to appeal, most likely they will not have access to the pre-removal risk assessment within the first year because they are likely to be deported within one year. The problem with the pre-removal risk assessment, even if they do have access, is it takes a long time. Normally it takes close to two years to get a pre-removal risk assessment decision, which means that claimants could be deported before the hearings are done. That is a problem for claimants who are from so-called safe countries.

For example, Ghana is seen as a safe country. In Ghana if a person is gay or lesbian, the person will be punished and thrown into jail because it is illegal to be identified as gay or lesbian.

There are also countries that support female genital mutilation. There are other countries that are supposed to be safe that have a huge number of human rights violations.

Therefore, having a safe country list is not a good way to go.

Furthermore, even though the minister promised many times that there would be action, Bill C-11 does not address the problem of unscrupulous immigration consultants. When we speed up the timelines and get to the first hearing very quickly, it drives many refugee claimants to these so-called immigration consultants who are not licensed and are not qualified. Why? Because a person cannot get legal aid within eight days.

When a person has a hearing within eight days and tries to get legal aid, say in Ontario, the person cannot get legal aid that quickly. We asked some of the people who came to my office why they did not try to retain someone who knows the immigration and refugee law. They said that it takes a long time to get legal aid. Some refugees do not have the funding to do so. It would probably drive more claimants to unscrupulous consultants.

What should we do at this point? My preference was that the bill be sent to the immigration committee before second reading so that there could be amendments. The minister did not agree to that, even though that was the route I preferred to take.

Since that is the case, the bill will go to the citizenship and immigration committee after second reading. At committee we should carefully examine the bill. We must make some amendments as I have suggested to slow down some of the initial processes, to change some of the regulations, to remove the safe countries designation. We must hear from some of the people who have many years of experience dealing with refugees, such as people from the Canadian Council of Refugees, Amnesty International, the Canadian Bar Association, and some of the refugee organizations. Those are the organizations that we must listen to very carefully in order to make the right decisions.

I hope the minister and his government will allow some fundamental amendments at the immigration committee.

Second Report of the Standing Committee on Finance

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

Mr. Speaker, I was coming to that point. That is what I was saying as a preamble, and I was getting to the procedural matter. The position of parliamentary budget officer was created under the very first bill introduced in the House by the new Conservative government during the 39th Parliament, Bill C-2. Today, however, the Conservative party is waging a procedural debate on the role of the parliamentary budget officer.

Let us be clear. The real problem is not a procedural one. The real problem is as follows. Like many other public officials, the parliamentary budget officer upsets the Conservatives, who find a number of its statements and figures contradicted by this senior official. That is the whole problem.

Every time the parliamentary budget officer intervenes, he contradicts the government. He even told the Standing Committee on Finance that he was to present reports to the standing committee and that, to do so, he needed documents put out by the Department of Finance. He went on to say to the committee that the Department of Finance had not given him all the documents.

Clearly, there is a problem with equity and transparency on the part of the government. It is absolutely essential that the Standing Committee on Finance make a recommendation in that regard. Bill C-2, which established the position of Parliamentary Budget Officer, added to the Parliament of Canada Act section 79.2(b)(ii), which states:

The mandate of the Parliamentary Budget Officer is to

...when requested to do so by any of the following committees, undertake research for that committee into the nation’s finances and economy:

...the Standing Committee on Finance of the House of Commons or, in the event that there is not a Standing Committee on Finance, the appropriate committee of the House of Commons—

The finance committee is indeed the one which hears the Parliamentary Budget Officer most often. It is the committee to which he reports. We cannot see how the sales pitch for this point of order could hold. Since the Parliamentary Budget Officer reports to the Standing Committee on Finance and this committee needs the Parliamentary Budget Officer's insight on the budget, we cannot see how it could be unable to ensure that this officer is provided with what he needs to do his job properly.

It is totally absurd to oppose a motion passed by the Standing Committee on Finance, arguing that it is normal, because the Parliamentary Budget Officer provides us with information, which means that this absolutely has to be the committee reviewing the needs of that officer. As I said earlier, the last time he appeared before the committee, the Parliamentary Budget Officer told us that the Department of Finance had not been transparent, in that it failed to provide him with all to the documents he needed.

Opposition Motion—Vote 35 in Main Estimates 2009-2010

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in the House to speak to the hon. member's motion before us.

I must admit, though, that while I am typically very pleased to have an opportunity to speak in the chamber, today is quite a different story.

Today I rise with sadness at the hon. member's resolve to do his utmost to prevent the government from getting stimulus money to those who need it most.

While he continues to throw up roadblocks, I have to wonder if the hon. member is really not aware of the effect of his efforts on Canadians, Canadians who are trying to pull together enough money to make their monthly mortgage payments so they do not lose their homes, Canadians who may have to go to food banks because they do not have enough money to put food on the table themselves, Canadians who have asked their elected representatives to stop their political posturing and to protect them in their time of need.

Our government consulted widely with Canadians on what action to take. The result is an economic action plan to inject $40 billion into the economy over the next two years. This plan, tabled as part of the earliest budget in history, is designed to jump-start growth, to sustain the recovery, and to help Canadians in these difficult times.

In fact, it has been praised by the International Monetary Fund. In a recent report, they called it “large, timely, and well targeted”. They said our immediate focus should be on implementing the budget to mobilize spending.

We are acting through all available means to protect our economy and to protect Canadians affected by the downturn. That includes the tax system, the employment insurance program, direct spending by federal and provincial governments, lending by crown corporations, and partnerships with the private sector.

Only 42 days after the plan was presented, we had done all we could to make the plan fully operational by April 1. This is six to twelve months ahead of the usual budget timeframe.

Why are we so focused on putting this plan to work so quickly? It is because our plan is designed to boost the economy when it is needed the most: now and over the next 24 months.

What have we done to lay the foundation for the implementation of this plan? Virtually all cabinet policy approvals are expected to be in place by the end of this month. We are ready to roll out $12 billion in spending on roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure. We introduced the recently passed Budget Implementation Act, which includes $7.6 billion in spending authorities and seeks parliamentary approval of $2.4 billion in tax reductions for 2009-10.

We have tabled the 2009-10 main estimates, which include a new central vote. This vote will enable Treasury Board ministers to allocate up to $3 billion in funding directly to departments. These funds are for immediate cash requirements directly related to measures in the economic action plan. Every single eligible program or project must be approved by the Treasury Board. This funding is only until formal supplementary estimates for these initiatives have received the usual parliamentary approval.

This vote will be used to fund specific economic action plan measures such as building roads, fixing bridges, and providing skills training for those Canadians hit hardest by this global recession.

As a result of this approach, by April 1, we would have authority to proceed with providing about $20 billion in budget measures. This would represent close to 90% of the stimulus contained in the economic action plan for 2009-10.

Therefore, it saddens me to know that much of this work will be for naught if the hon. member has his way.

It also saddens me to know that despite the fact that our non-partisan public service has been working non-stop, day and night, to get this money flowing quickly, the hon. member continues to play partisan politics.

My constituents have made it clear that they want politicians to stop playing political games and get to work on their behalf. I suspect that all hon. members are hearing the same refrain from residents in their ridings. I suspect that is why the leader of the official opposition instructed his colleagues in the other House to pass the Budget Implementation Act after his party dragged its feet as long as it could.

Members know too well that none of the spending measures contained in the economic action plan can proceed without parliamentary approval. The Budget Implementation Act has finally been passed. To move forward with more stimulus measures, we must now pass the estimates. So what does the hon. member do? He throws up roadblocks to getting this money out to support Canadians hardest hit by the economic downturn. He throws up roadblocks to helping communities and businesses to adjust and grow in these extraordinary times. Instead, as we are cutting bureaucratic red tape, he wants to add more in the name of accountability.

We are the government that introduced the Federal Accountability Act as its first piece of legislation coming into office. The hon. member refers to the Auditor General. It was our Federal Accountability Act that strengthened the power of the Auditor General so she can more effectively hold the government to account for its use of taxpayer dollars.

Canadians want to be confident that the Government of Canada is working in their best interests. They expect elected officials and public servants to manage their tax dollars wisely, and they expect us to uphold the highest standards of ethical conduct.

Is the hon. member really telling Canadians that our hard-working civil servants operate without any or the right controls in place? Does the hon. member think that Canadians want to have daily reports of every penny spent by their government?

We had no problem when the Liberal Party suggested reports every three months, so we said yes, but the hon. member cannot take yes for an answer. Now he is not satisfied with reports every three months. Now he wants daily reports.

Does the hon. member think the reports he wants just spring out of thin air? Does he not realize what a paper burden that will be?

Why does he want to divert our civil servants from examining projects, making sure of matching funds, getting the paperwork done and cutting the cheques? That is what Canadians want. They surely do not want our civil servants bogged down in redundant daily reports simply because the hon. member cannot wait until June.

One moment the hon. member says he knows the importance of speedy stimulus spending. The next moment he wants to bog down the process with extra paperwork. How shameless. How sad.

Our Federal Accountability Act provided Canadians with the open and honest government they deserve, one that acts responsibly, rewards integrity, and demonstrates accountability. That is the approach we live every day. It is the same approach that we are taking to these economic stimulus measures.

I stand today in this House and ask my hon. colleagues to reject this motion, and I call upon them to stop serving partisan interests and instead start serving those who elected us to this place.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. We are indeed in a rather fuzzy, if not downright grey area. The government wants to get $3 billion from the House of Commons—one billion equals one thousand million, so three billion equals three thousand million dollars—to spend on the so-called infrastructure programs, which have no criteria and no guidelines. This clearly smacks of patronage. The way the current government is trying to set aside a sum of money, supposedly to help jump-start the economy, is totally inadequate.

The Auditor General of Canada was the one who expressed these opinions. We are not making anything up. Hon. members just need to hearken back to the sponsorship scandal, which is still very clear in the Liberals' memories. Or the long dark period in Quebec under Maurice Duplessis, for example, when not everything about public funds was made public.

When the Conservative Party of Canada came to power in 2006, it introduced bill C-2 concerning government responsibility and accountability. It claimed that it wanted to avoid this situation, and we welcomed that with open arms.

Yet now it is doing exactly the opposite of what it proposed in that bill, by not setting any criteria for that $3 billion. So the whole process is open to suspicion. This is no small matter, when we are well aware of how many Quebeckers and Canadians are desperately in need of money as they face the current economic crisis. On top of that, they have to put up with this totally unacceptable procedure being used by the Conservative government.

We cannot react to this situation in any way other than negatively. I hope that there is at least one Conservative who will be able to wake up the rest of them and let them know that this plan they have in mind to set aside $3 billion with no guidelines is absolutely unacceptable. All the opposition agrees on this. All Quebeckers, all Canadians, all the people represented in this House of Commons support this principle. When the federal government spends money, we have to know where it is going to be spent, and what guidelines and rules have been set out.

This is the exact opposite of an accountability bill. It is the exact opposite of appropriate, honest and democratic government responsibility.

Canada Elections Act

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-29, which seeks to close loopholes in campaign financing, is a good bill in and of itself, with the exception of the matter that was rejected by the government at report stage, with the support of the NDP, allowing a candidate to incur expenses without necessarily obtaining the party's authorization. The party would then be responsible for those expenses. That seems to be an aberration. However, we still believe that there are enough positive changes in the bill as a whole to support it.

We believe that the legislation should cover loans in order to close loopholes pertaining to financing limits. We would like to remind members that these limits were established as a result of a fight led by the Bloc Québécois in the past requiring that corporate contributions be prohibited and that individual contributions be limited, as has been the case in Quebec for 30 years.

I have been a member of this House for 15 years and I remember an epic debate that took place under the former Liberal government. As Mr. Chrétien's term of office was winding down, the situation was significantly improved by allowing only individuals to make contributions. With this bill, we have gone even further, and that is a very positive aspect of democracy.

Often, when people in other countries have governance difficulties, one of the sources of their problems is actually linked to electoral practices that do not measure up to the requirements of democracy. They deserve better support. So the actions taken today are part of a development we are familiar with, which deserves to be supported.

The Bloc Québécois and Quebec as a whole have really made an interesting contribution in this regard. In Quebec, the Election Act, which was amended during the time of René Lévesque in the 1970s, now serves somewhat as a rule at the federal level, and that is good. It makes for a healthier democracy. It also requires us to seek money from a multitude of people, and thus reduces the excessive impact some contributors have on political parties. In this regard, we are headed in the right direction.

This bill corrects another problem in the Federal Tort Claims Act. During consideration of Bill C-2, the Conservative government was more interested in getting its bill passed in a hurry than in dealing with problems of ethics. In the present context, we realized that some things needed to be added. At that time, the opposition parties, the media and Democracy Watch had raised the problem, and the government refused to act. In the current context, we are correcting some of these situations.

For example, the bill corrects the problem of loans that made it possible to get around the limits on political contributions. In this connection, there are some important points concerning the poor protection of whistleblowers and the lack of reform of the Access to Information Act. However, as far as the problem of loans is concerned, we realized in the past that these loans served as crutches to compensate for the fact that a candidate or a party had not raised enough money. This situation was particularly prevalent in leadership races. We realized that something the new Canada Elections Act did not permit was happening through the back door, that is, raising very large amounts of money from one or two individuals who were providing loans. The aim is to correct this situation.

When this bill was introduced, it was pointed out that during the last leadership race several Liberal candidates took out large loans in order to get around the financing limits in the way I have just described. While it is true that quite a few have acted in this way, it should not be forgotten that the Prime Minister himself did not reveal all his contributions during the leadership race in 2002. So the Conservative Party was not really in a position to lecture anyone. We have also seen it in the past seven years, given the scandals we now know about.

It is necessary to prevent the law from being circumvented by introducing new limits for political contributions. For example, an individual can contribute $1,100 annually to a registered party or to a candidate. The amount a union can contribute annually to a registered party has been reduced to $0. That shows a significant shift in terms of the respect owed to the people who give us our mandates—the voters. It is still possible to circumvent the limits by using personal loans. That will no longer be the case. The example was given of the candidates for the Liberal leadership.

We have corrected many other issues in Bill C-2 that were not adequately addressed in the Federal Accountability Act.

Other ethical problems persist. Even though Bill C-29 corrects the problem of loans that allow candidates to circumvent political contribution limits, there are still many ethical problems that were not fixed by Bill C-2.

For example, many Conservative campaign promises in terms of whistleblower protection did not make it into the Federal Accountability Act. Notably, the Conservatives said that they wanted to “ensure that whistleblowers have access to...legal counsel”. Yet the Conservative bill allows for only $1,500 in legal fees. They also wanted to “give the Public Service Integrity Commissioner the power to enforce compliance with the [whistleblower act]”. Finally, the Conservatives promised to “ensure that all Canadians who report government wrongdoing are protected, not just public servants”.

We understand that Bill C-29, as a whole, will improve the situation. We would have liked it to clarify the situation of candidates who incur expenses for their party, unbeknownst to the party, which would then be liable for them. However, because of the overall improvements it proposes, the Bloc Québécois believes that this bill should be supported.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak to Bill C-29, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (accountability with respect to loans), especially since the Bloc Québécois is in favour of nearly the entire bill. We would have liked to make certain amendments, but they were not approved. I will mention them in my speech.

It is important to keep in mind that, ever since it arrived in this House, the Bloc Québécois has been fighting to put an end to corporate funding and limit individual contributions, as Quebec did 30 years ago.

Earlier, I listened as the Liberal member for Toronto Centre talked about his leadership race, the difficulty of getting funding, and so on. Quebec has had legislation in place for 30 years. In Quebec, political parties successfully hold leadership races, raise funds and run election campaigns, all without corporate funding or huge contributions from individuals

That is where the problem lies. With Bill C-2, An Act providing for conflict of interest rules, restrictions on election financing and measures respecting administrative transparency, oversight and accountability, the Conservative Party tried to correct the situation. The Conservatives were in a hurry. They had just been elected and had promised transparency and accountability legislation. We remember this bill.

We warned them at the time about their Bill C-2. And we were not alone. Democracy Watch, an organization made up of democracy experts, also pointed to problems in the bill. Obviously, among the problems are the famous loans. Even if individual contributions are limited to $1,100 a year, this is not an improvement if individuals can make loans to get around the law. That is very worrisome.

I will say it again. Earlier, I was listening to the speech by the Liberal member for Toronto Centre, a candidate in his party's leadership race, who told us it was unfair. Before it was reduced to $1,100 per individual, the contribution limit stood at $5,400 per individual and corporations were allowed a separate amount. He finds the bill to be unfair. However, he is one of the members who received a loan from an individual. His brother, among others, lent him $400,000. This is just as unfair as individuals being able to contribute $5,400 or $1,100 to a leadership or other campaign and getting around the limit by saying that the limit does not apply if the money is given as a loan.

That is what Bill C-29 seeks to remedy. In law, there is a principle that ignorance of the law is no excuse. However, there is also a principle that you cannot do indirectly what cannot be done directly. That is an argument we raised with the Conservative government with respect to its Bill C-2.

It is a good thing to adopt a limit of $1,100 for individuals and to prohibit corporations from contributing to election campaigns. That is perfect. It is similar to Quebec's law. However, we should not allow loans that would permit individuals to do indirectly what cannot be done directly. If the contribution limit is $1,100 per individual, tomorrow morning we cannot say to an individual that the limit does not apply, that he can lend hundreds of thousand of dollars and that it is not a problem if he makes it a loan. He could declare that it is a loan and that the means will be found to repay it.

Today, it is understandable that the Leader of the Opposition—the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville—and the member for Toronto Centre have not been able to repay the debts incurred to participate in the leadership race. Nor should Canadians be fooled. I know that the Chief Electoral Officer did not make public the agreement he had with the leadership candidates; however they have not yet repaid their debts.

I repeat, the hon. member for Toronto Centre said earlier that he has run in several provincial election campaigns and that he was a party leader in Ontario. He also said that anyone who runs in a leadership race will have funding problems.

Perhaps he had a problem. He was in the NDP and became a Liberal. I understand why many Liberal supporters might not have wanted to contribute to his election campaign. Perhaps he chose the wrong party. Only time will tell, but, during a leadership race and an election, the individuals involved must be reliable and obey the law. In other words, candidates must be able to raise enough money from enough supporters to campaign responsibly in an election, and the same goes for a leadership race.

It forces the people who want to become party leaders to expand their circle of supporters. If they are unable to bring in more supporters, they might as well stay at home. It is not complicated. It is as simple as that. If a leadership candidate estimates that it will cost $500,000, he or she needs 500 people to contribute $1,000 each. And any candidate who cannot do so does not deserve to run in the leadership race. That is it.

In my view, it only makes sense and shows respect for individuals, and it prevents one individual or group of individuals from being able to control a candidate in a leadership race or an election. It is only logical, simple and honest, and it also means that anyone can hope to enter politics one day. They must understand that, in order to run an election campaign, candidates must have people who trust them and they must be able to raise between $80,000 and $100,000. Thus, one must be able to raise funds, like I do and like all Bloc members do.

Indeed, we use public financing—spaghetti dinners and suppers, sugar shacks and so on—and some 100, 200 or 300 people come out and generously give us $20. That is how, over the years, we are able to raise funds. That is why Bloc Québécois members, like the Conservatives, are probably among those with the best backing. We also probably receive the most money from individual contributors, men and women who are thrilled to come to a Bloc Québécois fundraising activity and give $20, knowing that $7 or $8 will go towards funding, depending on the cost of the meal.

With these small amounts of money, we can raise funds for an election campaign. It is simple. I can understand that the Liberals and Conservatives are not used to that, since for them, it is clearly the “establishment”, only a few individuals, that has run the party. These people were able to make some very large contributions.

So I am not surprised. What surprises me most, is that the member for Toronto Centre, a former member of the Ontario NDP, was also collecting money from some individuals. He was not used to grassroots fundraising, which surprises me about a former NDP member.

In this House, surprises are not uncommon. Every day, the Conservatives bring us revelation after revelation. It is clear that the way the Conservatives wanted to govern is looking more and more like the way the Liberals were running things. I can see that the NDP had a way of running things that is similar to the Liberals' and the Conservatives' way. Regardless, that is the problem of the federalist parties in this House. It is not the problem of the Bloc Québécois, which is used to grassroots financing.

The members of the Bloc Québécois worked very hard to get Bill C-29 passed. Why? Because in Quebec, for 30 years, grassroots fundraising has dominated, since René Lévesque, the leader of the Parti Québécois, implemented election legislation that prevents lobbyists from controlling politics. This legislation completely changed politics in Quebec. It ensures that politics must be supported by fundraising among the public.

If an individual is not able to get funding to run a campaign from the largest possible number of individual men and women, he or she does not deserve to be in power. That is what I would tell the Liberals, in particular the member for Toronto Centre, who was offended that the amount for individual contributions was reduced in the middle of the race. Except that, thanks to the $400,000 loan he received from his brother, he did not need funding.

He needs it now, because he had 18 months to repay his debt. He was counting on the $5,400 per person that he was allowed to collect. But along the way, the $5,400 became $1,100.

I can understand that it is hard for him to find Liberal supporters to pay off his campaign debt, because he is not a real Liberal.

In some ways, it is disappointing that not everyone in this House realizes that politics should be open to every man and woman, to every citizen. It is not a matter of money, friends or anything like that. It takes someone who is able to express their ideas and defend them, someone that many people around them or in their party are able to trust.

That is how we should run elections and that is how the Bloc Québécois does it. We convince hundreds and thousands of people to become members of our organization and to make donations to enable us to run election campaigns based on defending the values and interests of Quebec. That is why, once again, as in election to election since 1993, our party has the most representatives from Quebec in this House. It is precisely because we are always in contact with the public, with the people we represent. We call on them for financing and it takes a great number of supporters, people who can trust us, to build up the money for our election campaigns.

The other parties will probably have to follow our example. Quebec is often a model of innovation for the rest of Canada, as hon. members know. One such innovation came from René Lévesque and was included in the electoral legislation that he was responsible for over 30 years ago. It bans corporate donations and limits individual donations.

This bill is the logical next step to what we sovereignists in Quebec defend. In politics, we have to be able to convince as many people as possible. The best way to do so is to limit individual contributions. We cannot allow a dozen or so people to give us $10,000 each to enable us to run an election campaign. We have to broaden our network.

When the Conservatives passed Bill C-2, we told them that, if individuals may not invest more than $1,100 in an election campaign annually, we absolutely cannot allow them to do so indirectly by handing out loans. That is why the Conservatives have amended that in Bill C-29. We cannot prohibit people from making donations greater than $1,100, while allowing them to lend as much money as they want and saying this is just fine. This bill corrects that.

We demanded—and we obtained this amendment at second reading of Bill C-29—that political parties not be liable for their candidates' debts. Obviously, be it an election campaign, a leadership race or a personal election campaign, it is not right that a political party be held responsible for debts that a candidate may have contracted with banks or otherwise and not from individuals.

The Conservatives decided to reverse course, with the NDP's support. That is why I find it difficult to understand the NDP. It sees itself as a grassroots party but has, I believe, a hard time fundraising. This party now has the Conservatives' support to withdraw the amendment that we presented. That means that henceforth a political party would be responsible for its candidates' debts to financial institutions, if ever they were not paid back.

Once again, when people run as candidates, they must be able to prove that they can find sufficient support. Therefore, it is normal that if a candidate borrows from a financial institution to fund an election campaign, that candidate is responsible because it is their election campaign. Under this bill, parties would be required to cover any unpaid debts.

This means that the people who run as candidates might not necessarily be the best. They would not need popular support. They would not need to fundraise to reimburse their debts. Inevitably, they would only have to run as candidates, knowing full well that if they do not raise enough money, the party will pay off their debt.

I will say it again: the Bloc Québécois was against this position. That is why we proposed amendments. It is difficult to understand why the Conservatives did not agree to them. Perhaps they also have trouble with grassroots fundraising in individual ridings. They are better at collecting money as the party in power. We see it with the Couillard affair in Quebec, the Kevlar situation concerning land in Quebec City that Ms. Couillard apparently pushed for. Basically, we can understand that much of the money going into the coffers comes from the way in which the Conservatives engage in politics, which means that they probably have difficulty with grassroots fundraising.

Of course, that is not the Bloc Québécois' case. We are proud to say that every day, we rise in this House to defend the interests and values of Quebeckers. We do not need to be in power to do that. Citizens are the ones who give us real power. The only power we should be able to accept is the power entrusted to us by the people. The people can take it away whenever they want because it does not belong to us. The people lend us power, and we are here every day to stand up for the people.

I have a hard time every time I see a Quebec Conservative rise and say something that is not in line with the interests and values of Quebeckers. That is what has been happening with the EDC file. The Minister of Labour and Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec, the minister responsible for the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean region, typically takes a stance that opposes what was passed unanimously. It gets even worse. Quebec's minister of regional development, Mr. Bachand, is engaged in an open war with the Minister of Labour because at some point, the latter decided that he no longer respected the Quebec consensus on economic development.

Quebec's non-profit organizations are our way of diversifying our economy and giving certain responsibilities to non-political organizations that exist not to engage in politics, but to work on community development, to make decisions about what kinds of businesses and economic interventions are needed in each region. The Minister of Labour and Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec decided that the government would no longer fund these organizations, would no longer help them. He decided that he would make direct payments instead.

That is very hard to accept. I can see how he might have trouble getting grassroots funding from the people after taking such a position in the House. All of the other Conservative members from Quebec support him. This kind of policy is contrary to the values and interests of Quebeckers. I can see that they are getting more and more out of touch. Raising funds is getting harder and harder for them. Nevertheless, the law must not permit impunity.

Once again, we had hoped that the Conservatives would understand that it is not up to the party to repay a debt incurred by a candidate. Especially since the party now receives $2 per voter, which means that the candidate's debt will be paid by our citizens because that $2 contribution to the political party comes from the government. It would be taxpayers' money repaying candidates' debts.

The Bloc Québécois would never have accepted such a situation. We would never have allowed taxpayers' money to repay an election debt. That is what the Conservative Party has done with the help of the NDP. I have a great deal of difficulty with this, especially coming from the NDP, which calls itself the champion of the people and of the people's interests.

I have a great deal of difficulty with the idea of allowing taxes—through a $2 per taxpayer contribution to political parties—to be used to repay a candidate's debt. The candidate would no longer have to fundraise because he or she would think, “If I ever go into debt, then the party will automatically pay it back out of the money provided by the government.” I have a great deal of difficulty understanding that. But, once again, it is typical of the NDP to signal that they are turning left and then turn right. They always do that. I see that they decided to turn right with the Conservatives. They will have to suffer the consequences and live with that decision in the next election.

Obviously, we will support Bill C-29. We wanted our amendment—that would not permit a candidate's debt to be repaid by the party, given that the contribution of $2 per voter is paid by the government—to be adopted. We would have liked that amendment to pass. However, once again, the Conservatives and the NDP decided to oppose it. As for the Bloc Québécois, we will always respect the interests of Quebeckers.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in the House today to Bill C-29, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act, accountability with respect to loans. I think the title, “accountability with respect to loans”, is something that is important to remind the House.

New Democrats will be supporting this legislation. I want to acknowledge the very good work that has been done by the member for Winnipeg Centre who, back in the early days of 2006 when the Conservative government introduced Bill C-2, the accountability act, attempted to have what we see in this bill as well as some other accountability measures introduced into that particular piece of legislation. At the time, however, the Conservative government did not see fit to include it.

However, some things have happened in the House over the last two years and the Conservatives now realize how important it is to talk about accountability with respect to political loans.

I want to put this a little bit into context. The former member from Ottawa Centre, Ed Broadbent, had put together a package back in 2005 called, “Cleaning Up Politics: Demanding Changes in Ethics and Accountability”. In a preamble to the document, he said:

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

That was in the context of 2005 when we were in the midst of the ad scandal and the Gomery inquiry. The context has changed somewhat in that the Liberals are now in opposition.

He went on in the preliminary introduction on this under the heading, “Demanding Changes in Ethics and Accountability”, to say:

Canadians are demanding changes in ethics and in accountability. They want a strong Canada resting on strong, ethically based institutions. They want honesty, fairness and transparency to be the rule, not the exception in political life.

In the context of the legislation before us, the legislation attempts, whether the attempt is real or unintended, to stop efforts to circumvent the very good rules that are currently in place in the Canada Elections Act to limit the amount of money that individuals can donate to a particular candidate.

Bill C-29 attempts to stop that circumvention of those rules by closing the loopholes that allowed businesses to loan money to political candidates and sometimes after a period of time those loans were forgiven.

I have heard members in the House talk about the fact that this legislation would damage women's opportunities to run for electoral office. I would argue that most women and men in this country want to ensure we are all playing by the same rules and part of those rules state that we do not get to circumvent the Canada Elections Act just because we happen to have a bunch of wealthy business people in our backyard, not that there is anything wrong with wealthy business people but we do not all have access to that kind of capital.

I would argue that Bill C-29 would level the playing field so that all candidates who run for either a nomination, leadership or political office, are all guided by the exact same rules. By closing this loophole to prevent candidates from either loaning themselves money or having businesses loan them money is a very good loophole to close.

We have had many instances in the House. I want to reference one example, in particular, by the member for Mississauga—Streetsville when he was a Liberal and his business donated nearly $240,000 to his riding association.

By any measure, any of us who could actually loan ourselves $240,000 or have a business friend loan our campaign $240,000 and not have to account for it in the normal process just does not seem fair, reasonable, transparent or ethical.

I applaud the Conservative government for bringing forward this legislation, again, based on the very good work that the member for Winnipeg Centre did in the past.

There are a couple of problems with the bill. The member for Winnipeg Centre has already talked about them, but it is important to highlight them.

One is that the bill is not retroactive and does not deal with the problems from previous loans that were made, like the Mississauga—Streetsville case that I talked about. Also, the bill would not be implemented until six months after it receives royal assent. In our current minority situation we could have an election at any time, so we would like to see that gap closed far more quickly.

One of the other problems we have talked about is with respect to accountability and ethics. I want to quote from a press release from July 5, 2006, issued by the member for Winnipeg Centre. He was talking about the fact that there was no age limitation. He was “urging senators to ignore Liberal appeals to amend the Federal Accountability Act by raising the age requirement for political donations to 18 years”.

In his release, he said:

This is not only a bad idea. It is a transparent attempt to divert attention away from the more serious problem with our election financing rules. We have seen Liberal leadership loans that look more like donations and the continued corporate sponsorship of leadership candidates.

The problem is not the age of donors so much as the source of the dough. It's already against the law to circumvent the donation limits by laundering money through someone else's bank account, whether that person is your grandson or your grandmother. The age issue is a red herring.

He went on to talk about the fact that he attempted to severely restrict political loans under the Federal Accountability Act. He said that “the current legislation is so vague it is evolving with every interpretation”. As only the member for Winnipeg Centre can say it, he said:

Those leadership loans are the equivalent of big money hijacking democracy. There's no collateral required, no repayment schedule registered, and the whole thing can be forgiven. How is that any different from a massive donation or corporate sponsorship?

The member for Winnipeg Centre clearly laid out some of the problems with the existing legislation and the attempts made in Bill C-29 to close those loopholes.

I also want to talk a bit more about changes in ethics and accountability. Again, because the bill is premised on the language around accountability with respect to loans, I think there are broader issues around accountability and ethics. We would welcome further changes to make sure that political candidates and political parties are all operating on the same level playing field that Canadians say is so important.

Ed Broadbent, the previous member for Ottawa Centre, made a number of suggestions in 2005. At that time, we thought we had agreement from the Liberal Party to move forward with some of those suggestions. However, as we were going into a process that would have had some broad public input across the country, the Liberal government of the day backed out of that agreement. I still think some of those proposals are relevant today.

Ethics and accountability cover every action of an elected representative. We are elected to this place as either an independent member or a member of a particular political party. We have a responsibility to our voters to fulfill our obligations. We run under a particular political banner. Should members choose to cross the floor, we feel strongly that any such members should resign and run for their new political party.

Under “Democratic Accountability for MPs”, Ed Broadbent said:

Democratic accountability should mean no MP can ignore his/her voters and wheel and deal for personal gain: MPs should not be permitted to ignore their voters' wishes, change parties, cross the floor, and become a member of another party without first resigning their seats and running in a by-election.

Wherever we can, we must put an end to backroom opportunism in politics.

In the context of political loans, I would say that many people would view them as backroom opportunism in politics. Bill C-29 would provide us with an opportunity to close that backroom door so that all Canadians who choose to run for office play by the same rules.

Comments have been made back and forth on the floor about transparent leadership contests. Under “Transparent Leadership Contests”, Mr. Broadbent said that we should:

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

Canada has laws and regulations regulating the financing of general elections. There are limits and there is transparency.

Canadians want to see limits and transparency. They want to know where candidates get their money. They want to know that the same rules apply to all candidates. That should include leadership contests.

With regard to electoral reform, we are one of the few western democracies left with a first past the post system. Many members have spoken about this in the House.

I heard a member on the opposite side talk about increasing the ability of women to participate in the electoral process. There have been many studies done on systems of proportional representation. They consistently have found that in a system of proportional representation the participation of women in the electoral process increases.

Again, we have a minority Parliament. There is a government in place that talks about accountability. If we want to be accountable to Canadian citizens, we need to ensure that the representation in the House reflects the population. Therefore, we need to increase the participation of women in the House.

I am very proud to be a New Democrat. When we were elected in 2006, 41% of our party was women. New Democrats are very proud to run on that record. If each and every party in the House brought that same philosophy forward, we would make far better policy decisions.

Under “Electoral Reform”, Mr. Broadbent said:

--A major source of needed democratic reform is our outmoded first-past-the-post electoral system. There is a serious imbalance in the House of Commons in gender, ethnic, ideological, and regional voting preferences. Our present system does not reflect Canadian voters' intentions. Fairness means we need a mixed electoral system that combines individual constituency-based MPs with proportional representation. Most other commonwealth countries have already moved in that direction.

A major source of needed democratic reform is our outmoded first-past-the-post electoral system. In Canada every vote should matter. Ninety percent of the world's democracies, including Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Ireland and Wales have abandoned or significantly modified the pre-democratic British system that still prevails in Ottawa.

As we amend the Canada Elections Act and closely examine some of the other factors that influence how candidates become members of Parliament, I would urge the House to consider reviewing a system of proportional representation as well, to make the system more open, transparent and accountable.

As for “Ending Unregulated Lobbying”, as Mr. Broadbent said, in talking about accountability and transparency, unregulated lobbying is one factor that many Canadians feel very uncomfortable with. Unregulated lobbying is an elitist kind of approach to getting in the back door of government. Mr. Broadbent, the former member for Ottawa Centre, said:

Unregulated lobbying and political cronyism must end: We need tougher laws requiring disclosure of fees and expenditures of lobbyists. We also need to make illegal the acceptance of contingency or profit-based fees. The government must initiate reforms with tough sanctions applicable to wrongdoing in the public sector.

Of course, he wrote this paper in 2005 when there was a different government.

With regard to ethical appointments, again we want openness and transparency. There has been a lot of controversy in the House over some of the appointments, but Mr. Broadbent called for ethical government appointments. He said:

--Unfair and unethical patronage practice must stop in the appointment of thousands of officials to federal agencies, boards, commissions and Crown Corporations. The New Democratic Party proposes that the government develop skills and competence-related criteria for all government appointments, that these criteria be publicly released and that committees scrutinize appointments.

Again, in the name of openness, transparency and accountability, I am sure Canadians would welcome a less patronage-driven appointment process so that Canadians would truly feel that they were getting the best possible person in each and every one of those jobs.

In reference to access to information, in the last two years we have seen even less access to information than we saw under the previous Liberal government. If Canadians do not have the right to know how decisions are being made and what kinds of factors influence them, it puts into question the government's claim of wanting a transparent, open and accountable government.

With regard to access to information, again, I know that the member for Winnipeg Centre has pushed for more open access to information. I know that many members of Parliament have had difficulties in getting information. We have had to complain to the Information Commissioner because information has been unreasonably delayed and denied. We have had to take that further step.

If members of Parliament have so much trouble getting information out of the government, can we imagine what it is like for the general public?

Mr. Broadbent spoke about access to information. Again, in his case he was referring to the previous Liberal government, but we have only seen it getting worse. He said:

The government is backtracking on reforms leading to greater public access to information.

He then listed a number of ways to open up access to information, which included: extending the act to crown corporations and agencies previously excluded; making ministers of the Crown, their exempt staffers and officers of Parliament subject to the act; bringing cabinet confidences under the act; improving public access to government records pertaining to third party contracts and public opinion polling; requiring government records that are more than 30 years old to be automatically opened; and so on. There are a number of other elements that he outlined in his paper.

Although we welcome Bill C-29 and it moves forward toward making sure that we do have a level playing field, the New Democratic Party and I look forward to legislation that continues on that path of accountability around the Canada Elections Act.

I would like to close by saying that in recent years we have seen a drop in voter turnout. One of the things that turns voters off, that turns Canadian citizens off from participating in the democratic process, is that they do not feel their government or their elected representatives are truly representing them here. Every effort we can make to say to Canadians that we are engaged in an open, transparent and accountable process must be applauded.

In conclusion, New Democrats will be supporting Bill C-29. We welcome this as a step forward in that accountable process so we can assure Canadian citizens that all people who are engaged in the electoral process are on a level playing field. We look forward to further legislation that supports this end.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today to speak about the bill before us, Bill C-29.

First of all, I would like to say that the Bloc Québécois supports this bill, which seeks to prevent individuals from bypassing campaign financing rules. We believe that it is necessary to regulate loans in order to prevent people from getting around the financing limits. Remember that these limits were established after a long fight by the Bloc Québécois to put an end to corporate funding and to limit individual contributions, as Quebec did 30 years ago.

This bill corrects another problem in the Federal Accountability Act—formerly Bill C-2. As we were studying this bill, the Conservative government was more interested in quickly passing the bill than putting an end to ethical problems. The opposition parties, the media, and Democracy Watch pointed out the problem at that time, but the government refused to take action.

The current bill solves the problem of loans that made it possible to circumvent limits to political contributions. It must be said that several ethical difficulties were not addressed by Bill C-2, for instance, poor protection for whistleblowers and the failure to reform the Access to Information Act.

Bill C-29 incorporates the only change proposed by the Bloc Québécois when Bill C-54 was studied in committee. Remember that the Bloc Québécois was strongly against political parties being held responsible for debts incurred by their candidates, even though the political party is not named on the contract between the candidate and the bank. Remember also that the government listened to reason and reintroduced the Bloc Québécois amendment in Bill C-54.

The Conservatives introduced this bill, claiming that a number of Liberal candidates in the last leadership race took out large loans in order to circumvent the contribution limits. It may be true that some Liberal candidates did this, but let us not forget that the Prime Minister himself has not yet disclosed all the contributions he received during the 2002 leadership race.

The Conservative Party is not a bastion of transparency and ethics. Consider, for example, all the back and forth between political offices and lobbying firms, the contracts awarded to political friends, the use of public funds for partisan purposes, the many partisan appointments, the ideology-based appointments of judges and immigration commissioners, and the publication of a guide for Conservative committee chairs describing how to obstruct the work of committees.

Of course, we must prevent the law from being circumvented. The Bloc Québécois is in favour of this bill that, as I said, would prevent people from bypassing campaign financing rules.

At the time, Bill C-2 introduced new restrictions on campaign contributions, limiting any individual's annual contribution to a registered party or candidate to $1,100. Furthermore, the amount a union or business could contribute annually to a registered party or candidate was reduced to $0.

Unfortunately, it was still possible to circumvent these restrictions by taking out personal loans. We saw this when several candidates in the recent Liberal Party of Canada leadership race took out sizeable loans from individuals and financial institutions. The hon. member for Toronto Centre comes to mind, for example, who took out loans totaling $705,000.

The Leader of the Opposition took out loans to the tune of $655,000. Bill C-29 corrects other shortcomings that were in Bill C-2 at the time.

The bill before us is intended to correct another problem; that of government accountability. As I was saying earlier, during the study of Bill C-2, the Conservative government was more interested in passing the bill than in correcting ethical problems. At the time, organizations like Democracy Watch, the opposition parties and the media raised the issue of circumventing contribution ceilings and the government refused to do anything about it.

And yet, other ethical problems persist. Bill C-29 corrects the problem of loans that circumvent limits on political contributions. However, a number of ethical problems, such as protecting whistleblowers, were not resolved by Bill C-2. A number of Conservative election promises to protect whistleblowers did not make it all the way to the Federal Accountability Act.

The Conservatives said they wanted to “ensure that whistleblowers ... are provided with adequate legal counsel”. The Conservatives' bill provides just $1,500 to cover legal fees, which is totally ridiculous. It is also worth mentioning that the Conservatives said that we need to “give the Public Service Integrity Commissioner the power to enforce compliance with the [whistleblower] act”. They said they also wanted to “ensure that all Canadians who report government wrongdoing are protected, not just public servants”. Finally, they planned to “remove the government’s ability to exempt crown corporations and other bodies from the [whistleblower] act”.

Allan Cutler, one of the original whistleblowers in the disclosure of the sponsorship scandal and a former candidate for the Conservative Party during the 2005 election, was somewhat critical of Bill C-2 at the time. He maintained that Bill C-2 was far from perfect and had some problems that needed fixing, especially with respect to the provisions for protecting whistleblowers. The government could have used Bill C-29 as an opportunity to fix the shortcomings of Bill C-2 with respect to whistleblowers. However, the government did not decide to make such amendments to the legislation.

Bill C-29 could have done something about reforming the Access to Information Act, an important aspect that Bill C-2 ignored.

On April 5, 2005, the Liberal government released a discussion paper on reforming access to information. This document met with general criticism. In addition to doubling the minimum administrative fees charged to the public, the Martin government's plan would have maintained all the exceptions provided for in the legislation. In fact, in 13 years, the Liberal Party never managed to introduce one valid reform of the Access to Information Act, which severely penalizes the opposition parties as well as citizens and media who use the system to get more information. Bill C-29 should have included significant amendments. Bill C-29 should have included reforms to the Access to Information Act.

We are still waiting for the Access to Information Act to be reformed. As it turns out, once in power, neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals are especially eager to reform the legislation. The Information Commissioner recently pointed out that all governments share this reluctance.

This is how he put it:

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.

That is what the Information Commissioner said in an earlier report.

With respect to election financing transparency, both the Liberals and the Conservatives are vying for the title. When the Conservatives introduced Bill C-29, they claimed that several Liberal candidates took out significant loans to bypass funding limits during the last leadership race. As I said just now, in December 2006, the Conservative Party and the Prime Minister admitted that they had failed to disclose receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Chief Electoral Officer. The money was collected in the form of “registration fees” paid by Conservative delegates to attend the Conservative Party of Canada's May 2005 convention.

Clearly, there is a lack of transparency. The government refuses to enforce the ethics and transparency rules. A few months into its mandate, the Conservative Party released a road map that demonstrates its lack of political will to follow the rules and to put an end to the political culture of entitlement.

This government reprimanded the Liberals for the comings and goings between political offices and lobbying firms. Yet, since taking power, the Prime Minister has appointed former lobbyist and current Minister of National Revenue as the head of National Defence, and he made lobbyist Sandra Buckler his director of communications.

This government also awards contracts to Conservative friends. The Prime Minister's 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 Federal Accountability Act, since political staff are not allowed to receive contracts from the government for 12 months after they have left. Believe it or not, the contract was cancelled halfway 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 government 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.

To sum up, the bill would establish a uniform and transparent reporting regime for all loans to political entities, including mandatory disclosure of loan terms and the identity of all lenders and guarantors. The bill would prohibit all 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 was $1,100 for 2007.

Additionally, only financial institutions or other political entities would be able to lend money—at market interest rates— exceeding that amount. The rules for unpaid loans would be tightened so that candidates could not default on their obligations.

Loans not repaid within 18 months would be considered a political contribution. Riding associations, or where there are none, the parties themselves, would be held responsible for their candidates unpaid loans.

I would like to take this opportunity to make a small correction. Unfortunately, the government did not listen to reason and did not reintroduce the amendments proposed by the Bloc Québécois. Sadly, that Bloc Québécois amendment was defeated at the report stage, by the NDP and the Conservatives, among others.

I just had to make that correction. Overall, however, I must say we are in favour of a bill that prevents individuals from circumventing the campaign financing rules.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my great pleasure today to speak to Bill C-29, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (accountability with respect to loans).

First, I would like, as my colleagues have done, to remind the House that our party supports Bill C-29, which will partially fill some of the gaps in Bill C-2, which we considered earlier. While Bill C-29 fills some of those gaps, it does not fix all of the problems. There are things that we thought it was very important to fix some time ago and that we would have liked to see in Bill C-29 that are unfortunately not there. However, this bill does fill one important gap by providing better rules governing loans, to ensure that the ceilings are not deliberately circumvented.

As I said earlier, Bill C-29 fills some of the gaps in Bill C-2, but it does not fix everything. One of the things we would have liked to see incorporated in this bill is stronger provisions relating to protection for whistleblowers. Second, we would have liked to see reform of the Access to Information Act, because as we know the Information Commissioner has repeatedly pointed out that various measures were completely unacceptable and prevented members of the public from obtaining documents even though they should be available to the general public.

Unfortunately, we have seen this government, and not just this government but also the previous government, bring in a reform of the Access to Information Act in 2005 that essentially had two consequences. The reform proposed by the Liberals meant that administrative charges doubled for requests by the public and by groups and journalists, generally for information from various departments. Second, we realized, and we continue to realize, that when we, as elected members, make access to information requests, we run into certain exceptions. Very often, those exceptions are used by the government to make sure that documents that should be made public are unfortunately not accessible. In my opinion, that demonstrates once again that this government is completely lacking in transparency with respect to government decision-making and with respect to documents that are available to them and that could be used to inform the public about major issues.

We will recall that the government and the Conservative Party promised in the last election campaign to overhaul the Access to Information Act. On that point, I will quote a passage from the Conservative platform in the last election campaign.

The Conservative government had promised to reform the Access to Information Act. Here is what it said at that time: “A Conservative government will implement the Information Commissioner's recommendations for reform of the Access to Information Act.”

We must recall what the Information Commissioner said. He replied that the reason we need action and not further studies is because governments continue to distrust and resist the Access to Information Act and the oversight of the Information Commissioner.

Thus, a reform of the Access to Information Act is what was needed, and what is still needed. This reform needs to go even further than what the Liberal government proposed in 2005. Unfortunately, the current government is not fulfilling its obligations and not respecting the commitments it made to the people of Quebec and Canada during the last election campaign.

Let us not forget that Bill C-29 could have been an opportunity for this government to begin this overhaul of the Access to Information Act, thereby allowing the public to obtain essential documents in order to better understand the government decision-making process.

We also would have liked to see this bill protect whistleblowers. When there is a legal challenge, these whistleblowers cannot act and cannot defend themselves on an equal footing with other citizens or organizations that have ample means with which to defend themselves. Unfortunately, these whistelblowers will only be reimbursed for up to $1,500 in legal fees, which is a ridiculous amount for such coverage.

This demonstrates that, despite the sponsorship scandal, this government did not listen to the wishes of either the public or Justice Gomery, who called for greater transparency and greater reform. A few weeks ago, I heard Justice Gomery again say that too much power is concentrated and centralized in the Prime Minister's Office and that it was not healthy for a democracy. We would have therefore liked to see greater access and better coverage of legal fees for whistleblowers when the time comes to seek legal counsel.

We would have liked more guarantees to protect all Canadians who report wrongdoing within the government, not just public servants. Currently public servants enjoy some protection, but I think anyone who witnesses wrongdoing should benefit from the same protection under the current legislation as public servants.

Finally, and it is unfortunate, this bill fails to prevent the government from excluding crown corporations and other entities from the application of the Public Service Disclosure Protection Act. Quite often these crown corporations give out contracts or sometimes appoint cronies as CEOs at the behest of the government. We must make sure the government cannot exclude these crown corporations from the Public Service Disclosure Protection Act.

Bill C-2 is good, but it could be better. Bill C-29 is not good enough either. However, we agree that we need to have as many legislative guarantees as possible in order to prevent political parties, and leadership candidates in particular, from circumventing the ceilings. Furthermore, I must say it is totally unacceptable that these ceilings can be circumvented by taking out personal loans. Just look at the last leadership race when Bob Rae received loans totalling $705,000 and the creditors were John Rae and Bob Rae himself, who gave $125,000 to his own campaign. We must not be able to do indirectly what we are not allowed to do directly.

In closing, we support Bill C-29, but we would like to see better protection for whistleblowers and also a reform of the Access to Information Act.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleagues in speaking to this bill in the House.

The Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of Bill C-29. The Bloc is in favour of a bill that would prevent people from bypassing campaign financing rules. Our position has not changed, unlike what the government is trying to do by introducing its three motions that are on the order paper.

Last session, this bill was called Bill C-54. I say that for the benefit of those listening and watching at home. The government simply introduced a new version containing the amendments made in committee, amendments that were adopted, by the way.

This bill is necessary to close some loopholes in the Federal Accountability Act, Bill C-2, which the government wanted to rush through. We believe that it is necessary to regulate loans in order to prevent financing limits from being circumvented. Contributions to political parties from individuals are limited to $1,100, and contributions from unions or businesses are no longer allowed. These contributions are close to zero. So, an individual can contribute up to $1,100 to a political party, and businesses and unions are not allowed to finance a political party. Examples were given in the May 9, 2007 Ottawa Citizen. This is one of the sources that reported on this problem. It provided examples of expenses and looked at whether or not they were permitted under the Federal Accountability Act.

The Liberal Party of Canada allowed candidates, including Bob Rae and the current Leader of the Opposition to take out loans of around $705,000 and $655,000, respectively. We also saw that creditors made loans of $25,000, $50,000, $100,000 or $150,000.

It was clear that the candidates for leadership of the Liberal Party had found a way to fund their campaigns without relying on grassroots funding. We want this ceiling. These contribution limits are the result of a battle the Bloc Québécois has fought since it has been here. These limits were set several years ago, and we will do everything in our power in this House to make sure no one circumvents the law. We will not support regulations that would amount to backsliding. We want grassroots funding and limits on individual contributions, as we have had in Quebec for 30 years.

The content of the bill is fairly simple. The bill would establish a uniform, transparent disclosure system for all loans to political entities, including mandatory disclosure of terms. People would therefore have the right to know the identity of all lenders and loan guarantors. The bill provides that only financial institutions, at a commercial interest rate, or political entities would be authorized to make loans of more than $1,100.

The rules that apply to unpaid loans would be tightened so that candidates could not shirk their obligations.

Riding associations—or the party itself, when there are no associations—would become liable for loans candidates did not repay.

We are currently examining a request by the government concerning how candidates' unpaid loans would be treated.

In its current form, the bill provides that loans that were not repaid after 18 months would be considered political contributions.

This brings me to the three motions on the order paper, and I will explain the position of the Bloc Québécois on each one. The three motions are amendments to the bill. We have problems with two of them. The third does not present a problem because it makes clarifications that are in line with the amendment tabled in committee.

The problem with the first motion is that the government wants to limit contributions to a given candidate to $1,000 for the entire leadership race. We would prefer that each $1,000 donation from an individual be made according to existing rules governing political contributions, that is, on the basis of a fiscal year. That way, if a leadership race were to take place over two fiscal years, a total of $2,000 could be donated. We are therefore against the government's amendment.

We think that the amendment proposed in committee is logical because the contribution limits in the Elections Act are annual. This would provide for a contribution system identical to that for individuals. We do not want two different kinds of funding for two different kinds of elections, whether for a leadership race or a general election.

The second amendment, the one we agree with based on our analysis, is the one about deadlines. Earlier, I said that the bill proposed an 18-month deadline for paying back a loan. Here, the government is proposing much more precise wording, and we have no problem with that. For a nomination contestant, the three-year period would apply as of the selection date; for a leadership candidate, it would be three years after the end of the race; and for a political party, it would be three years after the end of the fiscal year. What the government is asking for here is quite reasonable.

We do have a problem with the motion that proposes rejecting all of the Bloc Québécois amendments. This is very straightforward. The government wants to make political parties responsible for debts contracted by their candidates. We oppose that proposal. We think it is illogical to try to force a political party to take on its candidates' debts when the political party has no way to limit a candidate's expenditures. The example given was a simple one. A political party cannot currently do anything to prevent a candidate from taking out a $60,000 loan. In a case like that, the government's motion would be unreasonable.

The government motion allows an individual to borrow an unlimited amount in the name of a separate entity. To illustrate this, it is as though I were to borrow a large sum of money and when it came time to pay it back and I was unable to do so, I said it was up to my neighbour to pay it back, even though he knew nothing about the loan. We think this is nonsense and we would like to keep the bill the way it is concerning that particular clause.

I see I have one minute left. In conclusion, here is our problem with the last motion. In committee, the government introduced the Bloc Québécois' amendment. It was in favour of doing things the way we had proposed. Now, though, after reviewing the bill in committee, it has changed its position. That is another reason why we will oppose this amendment, although we are in favour of the bill.

The Conservative Party has had many problems these last few days. This whole issue of transparency and ethics has to go beyond mere slogans.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, although I am usually quite happy to rise in this House to debate various bills dealing with social problems, I find it difficult to debate this bill because, for me, anything that has to do with money and math is esoteric. It is all Greek to me. It is a language that I do not understand at all. In that regard, the chair of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women could corroborate. I have to work very hard to understand anything concerning money.

What I do understand, however, is that the government was too anxious to put through Bill C-2 and that the bill has several shortcomings. That does not surprise me, but what I do find surprising is that the government now wants to address some of those shortcomings. Indeed, over the past two years, none of the objectives of Bill C-2 has been met in its original form. The purpose of the bill was to guarantee a responsible, transparent government that would never commit any wrongdoings as serious as those we had seen in the past. We now see that that is not the case and we must quickly put forward another bill to correct the shortcomings. Let us hope that Bill C-29 will correct these deficiencies, not only in words or in the text of the legislation, but also in action.

Contrary to what my colleague just said, if a young woman from Rimouski went to a bank to get a loan so that she could run in a federal election, I do not think she would have the problems he was describing. In Quebec, the caisses populaires have a social duty and must lend 60% of the amount that a person is entitled to receive from the Chief Electoral Officer for federal elections. So we have something here that is probably already better than what exists in the ROC, the rest of Canada. We have created financial institutions for ourselves in Quebec and passed laws that prevent the kind of abuses they are trying to prevent today with Bill C-29.

At the same time, though, as they try to prevent abuses, they are handicapping the political parties a bit by removing their ability to decide—along with the— whether he or she can borrow money. According to the bill, the parties would be responsible for the money their candidates borrowed. That is totally absurd. I wonder whether the party of which I am a proud member would have been able to meet my needs when I decided to enter politics. I made my own decisions about how much money I needed, an amount that was very personal. It is not up to the parties to foot the bill for people who decide to run for them in elections.

A candidate is chosen and talks with his party. He determines his strategy together and in collaboration with his party, but ultimately, it is the candidate who decides how much he wants to spend on his election campaign. If the political party were made responsible for the money that a candidate spends, we would be opening the door to major abuses.

It is the same as if I decided to buy a new house and told the bank it could have confidence in me because the Speaker of the House of Commons likes it and supports my getting a loan. Since you are a solid citizen, the bank would give me the money. That would be a bit ridiculous.

Once again, we see the party in power, the Conservatives, trying to put more restrictive rules in place when they do not follow their own rules. It is rather paradoxical. When we adopt rules, we should start by following them ourselves before insisting that other people should follow them or thinking that a new rule should be invented to prevent one party or another from making progress.

That is the impression given by this bill.

Bill C-54, which was introduced in the last session, was very similar to this bill. It was examined in committee and debated on several occasions. In fact, an amendment from the Bloc Québécois had been incorporated into the bill. As a result, it was a better bill that provided a great deal more latitude to political parties, to individuals and to companies. We know that we must act responsibly.

Now, the government has tabled other amendments, which are unacceptable, to prevent us from acting in a way that any political party should have to right to act.

In Quebec, we have had regulations governing political funding for more than 30 years. René Lévesque was very conscious of the difficulties and temptations that political parties, individuals and legislature members must deal with. Some members or ministers think they have a great deal more power because their party is in office. That is not how we are supposed to think. We are supposed to take our responsibilities very seriously. Unfortunately, too many people do not do that.

Therefore, we have created a very strict framework that requires parties, members of the legislature and individuals to follow the rules. Those rules have been followed for more than 30 years and that works very well in Quebec, contrary to what some government members here have said. If there is electoral fraud in Quebec it does not happen often. When there is fraud it is discovered immediately, and not two, three or four years later, because we have provided the tools to do that.

The government seems to forget that in the past two years it introduced Bill C-2 to deal with some of the difficulties that parliamentarians might encounter. But they have not even respected the spirit of Bill C-2.

We have heard of influence-peddling in recent weeks. We have also seen appointments that are clearly favouritism. In the past few weeks, we have seen contracts awarded to third parties in ways that do not comply with the regulations. Those contracts were for just under $25,000, which made it possible to award more contracts, to more people, without following the usual procedures.

In my opinion, when we create legislation it is because we recognize that we have a responsibility toward our fellow citizens. If we only do it to look good, would it not be better to think seriously before trying to put through a bill? Would it not be better, as a political body—I am speaking of the government—to look deeply into its conscience to ensure that Bill C-2 is respected?

They tell us all day long that they brought forward Bill C-2, but for the past two years that bill has been laughed at and ignored by the government in power. For two years they have twisted that bill in all kinds of ways. Now, they want to make amendments to Bill C-29 in order to make life difficult for the political parties that are not in power. It is ridiculous.

Part of this bill is certainly important. We will vote in favour of that important part; but the majority of the amendments that have been added are not acceptable to us because they simply do not make sense. We want nothing to do with those.

We do not want those.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not need to tell you how pleased I am to be taking part in the debate on Bill C-29.

When you are a member of Parliament, there is not much that is more important than the quality of democratic life.

The members of the Bloc Québécois, who are all Quebeckers, because we field candidates only in Quebec, are obviously thinking of the legacy of René Lévesque. I am certain that the mention of his name is extremely inspiring to all the members, because René Lévesque made a huge contribution to cleaning up election practices by putting an end to secret funding. The older among us, including my colleague from Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, will remember that the 1976 Parti Québécois leadership campaign centred around this issue. There was one slogan that went: “For a clean, clean, clean fund”.

Today, it seems funny to refer to that time, because practices in Quebec have changed so much, in a non-partisan way. No one in the National Assembly of Quebec would want to go back to a system where corporations and individuals could make unreported contributions.

Still, the idea of establishing limits is quite new in our federal legislation. There has been a federal Elections Act for a very long time, but it did not have any control over contributions until the final years of the Chrétien government. We have to acknowledge in a non-partisan way that that was an interesting way to ensure democracy.

One might ask why, in a democracy, we have to know the rules of the game and limit contributions to a political party to $1,100 per individual, for example. This needs to be done because we would not want to live in a democracy where members of Parliament become spokespersons for lobby groups, as in the United States. I remember meeting a U.S. senator. It takes millions and millions of dollars to get elected in the United States. Because candidates receive contributions, they are required to become declared lobbyists for a specific lobby group.

The beauty of our electoral system, which is not perfect and could use some amendments, is that someone like me, the son of a labourer with no personal wealth, got elected last time by spending $25,000. For the most part, my contributions came from public fundraising. We can get elected without having any ties whatsoever to lobby groups. I am not saying that those groups cannot make contributions to have their point of view represented. However, it is possible to get elected in a political system without any ties to lobby groups. That is the best guarantee the public has. When we rise in the House to take a position on an issue, we do so without any ulterior motive and only with the interests of our constituents in mind. The more responsibility we have and the closer we get to the top, the more important it is for these examples of integrity to be absolutely respected.

That is why the Bloc Québécois has repeatedly called on the present Prime Minister to disclose all the sources of funding for his Canadian Alliance leadership campaign in 2002. This would be a sign of democratic respect that we recognize and that demonstrates transparency. As the Gomery report put it, we believe it would be a sign of democracy, transparency and sound responsibility to know who financed the present Prime Minister in his leadership bid in 2002.

The bill that is before us, and that the Bloc Québécois supports, is a bill that goes farther still.

Jean Chrétien introduced one bill, and after that there was Bill C-2 which went a little farther. I would note, as an aside, that it was a source of some disappointment. We would have hoped that the Access to Information Act would be modernized. After all, we have been talking about that for two decades.

We are well aware that journalists, and some members of the public, are concerned about the way this government is restricting the dissemination of information. We are well aware that people expect the Access to Information Act to be modernized. The Liberals did not do it and the Conservatives are dragging their feet on it, but it would be a good thing if this were done very quickly.

Even though the Access to Information Act has not been modernized, Bill C-2 still put transparency mechanisms in place that the Bloc Québécois supported at the time. I am thinking, for example, of whistleblowing in the public service and the budget oversight mechanisms under the responsibility of the Library of Parliament. So it seemed to us to be moving in the right direction.

Today we are going farther. We are calling for an end to a practice that can also generate controversy, that can also be ambiguous and that can also be questionable in terms of transparency. We want to prevent party leaders and people who have responsibilities and who want to be elected in political parties from being able to circumvent the rules and get access to funding beyond what is permitted or otherwise than through public funding, by accepting personal loans.

Today's bill will, first, limit the personal loans that can be taken out to the extremely precise figure of $1,100, the same as for personal contributions. Obviously there is a disclosure mechanism and mandatory registration. More importantly, repayment will be monitored. If I understand correctly, if a personal loan taken out by an elected member is not repaid within 18 months, it will have to be considered to be a contribution to the party, and an entire process will be set in motion.

It seems that the government has begun by imitating what was done in Quebec, finally putting an end to funding by corporations, unions and businesses, and accepting contributions from individuals only. The cap has been set at $1,100 to minimize the potential for influence peddling. Today, we are going even further by ensuring that personal loans—access to funding—will not be possible.

I hasten to add that this mechanism is a good one for purposes of transparency. It is good because it will allow us to become elected representatives who owe nothing to lobby groups. But this reform would not have been viable without public funding for political parties. Democracy does indeed have a price.

If we want people to get involved in public life, we have to talk about balancing work and family. Some members of my party have studied this issue. We want women to hold public office, but we know that they do not have equal opportunity. Even though there have been significant changes, women often have responsibilities that men have not fully taken on. Truly equal opportunity demands public funding so that political parties can benefit from a kind of war chest provided by public coffers as a starting point.

We are always on the lookout for improvements and concerned about cleaning up electoral practices. I think that the bill before us would contribute to that goal.

Mr. Speaker, given the frank camaraderie that has characterized our work over the past few days, and given that I have worked so hard on my speech, would you be so kind as to find out whether there is consent for me to go on for another 10 minutes?

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to Bill C-29.

Under the wavering light of this corner of the House, I hope my comments are clear and constant in suggesting that the bill, as it came through committee, was the proper bill. What the government is trying to do now is ignore the good democratic conditions and precedents of good committee work.

The bill in review aims to establish a system of improved accountability. It certainly did that as it came out of committee. Its key elements include creating a uniform and transparent reporting regime for all loans to political entities, including mandatory disclosure of terms and the identity of all lenders and loan guarantors.

That much makes a lot of sense. It would also ensure that total loans, loan guarantees and contributions by individuals could not exceed the annual contribution limit for individuals established in the Canada Elections Act.

It would also allow only financial institutions and political entities the capacity to make loans beyond the annual contribution limit for individuals and only at commercial or market rates of interest.

Tightening the rules for the treatment of unpaid loans to ensure candidates cannot walk away from unpaid loans was also an aim of this bill as it came back from committee. It would ultimately, as in its original sense, hold riding associations responsible for unpaid loans taken out by candidates. This is one of the cruxes of the problem, and I will get to the democratic deficit and the lack of participation that we have by good candidates in the electoral process if the government's designs are to be carried through.

The bill, by way of history, was first presented to the House during the first session of this Parliament as Bill C-54 and reintroduced in November of the past year with essentially the same content as Bill C-54.

The bill was very seriously examined during meetings of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The members worked very hard and came to agree upon different elements. There was a great deal, I say in a spirit of non-partisanship, of unanimity with respect to some of the time limit terms and some of the technical aspects. It was thought, certainly by opposition members, that there was a good deal of consensus and agreement on a few other outstanding matters that were embodied in amendments to the bill.

On this side we thought the bill as amended, as it comes back from committee, is something that we, in the great traditions of the Liberal Party, in the great traditions of democratic reform and keeping the balance that allows people to participate in the democratic process, could support.

At those committee meetings, improvements were made, not the least of which, as a significant improvement, was now to have unpaid amounts of a loan to be considered contributions after three years from the date the loan was made. The original proposal was 18 months.

Now the government House leader, the minister responsible for undemocratic reform, is presenting motions that will completely disregard the other amendments that were passed at committee.

Government Motion No. 1 would delete the Liberal amendment to allow for annual contributions to a leadership candidate. Under this amendment, for example, person A would be allowed to donate $1,000, or $1,100 as the case may be, to leadership candidate B in each calendar year until leadership candidate B paid his or her campaign debt and formally and finally closed his or her leadership campaign.

Government Motion No. 2 would make it necessary for loans to be repaid annually rather than at the point when the loan becomes due. This effectively would prevent candidates from taking extended repayment loans. It acts as a foreclosure on the normal commercial manner in which loans are undertaken and paid back. It says that the way the market works with respect to loaning a person money to fund a campaign shall not be respected. It makes no sense to set up an artificial limit on repayment when the market will deal with that issue.

After all, the movement is from a loan from a friend to a loan from a commercial lender at a commercial rate. I do not know if there was enough evidence from the banking community on this but it would seem to me that the banks are not in the business of giving loans that are high risk. They are not in the business of giving loans to people who cannot repay them.

Why is it that Parliament shall say to the bankers of this country that they do not know how to underwrite risk and that Parliament will make it shorter in duration for the banks and different than the market conditions. It is clearly against the forces of the market, which I thought the party on the other side favoured, and it is clearly undemocratic because it will put a chill on candidates presenting themselves for election.

Considering the fact that elections are not something that somebody can plan for, I think we are living that right now, but often, in the normal course of events, we can plan when we want to buy a house, a car, start a family or put our kids through college, as the case may be. Those are events we can plan and save for and, from time to time, we can make loans from commercial lenders at commercial rates. However, it is very difficult for someone who is not in the House right now and who wants to stand as a candidate to predict when he or she may need to get a loan for a campaign or, as the case may be, a leadership race.

Because the election may be called at any time, January, April or October, it is unreasonable for someone to be asked to pay off a loan before the time limit established by the loan contract itself. We on this side stand for the principles of the market. The free market shall dictate when a loan is given and how it is prepaid. Why is the government interloping and saying to the free market, the lenders in this country, that the government knows best?

Here we see the Conservative government is pushing hard on its perception and not its reality of accountability.

The Accountability Act, Bill C-2, which was presented and passed, was really the window dressing for the government's new regime and for its patina, if one likes, of sincerity. I say patina because it is a very thin layer that can be pierced very easily and beneath the patina we can see the substance. Without proper regulations backing up Bill C-2, the Accountability Act, it is a very hollow instrument. It does not have any of the reality backing up the rhetoric with which it was introduced.

It would be an absolute hindrance, in terms of accountability, for us to say that these government amendments help the democratic process. It would be an absolute hindrance for anyone presenting themselves to have to focus on repaying the loan by the end of the fiscal year if that is not the date that was agreed upon by the lender.

Moving to government Motion No. 3, it would delete the Bloc Québécois amendment that would remove liability from registered political parties for loans taken out by candidates.

We can imagine that we are 308 members in the House, not all filled at the time, but all of us have different constituencies and all of us have been successful in getting here, some by a wide margin and some by a very large margin.

If one is contesting a riding that one does not hold, the spectre of the political association being responsible for one's debt, if one is unsuccessful, is again very undemocratic because it would pit the association against the candidate. In a riding where it is impossible to win, or does not look very likely that one could win, we can see very clearly that the bill and the government Motion No. 3 puts a chill on democratic involvement and is in fact very undemocratic. One would wonder why it is included.

Why would the Conservative government, which does not hold all the seats in Parliament and, in fact, will never hold many of the seats in Parliament, wants to put a chill on its own candidates in pitting their Conservative associations against their candidates? One wonders why because it does not do anything to help the participation of new candidates in ridings.

In short, we are not in support of these amendments that the government has reintroduced at report stage. We think t the committee worked very well and that its wishes and its motions should be respected.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this debate on Bill C-29, which is in fact the amended version of Bill C-54 that was debated in the previous session. All parties agreed to pick up the debate where we left off before resuming this new session. As was the case in the previous session, we will support the bill even though, and I will come back to this, we think it is important that a number of the amendments we made to it—I am talking about the opposition parties, but the Bloc Québécois in particular—be maintained despite the government's desire to drop them for reasons that are completely unclear to me.

We were in favour of this bill and we still are. The purpose of the bill is to prevent individuals from bypassing campaign financing rules. The bill now includes a ceiling of $1,100 for individuals. Companies and corporations are no longer able to make donations to political associations. We agree with this principle that has existed in Quebec for 30 years now. This was one of the first accomplishments of the Parti Québécois under the leadership of René Lévesque.

As such, we agree with the idea that once a number of rules are in place governing political party fundraising and the amounts that individual voters can contribute, people should not have opportunities to get around the law by taking out loans, thereby sidestepping the will of Parliament, particularly the House of Commons, to ensure that the rules of the game are more or less the same for all political parties.

I have been watching what is going on with the primaries in the United States and the mind-boggling amounts of money the candidates are spending. This is not even the race for the presidency of the United States. These are just the Democratic and Republican nomination races. It is clear that that much money results in inequality that prevents some people from participating in the races from the very beginning.

Of course, in both Canada and Quebec, fundraising efforts do have to be significant. Everyone in this House knows that and participates in it. Still, the amount of money each of us can use for our election campaigns is within reach, even for individuals who do not have a personal fortune at their disposal or a network of acquaintances to secure the loans or donations they need to launch a campaign. For example, the value of some contributions made to both the Conservative and Liberal leadership races, which took place before Bill C-2 was passed, is still unknown.

It is clear to us that candidates should not be allowed to use loans to sidestep the caps that put an end to corporate backing and limit individual contributions.

The bill also solves another problem with the Federal Accountability Act, Bill C-2, about which I spoke earlier. When Bill C-2 was being studied—and this was denounced by all opposition parties—the Conservative government was much more interested in quickly passing the bill in order to inform citizens that it had fulfilled its first promise. Unfortunately, this haste resulted in a certain number of deficiencies. I am referring to loans to political entities. The bill fell somewhat short in terms of the ethics promised. We really did have to revisit the shortcomings of Bill C-2. I remind the House that, at the time, the opposition parties, the media, the political observers and organizations such as Democracy Watch pointed out the problem but the government refused to take action.

Once again, as is often the case in this Parliament, each party had to study the advantages and the disadvantages of the deficiencies resulting from the Conservatives' haste. We supported the bill because we were generally in favour of the underlying principle.

Bill C-29 also solves the problem of loans—it is at the heart of the bill—whereby the limits for personal political contributions could be circumvented. Several ethical difficulties were not addressed by Bill C-2. I am thinking, for instance, of poor protection for whistleblowers and the failure to reform the Access to Information Act.

Bill C-29 incorporates the only change proposed by the Bloc Québécois when Bill C-54 was studied in committee. This amendment ensured that the political party would not be responsible for the debts of candidates. The government wants to change that. We do not really understand the government's intentions. It wants to force a political party to guarantee, without prior knowledge, the debts of a candidate who, without making any effort to raise funds, decides to borrow from a bank the maximum amount allowed under the Canada Elections Act.

We therefore proposed an amendment, with which the government seemed to agree, or at least the opposition parties, the Liberals and the NDP, did. Now the government is questioning our amendment. Therefore, we will vote against this government motion.

It is rather irrational and illogical that a political party would be responsible for debts incurred by its candidates without the party knowing. We think the Bloc's amendment should be upheld so that the bill makes sense. I hope the two other opposition parties will still be in favour of it, as they were when Bill C-54 was being examined in committee.

The Bloc Québécois is almost entirely financed by individuals. An candidate could borrow $50,000 from the bank to run his election campaign. If he did not repay the loan, the bank could go after the political party. I think allowing this would be almost immoral. It means that every citizen who donates $5 to our party would also have to support this candidate who might have gotten into debt irresponsibly.

I think that even though we agree with the spirit of the bill and will vote in favour of it, the government should rethink its decision to remove the amendment proposed by the Bloc and adopted by the committee. It should go back to something that makes much more sense and that would be more respectful towards the thousands of small donors who are the financing backbone of the Bloc Québécois, and I imagine this is the case with the other parties.

I will not go on any longer. That was my basic message. We will have to hope that the government comes to its senses and accepts the bill with the amendment proposed by the Bloc and adopted in committee.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

I thank my colleagues for their expressions of sympathy, but it was just a temporary setback, Mr. Speaker. I won my seat in 2004.

To make a long story short, after the election campaign, I no longer had a job, and I was in a lot of debt. As any responsible person would do, I made sure I repaid that debt. It never occurred to me that my party should take on that responsibility.

Of course, I had received an election rebate, because my expenses were in order, but I had still borrowed money, because in our riding, the party did not have much money at the time. Things have changed a great deal since then. There must not be very many cases where candidates, at least Bloc Québécois candidates, do not repay their debts. If a party were saddled with all its candidates' debts, the party supporters would not be very happy.

Earlier, one of my colleagues was saying that in his riding—and it is that way for the most part in Bloc Québécois ridings—supporters quite often give small amounts of money. We have a multitude of supporters who take part in fundraising activities. They organize spaghetti nights at $10, $20 or $25 a head as a fundraiser because in our culture, we do not rely on big companies, even though the legislation has now changed for the better—thankfully.

I remember a time when the former prime minister, during a leadership race that was more like a coronation, received $100,000 from the Irving Oil Corporation. I can assure you that I have never received that kind of money, even when the legislation allowed it. Where I come from our supporters would be insulted if they were told that all the money they raised was going to be used to pay off a candidate's debt, if the candidate defaulted, because it was the party's responsibility to do so.

Bill C-29 is not a bad bill, since it corrects some of the shortcomings in the Accountability Act, the former Bill C-2, which the government wanted to pass so quickly that it unwittingly, or not—I am not sure—forgot the ethical problems.

That was at a time when the Conservative government probably thought, as many analysts did, that their mandate would last a year or a year and a half. They presented a few priorities—I believe there were five at first—saying they would start with that. In the two years the government has been in place, it has not seemed sure what direction to take. Nonetheless, I believe it does know: it wants to go back to the polls because it does not have any plans that would enable it to go on much longer.

The government thought it would not last long. It wanted to quickly fulfill its so-called promises, but in its haste it left out some parts. That is why we now have Bill C-29: to fill the gaps.

Bill C-29 seeks to prevent individuals from bypassing campaign financing rules.

Since I am being signalled that I have only two minutes left, I will be brief.

The Bloc Québécois believes it is necessary to regulate loans in order to prevent people from getting around the financing limits. In fact, it is ironic that this government is presenting such a bill, since the Conservative Party is currently being investigated by Elections Canada, which is refusing to rebate the campaign expenses for 67 Conservative candidates who ran during the last election campaign. There are nine members from Quebec, two ministers from Quebec and a secretary of state from Quebec. The latter is not really a minister, although he has a limousine. A secretary of state is not considered a real minister. Those people are among that group.

Here is how they do it: money is transferred to the ridings for advertising. It was supposed to be for local advertising, but in reality, it was used for national advertising. The candidate who received the money never once saw his face on television or in the media. It really was for national advertising. The riding associations sent money back to the national level to pay for the advertising.

This strategy allowed the party to raise its limits for campaign spending by $1.2 million. That is a considerable sum, which is why it is so important at this time, on the eve of a possible election campaign, to avoid this kind of ploy, and ensure that the Conservative Party cannot repeat the same gimmick, which allowed them to have higher spending limits for campaign advertising than any other party normally would have.

I would like to point out that the Conservative Party accused the NDP and the Liberals of doing the same thing. However, Elections Canada said that those parties really gave their candidates an opportunity to have local advertising. That is the difference.

Tackling Violent Crime Legislation

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

Mr. Speaker, I arrived here just over two years ago and my introduction to the House was Bill C-2 which dealt with accountability. I became used to that member's empty, misleading rhetoric to the Canadian public after he said that the government would have an accountability act with regulations and with teeth. It is now two years later and there is still no teeth in the legislation. It is the same thing.

I want to ask him some questions on his tackling violent crime speech today. If there is a Juno award for the best role in a dramatic fictional series, he should get it because he is a tremendous actor.

If the close in age exemption had been part of the legislation proposed by the member for Wild Rose, red rose or any rose whatsoever in the past 13 years, is it not true that there would have been consent from that party down there and from this party here? Is it not true that we would have a sensible age of consent law? It is absolutely the truth. I defy him to tell the Canadian public that the Liberal Party and that party over there would not have passed it along with his party sitting over there.

Why did he and his government lump Bill C-27 in with this tackling crime bill, which is patently unconstitutional, along with other bills that everybody consented to? Why did the Conservatives put a poison pill in their own bill? It is because they do not want this bill to pass. They did not want the last ones to pass so they pulled the plug on Parliament because they were afraid of the environment. Those members are afraid.

Motions in Amendment

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to take part in this debate on a bill that aims to correct another problem with the Federal Accountability Act. I would remind this House that when Bill C-2 was studied, the government was interested in passing the bill quickly, an attitude that we in the opposition parties, the media and Democracy Watch criticized.

The Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-29 in principle, because it addresses the problem of loans that allowed individuals to bypass political contribution restrictions. In fact, Bill C-29 fills the gaps the government left in studying Bill C-2, which contains little protection for whistleblowers and does nothing to improve the Access to Information Act.

Quebeckers have long understood the importance of having clear, reliable rules on financing political organizations. The Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-29 in principle, because it should prevent people from getting around the financing rules, especially as regards contribution limits.

I want to stress that the Bloc Québécois fought long and hard for these limits. Inspired by the system that has been in place in Quebec for 30 years, we called on the government to put an end to financing by companies and limit individual contributions. Bill C-29 incorporates the only change proposed by the Bloc Québécois when Bill C-54 was studied in committee. Then, we decried the fact that the political party was held responsible for its candidates' debts, even if the party was not a party to the contract between the individual and his or her financial institution.

I must say that I am extremely disappointed that the government is refusing to comply with the committee's decision on this. Although the current government wants to demonstrate good faith and sincerity, the fact remains that its intentions are not really genuine. In fact, the Conservatives are using this bill to point out that during the most recent Liberal leadership race, several candidates took out big loans to bypass financing restrictions. Yet the Conservatives are forgetting that the Prime Minister himself has not disclosed all of the contributions he received during the 2002 leadership race.

If the Conservatives think they can pass themselves off as the champions of transparency and the standard bearers of ethics, I must remind them of a few facts that might force them to reconsider. We all remember, as does the public, all the back and forth between political offices and lobbying firms, the contracts awarded to political friends, the use of public funds for partisan purposes, the many partisan appointments, the appointments of judges and immigration commissioners, that is, to the IRB, on the basis of their political beliefs, and the publication of a guide intended for Conservative members who chair committees that lists every possible, imaginable measure to obstruct the work of committees.

Bill C-29 aims to correct the problem of loans used to circumvent the limits on contributions paid to political parties, but certain problems remain. Whistleblower protection comes to mind. During the election campaign, the Conservatives promised to guarantee whistleblowers greater protection. They wanted to “ensure that whistleblowers would have access to adequate legal counsel”. Yet the Conservatives' bill allows for only $1500 in legal fees.

They also wanted “to give the public sector integrity commissioner the power to enforce the whistleblower legislation”. They wanted “to guarantee protection to all Canadians who report wrongdoing within the government, not just to public servants”. Furthermore, they wanted “to take away the government's ability to exempt crown corporations and other entities from the application of the whistleblower legislation”.

In the recent sponsorship scandal, one of the whistleblowers, Allan Cutler, a Conservative Party candidate in the 2006 election, I should mention, was somewhat critical of Bill C-2. He maintained that Bill C-2 was far from perfect and had some problems that needed fixing, especially with respect to the provisions for protecting whistleblowers.

On April 5, 2005, the Liberal government released a discussion paper on reforming the Access to Information Act. This document met with general criticism. In addition to doubling the minimum administrative fees charged to the public, the proposal by the member for LaSalle—Émard, maintained all the exceptions provided for in the legislation.

If the Liberal Party never managed to bring about any useful reform of access to information in 13 years, the Conservative government, despite its election promise, did not do any better. We are still waiting for this reform.

The public knows that once in power, the Conservatives and the Liberals are not in such a hurry to reform the legislation. The information commissioner recently observed that this is a common trait in all governments:

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.

With regard to the lack of transparency in election financing, we can see that the Liberals and the Conservatives are equals. What is the Prime Minister waiting for to disclose all the contributions he received during the 2002 Canadian Alliance leadership race? The public must know that the Prime Minister admitted, in December 2006, that he failed to disclose to the Chief Electoral Officer that he had received hundreds of thousands of dollars. The money consisted of registration fees collected from Conservative delegates attending the Conservative Party's May 2005 convention. The party was forced to treat convention registration fees as donations. The report indicated that three delegates, including the Prime Minister, had exceeded their annual contribution limit of $5,400 to the party.

At the very least, the Conservative government is a government susceptible to powerful influences. The Prime Minister, when he was leader of the opposition, reprimanded the Liberals for the comings and goings between political offices and lobbying firms. Yet, since taking power he has done no better.

To summarize, the bill establishes a standard and transparent reporting system for all loans made to political entities, requiring the mandatory disclosure of the terms of these loans as well as the identity of the lenders and guarantors.

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

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.

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.

Loans not repaid within 18 months would be considered a political contribution.

Riding associations, or where there are none, the parties themselves, would be held responsible for their candidate's unpaid loan.

For all these reasons, we support the principle of this bill but we truly hope that motion no. 3 will be defeated.

Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from the Bloc had a lot to say.

We as parliamentarians and Canadians in general would like some understanding of the framework of the fiscal situation of the Government of Canada.

In Bill C-2, the accountability act, there was the commitment to have what I call truth in advertising. It was in the bill but it has not been brought into force to have a budgetary officer of Parliament to tell Canadians and parliamentarians what the surplus will be.

When the Conservatives were in opposition, the then leader of the official opposition who is now the Prime Minister was very clear that he wanted to have an understanding of what the surpluses would be so we could have a debate in this place and Canadians could have a debate in the country as to where the money should be spent.

Sadly, the government is doing what the previous government was doing, which is to treat the nice big fat surplus as if it were the government's, when in fact we know it is Canadians' surplus. The Conservatives just spirit money over to the debt and bring forth a fiscal update which we cannot debate to the extent that we debate a budget. We cannot invest the surplus in our communities to deal with the crumbling infrastructure, housing, et cetera.

I would like the hon. member's take on why the government has not brought into force the budgetary officer of Parliament. Why does he think the government is hypocritical on the issue of debating the surplus and not having a real debate in this country about the country's finances?

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

Mr. Speaker, I can understand that there is a lot of commotion in here tonight about the Saskatchewan Roughriders winning the Grey Cup. I rise to my feet amidst all that glorious celebration of Canada's oldest professional sport championship and offer salutations to both sides.

I rise to ask a question in the realm of democratic reform. I was fortunate enough to ask a question of the government. However, I was not fortunate enough to really receive an answer.

My question involved questions regarding Mr. Michael Donison and his imprimatur.

I should go back a little. He was one of the star witnesses for the Conservative government when it brought in its new accountability act, the most comprehensive, et cetera, as I have heard the member for Nepean—Carleton go on about the title. In fact, Mr. Donison was a witness at the Bill C-2 hearings who said that the convention fee expenses were totally legal and totally within the confines of the Elections Act.

However, it turns out that over the summer the Conservative Party defied, I guess, the evidence of Mr. Donison and treated convention fees as contributions, as all parties had, and did a sort of volte-face on their original position.

My question, thoroughly put to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform, is this: will we see the same turnaround with respect to the colouring of the in and out expense aspect done on most Conservative campaigns and totalling some $2 million? Will we see a change in the position in this very important matter? Was it really necessary for the Conservative Party to sue Elections Canada and to put the taxpayers to the expense of defending Elections Canada when it is very clear that Elections Canada did not allow these expenses in the first place?

Much has been made in court filings about other advertising undertaken by other members across the country, but I hasten to add that Elections Canada has not thrown out any other expense accounts except the numerous expense accounts put in by candidates, successful or not, in the Conservative Party who have participated in the in and out affair.

Local candidates had claimed, many of them in defiance of their party leaders, that it was national advertising. In fact, it was. Much of the advertising that took place, and this is according to Mr. Donison, who is now sort of in the embrace of government and who said it would be no real news to a local campaign: it would be “a transfer in and back out, same day...as agreed”. He said that there would be “no net cost”. It is very close in scheme to money laundering.

I want to know, if everything was done by the letter of the law, why did Elections Canada reject not one not two but a myriad of claims? Also, why was it necessary for the Conservative Party to take the Elections Canada decision to court and not accept Elections Canada findings, as all of us as candidates have? Why are the Conservatives putting the taxpayers to the expense of defending Elections Canada?

Canada Elections Act

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-18. Of course, if all members of the House had done their job when Bill C-31 was before the committee, we would not be in this position.

The parliamentary secretary spoke about the fact that the NDP opposed Bill C-31 simply because it was concerned about homeless people. There are a couple of things I would like to say about that. I am sure the parliamentary secretary could not possibly be suggesting that homeless people should not vote. We know that homelessness is a rising crisis in this country and that there are increasing numbers of homeless people in Canada. I would be very surprised to hear members of the House say that homeless people should be disenfranchised.

I point to the preliminary report of the UN special rapporteur, Miloon Kothari, that was released on October 22. It talked about the fact that Canada has a crisis in housing. We have a national crisis that is in an emergency situation. We know that independent sources are talking about increasing homelessness. We know homeless people often do not have identification that would allow them to vote.

Members of the Bloc are suggesting that somehow the New Democrats are not in favour of integrity in the voting system and that is absolute nonsense. The member for Vancouver East had a very concrete suggestion, one that has been used in Vancouver East, which was the use of statutory declarations for people who showed up with no identification and were not on the voters list.

NDPers are certainly very conscious of maintaining the integrity of the voting system and of ensuring there is no fraud, but I am also very aware that the Chief Electoral Officer also indicated that fraud is by no means rampant in this country. One wonders, when we attempt to use a sledgehammer on a small isolated problem, what the overall intent is.

When the parliamentary secretary answered a question I asked him about what this particular bill before us was going to do for people who were going to be disenfranchised, living in transient shelters and homeless, he indicated that the quote I read was actually not a quote of his from Bill C-18 when in fact it was his response to Bill C-18 amendments proposed by the Senate.

When the former Bill C-31 came back to the House for further review and consideration, I want to point out to members that New Democrats not only identified problems with that bill, and I am going to talk about some of them, but they also proposed solutions. They were concerned about rural voters in small communities. We talked about them being in small isolated communities. Not all rural communities are small and isolated, but we were certainly conscious of the fact that other community members could be disenfranchised.

On June 18, in response to amendments to Bill C-31 proposed by the Senate, the parliamentary secretary said:

What we are trying to do, by presenting a bill that will give increased and expanded voting opportunities for all Canada, is attempt to raise the level of voter turnout.

What we actually did with Bill C-31, in effect, is disenfranchise nearly a million rural voters. When those kinds of comments are made, one wonders if homelessness was considered as well.

The parliamentary secretary went on to say again on June 18, 2007, regarding amendments to Bill C-31 from the Senate:

I think there is no greater fraud that could be perpetrated on Canadians than that of an individual voting in a federal or provincial election who pretends to be someone that he or she is not.

Surely, there is also a fraud in disenfranchising voters. People have talked about section 3 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. When we pass legislation that says Canadians will not be allowed to vote because of where they live in rural Canada, surely that is perpetrating a fraud.

On that very same day of June 18, in response to Bill C-31 amendments from the Senate, the Minister for Democratic Reform said:

As I have mentioned on other occasions, this bill makes a number of changes to the electoral process that will reduce the opportunity for electoral fraud, improve the accuracy of the national register and the lists of electors, facilitate communication with the electorate and improve the administration of elections. These are changes that will be of benefit to all parties, to all candidates, and to all Canadians because it will make our electoral system, and in turn our democracy, stronger.

The Minister for Democratic Reform was supporting a piece of legislation that was actually going to make sure that some Canadians could not vote. How is that possibly in keeping with provisions for making our democracy stronger? In fact, in the government's rush to reduce a virtually non-existent fraud problem, it has actually made sure that well over a million Canadians will not be able to vote.

The bill attempts to correct that. If we are going to correct a piece of flawed legislation, I would argue that we need to correct all of the issues that were identified when Bill C-31 came forward initially.

Often in the House, we hear people talking about accountability, transparency, and fiscal responsibility. Bill C-31 was before the House and the Conservatives, the Liberals and the Bloc pushed it through despite some very strong reservations identified by New Democrats, and solutions suggested as well I might add. Now we are in the process of fixing a flawed piece of legislation at what cost to taxpayers.

We have a responsibility when legislation comes before the House. I have heard members say that not every piece of legislation is perfect and we have to do what we can do to get things through the House. However, when we do things hastily and without adequate consideration for broad ranging impact, we end up not only delaying the process, but we end up spending far more money than we needed to spend in the first place.

When the government brought in Bill C-18 to fix the problem of disenfranchised rural voters, it was not fixing the problems with respect to people who perhaps were homeless or living on low incomes. Does that mean we will have to bring another bill back before the House, at great expense to taxpayers, in order to fix a problem that should have been fixed when Bill C-31 was originally before the House?

I heard the parliamentary secretary speak about the fact that the primary reason that New Democrats opposed the original bill was because of our great concern for homeless people. We are absolutely concerned about people who are homeless. Whether it is their right to vote, their right to adequate shelter, and everything in between like health care, liveable wages, adequate education, we are concerned. I am very proud as a New Democrat to stand up and speak about these things in the House.

New Democrats identified a number of issues in Bill C-31 which are not being addressed in Bill C-18 and are still going to continue to be a problem.

We talked about the fact that the bill would result in thousands of individuals not being able to exercise their right to vote because of a lack of proper identification due to poverty, illness, disability or having no stable address. This also included people who were temporarily housed in transition shelters. We put forward a recommendation around the statutory declaration as an alternate means of identification for an elector to prove his or her identity.

We also talked about the fact that there were some serious problems with the vouching system. With the vouching system, one person can vouch only for one voter.

Sometimes, for example, there may be someone who lives in a riding and works a lot with people who are homeless, some of the street workers, who often have daily contact with people who are homeless. That person would only be able to vouch for one of those people who he or she works with on a regular basis. We were arguing that using that vouching system is a legitimate way to say that someone should be able to prove who they are and that one should be able to vouch for more than one person. That seems perfectly reasonable.

Surely, if one's credentials are good enough to vouch for one person, they should be good enough to vouch for five, six or ten people. What difference does it make?

I want to highlight the fact again that when New Democrats were speaking about the problems with Bill C-31, which have not been fixed in Bill C-18, they were identifying more than homelessness as an issue. The member for Vancouver East, in a very good speech that outlined a number of the problems and potential solutions, said:

What is being offered as the main solution to this problem is a voter identification system. In looking at the bill and knowing where this came from at committee, we want to express some of our concerns about what may be the unintended consequences of the ID system on voters. In particular, we are concerned about how this would impact low income people, people who live in small remote communities and aboriginal people who do not have the necessary ID outlined in the bill.

Clearly, the member for Vancouver East, who is a very experienced member of the House and has been a tireless advocate for homeless people, was also talking about people who are not only homeless but who lived in small and remote communities and aboriginal people.

Therefore, I think that is a very good example of how New Democrats talked about issues that included the homeless and others. Further on in her speech she talked about a solution. She said:

However, I have looked at this carefully and have talked to lawyers in my community who have been involved in providing assistance around statutory declarations for voters with no ID, and they are very concerned, as I am, about what this provision will mean. At present, it is acceptable for a voter to make a statutory declaration along with a person in the community who can identify the voter. In the downtown east side, it has often been a street worker, someone who knows many of the people in the community, who vouches for the individual. Under the new bill, [Bill C-31], this would no longer be allowed.

Bill C-18, which is before the House, does not take into account that provision that would have prevented the disenfranchisement of a number of people in our communities. The member went on to say:

We are prepared to see this bill go to committee. The government has said that it is willing to look at amendments--

We, of course, know that what happened is neither the government, nor the Liberals, nor the Bloc supported some of the amendments that the NDP put forward. This is the important part. The member also said:

--to ensure that by dealing with voter fraud, we are not at the same time unintentionally disenfranchising people who have a right to vote, who want to vote and who are voting legitimately, but would be precluded from doing so by these new provisions.

We have seen the first round of people who will be disenfranchised by Bill C-31.

I talked a bit about the vouching system and how extremely complicated it is in terms of the fact that we have one person who can vouch only for one person.

The member for Ottawa Centre, again a tireless defender of democratic reform and people's right to vote, in his speech against Bill C-31, and this is prescient, identified some problems that could occur. He said, “I would hate to see unintended consequences that would do the same here”. In this context he was referring to some problems that happened in the civil rights movement in the United States where people were, some would argue, intentionally disenfranchised and there were court challenges that resulted from that. He said:

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

The member for Ottawa Centre spoke about the fact that there could be unintended consequences of the bill and what do we see but over one million voters in Canada not able to vote because of this very deeply flawed bill.

The member goes on to talk about solutions. People in the House have said that New Democrats only oppose things, not propose things. That is wrong. We talked about the fact that enumeration, which has been cancelled, would have been a very good way to ensure that we had the best possible electoral list so that people would be accurately reflected on that voters list. It would certainly ease voting when it comes to voting day. That would have been one solution, along with the use of statutory declarations.

One of the members referred to the fact that New Democrats are not doing anything on democratic reform. Again, that is absolute utter nonsense because we know the previous member, Ed Broadbent, with whom I was very proud to serve as a member of the New Democrat caucus, presented a very detailed plan on democratic reform. Part of that plan dealt with corporate lobbyists. When we talk about democratic reform, we had the member for Winnipeg Centre yesterday pointing out the fact that measures to deal with corporate lobbyists under the Accountability Act still have not been put in place.

The member for Winnipeg Centre has been tireless in talking about ethics and accountability in this House.

We have a government that ran on a platform of accountability and so-called clean government and now we have a situation of Conservative corporate lobbyists who, because of the Conservatives' failure to enact certain provisions of Bill C-2, the Accountability Act, they have pretty much a free licence these days.

Aeronautics Act

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

First of all, Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your response and I do want to make it clear to the member that we would not have denied unanimous consent, because obviously making our statements in the House is important to all members. If there is a glitch with the clock, that should be corrected, but maybe next time we will do it through unanimous consent.

I am very pleased to have this opportunity to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-7. As we know, this bill was in the last session of Parliament and was then known as Bill C-6.

I want to say right off that NDP members were very instrumental and worked as a very tight group in the last days of that session to fight the bill and try to keep it from going through the House. It was at third reading then. I am sure that my colleagues will remember that we rose in those last few days and kept the debate going.

In the House today, I have heard a number of members raise questions about that. What is the NDP doing? Why is it trying to hold up the bill? Some members are saying that it is a great bill and it had a great hearing in committee, that all those witnesses were heard and the bill has been fixed if there were problems. As we know, the government is obviously supporting the bill.

The Liberals, who first initiated the bill when they were in government, of course are supporting the bill, just as they now support a number of things from the Conservative government, including the Speech from the Throne and the so-called mini-budget. It is no surprise to us that they are supporting the aeronautics bill. The members of the BQ also have been supporting the bill.

However, I do want to put on the record that the reason we wished to hold it up in June, the reason we fought it, is that we think the bill is flawed. We think the bill has not had the scrutiny it deserves. We have had repeated concerns brought to us, particularly by the labour movement, people who work in this industry and who have a tremendous amount of experience and knowledge. They work on the ground, just like the member for Parkdale—High Park said when she spoke about her knowledge of this industry.

I can tell members of the House that we take this very seriously. In our humble opinion, and we are one party in the House, we believe we have a responsibility: if we do not think a bill is good enough, if we think a bill is not right, we should not just roll over and let it go through.

That is why in June we debated the bill and tried to hold it up. In fact, we did hold it up. It would have gone through. Then, as we know, the Prime Minister prorogued the House. It is ironic. We are told by the government that these bills are so critical and they are being held up by the opposition, and, in the case of this bill, by the NDP. Yet it was the government itself and the Prime Minister himself that prorogued the House and in effect killed all of the bills that were before the House of Commons.

That was the tactic the government employed to buy some time, to see out the byelections or the Ontario election, whatever the reasons were. We obviously were not privy to what government members had in their minds, but the government itself decided to prorogue the House, delay the return of Parliament and in effect kill the bill in its former version, which was Bill C-6.

As we know, the bill has now been brought back. It is still at third reading. We in the NDP successfully put forward an amendment, or what is called a hoist motion, to have the bill sent back to the committee. I want to assure members of the House that we did so on the basis of our concerns. We did that on the basis that we really do believe the bill should go back to the committee.

It may well be that other members are satisfied. It may well be that other members think this is a fine bill and that is the end of the story. We do not. We think there are significant concerns that should be addressed. From our point of view, we are doing our job as parliamentarians to debate the legislation, to defend the public interest, to represent the public interest and to represent the interest of public safety, particularly as it relates to airline safety.

On the record, I do want to mention the tremendous work of our former transport critic, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster. He almost single-handedly raised the issues around the bill and alerted people out in the broader community so they could come before the committee. He has gone through the bill with a fine-tooth comb, looking at the changes that are about to take place.

This is where we have a very strong difference with other members in the House. We think the changes proposed in Bill C-7,, the aeronautics bill, are not in the public interest. They will not improve and strengthen safety provisions in the airline industry.

We are extremely concerned that, overall, this is the beginning of a slippery slope. In fact, one might argue that the slippery slope began a long time ago with previous Liberal governments. They began with this massive environment of privatization and deregulation.

We know it is something that the big airline industry has long coveted. We are now in that environment where deregulation and privatization are the victim of the day. However, when it comes to safety, I truly believe that Canadians, whether they live in large urban centres and mostly access airline travel through large airports such as Pearson, Vancouver or Montreal or wherever it might be, or live in smaller communities and rely on regional airports that maybe do not have the same kind of equipment and technology that is available in the larger centres, absolutely rely on us as parliamentarians to go through this kind of legislation. If there is a shadow of a doubt that it does not meet a strong and high standard around safety and protecting the public and the people who work in that industry, I think they expect us to not allow this legislation to pass.

We are attempting to bring those concerns forward. As the member for Parkdale—High Park said, what is the government for? What do we do in this place?

We do many things. We all have issues that we represent in our riding. However, overall we have a responsibility to represent that broader public interest against all kinds of pressures, from big corporations, from offshore interests, from people who have an agenda, the CEOs who have an agenda to only look at the bottom line. Our job is to make those balances and to overall represent the public interest.

I want to speak a bit about the specific concerns I have about Bill C-7. I know they are shared by my colleagues in the New Democratic Party. They revolve around really three key questions, one of which is the new safety management system, the SMS as it is being called. The second involves the immunity for prosecutions from airlines that violate safety rules under certain conditions. The third is the heightened secrecy and the fact that there will be less access to information on the safety performance of airlines under this bill than we had previously.

It raises the question as to why. Why would the bill take us in that direction? I am not sure I know the answer to that, other than I know it is a really bad direction and we should not allow it to happen.

It is part of this bigger picture of deregulation. It is part of a bigger picture that the Conservative government has adopted; that it is better to have no rules, that it is better to allow self-regulation by industry, and there may be some instances where that is warranted. By and large that is not a good direction to take, particularly with the airline industry.

I will speak on the first point, the new safety management systems. This is at the heart of the bill we are debating today. We believe it will affect the safety of the travelling public and crew members.

New Democrats are very concerned that the SMS system is supposed to be a management system that has been developed to allow air operators to improve safety levels by building on existing safety regulators. We know Transport Canada, both in committee and elsewhere, has insisted that this new safety management system is not a deregulation, but we think it is. There we begin our entrance onto the slippery slope.

We believe it is part of a deregulation and a significant change for two reasons. First, there will be a new role for the regulator that will increase the level of delegation previously performed by Transport Canada and that role will be delegated to the airlines.

Many members of the NDP have spoken on this issue over the last few days. We are very concerned because it was a function that was carried out by a government department, Transport Canada. Even though there might have been issues and concerns over various situations that arose, overall one has some level of faith in a government agency performing the function of a safety management system.

To now shift it to the airlines and make them, in effect, self-regulating in terms of safety rules and self-monitoring is something we should be very concerned about. We need to ask the question as to where this will lead. If we allow this to happen in this industry, in what other industries or instances will it also happen? This is the direction the previous government was taking and now it appears the Conservative government is also taking that direction.

Related to the question of the safety management system is a transfer of the determination of appropriate risk levels from Transport Canada to the airlines. The NDP would argue that this is again shifting the rules and responsibility from a public government agency, which is accountable to the House of Commons and the people of Canada, to the airlines. The public interest becomes a little less clear . We have to question whether that shift in the safety management system will mean that there is a greater interest in terms of what the interests are of the private shareholders. Those are very serious questions.

I was not in the committee, and I will be the first to say that. The member for Burnaby—New Westminster was. After speaking with him, I know that there were very detailed discussions. Witnesses came forward and expressed their concerns about this function of the safety management system.

I realize there are members in the House who are satisfied with what they heard from the department and what they see in the bill, but the NDP is not. On that ground alone, the safety management system, we are not satisfied that the public interest test has been met.

We are very skeptical about this movement of responsibility from the government to the airlines. We are also very concerned about what the consequences of that might be in the long term for the travelling public, as well as for people working in the airline industry who are all of a sudden in an environment that becomes a self-regulating situation.

It is more preferable to have an outside body that clearly establishes rules, regulations and benchmarks in terms of what the risk and safety levels are for people who work in that industry and who may feel the pressure from their employers to cut a little corner here, cut a little something there. There are those pressures in the workplace, so having the clear mandate of Transport Canada to lay out that level is very important for the workers in the industry. They have something on which they can call. That is our first concern.

The second concern, as I mentioned, has to do with what we understand to be the immunity from prosecution for airlines that violates safety rules under certain conditions. Again, this is something about which the public should be very worried. We need to be very clear that under this proposal, Transport Canada has not granted whistleblower protection to employees who may report that their air operator is not following the law.

I find this very ironic. The government brought in Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act. It was its first bill after its election to a minority Parliament, and the NDP supported it. The act was meant to be about setting out broad parameters and very specific provisions and regulations to ensure there was accountability, that there was whistleblower protection, that people could be protected in their workplace.

Therefore, it seems to me rather ironic that now under Bill C-7 we have a number of provisions that will provide immunity from prosecution. It does not have whistleblower protection, so that really creates a very uncertain environment for people who may be in the know. They may have information they think is important. They may feel they have an individual obligation to report violations or situations that are not safe. Yet they will not be protected.

We think this is another serious issue and flaw in the bill. This is another reason for it be sent back to committee.

The third issue has to do with the fact that there will be less access to information on the safety performance of airlines.

From time to time, we read about serious incidents that take place in air travel. It is something that alarms people.

Like other members of the House, I travel a lot. I mostly travel between Vancouver and Ottawa, and I do not particularly like using air travel. I do it however because I am from Vancouver and it is the way I get to work and get home. We have this faith that the pilots, the flight attendants and the ground crews know what they are doing, and I do. I have a lot of confidence in those people.

In fact, I was on a flight the other day, leaving from Pearson to go to Vancouver. We were zooming down the runway and about to take off. Just before takeoff, the pilot slammed on the brakes and it became clear we would not be taking off. Everyone was wondering what was happening. Over the public announcement system, the pilot said that there was something wrong. He did not know what it was so he aborted the takeoff. The 300 people on the plane were hugely relieved he had made that decision.

We went back to the gate. We sat around for an hour, which nobody really minded, because they were checking out safety provisions. In the end, the aircraft was grounded. We all had to scramble around for other flights. However, I was glad because I sure as heck did not want to fly in a plane that might be unsafe.

People worry about this. They rely on those professionals to make the right decisions, even at the last minute, even at the last second.

With this bill, we believe there will be less security on those issues. There will be less access to information to find out what is going on. For example, there are seven sections of the Aeronautics Act that will be added to schedule II of the Access to Information Act to ensure that there is no access to information. Why is that? Why would there be this shift?

I do have other issues to raise but those are some of the concerns that I put forward from my party and the reason we believe the bill should be sent back to committee and given a thorough review.

Canada Evidence Act

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I support and speak in favour of this bill, along with my party.

Many things that have been discussed and put forward in support of this bill, but some of those ideas and concepts bear repeating. I hope to touch on a couple of other facets of the bill that are worthy of underlining.

I will say at the beginning that we do support this bill and, if there are ways to improve it, it will be done at committee.

One of the things that is most disturbing in any democracy is any attempt to close off or shut down the freedom of the press. Members will know of the most recent events around the world where the rights of the press have been suppressed. I think of the recent situation that we are watching with great unease in Burma. When we look at the freedom of the press, which seems to be challenged around the world these days, and certainly this has been documented, journalists are having a harder time doing their jobs.

Many of us in this place from time to time might disagree with how journalists contemplate or exercise that freedom but no one in this place would be in any way critical of their right to have an opinion and to ensure it is unfettered, with some obvious qualifications and responsibilities.

I say that in general because this is too important an issue to play partisan politics with. This is a foundation of our democracy, that is, the freedom of the press and the freedom of those who are practitioners in the fourth estate, to ensure they are able to do their jobs without the state interfering unnecessarily.

Therefore, the bill in front of us is critical. What is being attempted here meets the nod test from us but we need to ensure there is more clarity for judges, that there are cleaner and clearer guidelines for judges.

We have mentioned the case of Juliet O'Neill from the Ottawa Citizen. Many of us, not only in my home town here in Ottawa, were aghast at what happened in that case. I think people right across the country and indeed those who were following the story internationally, were surprised, saddened and very concerned that this could happen.

If we look at what journalists' responsibilities are, they have many, but they have a responsibility to protect sources at times. We see this not only in the field of journalism but in the field of litigation. We see it with lawyers and with doctors. We actually see it with those who are from faith communities, that there is some delegation of trust. I think most people understand that there is an understanding and a responsibility of confidentiality.

What is the responsibility of confidentiality, in this case of journalists, and the role of the state for reasons of national security? How are those two things dealt with? How do we navigate those waters?

The bill sets out to lay down some criteria that is important. A colleague from the Bloc has already spoken about this. The first couple of paragraphs of the bill are more or less descriptive and then we get into the meat of it, particularly when we get into section four, and that is the power of the judge. Judges may, on their own initiative, raise the potential application of subsection three and ask the prosecution and the defence and any other party to present an opinion on the matter. I think that gets things going.

Then we get to subsection five, which reads:

A judge may not order a journalist to disclose to a person the source of any information that the journalist has gathered, written, produced or disseminated for the public through any media, unless the judge considers....

There is where we get the required clarity, the clarity that was required certainly in the case of Juliet O'Neill and other cases. We see from today's Quorum that some La Presse journalists are being challenged in this very area. I cannot get into the details of the case, nor will I, because it is being debated now, but I will just point to the fact that this is an ongoing concern. Certainly it does not just affect journalists like Juliet O'Neill, but at present also some journalists at La Presse.

It means that this sequence of events where the judge must follow the laid-out criteria is what has been missing. Again, if there are other facets that need to be dealt with at committee, then so be it.

Proposed subsection 39.1(7) regarding disclosure states:

A journalist is required to disclose information or a record that has not been published only if the information or record is of vital importance and cannot be produced in evidence by any other means.

That is another important facet that had not been addressed. When we move on to proposed subsection 39.1(8) about search warrants, that certainly was a cause of concern before. It deals with the Criminal Code and talks about the criteria and the further clarity required.

In essence, the bill is trying to fine-tune the debate we have had since freedom of the press has existed, and that is the time honoured tradition of those who are in the fourth estate being able to practise their trade on the one hand and on the other hand to make sure that if there are issues of national security, they have worthy protection, as well.

Because of the times in which we are living, it is of absolute critical importance that a balance be struck, and that the clarity that is needed for judges be provided. I say that because of some other considerations we will have before the House, in particular, Bill C-3, which was tabled today.

We have had concerns about how we deal with border security, as recently as yesterday when a retired colonel from the American military was not allowed into our country because of being on an FBI watch list.

Freedom of the press and freedom of expression are critical in the atmosphere in which we are living. They are the foundation of our democracy. If we are not able to find the balance now, we will regret it later. If journalists are not able to protect their sources, we know what will happen. We have seen it around the world and in history. People will no longer come forward. It would not only affect members of Parliament in not being able to find critical analysis because information would not be shared, but citizens in general would not have the information they need to hold institutions to account.

I will end my comments with the plea that we need to follow up on this bill quickly. We need to support it in a non-partisan fashion because it is so important that all those in the business of journalism be able to practise their profession without any fear.

We hope that the government will come forward on one other aspect that needs tweaking, and that is on freedom of information. The government promised after the passing of Bill C-2, the accountability act, that it would act on that. It is one thing to protect sources, but it is another thing to have access and a window to the business that government does.

While we need speedy passage of this bill, which is something we support, we also look forward to and hope that the government will fulfill its promise to bring forward changes to the freedom of information act. Until that time, we know that it will be difficult for journalists not only to ply their trade, but to have a clear window on what government is doing.

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply

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

Mr. Speaker, I regret to inform you that the riding I represent is actually Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington. While I love Renfrew county very much, as I used to cottage there as a kid, I do not have the good fortune to represent it. For what it is worth, I have not had a Speaker yet who has not screwed up the name of my riding in some way or another, so I will add this to the list.

I am here to talk today about our very exciting democracy agenda. Since this government came to power about a year and nine months ago, it has engaged in the most assertive approach to improving Canada's democracy of any government in the country's history. It is exciting to be a part of such a government.

I want to list some of the democracy measures that we have put forward and then I will talk in a little more detail about them.

If there is time, and I hope there is, I will be dividing my time with the member for Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre.

We have had eight pieces of legislation that have dealt with democracy and I have divided them into three headings. It seems to me that there are three fundamental theme areas. We have dealt with greater accessibility to the polls for voters. We did that by putting forward legislation that created more advance poll days and more geographically dispersed advance polls allowing people, particularly in areas of the country where advance polls were not easily accessible, access to those advance polls thereby ensuring that we could help people to vote in greater numbers and with greater ease. Nunavut comes to mind as perhaps the best example of this.

We have put forward several pieces of legislation that deal with greater security of vote, greater transparency and honesty in our voting. Bill C-31, which essentially deals with electoral fraud, has put in new requirements for voter identification that will significantly reduce the potential for voter fraud in ridings. That passed with widespread support in the House of Commons. All parties, except the New Democratic Party, were enthusiastic in their support for it.

Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act, had provisions ending the role of corporate and union contributions in our electoral process. This is a very healthy thing for an open and transparent electoral process where money no longer plays a role.

Bill C-54, which dealt with election loans and the loophole that was exploited by so many Liberal leadership candidates in terms of getting loans and then finding ways to potentially get the terms of those loans rewritten after the fact, shut down that loophole. This is also a very important part of ensuring openness and transparency in our election financing laws.

The areas that I would like to concentrate on today are the four pieces of legislation that are working toward providing greater democracy in the most direct sense to our representative system: the legislation the government put forward dealing with the election of senators and with the creation of eight year terms for our senators, Bill S-4, which was presented in the Senate in the last term; the legislation, which was passed, creating four year terms and fixed election dates for the House of Commons, which removes the capacity of prime ministers to call elections when the polls are convenient, something that was used extensively by Mr. Chrétien when he was prime minister and had been used by other prime ministers in the past; and finally, Bill C-56, which introduces greater representation by population in the House of Commons.

I want to concentrate on greater democracy in the Senate and then greater democracy in the House of Commons, the two areas that are the most detailed proposals put forward by the government in this area of greater democracy.

Let me start with the Senate and the election of senators.

We talked about introducing in Bill S-4, the idea of eight year terms for senators. This was found to be constitutional in the upper House reference case of 1980 by the Supreme Court of Canada. The court indicated, in rough terms, the length of term would have to be fixed. There would have to be four senators in order to fulfill the constitutional obligation. Senators would be exempt from the kinds of pressures that re-election causes and that short terms could cause that might affect the voting patterns of an individual in either that House or this one.

I note that before the Liberals in the upper House decided to vote against this bill, the Leader of the Opposition indicated that he was perfectly happy with fixed terms. Therefore, we hope he can assert that love he had of democracy and bring his unruly senators into line when this bill is reintroduced.

The upper House was intended as a House of sober second thought, not of partisan second thought. The intention was not that the upper House become what it has become, a House of patronage.

In explaining the spirit of the bill, I wanted to make the point that the upper House has wandered very far from its original intention of being a House of sober second thought. Senators unfortunately are, as a rule, not appointed based upon their merits. They are appointed based upon their partisan affiliations.

Let me quote from former Senator Dan Hays in a presentation he made to a Senate committee on May 25 of this year. He made the following statement:

In the appointments made to the Senate by Prime Minister Mackenzie King, only two of the 103 were not Liberals. Under Prime Minister St. Laurent, only three of the 55 appointments were not Liberals. Under Prime Minister Diefenbaker, only one of the 37 appointments were not Progressive Conservatives. Under Prime Minister Pearson, only one of the 39 appointments was not Liberal. Under Prime Minister Trudeau, 11 of the 81 appointments were not Liberals. Prime Minister Clark made eleven appointments to the Senate and all were Progressive Conservatives. Under Prime Minister Mulroney, only two of the 51 appointments were not Progressive Conservatives. Under Prime Minster Chrétien only three of the 75 appointments were not Liberals. Under [the member for LaSalle—Émard], five of the 17 appointments were not Liberals.

The upper House has simply become a den of patronage and we are trying to break free from that. This is the point of Senate elections.

It is possible, I suppose, to consider abolishing the Senate. Our friends in the NDP have indicated that is their preferred approach. It is not my preferred approach. It is not the Prime Minister's preferred approach. Moreover it is a very difficult avenue to pursue because it requires the consent, depending upon which constitutional scholar one goes to, of either all the provinces, or at least seven provinces with half the population.

At any rate, it is a difficult avenue to pursue, but if it turns out that the other parties are unwilling to pursue elections to the Senate, it is clear that the abolition of the Senate is preferable to the approach of simply using it as a House of patronage, the pattern of course of previous governments, and in all fairness of both partisan stripes, in the past.

I want to talk for a moment about representation by population in the House of Commons. Bill C-56, introduced in the last session of Parliament, dealt with greater representation by population, a more equitable system in the lower House, and I am a great fan of this.

The representation by population formula that was incorporated in the original Constitution Act, 1867, has by reason of repeated amendment become less and less representation by population and more and more representation by population, with one exception after another. It was amended in 1915, again in the 1940s, in 1952, in the 1970s, in 1985, and each time it moved further and further from one person, one vote, the equality of voting, regardless of the riding or the province in which one lived.

This has produced the situation that there is now great disequilibrium. The bill attempts to bring back a measure of representation by population. It would introduce new seats for Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. In the cases of Alberta and B.C., they have been brought right up to equality with the level that Quebec is at, essentially at the national medium number in terms of electors per MP.

Ontario would be below that, but far further ahead than they are now, and this is a major step, for the first time, in the direction of returning to the spirit of rep by pop that was part of the original Confederation deal for the lower House.

Democratic Reform

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, in the last election the Conservative Party committed to strengthening our federation and modernizing our democratic institutions. In government we delivered on that commitment. So far we have passed the toughest anti-corruption legislation in Canadian history, the Federal Accountability Act, as well as legislation to establish fixed dates for general elections and legislation to improve the integrity of the electoral process.

While we have accomplished a lot, there is still much more to be done. Can the Minister for Democratic Reform please inform the House about his plan for further strengthening our federation through democratic reform?

Resumption of debate on Address in Reply

[Stephen Harper, Conservative, Prime Minister]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and colleagues, for allowing me to reply to the Speech from the Throne delivered yesterday by Her Excellency the Governor General.

In 2006 Canadians went to the polls and voted for change. Our government ran on a clear platform. We received a clear mandate and we are delivering what we promised.

Now, a mere 21 months later, I believe we can say with pride that the government is clean, the economy is strong, and the country is united.

In the eyes of the world, Canada is back. This change, after years of scandal, inaction and threats to national unity, brings home to us the strength of Canada’s foundational values.

We have a love of freedom, a commitment to democracy, a reverence for human rights, and an adherence to the rule of law. Notwithstanding our imperfections, we have built a society that genuinely aspires to the highest ideals of civilization.

We balance the rewards of individual initiative with a collective commitment to help those in need.

We value people for who they are and what they contribute, and not for who they know or where they come from. We leave the conflicts of older worlds behind to live together here in harmony and we reach beyond our shores to help resolve those conflicts.

The generations that came before us set our country on this noble path: the Aboriginal people who established Canada’s first settlements, long before the arrival of Europeans; the French adventurers who laid the foundations of the Canadian state on the shores of the St-Lawrence nearly 400 years ago.

The British settlers brought their democratic ideals and institutions that we have modelled into our own and of course the immigrants from every corner of the earth have enriched our society with their traditions and ambitions.

Canada is their legacy to us. Enriching this heritage for future generations is our duty to them. Every day millions of Canadians are doing just that. They are setting the nation's moral compass by teaching their children right from wrong. They are building our economy with their hard work and they are making our communities better by giving more than they take.

In return for all that they give to this country, Canadians expect one thing from their government: principled, focused and effective leadership so that they can confidently plan for their future in a prosperous, safe and united country.

We titled our first Speech from the Throne “Turning a New Leaf”, reflecting our mandate for change. We have delivered on that mandate.

Now that we have turned a new leaf, it is time to fix our sights on Canada's longer term horizons, on where we want to go into the 21st century and how we will get there. That is why, for the second session of the 39th Parliament, our throne speech is titled “Strong Leadership. A Better Canada”. Strong leadership delivers more than it promises rather than promising more than it can deliver. We promise Canadians simply this: a better Canada for all of us.

We take inspiration from the great explorers of our true north Radisson and Des Groseilliers, Hudson and Franklin, Bernier, Amundsen and the rest. Just as they were guided by the North Star, we will be guided by a five point agenda for Canada. Our plan is principled and focused. We will strengthen the Canada of tomorrow while delivering real benefits to Canadians today.

For this session of Parliament, our government has five core priorities for a better Canada. We want to strengthen Canada’s sovereignty and place in the world; protect our environment and the health of our fellow Canadians; steer our economy toward long-term prosperity; modernize our federation and democratic institutions; and make our streets and communities safe again.

I do not intend to elaborate on everything included in the Speech from the Throne, but allow me to touch briefly on some aspects of the government’s agenda.

I would be remiss if I did not begin by addressing briefly the comments of the Leader of the Opposition. I, of course, take him at his word that he does not intend to force this Parliament to an election and that he will allow, indeed, the throne speech to pass and the government to proceed with its agenda.

As I listened to the Leader of the Opposition, it reminded me a little of the professor who goes through our term paper, marks all over it everything he disagrees with and then passes us anyway.

I have a bit of a different interpretation than the leader of the NDP on the remarks of the leader of the Liberal Party. While there was much criticism, I thought there was, if we actually cut through some of the verbiage, a fair degree of agreement, or at least apparent agreement, on the main priorities.

I note on Afghanistan that the main problem of the Leader of the Opposition seems to be calling it a combat mission rather than a military mission. I did not hear a claim or a call for Canada to simply leave cold turkey and abandon the Afghan people.

On crime, the Leader of the Opposition said that he would now consider passing all the government's crime legislation. Of course, we will be watching to see that happens in both Houses.

On the economy, I did not hear anything that differed substantially from the government's main lines of approach to the economy. In fact, I think he praised the very strong record that the Minister of Finance had created on the performance of the Canadian economy. I know he would like to take credit for that, but he has to be in power to do that.

On the federation and on democratic reform, whether it was the spending power of the Senate, I was not clear whether he was against those things or they were his ideas in the first place.

Most important, the Leader of the Opposition did not repeat his claim today, as he has so often in the past, that he could actually meet the Kyoto target, because we know that he could not and cannot.

Most important, of all the things I take note of, the Leader of the Opposition said that I was in fact his role model as the Leader of the Opposition.

Let me begin in terms of the substance of the throne speech with Canada's place in the world.

It is an understatement that we live in a global village where the economy, the security, the ideas and ideology and even the diseases of any one part of the world can be immediately linked or transmitted to another part. Canadians have always understood the critical nature of our connections to the rest of the world. We have never been an isolationist country.

Whereas in the past Canada participated in the world through its membership in the French and British empires, today we are a fully sovereign country. For the federal government, there is nothing more fundamental than the protection of this country's sovereignty.

Our most important potential sovereignty challenge is on our arctic doorstep.

Our most important potential sovereignty challenge today is on our Arctic doorstep where retreating polar ice, rising global demand for resources and the prospect of year round shipping are creating new challenges and exciting opportunities for the north. As Stan Rogers once sang, Franklin's dream of tracing “one warm line through a land so wild and savage” to “make a Northwest Passage to the sea”, seems about to be realized. However, it must be on our terms.

To ensure this we cannot just point at a map and say it is ours. Protecting and inserting our sovereignty in the Arctic and elsewhere requires real effort, expense and sacrifice. We cannot go 10 years without sending a single ship to the passage as our predecessors did. We have to use the north or we risk losing it.

Conservative governments going all the way back to Confederation have understood the importance of Canada’s true North.

John A. Macdonald, who oversaw Canada’s acquisition of our vast lands to the north and west, was the first to apply the “use it or lose it” principle of sovereignty.

Macdonald said, “were we so faint-hearted as not to take possession of it, the Americans would be only too glad of the opportunity and would hoist the American flag”. And so he assured our possession over the Arctic claims of Britain, just as he had created the Northwest Mounted Police to assure our sovereignty in western Canada.

Half a century ago, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker extolled his northern vision. He foresaw that Canada's future development and prosperity would depend on efficient transportation networks linking northern resources to southern markets. “Roads to resources” he called them. Therefore, he built, among others, our northern most road, the 700 kilometre Dempster Highway from Yukon to the Mackenzie River delta.

The opposition of the day has always dismissed such initiatives as unnecessary, fanciful and even wasteful, and history has always proven it wrong.

That is why our government established a strategy for the North, and why we have already taken a number of steps to affirm our presence and sovereignty in the Canadian Arctic.

In our first two budgets, for example, we have taken strong measures to strengthen the ability of our territorial governments to deliver services to northerners, with particular emphasis on northern housing for first nations and Inuit.

We are expanding our military and coast guard presence into the high Arctic and improving our surveillance capacity, including strengthening the Arctic Rangers.

We are stepping up our environmental activities and increasing the number of protected areas, as reflected in our recent announcement concerning a massive expansion of the Nahanni National Park Reserve in the Northwest Territories.

And to mark International Polar Year, we are enhancing research in the High Arctic.

These research activities will help confirm our unassailable ownership of the Arctic Archipelago and the waters around them, including the Northwest Passage, along with the resources that lie beneath the land, the sea and the ice.

We will proceed with the first ever comprehensive mapping of Canada's Arctic seabed as well as the establishment of a world-class research station to be located in the Arctic itself. It will become the hub of our scientific activities in the north, gathering knowledge that will support our sovereignty and assist with resource development and environmental protection. The other Arctic nations of this planet already have most or all of these capabilities. Under our watch, Canada will not be left behind when it comes to the Arctic.

I should add that many of my colleagues will be working on these northern initiatives. They will be led by the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, who has done such a terrific job of getting Canadian agriculture back on track.

Of course, our role in the world is not just about our own sovereignty. It is also about effective action beyond our borders, in concert with our friends in the international community.

And we cannot be completely effective in either of these respects without solid, well-led and well-equipped armed forces.

That is why our government will continue rebuilding our long-neglected Canadian military. We want to ensure that our men and women in uniform are able to do the work that we ask of them at home and abroad as safely and as effectively as possible.

I have visited our troops in Kandahar twice in the past 21 months. The Minister of National Defence, the Minister of National Revenue and former national Defence minister, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages, the Minister of International Cooperation, and several other colleagues have as well.

I have also attended Red Friday rallies and other events where communities, friends and others show their support. I have spoken to many of our soldiers and to their families, including some who have lost loved ones.

The soldiers who are serving this country in Afghanistan and the families and the friends who are supporting them back home rank among the finest Canadians I have ever known. Their compassion for the people of Afghanistan, their resolve in the face of a barbaric opponent, their manifest skill and professionalism and the diplomats and development officers they work with are a credit to our great country.

Our mission in Afghanistan is a noble and necessary endeavour. It is making a difference in the lives of men who were victims of Taliban oppression, for children forced to live in ignorance, and for women who had no human rights.

Remember, all of us, that these are ordinary human beings like ourselves, the vast, vast majority of whom just want to live in peace, give their families hope and build a future for their communities.

Parliament will have to make some decisions on the future of the Afghan mission post-2009 within the next year. I hope all parliamentarians will pay attention to the analysis and advice, which the former deputy prime minister, John Manley, and this panel of eminent Canadians will share with us in the near future.

For our part, both in and out of power, this party has faithfully supported our military and their mission since it began in Kabul in 2002 and, of course, since our forces were sent to Kandahar in 2005 by the previous government.

We cannot understate the responsibilities we have undertaken to the Afghan people, to the international community, and to the men and women of our diplomatic, development, and defence forces who have made such enormous sacrifices on behalf of all of us.

Once again, we cannot understate the responsibilities we have undertaken to the Afghan people, to the international community and to the men and women of our diplomatic development and defence forces who have made such enormous sacrifices on behalf of all of us. This Parliament must not let those people down, Mr. Speaker, and I can assure you we will not let them down.

The mission in Afghanistan reflects our conviction that Canadian foreign policy must promote our values and defend our interests. This philosophy is at the very heart of all our international policy initiatives. It was behind our call to confer honorary Canadian citizenship on Aung San Suu Kyi, who has waged a heroic struggle to bring democracy to Burma. It is seen in our participation in the United Nations mission in Haiti. It guides our international assistance programs, which will be refocused and strengthened over the coming weeks.

Our conviction that foreign policy must promote our values and serve our interests drives our effort to renew Canada's engagement in the Americas. Many nations in Latin America and the Caribbean are pursuing market reforms and democratic development, but others are falling back to economic nationalism and protectionism, to political populism and authoritarianism. That is why it is so important for countries like Canada to engage in their own hemisphere, to demonstrate that there are alternative models that can meet people's aspirations. Their choice is not simply between unfettered capitalism and cold war socialism.

The Canadian model of democratic freedom and economic openness, combined with effective regional and social support, offers a middle course for countries seeking democratic institutions, free markets and social equality.

Canada can make a difference in the world.

I do have to respond to a couple of things that were said earlier on Africa. This government is the only government among the G-8 that is meeting its commitments in Africa. It has to be said.

In Darfur, a brutal, brutal tragedy for so many people, this government has been involved in assisting the United Nations and the African Union. When I met last month with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, I made it clear that he can expect Canada's help in any way that the United Nations requires that help in Sudan.

We can make a difference. But we will not make a difference by returning to the days when the government lurched from one fashionable international cause to the next, never pausing to assess whether we were making an impact or whether we even had the necessary capabilities to do so. In short, we will not be returning to the days of a government with an announcement on everything but a plan for nothing, as was the case with the previous government, most notably on the environment and climate change.

I met with leaders who helped draft the consensus climate change statements at the G-8 and APEC. They were not asking me how we were going to achieve our Kyoto target. They had figured out a long time ago, when Canada's last government spent a decade raising emissions year after year after year, that that government had no intention of meeting the Kyoto target.

What those leaders want to know is simply what target we are going to achieve and do we have a plan to achieve it. The Minister of the Environment has been clear. The targets he has set, a 20% reduction by 2020 and a 60% to 70% reduction by 2050, are among the most aggressive in the world going forward and have been recognized internationally to set the stage. He is moving now to implement the plan to achieve them.

And thanks to his efforts and those of his colleagues, we are engaged in a major effort to establish an international protocol that is to include all large emitters, including giants like the United States and China. The government will move forward with its plan for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants.

There is no time to lose arguing about yet another “new plan” that will never be implemented.

It is time. We have heard enough from the Leader of the Opposition with his seventh, eighth or ninth plan. It is time to pass the throne speech and let the Minister of the Environment get the job done, just as it is time to let the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Industry and all of their colleagues get on with the job of strengthening the position of the Canadian economy for long term prosperity.

I am pleased to report, wherever I go in the world, that Canada's economic fundamentals are very strong.

The Minister of Finance just announced one of the largest paydowns of federal debt in Canadian history, the direct result of which will be a reduction in personal income taxes under our Tax Back Guarantee legislated in Budget 2007.

Canada continues to enjoy one of the longest periods of economic growth in its history.

Unemployment has fallen to its lowest level in nearly two generations. Inflation and interest rates remain low. The real disposable income of Canadian households has been increasing strongly since this government took office, but we cannot be, and are not, complacent about the continued growth of the Canadian economy.

Recent volatility in financial markets emanating from the U.S. sub-prime market may be with us for some time to come. There is weakness in some of our export markets. Good jobs are threatened in some of our traditional industries and cost pressures in some parts of the country are creating their own pressures on the budgets of working families. Our government is aware of these challenges.

We have responded and, in this session, we will pursue our action in struggling sectors such as the manufacturing, forestry, fishery and tourism industries. We will also continue to take steps to bolster Canadian agriculture.

Speaking of agriculture, this spring when it looked like there would be marketing choice for western barley farmers, prices went up. When marketing choice was swept off the table, prices went down. The Canadian Wheat Board is supposed to be getting the best prices for farmers. That is what marketing choice will deliver and we will not rest until we deliver the choice that western farmers voted for.

Just as we will not stop defending producers in supply-managed industries.

The Minister of Finance will soon be presenting the fall economic and fiscal update, which will report on our progress. Our plan for Canada’s future prosperity is clear.

We are undertaking the largest public infrastructure investments in this country in over half a century. We are strengthening policies on science and technology, research and education. We are helping the disabled and those in poverty move into the workforce.

As the 20th anniversary of our free trade agreement with the United States approaches, we are reinvigorating our trade negotiations to open more markets to Canadian products, as we have done with EFTA. Of course we are dedicated to paying down debt, keeping spending focused on results and reducing taxes for Canadians.

We have cut the GST by one point, cut corporate taxes, and provided specific tax incentives for families, students, children’s sports, tool expenses, and public transit.

We will also be bringing forward a further long term plan of broad-based tax relief in this session.

I notice that the Leader of the Opposition, after voting against every single tax reduction this government has introduced, has now become outspoken in calling for tax cuts for large corporations. They cannot contribute any more. Let me assure you, Mr. Speaker, we will reduce taxes for all businesses as well as for all individuals and families in this country. Because in this country, there is only one party which, over the long sweep of our history, has been consistently committed to low taxes, direct benefits for families, fiscal discipline, and a free and fair market powered by the energy and creativity of the private sector, and that is the Conservative Party.

One of the intangibles that has recently been working to the advantage of all Canadians and to the advantage of our economy has been the clear improvement in national unity since our government took office. I know the Bloc is not happy but that is the idea.

One of the important steps along this road was the recognition that the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada, a measure widely supported in this House last year. That was a controversial act and some predicted, and I know they genuinely believed, that it would lead this country in the wrong direction. I have spoken in various parts of our country and outside our country in French and English, not just Quebec. I have urged, and I continue to urge, all Canadians to look at the beneficial effect that this historic recognition has had on the national unity of this country. Canada is more united today than it has been at any time since our centennial 40 years ago.

I believe that the results of the last election and reaction to the action taken since then—action on UNESCO, the nation, fiscal balance—are sending a very important message to us all.

Canadians, and Quebecois in particular, want to move forward. They have had enough of the old quarrels. They are fed up with the bickering between centralists and separatists, between those who would keep all the power in Ottawa, and those that would give all the power to an independent Quebec.

George-Étienne Cartier, MacDonald and their colleagues created a federation that, although not perfect, has served Canadians well for 140 years. In fact, the federation of 1867 created one of the most solid political institutions in the world, unbroken by tyranny or conquest, unbroken by social disorder or economic chaos.

And we mustn’t forget that Canada—a country born in French, a country with two languages and a multitude of cultures, which will soon be celebrating the 400th anniversary of the founding of its first capital, Québec—is one of the biggest success stories in history.

Of course, I do not argue that Canada is perfect, and so we are committed to reforming it for the better. Our government has worked hard to respect the federal division of powers, to strengthen long-neglected federal jurisdictions, and to work cooperatively with the provinces.

In the next session, in accordance with our government practice, we will be introducing legislation to place formal limits on the use of federal spending power with respect to new programs in areas of provincial jurisdiction without provincial consent and to provide for opting out with compensation.

This is a historic measure, one that has already been welcomed by the government of Quebec.

I noticed that the Leader of the Opposition talked about why this would be a bad thing. One of the reasons he stated for how this would be a bad thing is that this might prevent him from trying to take the child care allowance from Canadian families and instead give it back to lobbyists, to researchers, to advocates and to other politicians. We are going to make sure we get that money directly to Canadian families.

We will also act within the federal jurisdiction to strengthen Canada's economic union, which is a fundamental responsibility for the national government, one that it must take in the interests of all Canadians.

When I say that Canada is not perfect, I think most Canadians recognize immediately that the Senate, as presently constituted, is one of its obvious imperfections.

I must admit to being rather disappointed that the Senate chose not to adopt the tenure bill, even after an excellent report on the subject prepared by the former Speaker of the Senate, Dan Hays. The government will reintroduce in the House, in a slightly amended form, the bill to shorten senators' tenure from a maximum of 45 years to eight years. I am tempted to say that such a reform should be a no-brainer, but I have been surprised before.

On the other hand, the government, while still supportive of allowing for the direct consultation of voters in the selection of senators, does recognize that this is a complex and controversial measure for some members. As such, the government will, upon reintroducing this bill, ask that it be sent to committee before second reading in order to get as wide-ranging a parliamentary input as possible.

Let me just say that I remain convinced the country deserves a reformed Senate, and an elected Senate for that matter, but the country needs the Senate to change, and if the Senate cannot be reformed, I think most Canadians will eventually conclude that it should be abolished.

In terms of reform, let us also hope that the opposition will see fit to stop delaying the adoption of the former Bill C-44. In this country, we are long past the time when the rights of aboriginal people living on reserve should be fully protected under the Canadian Human Rights Act.

I noted with great interest, of course, the leader of the Liberal Party talking about compassion and help for the less well off, but I do have to point out that ours is the government that signed the residential schools settlement and that is now implementing it and preparing the apology; that has cut the right of landing fee to people who have come to this country; that has increased funding for official languages communities across this country; that has redressed finally, after so many years, the Chinese head tax; that has established the Air-India inquiry which was so demanded; and that has concluded a settlement with the sufferers of hepatitis C. These are our proudest moments and they show the difference between talking and acting.

Last but not least, I would like to draw attention to the fifth part of our government’s long-term agenda for a better Canada, a point that affects many Canadians.

Canadians have always been proud of their safe streets and communities—something that long distinguished us from our friends across the border. Today, however, crime is erasing the promise of our Constitution, the promise of peace, order and good government.

Canadians want their safe streets and communities back. They want leadership that is tough on crime and reliable on national security and that is exactly what they are going to get from this government. Under our government, the protection of law-abiding citizens and their property is once again becoming the top priority of our criminal justice system and this will be the agenda we will pursue if Parliament adopts this throne speech. In short, the opposition cannot allow it to pass and then obstruct our core priorities.

That brings me to our first piece of legislation. Last year, our first bill was our historic anti-corruption law, the Accountability Act. This year, our first bill will be our comprehensive justice reform bill, the Tackling Violent Crime Act.

Just as the accountability act cleaned up corruption in government, the tackling violent crime act will be a first step in cleaning up crime in our streets and communities. And it will be a matter of confidence, because the time for talk has passed and the time for action has long since arrived.

Canadians are fed up with a criminal justice system that puts the rights of criminals ahead of the rights of law-abiding citizens, fed up with a revolving door bail system and soft sentences for serious offenders, and fed up with feeling unsafe in their homes and public places.

In the first session of Parliament, our government introduced 13 justice bills. Seven have been passed into law, but six, which included several key policy measures, were held up by the opposition.

Though we accommodated many opposition amendments, the bills were held up in opposition-controlled House committees or by the Liberal majority in the Senate for a grand total of 976 days. That is simply not acceptable.

Canadians are losing patience, so Bill C-2, our tackling violent crime act, to be spearheaded by the Minister of Justice, will reintroduce the key elements of those bills. It will, for example, take action on sentencing for gun crimes. Too often, people convicted of violent crimes involving firearms do little or no time. That is unacceptable. Under our law, serious gun crime will mean serious mandatory prison time.

Furthermore, in too many cases bail has been granted to people charged with serious weapons offences, and while on bail some of them have committed appalling new crimes. That is also unacceptable. Our bill will make it tougher for accused gun criminals to get bail.

The Tackling Violent Crime Act will also crack down on sexual predators. For far too long now, these predators have gone after our children. That too is unacceptable. This legislation will protect our children by raising the age of protection.

Our legislation will also crack down on drug- and alcohol-impaired driving. Too many innocent people have died at the hands of drunk or stoned drivers. Again, that is unacceptable. The tackling violent crime bill will give police and prosecutors more tools to get impaired drivers off our roads and keep them off.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, too many of the most violent, repeat and dangerous offenders in this country wind up back on our streets where they can offend again, again and again. Each time they do, Canadians look at their records, their rap sheets, and ask, “Why on earth was this person ever let out of prison?” There is nothing more unacceptable than that.

Again, let us be clear. We are talking about a few dozen of the most violent, dangerous individuals in this country. Our bill will make sure they stay behind bars, where they belong.

I have no doubt that some people will say we are being too aggressive. From high up in their academic ivory towers or from the boardrooms of their law firms, they will look down on the streets they never set foot on and say things like, “Criminals are really just victims of injustice, oppression and social exclusion”.

Try telling that to their real victims. Tell it to women who do not feel safe walking in their neighbourhoods at night or having their children in those neighbourhoods during the day. Tell it to the innocent teenager killed in a gang shootout on the streets of Toronto.

Tell it to the young girl in Quebec who was out riding her bike when she was struck by a drunk driver.

Tell it to the two Prairie boys who were kidnapped and horribly abused by a serial pedophile.

Tell it to the police, the prosecutors and the elected politicians of all stripes at all levels of government, including municipal and provincial, who have been clamouring for these laws for years.

There is no good reason for the official opposition to oppose or to delay Bill C-2. In fact, the official opposition campaigned in favour of virtually all of these initiatives in the last election and has had enough days, weeks and months, and in some cases over a year, to delay their passage. That is why we are making the tackling violent crime act a matter of confidence. We will be seeking timely passage of this legislation and, as is the case with confidence measures, the government will not accept amendments to the substance of these initiatives.

Address in Reply

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking Her Excellency the Governor General for graciously reading the Speech from the Throne. Her delivery once again was superb.

On a personal note, I would like to thank my family: my wife, Sandra, and our three children, Fabian Jr., Mark, and Heather. Their continued love and support during almost 15 years of political life is a never-ending source of strength for me.

I would also like to thank my constituents in the riding of Avalon, in the wonderful province of Newfoundland and Labrador, for giving me their confidence and trust. It is my great honour and privilege to represent them in this honourable House.

Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to the Prime Minister for having asked me to move the government's motion in support of the Speech from the Throne.

It is a visionary document that sets out our agenda not just for the upcoming session of Parliament but for the long term future of Canada. Our agenda is focused on building a stronger, safer, better Canada that works for all of us.

In the first session of Parliament, we delivered on the following commitments, which we made to Canadians in the last federal election.

We passed the Federal Accountability Act, the toughest anti-corruption legislation in Canadian history.

We cut taxes right across the board, including the GST.

We started cracking down on gun, gang and drug crime.

We provided direct benefits to families with the universal child care benefit.

We worked with the provinces and territories to develop patient wait time guarantees.

We took concrete action to protect and improve the environment.

We restored fiscal balance by increasing equalization payments and funding the large social transfers on an equal per capita cash basis.

We revived Canada's traditional leadership role on the international stage.

I think members would agree that this is an impressive list of accomplishments for a minority government, but as today's Speech from the Throne demonstrates, we have only just begin to build a better, safer Canada.

Our government will focus on five core priorities in the upcoming session of Parliament. These priorities will build on the successes we have achieved so far.

First, our government will continue to strengthen Canada's sovereignty and security. Gone are the days of neglecting the Canadian Forces. Gone are the days of ignoring challenges to our sovereignty and of pursuing a weak and indecisive foreign policy.

I have had the privilege of talking to many of our men and women in uniform, especially those from my native Newfoundland and Labrador. I have heard them relate their experiences of how they are indeed making a positive difference throughout the world in places less fortunate than Canada, such as Afghanistan. They are assured of our government's continued support for their efforts to make our world a safer place, for ours is a government that takes these responsibilities seriously.

That is why we will do more to assert and defend our sovereignty in the Arctic, and to ensure that Canada's foreign policy defends our interests and projects the values we hold dear: democracy, freedom, human rights, and the rule of law.

Second, our government will continue to strengthen our federation. Canada, I am pleased to report, is more united today than it has been in four decades, but we need to do more to undo the damage done to federalism by our predecessors.

Our government will work to place formal limits on the use of federal spending for new shared cost programs in areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction. We will also push ahead with democratizing the Senate by reintroducing legislation that would lower Senate terms from 45 years to 8 years. We will give Canadians a voice in selecting their representatives in the upper chamber.

Third, our government will continue to provide effective economic leadership. Building upon our tax cutting success from the first session, we will bring forward a long term plan of further broad-based tax relief for individuals, businesses and families.

We will also continue supporting Canadian workers in troubled sectors like manufacturing, forestry, agriculture, tourism and fisheries as their industries adjust to evolving international economic conditions.

Fourth, we will continue tackling an issue rankling Canadians from coast to coast to coast: crime. In addition to reintroducing our anti-violent crime measures that were blocked by the opposition in the last session, our government will undertake new initiatives aimed at cracking down on young offenders and property crime.

We will also take action to ensure Canadians are protected from terrorism, the bane of democratic free societies in our modern age.

As the Governor General rightly noted, peace, order and good government are the principles upon which Canada was founded. Our government is going to work hard to ensure that they prevail over those who would wreak havoc in our communities.

Last, but certainly not least, we will continue protecting and improving Canada's most important natural resource, our environment. Canadians have made it clear. They are fed up with lofty words masking inaction. They want policies that make real measurable improvements to the environment. Our government has heard this call and we are acting.

In addition to taking a leading role in the global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, our government will bring forward the first ever national air pollution regulations. We will strengthen enforcement to punish those who pollute our water and land.

Our government is intent on building a better Canada through strong leadership. In the weeks and months ahead we are going to continue delivering on the issues that matter most to ordinary Canadians. We urge the opposition parties to support our efforts. Of course, as we are all aware, it is their prerogative not to, but they should consider their choice very carefully. Canadians do not want an election. They want us to govern this country. They want strong leadership and a better, safer Canada.

It is an honour, therefore, to move, seconded by the hon. member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, that the following address be presented to Her Excellency the Governor General of Canada.

To Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Chancellor and Principal Companion of the Order of Canada, Chancellor and Commander of the Order of Military Merit, Chancellor and Commander of the Order of Merit of the Police Forces, Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada.

May it please Your Excellency:

We, Her Majesty's most loyal and dutiful subjects, the House of Commons of Canada in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Excellency for the gracious speech which Your Excellency has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.

Motions in Amendment

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is with mixed feelings that I rise today to speak to this bill. I say that because we should not have to deal with this kind of inferior legislation, particularly when we are looking at the safety of our citizens, our constituents.

We are entrusted with the responsibility to make public policy and to make legislation that takes into account many different aspects and facets when we look at the bills that have been in front of us recently, be it on trade bills or on voting bills. One of the most important facets in the area of transportation is safety. Protecting the safety of Canadians is one of the key issues that we are here to deal with in this bill.

The reason the NDP has put forward so many amendments and the reason we are standing today to speak to the bill is that if the bill were to go ahead without any changes or amendments it would be a colossal disaster.

It is incumbent upon all of us to foresee, and perhaps it is the unintended consequences of the government, but we need to foresee the consequences of any legislation that passes in this place. On Bill C-6, we need to look at the consequences for air safety.

An issue that has been important in my riding is the integrity of being able to support those men and women who work in our public service to come forward and be protected when they see wrongdoing happening. We know it in the popular term as whistleblowing.

I was proud to work with my colleague from Winnipeg Centre and other colleagues in this place on the committee dealing with the accountability act, Bill C-2, to strengthen whistleblower legislation. We believed it should have gone further but we made some important and positive changes.

When I see this bill, one of the things that stands out that will shock and should appall many Canadians is what the bill does. It takes away that whistleblower protection. We are not talking about maintenance of bicycles, as important as that is. We are talking here about aviation safety. We are talking about very complex mechanisms that most of us would not have the slightest idea of how to get around, whereas with bicycle repair we might.

We need to ensure that those men and women who see wrongdoing are protected. That is a value and a principle that I thought the government believed in. If we listen to the rhetoric, it suggests that it does but then we look at this legislation and we see that it does not seem to be the case.

It was already mentioned by my friend from Hamilton that many people have spoken out. They are not lay people. They are experts in the field. They are telling us that Bill C-6 does not get the job done. They are saying that Bill C-6 opens up, not only the safety of Canadians but the reputation that our country has on the world stage.

My understanding of the bill is that not even our friends to the south, who perhaps have more of a laissez-faire view of things like air safety, would contemplate going this far. It really begs the question as to why we would believe that, in the area of air safety and this idea of changing things to this extent, we would be better off going with less control and oversight than our friends to the south and in other jurisdictions. It really does beg the question of what we believe we know better than others.

I certainly would not submit to the House that we should do things our own way. Our party suggests that the Canadian way is often the better way of going about things. However, when we are talking about aeronautics and aeronautic safety and we look at this industry, and the fact that it is global in proportion and needs to be carefully viewed, we have to look at this bill and ask, “What is it that the government believes it is helping Canadians with?”

Again, I go back to experts in the field and, if I may, cite an article that I believe has already been referenced but is one that I think bears repeating. The headline says it all: “Judge calls for review of 'sliding' air safety”. I think that says a lot about where we are going here.

We know that the 1989 report on the Dryden crash in which 24 people were killed led to many improvements in air safety. We had fears, and I remember that instance very well, that we were in fact backsliding, that we needed to strengthen air safety. We heard from one of the authors of the report who looked at air safety, and the quote is pretty straightforward:

I believe the government is moving away from more vigorous inspection and enforcement strictly as a cost-cutting measure, much as was done in the mid- and late-1980s preceding the Dryden crash.

If that is not a call for oversight and to review more thoroughly this file, I do not what is. What the good judge was saying, and he was given an Order of Canada for his work in this area, was to not repeat the mistakes of the past. When we allow things to be deregulated without the proper oversight, without protection, for instance, as already mentioned for whistleblowers, we are essentially saying that it is okay to allow for further crashes, for further mishaps.

I point to what we have seen in the rail industry as of late. Since we have given over rail maintenance, and it is not regulated to the extent it should have been, we have seen, and we just have to turn on the radio or read the paper, more crashes and derailments, be it passenger or cargo trains.

I want members to think about this because I think it is important. There is a connection between what has happened with rail safety and what is contemplated with aeronautic safety in Bill C-6. It is the following proposition. When we had the tools and the oversight, and we had the regulation involved in rail safety, we were able to be more nimble, to be stronger in our response when we had instances where rail safety was failing. We had citizens and people, be it in unions or in management, et cetera, who were able to cite problems in rail safety, be it at crossings or, and we see this presently, with cargo trains that have too many cars on their load.

We need to do something about it. It used to be that we had the public sector there to respond. Unfortunately, what we did is we gave that up. We gave away the tools to properly respond vis-à-vis rail safety.

What has been the consequence of that? As I said, just turn on the radio, read the paper, and look at the evening news, the consequence is cargo and passenger derailments. There is a lack of confidence. At the very time we need to be more reliant on our rail system, we now have problems with rail safety.

In fact, many of my friends who would like to see our government go further in building the capacity for more rail as a form of transportation see that we have problems because of lack of oversight. So, let us take that lesson from the problems with rail safety and oversight, and the fact we gave that up and gave it away, and let us take a look at—

Canada Elections Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I should also thank the hon. member for all his participation in democratic reform initiatives, including the work that he did on the legislative committee for Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act, where he was instrumental in assisting passage of that very bill.

I would point out to the member from Winnipeg that while he referenced the fixed election date, that being the third Monday in October 2009, and he commented that it was unlikely that this minority government would last until then, I can assure him that with the continued support of the NDP we will reach the fixed election date on the third Monday of October 2009.

I am encouraged to hear that the member seems to be willing to support our initiatives for the next two years and that we will in fact see an election fall on the appointed and fixed date.

However, the member's question had to do with whether there should be spending limits between elections and not just in the writ period. I think that is a valid point to make and I think it should be examined. Some of the difficulties, obviously, are what is considered election spending as opposed to government spending? How do we define partisan versus non-partisan?

I think those questions need to be considered. I would have no difficulty whatsoever examining that in committee or elsewhere.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I should begin my comments on Bill C-54 by recognizing and paying tribute to the former leader of the New Democratic Party who most recently sat in the riding of Ottawa Centre, because it was he who blew the whistle on the fact that the political donation regime in this country left a loophole that was so outrageous it was bound to be exploited and abused.

Mr. Broadbent had the sense to recognize that even though the amounts of money that can be donated to a political campaign or to a political party had been reduced, by allowing these huge loans, which never really have to be paid back, it was obvious that somebody with a lack of ethical standards would take advantage of that loophole and would begin to act as if there were no financial limitations. I recognize Mr. Broadbent for raising this issue for us in his ethics package.

I am gratified that today we are dealing with a bill in the House of Commons that will close this last remaining loophole, one of the most serious loopholes in our election financing laws, because we start with the basic premise that nobody should be able to buy an election in this country, or a politician, for that matter. When we are dealing with such massive amounts of money, the point that was made by the House leader of the government was that a politician or a political party is going to owe somebody a great deal. They are going to owe somebody an obligation, a debt, and it is not healthy for the interests of democracy to have some corporate sponsor pulling the strings of politicians through this enormous debt of gratitude that is owed. That is the fundamental principle here. That is the direction in which we believed we needed to go.

These loans were a loophole that simply had to be plugged. The most egregious example, I suppose, and what really caught the public's imagination, was during the Liberal leadership campaign. Even though businesses and unions were not allowed to donate a single dollar, they could loan tens of thousands of dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars, and individuals could loan far in excess of what they were allowed to donate.

Then, through the very loosey-goosey standards and rules that exist in terms of the repayment of those loans, if the loan was not paid back within 18 months it was deemed to be a donation, albeit an illegal donation. We allowed this contradiction to exist in our election finance regime. Some would say it was by design that the rules put in place by the previous government to put limits on election financing left this convenient loophole there, with it knowing full well their people would stumble upon it, seize on it and use it.

The other example that turned people's heads and simply sounded the alarm that this had to be addressed was the member for Mississauga—Streetsville. Even though a business is not allowed to donate anything and a union is not allowed to donate anything, his business loaned the Mississauga--Streetsville riding association $176,000 in one loan, I believe it was, and another $60,000 in another loan.

How can that be? It is a contradiction that we have allowed to evolve, because if that loan is not paid back within the 18 months, it is deemed to be a donation, and then we will have allowed a business to make a donation, which it is not allowed to at all, and a donation in the amount of a quarter of a million dollars, which is clearly in excess of anything contemplated when we set the donation limits for individuals at $1,100 per year.

This had to be done. I do take some recognition of the fact that we played a role in bringing this about. It was the NDP that moved this as an amendment during the Federal Accountability Act debates, but I also caution that we perhaps have not gone as far as we could. There are two things in the bill that worry me somewhat.

Even though we cannot pass legislation retroactively to give us some satisfaction on the debacle of the Liberal leadership loans or the loan of the member for Mississauga—Streetsville, we can have legislation that is retrospective in nature. We can look at ways to address these loans that drew the public's attention to this issue to make sure there is some compliance with at least the existing regime.

The second thing that we find fault with regarding this legislation is we cannot understand for the life of us why the date of implementation will be six months after the bill receives royal assent. My colleague, the government House leader, suggested that perhaps there is a way we could speak to the Chief Electoral Officer and garner support for the idea of a more rapid implementation date. I would urge the government to do so, because as the bill is currently drafted, it is possible we could have another federal election under the current set of rules which allow these political loans.

Now that it is common knowledge that there is no law against lending someone $100,000, even though the donation limit is only $1,100, a lot more people will be doing it if it is allowed. It would be morally and ethically wrong to allow another federal election to take place under the current set of rules. Therefore, I would urge members when the bill gets to committee, to look favourably on the idea of an amendment, which we would be happy to put forward, that the date of implementation should be when the bill receives royal assent.

This is much in the same spirit that we looked at the Federal Accountability Act. We did not see any reason to delay the implementation of the election financing rules associated with the accountability act, even though the Liberal Party urged us strenuously to delay and delay and delay because the Liberals wanted to get their leadership convention out of the way. That is certainly one of the things we would like to see.

I heard my colleague from the Liberal Party try to make arguments against this bill. Even though I do not take this remark seriously, I do give him credit for at least having the courage to try to be creative to find some reason why this bill is a bad idea.

I do have to counter one of the arguments he made which was completely spurious. He suggested that by banning these loans or putting severe limits on these loans, it would actually act as a barrier to those who do not have access to friends with money from entering into politics. It is like arguing night is day, because that is absolutely 180 degrees the polar opposite of what any cursory reading of the bill would tell us. In actual fact, the idea is to take big money out of politics and to take away the unfair competitive advantage that people who are well connected currently enjoy. The idea is to level the playing field.

That was the purpose of Bill C-24, which the Liberals introduced when they first put limits on donations. The idea was to get big money out of politics so that nobody could buy influence. That was certainly the argument put forward under Bill C-2 when we further reduced the donation limits to $1,100.

It is courageous to argue that this is actually the inverse. It takes a lot of guts to stand there and try to make that argument, but we cannot let that go unchallenged. If anything, this is an enabling measure that does level the playing field so that all of us, if we need to borrow money to get our campaign started, have to go to a recognized lending institution. No single person would be able to underwrite or co-sign a loan to an extent greater than the person would be allowed to donate in that year. It is eminently sensible because if there is a default on that loan and the loan becomes deemed to be a donation later on, then the donation would not be in excess of what the person would have been allowed to donate. It seems common sense to me.

A further innovation and protection here is that we do not want the precedent set by Paul Hellyer and the Canadian Action Party to set the tone. In that case, he simply wrote off the $800,000 debt to the Canadian Action Party. We do not want to see John Rae writing off the debt to Bob Rae. We do not want to see Mr. Mamdouh Stephanos writing off the $200,000 debt which was loaned to the leader of the official opposition. That would be fundamentally wrong because then those guys would have made a $200,000 loan which became a donation which they then forgave. Talk about buying influence in a campaign. What about the $100,000 that Marc de la Bruyere loaned to the leader of the official opposition?

We have every reason to believe that the leader of the official opposition will probably pay back those debts because he will have the ability to fundraise within the $1,000 limit and because he is in a fishbowl and everybody is watching what he is going to do with his campaign debts.

What about the losers in that race? For instance, I used the example of John Rae, a senior executive with Power Corporation, being able to simply write off and forgive the $840,000 that he loaned to his brother, Bob, to run in that campaign. That would be a travesty. That would be an absolute abuse of the election financing laws as we know them today.

With this bill, it is deemed that if the loan is not paid back in an acceptable period of time, or the time frame negotiated between the lender, a bank, and the borrower, or 18 months, whichever comes first, it would be the riding association and the political party of the riding association that would have to assume that debt. That would make sense. In fact it would help from an equity point of view for the person borrowing the money, because the person is actually borrowing the money with the guarantor of the political party that the person belongs to. The financial institution would have some comfort. The person would not have to find a financial backer to co-sign that loan; in fact, the person would not be allowed to.

If, as I have done, one needed to borrow $20,000 to get the campaign started, one would need to find 20 guarantors at $1,000 each. No one person could co-sign the loan. That is the way it should be. If the person cannot find 20 people to sponsor his or her entry into politics, perhaps that person should rethink whether he or she should be going into politics or not because the person is not going to get very far anyway.

I think this is eminently fair. It has covered the three conditions that the NDP raised during the debate on the Federal Accountability Act. I completely reject the Liberals' argument that there could be perverse consequences which would limit entry into politics.

Again my colleague from Vancouver Quadra very cleverly planted the idea that perhaps Equal Voice would be disappointed with this initiative, as if this would somehow be a barrier for more women to enter politics. I would argue that the absolute inverse would be true, because this will level the playing field so that well-connected people with corporate sponsorship, like we saw in the Liberal leadership race, will not have a competitive advantage over a woman without those connections. Again it levels the playing field. We have not had any indication how Equal Voice would react to this bill, but from what I know of the people in that organization, I think they would support this idea.

I wish we would not reform the election financing regime in such a piecemeal fashion. There are a number of other things that the NDP has been calling for. One I will speak to briefly is that now that Bill C-16 has passed very quietly and without fanfare over in the other place, it is now law and we have fixed election dates, I believe we should have year-round spending limits. Now that we know elections will be held every four years on a fixed date in the month of October, there should be some regulation on the amount parties can spend on advertising not just during the writ period but outside the writ period as well. That is a necessary natural consequence of having fixed election dates. I would look forward to some movement from the government in that regard.

I also wish we had done something about the age of political donors. I am very critical of the idea that we can actually launder money through our children's bank accounts in a way to exceed the donation limits allowed by law. That seems to be acceptable in that when it happened in the Liberal leadership race and we filed complaints with the elections commissioner, nothing came of it.

I guess if an 11 year old wants to donate $5,000 to a political candidate, nobody thinks twice. When it is twins and they both decide to donate $5,400 each to the same candidate, nobody thinks twice. Throughout the whole country Canadians shook their heads when they saw that. I would like to see us have the courage to move forward and say that this is simply wrong.

It is wrong to launder money through anybody's bank account if the purpose is to defraud the system and exceed the donation limits allowed by law, whether it is one's mother-in-law or brother. A person is not allowed to donate the maximum himself or herself and then sneak a cheque under the table to his or her buddy and say, “Send this along to the Liberal Party for me too”. It is against the law to conspire to defraud the system. We are silent on that and even when we file complaints on that, the elections commissioner seems to be silent on it.

The NDP tried to move an amendment to Bill C-2 which said that underage people could donate money, but if they did, it would be deducted from the total amount their legal guardian was allowed to donate. In other words, if a 14 year old felt strongly enough about politics and wanted to donate $100 of the money he or she earned at the burger joint, more power to him or her, but that meant the child's parents or legal guardians would donate $100 less that year. If people get a tax advantage from being children's legal guardians, they have to be legal guardians in this era of politics unless and until the children reach legal age as well. That would have been a courageous move and would have cleaned up one of those embarrassing situations that we allow in our system currently.

Let me speak briefly about the outstanding issue that we are all worried about, which is the issue of the member for Mississauga—Streetsville, who is not a Liberal any more, but when the loans took place he was. Now he is a Tory.

I do not know how we are going to address this, but we should remind everybody, and maybe through this speech we will serve notice, that no one's sweetheart can bail out somebody like that. If someone borrows $50,000, as many of the people did in the Liberal leadership campaign, and it is not paid back quickly, the candidate cannot pay it off because he or she would be exceeding the limit. The candidate cannot have a guardian angel donor show up out of nowhere and bail him or her out. The money has to be paid back within the donation limits.

The money was raised within the donation limits of the act, which is $1,100 per year. I do not see how some of these candidates are going to do so. The burden of proof is on them to pay it back in compliance with the law. Some of these failed leadership candidates are now raising money for the next federal election and they are still asking people for money to pay off the debt they incurred.

As I say, it is not that tough for the winner to pay off the debt. It is a lot tougher for the losers, the ones who did not win. It has to be the $1,000 limit. We are watching. These people are in a fishbowl and we will be filing complaints. If they do not pay it back at all and it is deemed to be a donation, then what? I will tell the House what.

Under the current election laws, and this should be fixed too, they can take out another loan to pay off the first loan and buy themselves another 18 months. Then the debt gets lost in the sands of time and we will have been complicit with somebody conspiring to defraud the election system. Those are the people on this list that I have right here.

Some of the people in the Liberal leadership campaign might find themselves in that situation. It would be wrong, but they may be leaning that way and our Elections Act is not tough enough to stop that from happening. I was disappointed, in fact I was shocked to learn that would be allowed, that they could take out a second loan to pay off the first loan and buy themselves another 18 months. Who is going to be around to police whether the second loan gets paid off three or five years down the road? This is really not satisfactory.

If we are serious about levelling the playing field, about taking big money out of politics and about making sure that nobody can buy an election in this country, we have to go all the way. We should put together an election financing regime that we can all be proud of. We could be an international centre of excellence. That would make me proud.

I take some pride, as I said at the beginning of my remarks, that it was the former leader of our party, the hon. Ed Broadbent, who brought this issue to light and said, more or less, that no further federal elections should take place until we clean up the election financing regime in this country. The NDP tried to do it during the debate on the Federal Accountability Act. It seemed to take a little longer than we thought to resonate with the ruling party, but it seemed to have at least accepted the need for this now.

We are critical that there will be a six month wait after the bill receives royal assent. We expect this to get a rough ride from the Liberal Party. I am not trying to state the obvious, but if one cannot raise or borrow money, one is not going to be in any hurry to pass this bill.

We hope the Liberals do not stall it unnecessarily, but I think the government should act quickly to take that six month proviso out of the way, implement it as soon as we can, and get it through the House, so that the next federal election can be run with equal opportunity for everybody and that no unfair competitive advantage go to those who might enjoy a corporate sponsor or guardian angel donor.

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

Mr. Speaker, as I began, I stated that the Bloc Québécois is in favour of the principle of this bill. However, I would like to tell my hon. colleague that this government's approach to ethics and transparency is like an unfinished symphony. They can pat themselves on the back and say that they got this, that and the other thing done, and that they made some corrections thanks to Bill C-2. They can say such things, but I would like to enlighten my colleague. I say it is an unfinished symphony because it still has some major shortcomings, particularly concerning whistleblower protection. Allan Cutler said so himself. He was a candidate for the Conservative Party. He was a whistleblower. He was the first to see the problem and stand up. We would expect this government to include provisions for whistleblower protection as well as real reforms to access to information, as called for by the Information Commissioner.

I can repeat it again for the member. Yes, the Bloc Québécois is in favour of the principle of Bill C-54 concerning loans. Yes, we agree that there were some improprieties during the last Liberal Party leadership race. Yes, we agree, but we think the Conservatives must also take a closer look at themselves. Perhaps things have happened in the past on their side.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to Bill C-54, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act, which specifically addresses accountability with respect to loans. The Bloc Québécois supports this bill, which seeks to prevent individuals from bypassing campaign financing rules.

As we all know, this bill seeks to correct and clarify a few things that Bill C-2 left out. Members may recall that Bill C-2, which the government touted as its key piece of legislation, as the foundation for cleaning up campaign financing and governance, had a number of shortcomings that had to be rectified. Among other things, Bill C-2 introduced new restrictions on campaign contributions, limiting any individual's annual contribution to a registered party or candidate to $1,100 and prohibiting contributions from unions and businesses.

As unbelievable as it might seem, individuals could still get around these restrictions by taking personal loans. For example, several candidates in the recent Liberal Party of Canada leadership race took out big loans from individuals and financial institutions. 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 cunning, discreet use of loans gave candidates access to enormous sums of money.

Some may be tempted to question the figures I just mentioned, so I will reveal my source, which was a table printed in La Presse on November 18, 2006.

This bill will also rectify another problem with Bill C-2 on government accountability. During the study of Bill C-2, it became clear that the Conservative government was much more interested in passing the bill quickly than in correcting the kind of ethical problems that have plagued both this government and its predecessors.

I would remind the House that, at the time, the opposition parties, the media and the Democracy Watch group raised the issue and the government refused to act. This bill corrects the problem of loans that circumvent limits on political contributions. I will probably not have enough time to cover both points in great detail, but I would like to emphasize that we are not satisfied with what the Conservatives have done about protecting whistleblowers and in terms of reforming the Access to Information Act.

As for protecting whistleblowers, as we all know, during the last election in January 2006, the Conservatives made a number of election promises dealing with this issue.

These aspects were not included in the accountability act. Allan Cutler, one of the whistleblowers originally involved in the disclosure of the sponsorship scandal and a former candidate for the Conservative Party during the election, was somewhat critical of Bill C-2. Yet, Allan Cutler was an ally of the Conservatives. He maintained that Bill C-2 was far from perfect and had some problems that needed fixing, especially with respect to the provisions for protecting whistleblowers.

Bill C-2 has another flaw that has to do with the Access to Information Act. I would remind the House that, on April 5, 2005, the Liberal government presented a discussion paper on access to information reform. That paper was criticized by all observers, including the Conservative Party. In addition to doubling the minimum administrative fees required of the public, the bill introduced by the former Prime Minister, the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard, maintained all the exceptions included in the act. The Liberal Party never managed to bring about a viable reform of access to information, despite its 13 years in power.

The Conservative government promised during the last election campaign—we remember the holier than thou promises of this government—to reform the Access to Information Act. This is what was said at the time:

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. The truth is—in this case and so many others—that once in power, the Liberals and the Conservatives are one and the same. When they are in the opposition, the Conservatives criticize the Liberals and make a big fuss about ethics and governance. Once in power, the Conservatives use pork barrel politics and put both hands in the cookie jar, as my grandmother used to say.

The information commissioner recently observed that this is a common trait in all governments. He also said that the reason we need to take action instead of conducting more studies is that governments continue to distrust and resist the Access to Information Act and the oversight of the Information Commissioner.

The proposed changes are fourfold. First, the bill would establish a uniform and transparent reporting regime for all loans to political parties, including mandatory disclosure of terms and the identity of all lenders and loan guarantors.

The second change proposed by this bill is that unions and corporations would now be banned not just from making contributions as set out in the Federal Accountability Act, but also from making loans.

Third, total loan guarantees and contributions by individuals could not exceed the annual contribution limit for individuals established in the Federal Accountability Act, namely $1,100 in 2007.

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: riding associations will be held responsible for unpaid loans taken out by their candidates.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I have to say that the Conservative Party is not a bastion of transparency, even though it is the party you belong to. You sit in that chair as the guardian of democracy and the person who makes sure debates are conducted properly. I look in your eyes, and I know that you cannot corroborate what I am saying and that, as deputy speaker, you cannot openly support what I am saying. But since you are a responsible member, I am certain that you would agree with me that the Conservative Party is not a bastion of transparency.

In a few short months, this party has built up a track record that shows a lack of political will to obey the rules and put an end to what Mr. Justice Gomery called the culture of entitlement. Besotted and obsessed with power, we come to believe that the money entrusted to us belongs to us personally. It is as though we were running our own business.

I am sorry, but that money is entrusted to us as managers, custodians of the taxes Canadians pay, and it belongs to the taxpayers, who are sick and tired of paying taxes.

In Quebec, we had to file our federal and provincial income tax returns by May 1. I am sure that most of the people who are watching are tired of paying taxes and feel that they pay far too much for the services they get in return.

Public money, taxpayers' money, must be managed openly and transparently. Denouncing the sponsorship scandal that involved the Liberal Party, 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 they do not care about the people. This is not the way things should be.

There is a proverb that says that he who lives in a glass house should not throw stones. I would like to point out that the current Prime Minister, leader of the Conservative Party, admitted, in December 2006, that he omitted to disclose to the Chief Electoral Officer the collection of hundreds of thousands of dollars because he believed they represented registration fees paid by Conservative delegates attending the party convention in May 2005. The party was forced to record the registration fees for the convention as donations. The report states that the party then discovered that three delegates, including the Prime Minister, had exceeded their annual limit of $5,400 in contributions to the party. Consequently, the Conservative Party was forced to return $456 to the Prime Minister and two other delegates.

There is something else. This government denounced the lobbyist culture associated with the running of the Liberal Party. In and of itself that is a good thing. However, we must recognize that when the Conservative Party was in opposition with us, it denounced this culture that sought to enrich lobbies and the fact that the Liberal Party paid more attention to lobbies than to citizens. We agreed with our colleagues from the Conservative Party when they were in opposition.

However, once in power, they did the same thing. I will provide two small examples. With regard to the current Minister of National Defence, I do not know what happened but, after the opposition asked questions about Afghanistan and the mistreated and tortured Taliban prisoners, he lost his voice. We know that a good dose of laryngitis lasts a few days.

There are great medications for this, and eventually the laryngitis goes away. The Minister of National Defence lost his voice three weeks ago. This is worrisome. What is going on with the Minister of National Defence? Why does he not want to answer our questions? If he is no longer able to do his job, the Prime Minister should seriously consider replacing him. He is a completely useless minister. We have to wonder about the wisdom of the Prime Minister's decision to appoint a former lobbyist as head of the Department of National Defence.

Let us remember that when he was a lobbyist with Hill and Knowlton, he spent a decade working for the largest military equipment, arms and weapons dealers. His clients included BAE systems, Raytheon Canada and General Dynamics. He is now responsible for awarding military contracts worth about $20 billion. Let us remember the tour taken last year when Parliament was not in session. They went to Fredericton and announced the purchase of aircraft. They went to Valcartier and announced the purchase of jeeps. They went to Ontario to make other announcements. They went to Alberta or Manitoba, I cannot remember which, and made even more announcements.

They did all of their shopping without engaging the House of Commons in debate. It just so happened that they waited until the House adjourned for the summer to go on a big tour making military spending announcements. The chief lobbyist is also the Minister of National Defence, who awarded over $20 billion in military contracts.

Can we be sure that the Minister of National Defence, who has remained silent on the subject, is working in the best interest of taxpayers rather than in the best interest of his former clients? The question is a good one, and the answer is obvious.

What is more, the current Prime Minister made Sandra Buckler his director of communications. The auditor general produced a devastating report about the Royal Lepage relocation services saga. Apparently, in 2005, Ms. Buckler, a lobbyist, met with members of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, who had serious doubts about how Royal Lepage was using public funds. As a reward, the Prime Minister made her his director of communications. One might well wonder whose interests were being served in the Royal Lepage relocation services file: Ms. Buckler's or those of taxpayers?

One might also question contracts awarded to political friends. The Conservative government awarded a communications contract to Marie-Josée Lapointe, who was part of the current Prime Minister's transition team. One might also wonder about partisan appointments and appointing judges and immigration commissioners on the basis of their political beliefs. Much could be said on the topic.

Unfortunately, I have only about a minute left. I will have to wrap things up unless I have the unanimous consent of the House to speak until it is time to vote. I would be happy to do so, but I believe it is my NDP colleague's turn to address the House.

In conclusion, the Bloc Québécois supports this bill. I think that the government should seriously consider doing something about certain major loopholes that are still around despite Bill C-2.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on behalf of the Liberal opposition and address Bill C-54. I must say at the outset that the government House leader was not able or willing to answer my earlier question about the disclosure of the Prime Minister's leadership funders in 2002.

He did not address that topic, but I think this House needs to know that, particularly in relation to the comments that the government House leader made about the open disclosure of all loans, of all lenders and all amounts by the Liberal leadership contenders last year. Clearly they were acting beyond what the Canada Elections Act required, in good faith and with full disclosure. Everybody knows both what is going on there and the rules that apply to it.

As for the Prime Minister bringing forth this legislation, I think the government House leader suggests that he is somehow on the road to Damascus, leading this House in some epiphany in terms of loans and the way they are treated. Perhaps he was waylaid, misled or turned around and is actually on the road to perdition, because this bill of course has a perverse consequence. It is a non-accountability act. Again, it is Orwellian in many of the impacts that it will have. I will take some time to explain exactly why this will make democracy weaker in many ways in our country if it goes ahead as it is written, without amendment.

The Liberal Party is certainly very much in favour of transparency and accountability and will be looking toward a bill that properly and effectively tightens up the application and the use of loans in political financing in this country wherever it might be necessary. However, we certainly will also want to ensure that as the bill goes forward the proper amendments are made so that it does not, whether consciously or unconsciously, create a barrier to entry to the political process for those who do not have access to funds or friends who have access to funds, or to financial institutions that reflect their willingness to give loans because they realize that these people already have money, or they have people who will sign for them and back them up with money. We have to be very careful that this is not a barrier.

Let me go back to January 2004, when the former Liberal government brought in the most dramatic changes to electoral financing in this country's history with Bill C-24, and indeed perhaps the most dramatic change than had happened in any democratic jurisdiction in the world, which of course reduced the union and corporation donation limits per year to a mere $1,000. That is almost meaningless when we are talking about a nation this size. To suggest that a $1,000 donation by a corporation could buy favour across this country in an electoral process is beyond imagination. In any case, we effectively took that out and left the donations at a $5,000 level for individual members of the public, who are of course the basic building block and the basic unit of democracy. That is where it should be. That was an extremely important step. It was a dramatic step in the political history of this country.

Bill C-24 also did some other things. It introduced an aspect of proportional representation. I know that many members in the House in all parties are interested in seeing us proceed with consultations and consideration of that. However, when the private money was taken out to such a dramatic degree, Bill C-24 provided for public funding of electoral processes by providing $1.75 for every vote that any party received in the general election nationwide.

That allowed for a proportionality that corrected some of the difficulties with the first past the post process, where often the number of seats in this House achieved by parties bears very little relation to the proportion of the vote they get. As an example, the Green Party got 600,000 votes in the last election. Under that provision, it received over $1 million, which allows its members to express the views of the people who voted for them through the financing of their political activity, although not yet representation, across the country. That is a first tentative but important step. It was part of that groundbreaking electoral financing legislation.

Let me correct a perception that the government House leader gave, which was incorrect. He suggested there were no rules now covering loans and the disclosure of loans. In fact, the current statutory provisions require the disclosure of all loans. They require the disclosure of the lenders and the guarantors of those loans.

Another misconception is that there are no consequences if these loans can be written off. In fact, there are consequences. Those loans must be repaid within an 18 month period or they fall under the political contribution rules, which are very strict.

It is not a way to have money given. It is money loaned for a period during an electoral process, either a leadership process, as was involved last year with the Liberal leadership, or perhaps a nomination process where someone does not have access to party funds or riding association funds. If people were unable to take a loan, that might well be a barrier to entry into the political process for people who were not of independent means. There are consequences. Those must be converted and that is an important aspect to it.

Who owns the Prime Minister? The government House leader raised the issue of the Liberal leadership candidates and the influence of big money, but we still have not had an answer about who financed the leadership bid of the Prime Minister in 2002.

Why do we want to know that? We want to know that for the very reason the government suggests we need the bill. We already have provisions in the Canada Elections Act that cover both disclosure of loans and repayment of loans and consequence if we do not. In any event, why do we want to know? It is an immensely important question. Is it U.S. gun lobby? Is it big oil? Who made those contributions to the Prime Minister's leadership race in 2002? We will come back to that until we get a proper answer, until the Canadian people get a proper answer. These are important issues.

Let me talk about the name of the act, the accountability with respect to loans act. It could be called the new Conservative bank of Canada act. It is big money that would get more influence because of the way the act is written currently. We will seek amendments to ensure it does not simply limit the influence that can be exerted to those with money or have access to big money. Let me tell members why.

Financial institutions are the only ones that can make big loans to individuals. If people are maybe from a disadvantaged group or an under-represented group who have not been in politics before, who seek a nomination in a riding, those people do not have independent wealth, they do not have a riding association yet to loan them funds, as is allowable under this bill, and they do not have, perhaps, credit worthiness to go to a bank. What does that person do? The individual is left out. They simply cannot, effectively. With the limits under this, there is a barrier to entry into the nomination process.

If we look at the Liberal leadership process that went for nine months of fulsome discussion and debate across the country, presenting 11 candidates for scrutiny by the public in a highly open and democratic process, those were expensive. We cannot do that in a country the size of Canada without having some funds to expend for it.

Those should be under rules, and there are rules. There may be some tightening up that the bill can do, and that is fine. However, to say that people taking out loans so they can exercise their right to take part in the democratic electoral process for leadership, for nomination, is going down the wrong road.

In fact, the bill, as written, does not, as Bill C-24 previously did, take out corporate money and put in public money that was properly and evenly distributed according to the proportion of the vote achieved by each party that ran candidates. This cuts out the public and brings in the big money.

Who can get a loan from a bank, from a financial institution? It is someone with a lot of money or property to put up as collateral, or someone to co-sign or support the loan. Those are people of influence and money. This is letting the money in. It is not keeping the money out. That is what we will have to see. I look forward to working with members of the Bloc, the NDP and the government to see if we can get some amendments so we do not create a barrier to entry for people who have no means and are not yet part of the political process. That transparency is immensely important.

We have an organization called Equal Voice. All members of the House will be well aware of and knowledgeable about it. The organization seeks to encourage women to enter the political process so we can rise above the deplorable disproportion of men to women in the House of Commons, with 20% representation by women.

The leader of the official opposition, the leader of the Liberal Party, has pledged that in the next election one-third of the Liberal candidates will be women. We are well on the way in the nomination process to achieving that. This is a demonstrative move to try to get a proper proportion of gender equity into the House.

If this goes to committee, I am sure Equal Voice, representing all parties and all people across the political spectrum, will be very interested to come to talk the committee and to give evidence, as will many other groups who represent disadvantaged or under-represented sectors of this society. They will want to come and give their evidence on it. I hope we will take instruction from them as to how, perhaps unintentionally, the unavoidable consequence of this will be, to exert more power, not less, in those who have access to large amounts of funds.

This new Conservative bank of Canada act is interesting. It may tighten up the rules a little. It is not so that the Canada Elections Act now does not require loans to be repaid or be converted into contributions under the very restrictive rules. It is not so that contributors, lenders or co-signers do not have to be disclosed for political loans. They do have to be.

I am as anxious as anyone else in the House to see that this process is not abused, and if we can tighten it up, all the better. However, we have to ensure there are no unintended consequences of creating barriers to disadvantaged and under-represented groups.

The government House leader took some time to describe a number of what were called democratic reform bills, or statutes, in the House as brought forward by the Conservative government, and it is worth talking about a few of those.

One is Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act. Members of the House and the committee of the House spent a great deal of time on this as did members of the Senate. In fact, unencumbered by a set deadline that was forced on the House committee in the House, the Senate put forward dozens of amendments through its careful review of that act, even under the constant shrill criticism of the government that it was slowing things down.

Regarding slowing things down, royal assent was given to the Federal Accountability Act on December 15, 2006. Here we are, almost five months later, and one of the central parts of that act was the appointments commission. Amendments by the NDP sharpened that up. We had two choices. The Liberal opposition put forward amendments. The NDP put forward amendments. All of them would have been effective, and will be effective, as it was finally passed, but all these months later, all of these appointments later, dozens of them, and we still do not have the appointments commission. This was one of the key things that was said by the government to be so important about the Federal Accountability Act. We do not even have a commission.

We continue without the proper controls. We had suggested that the Public Service Commission take over this role, that there be amendments to its mandate to apply the same rules, competitive process and objective criteria used in the public service for any order in council appointments, but we still do not have that.

I would be very interested to hear from the government when it is going to proceed with that important part of Bill C-2. There were so many complaints about it being delayed when in fact there were a very large number of responsible, thoughtful and careful amendments suggested by the Senate, and actually passed into law.

Bill C-16 deals with fixed dates. We supported that on this side of the House. There was no delay. There was careful consideration in the Senate. There was a thoughtful amendment put forward. It was brought back to the House with that amendment. We on this side offered the government, before the Easter recess, to pass the bill through all processes in the House, back to the Senate, hopefully, for royal assent in the day before we broke. That was rejected. We would have needed unanimous consent, but we did not get it from the government.

Bill C-43 was mentioned by the government House leader. It is not a Senate elections act; it is a consultation act, with provincial elections. It is being put forward as a great democratic reform. I think all members of the House believe, as do probably all members of the other place, that the Senate needs reform in becoming a fully democratic legislative chamber, and we should all work toward that. This is going at it piecemeal. We get criticisms of trying to block the incremental reform of the Senate, but the fact is it all fits together and it must be dealt with at once.

There are three critical aspects of the Senate that have to be considered together.

One aspect is the selection process, which could include elections or involve terms. The term limit is suggested in Bill S-4.

Another aspect is the mandate. In the future how does the mandate relate to the mandate of the House of Commons? Will it be a mirror legislative body with the same electoral validity that will then lead to gridlock. We have to do to deal with that area of comprehensive reform is to have some kind of dispute resolution mechanism whenever the legislative powers mirror each other in the House and the other place.

Then we have the distribution. We cannot do anything else with the Senate until we work out the distribution. It is amazing that the Prime Minister, and all members of the government, would consider doing something to give a greater validity, greater power to the Senate without fixing the very unfair, inequitable distribution of seats to western Canada, particularly to British Columbia and Alberta.

For all of us from British Columbia and Alberta, it is extraordinary that we might think of increasing the power of that body without fixing the horrible lack of fair distribution to western Canada.

Bert Brown has been mentioned in the House by the Prime Minister as being the senator in waiting, to be appointed sometime this summer. He has played a very important role in the political life of Canada. He did not play that role by plowing one E into his barley field or a wheat field. He plowed three E's into it. To try to deal with just one E at once in a piecemeal incremental way, as the Prime Minister says, is not in the favour of Alberta, from where that fine gentleman comes. Nor is it responsible reform in the comprehensive way to properly bring the Senate into the modern age of a democratic legislative chamber. We have to work together to do that.

We often hear about the ghosts of Meech Lake and the ghosts of Charlottetown. We also hear that we cannot go near the Constitution because, my goodness, we might all get distracted and not be able to do anything else in this country and we will never get anywhere. Thank goodness the Fathers of Confederation were not so shy about dealing with the Constitution. We should take on that responsibility ourselves.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my hon. colleague across the floor. I think we have heard some very valid points. In my opinion, the government should take them into consideration during second reading.

I was part of the legal community for the past 25 years. The Conservatives were in a hurry and wanted Bill C-2 to pass quickly. Another bill is being introduced today in this House, one that amends the first bill, because a few small things were overlooked. I would like to talk about some of those little items that were overlooked. The accountability act provides for whistleblowers to have access to adequate legal counsel, but they are given a limit of $1,500. I hope the government realizes that, with a $1,500 limit, the individual could enjoy the services of a lawyer—and with all due respect for my colleagues of the bar—for only 10 hours of work. Moreover, whistleblowing files are extremely complex and often involve considerable ramifications.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague if we should not think about this now and perhaps add a zero to the $1,500. Personally, I think $15,000 would be a more appropriate figure under the circumstances.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am the first one to say that these political loans were a loophole that had to be plugged. It would have been fundamentally wrong to go into another federal election under the current regime, where big money can still buy undue influence in Canadian politics.

Obviously there is much in this bill that I am pleased to see. In fact, during the Federal Accountability Act discussions, we moved a similar amendment seeking this very type of thing.

There is one thing that I do have a question about. I cannot for the life of me imagine why this implementation will not take effect until six months after royal assent. The House leader for the government can correct me if I am wrong, but that could set up the situation where we are going to conduct one more election campaign under the existing rules. Given that it is now common knowledge that a loan is not a loan when it is not paid back, but a donation, we will have more people than ever doing this if we do not change the rules before another federal election.

The government was adamant that we implement and put into effect Bill C-2 immediately upon royal assent, the very same day. Why does it want to give us a six month grace period in this case?

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as people know, the government is very big on accountability. The Federal Accountability Act took a long time to get through committee simply because members opposite objected to having a fair, transparent and accountable government.

I would like to ask the member for Don Valley East this. It is common knowledge that the Canadian court challenges program was not required to reveal which groups it chose to fund or how much money these groups received. This is not acceptable in today's political environment.

The government wants to support people who are in need and who need a justice system that reflects their human rights. Does the member think it is correct that the former court challenges program should not have to reveal which groups it chooses to fund or how much money the groups get? There is something terribly wrong with that.

Electoral Reform

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the debate on Motion No. 262, which proposes two initiatives in response to the 43rd report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The motion proposes that we strike a special committee of the House of Commons to make recommendations on democratic reform. The motion also proposes the creation of a citizens' consultation group to report on the matter.

This is the type of motion the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London made at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The member proposed to do a study on democratic reform. What I find interesting is that the member's proposal was voted down by the committee, which included the NDP member on the committee at that time.

I am curious as to why the NDP member would bring forward Motion No. 262 at this time, based on the fact that this was something that one of our members had earlier proposed. Also this is an initiative that as a government we have been looking at as well. Therefore, I find that the motion is redundant.

I appreciate what the member for Vancouver Island North is trying to do. I think we all agree that it makes sense to look at the democratic process from time to time and see if there are ways that we can change it to make it better.

It is for all of these reasons I will not be supporting the motion. Certainly, as I have said before, it is very worthwhile to look at ways to make the democratic process better, but the government has already taken action. Our government has already initiated a process to start looking at this issue.

The previous government did not do a whole lot about the democratic process over the 13 years that the Liberals were in power. They certainly talked about doing something about the democratic process, but unfortunately it never materialized under the previous government.

One thing our government has definitely been looking at is how we consult with Canadians and how we can do a better job on democratic reform issues. With that in mind I would like to talk about what the government is looking at doing over the next little while.

We certainly want to engage parliamentarians. We have initiated a number of legislative issues. Public consultation is also very important to make this process work. We should engage all Canadians.

The work the government has been doing has been noted by other members, but it bears repeating.

The government enacted Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act. This is one of the most notable things this government has done. The act bans union as well as corporate donations, and limits contributions to $1,100, and makes sure that no cash donations are accepted. In terms of the democratic process we have seen what happens in other parts of the world where there is not a limit on donations. People seem to have more influence with the more money that they are able to spend on elections. Limiting the amount will work in our democratic process. It is important regardless of where Canadians come from that they be able to have a say in government and not just be able to influence the government with money.

Bill C-16 was introduced by the Conservative government. The bill looks at establishing fixed election dates. The bill passed unanimously by the House. The Senate recently attempted to add an amendment that the government rejects. We are hoping that the Senate will move forward and put the bill back to the way it was originally.

What is important with fixed election dates is that we would not just worry about what is going on in the polls. Whatever party was in government would have an opportunity for more stability. People would know that every four years an election would be held on a certain date. This has worked in some provinces. This is something that we could look at federally as well.

The third initiative that the government has introduced in terms of legislation is Bill S-4 which was introduced in the Senate. That bill limits the terms for senators. It would eliminate the current situation where unelected and unaccountable senators can sit for up to 45 years. An eight year term would allow senators to get the kind of experience they need when looking at legislative initiatives and ensure they would get new perspectives.

Even though that bill was introduced in the Senate, we are stuck. It has been sitting in the other place for almost a year now, which is kind of surprising. It may be a bit of a concern if a bill was introduced to limit a term from 45 years to 8 years, but we would encourage that unelected, majority-driven Liberal Senate to pass that bill.

There are also other areas that we have looked at. The government introduced Bill C-43, the Senate appointment consultations act, which we will be debating next week. This bill would enable us to talk to people about how senators should be appointed.

These are all great initiatives that will help make the democratic process better.

We have also introduced Bill C-31 which looks at a number of different measures in terms of the electoral system and voter ID. This is important based on all the recommendations that were contained in the 13th report of the procedure and House affairs committee. The government is looking for a way to implement those recommendations through Bill C-31. We are trying to make the electoral system more fair. We are trying to reduce fraud. The bill has the support of all parties and we are certainly hoping that it will be passed very shortly in the Senate.

The second issue that I would like to address today is public consultations. It is important that not only elected representatives participate in the system, but individuals from across the country participate as well. The government is already engaged in this. We started the process back on January 9.

We want to set up citizen forum groups across the country, so we could deal with all the provinces and territories. We are midway in this process. We have been able to talk to people. At each of these forums somewhere in the neighbourhood of 40 to 50 individuals have represented the Canadian population. We are hoping that when we are done with this process, we will have spoken to some 400 or 500 Canadians.

In this way, we really believe that we can get some impartial views. One of the members talked about the fact that certain parties were already leaning toward one certain system. In this way, we have a chance not to bias the process but give Canadians an opportunity to participate. So far the participation and the response has been very enthusiastic. This is good to see as we look at a whole range of individuals from different parties, from across all electoral systems, as well as the House of Commons, the Senate and citizens.

We are also looking at a youth forum that would take place in Ottawa. This forum would try to establish why there is such low voter turnout among young people. We realize that young people are disengaged and sometimes frustrated with the system. It is important that we look at ways to engage young people, so they can be part of the political process and look at making a difference.

We are also looking at sending a survey out across the country. This could be part of our final report.

We have consultations going on with members of the House and with the Senate. We have surveys, citizen groups and youth forums. All of these things will be important as we look at delivering the final report some time in June of this year. I certainly look forward to seeing it.

As we look at introducing legislation in the House, it is important that we consult with people. This gives us a better understanding obviously as we look at different parts of the country with different needs. I have sat in on a few meetings of the procedure and House Affairs, and I know there are concerns given the fact that we have large urban ridings and rural ridings. Because of the uniqueness of this country, I believe this consultation process is important.

Once again, I am going to urge all members to vote against this motion because of what we already having going on in the House. I want to thank parliamentarians for their participation in this process.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Motion No. 262, which proposes two initiatives in response to the 43rd report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. First, the motion recommends that a special committee of the House of Commons be created to make recommendations on democratic reform issues. Second, it proposes that a special committee look into creating a citizens' consultation group and to report on this matter within six weeks.

I intend to oppose this motion for reasons I will make clear in my remarks today. I would also encourage other members of the House to oppose it.

There appear to be some fundamental inconsistencies in the NDP's approach to electoral reform and public consultation on democratic reform and electoral reform in particular. In this regard I noticed that one of the opposition day motions put forward by the NDP is that we should move immediately to implement electoral reform but that we should implement a specific type of electoral reform, that of a mixed member proportional system.

At the same time the NDP is putting forward Motion No. 262 to study our electoral system, it is also suggesting that we immediately reform our electoral system, and not necessarily in a way that reflects what the Canadian public may wish, but rather in a way that reflects the interests of the New Democratic Party. We can, therefore, all be excused for being confused about what exactly is the plan of the NDP with regard to democratic reform in general and electoral reform specifically.

Does the NDP want us to move immediately to implement a mixed member system, as it has stated on many occasions, or does the NDP want us to consult Canadians on electoral reform in advance, as suggested by Motion No. 262, and find out whether Canadians believe electoral reform is an issue they wish to pursue?

It seems that the NDP has not only prejudged the need for electoral reform, but is also prescribing for Canadians exactly what type of electoral reform Canadians should pursue. I find this interesting because there are a number of electoral systems that could be pursued should it be decided that reform is an advisable course of action.

Personally, I do not believe it would be advisable to barrel ahead to change our electoral system and change it to a specific electoral system before we even have any indication from Canadians that this is what they want.

I note that the sponsor of Motion No. 262 in the first hour of debate made it quite clear that she wanted the consultations to focus solely on electoral reform. From her remarks it did not seem that she and indeed her party had anything but a narrow focus on one single issue.

The question again is, does the NDP want to hear the views of Canadians on electoral reform, or does it want to prescribe for Canadians the type of electoral reform that it has apparently already decided on without consultation?

The actions of this government in the area of democratic reform stand in stark contrast to those of the NDP. We recognize that democratic reform is not a single issue. It is not just about electoral reform, as the NDP would have everyone believe.

Democratic reform encompasses a wide range of issues from political financing to improvements to our electoral system and the modernization of our democratic institutions. This was a fact that was recognized in the 43rd report, which was released in June 2005 but not acted on by the previous government.

The report's conclusions underline a whole range of issues beyond electoral reform that should be the subject of consultation. We need to be clear about the conclusions of the 43rd report if we are to act on them.

Let me read for members exactly what the report said. The report states that a citizens' consultation group along with the parliamentary committee should:

--make recommendations on the values and principles Canadians would like to see in their democratic and electoral systems.... [This] would take into account an examination of the role of Members of Parliament and political parties; citizen engagement and rates of voter participation, including youth and aboriginal communities; civic literacy; and how to foster a more representative House of Commons, including, but not limited to, increased representation of women and minorities, and questions of proportionality, community of interest and representation--

My question would be, why is the NDP focusing only on one aspect of democratic reform when there are so many other equally important issues?

For our part, this government is taking a much different approach. First, rather than just thinking about a consultation process as suggested by Motion No. 262, we have actually taken action to implement a process as the government announced it would do in January.

As a result of the government's actions, a citizens' consultation process is under way. The process consists of two key parts. The first is a series of 12 deliberative forums, one in each province, one for the territories and one youth forum, each with a participation of 40 to 50 citizens who are roughly representative of the Canadian population. The second part is a telephone survey on a range of issues related to our democratic institutions.

The deliberative consultation process is well under way. Consultations have already taken place in British Columbia, Alberta, the territories, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador.

In contrast to the process recommended by Motion No. 262, the government sponsored process is consulting citizens on a broad range of issues. Each forum is addressing a common set of topics, including political parties, the electoral system, the House of Commons, the Senate and the role of the citizen. It will be noted that this is very similar to the recommendation of the 43rd report. Unlike the NDP approach, we are not focusing only on a single issue and we are not prejudging the views of Canadians on these issues.

Once the process is over, a report on the process will be prepared for the government. The government intends to take the results of these consultations very seriously and parliamentarians will continue to be engaged on these important subjects.

It appears that the government is pursuing a much more comprehensive approach to consultation than is proposed in Motion No. 262. Since the process is well under way, Motion No. 262 has become redundant and has been for some time now.

Apart from the consultation process, the government has engaged parliamentarians on a wide range of important democratic reform initiatives, as we indicated we would do in our electoral platform. I dare say that no other government in history has accomplished so much in this important area. Allow me to review some of the initiatives we have taken so far on this issue.

First, we passed Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act, which provides for some important political financing reforms, including a ban on corporate and union donations, and the reduction of contribution limits to $1,000. This will ensure that money and influence are not the determining factors in financing political parties and the parties can operate on a level playing field.

We have introduced practical and achievable legislation in the area of Senate reform, including Bill S-4, which would limit the tenure of senators to a period of eight years, and Bill C-43, which would establish a national process for consulting Canadians on their preferences for Senate appointments.

Of particular interest for this debate, the consultations proposed in Bill C-43 would not be carried out by means of a first past the post system. Rather, elections would be conducted using a proportional and preferential voting system called the single transferable vote, or STV system. It will be interesting to know the ultimate position of the New Democratic Party on Bill C-43 since the bill is proposing the introduction of a proportional electoral system which the NDP has been advocating for the House of Commons. Bill C-43 is an important initiative because for the first time Canadians will have the opportunity to have input into their selection of senators.

The government has also moved forward on an important initiative to improve the integrity of our electoral system. Bill C-31 includes important provisions to combat electoral system fraud, in particular through the introduction of requirements for voter ID. If passed, I believe the bill would make a tremendous contribution to ensuring that no election was tainted by the possibility of voter fraud.

The government is taking steps to increase electoral fairness through the introduction of Bill C-16 which establishes fixed dates for federal elections. If passed, this initiative would ensure that elections occurred once every four years and not just on the whim of a prime minister who might choose to call an election on the basis of whether or not his or her party was high in the polls.

The government has demonstrated a tremendous commitment to electoral reform. We are well on our way to meeting the commitments that we made to Canadians.

To conclude, I must encourage all members to vote against the motion for the reasons I have stated. Given that the government has already taken action to implement a public consultation process, Motion No. 262 is redundant. Not only that, but the government's process is much more comprehensive than was recommended by the NDP. It will not be focused only on electoral reform, contrary to the desire of the sponsor of the motion. It conforms largely to the recommendations of the 43rd report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

The New Democratic Party has already decided prior to consulting with Canadians that the mixed member proportional system is the way to go. This government does not want to prejudge the views of Canadians on this important matter.

Might I add that the previous speaker made mention of several changes that she feels need to be made to the way that Parliament works. It is important to point out that the previous Liberal government was in power for 13 years. The Liberals moved forward on none of these provisions. I find that extraordinary.

Quite frankly, as someone who has had a lifelong interest in democratic reform, I am proud of the initiatives that our government has launched. I encourage all members of all parties in the House to support them when they come forward.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the debate today on Motion No. 262. The motion proposes two initiatives in response to the 43rd report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

First, the motion proposes that a special committee of the House of Commons be created to make recommendations on democratic reform issues and, second, that a special committee look into creating a citizens consultation group and to report on this matter within six weeks.

At the outset, I want to make it clear that I will be urging members to vote against this motion, not because involving parliamentarians and citizens in discussion about democratic reform is an unworthy exercise, but because the government has already taken such clear action in this important area and it will continue to do so.

After the 43rd report was released in the last Parliament, nothing happened in the area of democratic reform, consultations or otherwise. This stands in sharp contrast to the actions of this government. We have engaged and continue to engage parliamentarians in a number of important democratic reform initiatives. We have already started a process to consult Canadians on democratic reform issues. In short, I will demonstrate today that the motion before us has been overtaken by events.

First , in the area of engaging parliamentarians on democratic reform issues, I am confident in saying that this government has done more than any previous government in bringing forward democratic reform initiatives for consideration in Parliament. Parliament adopted Bill C-2, the Accountability Act, which included a number of political financing reforms, most notably a ban on union and corporate donations, a contribution limit of $1,000, a ban on cash donations and a ban on trust funds. These measures help to eliminate the perception that only those with money have an influence on politics. This, in turn, enhances confidence in the political process.

The government also introduced Bill C-16 to establish fixed dates for federal elections. This bill was passed unanimously with all party consent in the House. More recently, the House of Commons adopted a motion to reject an unnecessary amendment adopted by the Senate. We are hoping t the Senate will now accept the now twice expressed will of the members of the democratically elected House of Commons regarding this bill. The Senate should recognize the legitimacy of the House, in particular on matters relating to elections, and pass this bill as it was originally intended.

The implementation of fixed dates for elections will greatly improve the fairness of Canada's electoral system by eliminating the ability of the governing party to set the timing of a general election to its own advantage.

The government has also taken important steps in the area of Senate reform, with the introduction of practical and achievable measures. Last May, the government introduced Bill S-4 in the Senate, which would establish a term limit for senators of eight years. The adoption of this bill would eliminate the current situation where unelected, unaccountable senators can sit for up to 45 years.

An eight year term would allow senators to gain the experience necessary to fulfill the Senate's important role of legislative review, while ensuring that the Senate is refreshed by new perspectives and ideas. Despite widespread support for this initiative, the bill has, unfortunately, been held up in the Senate for almost a year now.

Also in the area of Senate reform, the government introduced Bill C-43, the Senate appointment consultations act, which would provide a process whereby voters may be consulted on potential appointments to the Senate in their respective provinces. Debate on this bill began last week. For the first time ever, legislation will provide Canadians with a voice on who represents them in the Senate.

The government has also introduced Bill C-31, which includes a number of initiatives aimed at ensuring the integrity of the electoral system, including a new system of voter identification. Bill C-31 would implement most of the recommendations of the 13th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The passage of this bill will reduce the opportunities for fraud and promote fairness in our electoral system. I hope Bill C-31 will soon be passed in the Senate.

In summary, this government has demonstrated the most extensive commitment ever to the modernization of Canada's national democratic institutions.

In the area of public consultations, we are not just looking into the issue, as proposed in Motion No. 262, we are acting.

On January 9, 2007, the government announced that it was launching a public consultation process on democratic reform issues. In particular, the process would engage Canadians in a dialogue to identify the priorities, values and principles that should underpin Canada's democratic institutions and practices.

The process consists of two main elements, both organized by independent contractors.

First, there is a deliberative process to consult Canadians in 12 citizens' forums, one held in each province, one in the Territories, and also in one national youth forum. The process is more than half complete, with the forums in British Columbia, Alberta, the Territories, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island already completed. Each forum includes approximately 40 to 50 citizens who are roughly representative of the Canadian population.

In that regard, it is worth noting that by the time we are finished approximately 500 Canadians will have participated in the deliberative discussions, all of them giving up a few days of their time, not to mention studying the issues in advance.

The response so far has been very enthusiastic. Participants are examining a whole range of issues, including: political parties, the electoral system, the House of Commons and the Senate, and the role of the citizen.

In the youth forum, which will take place in Ottawa, participants will take a close look at why there is low voter turnout among Canada's youth and why a significant number of young people appear to be disengaged from the political process.

The second element is a large scale national survey that will be administered to a representative sample of Canadians across the country.

We will learn in the forums and the survey and they will be combined into a final report that will be ready by June of this year.

I very much look forward to the report and what it will tell us about the views of Canadians and our democratic institutions and practices. The government intends to take the results of these consultations very seriously.

In conclusion, I urge all members to vote no on Motion No. 262. While the member undoubtedly had honourable intentions in bringing the motion forward, passing this initiative would not serve any useful purpose. The government has engaged and will continue to engage parliamentarians on democratic reform issues; witness the extensive legislative agenda we have introduced in this important area.

The comprehensive process to hear the views of Canadians on democratic reform issues, which we announced in January, is well under way. We will be listening to the views of Canadians and deciding the next steps in the reform of our democratic institutions.

Parliamentarians will play a role in that process. Having the information from the consultation process will mean that parliamentarians are better informed when considering further improvements to our democratic process.

Canada Elections Act

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to speak to Bill C-16.

I want to start my comments by recognizing my predecessor, Mr. Ed Broadbent, who brought forward an ethics package before the last election. The ethics package he proposed was to clean up politics and some of the ways we might do that.

Interestingly enough, one of the proposals Mr. Broadbent put forward in his ethics package was for fixed date elections. The NDP is happy to support Bill C-16 because our party put the initiative on the table. It was an initiative we took to propose ideas rather than just oppose ideas. That is very important. I believe our role as responsible parliamentarians is not just to oppose, which is certainly necessary when in opposition, but also to propose. We felt it was very important to propose fixed date elections. Of course we support Bill C-16 since it was an NDP proposal before the last election. This is not something that we proposed in the midst of an election. It is something we actually presented to the last Parliament because we thought it was very important.

Mr. Broadbent also had in his ethics package, which our party was happy to put front and centre in the last Parliament, his ideas to clean up politics and the need to deal with things like floor crossing. Floor crossing is still rampant in this place and it must be dealt with.

The idea of fixed date elections is very important to the NDP. It is a good idea. There were consultations with people who have fought for fair elections, people in the large community of democratic reform. Fair Vote Canada is non-partisan and many parties are represented in that body. Mr. Segal, Mr. Axworthy and Mr. Broadbent are involved. I am not sure if any of the Bloc members have signed on with Fair Vote Canada, but I encourage them to do so. They may want to look at Fair Vote Canada's ideas and tenets that all votes should be fair votes and that the system be fair. Part of that is fixed date elections.

When the bill was before committee we proposed amendments to it to clarify things like confidence. We put those ideas forward as something to consider.

Bill C-16 is not long. It does not deal with constitutional change. We thought that was reasonable. Mr. Broadbent put forward the same proposals, that we did not need to open the Constitution to make this kind of change, which in effect is a practice in what we are doing. It still gives Parliament the option of removing confidence from the governing party which would then trigger an election.

We believe that this was a pragmatic and reasonable thing to do. We had seen the abuse by governments before that would use the date of an election simply to make sure that it had the upper hand on the other parties. In the end what the government was doing was trying to have the upper hand on Canadians. We saw that as a manipulation of the government's responsibility and power. If the government thought it might be favourable to call an election, it would do the polling. The government would probably do cross-tabulation, where a couple of ideas are taken from different regions and put together to make sure that the government would win a majority. Inevitably, the cash would be distributed throughout the land and would fall off wagons everywhere. Money would be given to areas where the government of the day needed to shore up support.

This is clearly anti-democratic.The fact that a governing party can manipulate the date of an election for its own benefit is anti-democratic. Sadly, that has been the case with previous governments. It happened in the last majority Parliament. The Liberals saw an opportune time and called an election in order to get another majority.

In the bill we should not only address fixed date elections, but also the way in which the votes are counted. It is important to note that in the majority governments of Mr. Chrétien, notwithstanding that he had the most votes, a disproportionate number of seats were allotted to his government.

I say that not just to point to Mr. Chrétien and the Liberal Party. The same thing happened at the provincial level. I can think of the NDP winning a certain percentage of the vote and a disproportionate number of seats. Therefore, it is not about partisanship but it is a reflection of the people's will.

The fact that a fixed date election was something we could do without opening up the Constitution was fair. It is a little different than what we will be debating later today, Bill C-43, which is the idea that we can have plebiscites on who should represent citizens in the Senate and still skirt the Constitution.

I think we have pretty much tested the limits of how far we can skirt or go around the Constitution and practice with Bill C-16. I know that members of all parties agreed that Bill C-16 made sense, that we did not need to open up the Constitution. I would challenge that, though, on Bill C-43 which we will be debating later.

Juxtaposed to Bill C-16, when we look at having plebiscites to have people decide which person they want representing them in the Senate and then go to the Prime Minister, and then the person would be appointed, it skirts the Constitution a little too far. In fact, it says that is about as far as they will go because they do not want to touch the Constitution.

The Constitution is not a suggestion list. It is a fundamental foundation of how our country is to operate. I would suggest that Bill C-16 is a practice in terms of how the government could operate in setting an election date versus the bill we will be debating later, Bill C-43, which actually goes too far in terms of avoiding the Constitution simply because they do not want to get into the muck of a constitutional debate.

If we are serious about real, democratic reform and Senate reform, then we need to address it and not run from it. Bill C-16 gave us the opportunity to take away the potential abuse of governments to use an election date for their own political partisan advance.

When we looked at the act we proposed amendments and the Bloc proposed some amendments. We have heard some dates from Bloc members for the fixed election date. However, I concur with other members who suggested that having it in the spring was not doable and having it at certain times in the fall was not doable.

The timing we came up with is perfectly reasonable to compromise in terms of meeting the needs of all Canadians from coast to coast to coast, be it those who live in rural areas or in the north. I think the timing of having it in the fall makes perfect sense, particularly for our farming communities that need time to bring in the crop and the harvest. Having an election after that is what we have in front of us.

I want to turn my attention now to the amendment that came from the Senate. As my colleague from Winnipeg Centre suggested, we do take issue with the author of this amendment and where it comes from. However, it is important to look at the amendment. It is not a long amendment. It simply brings up a point that, quite frankly, was not debated extensively in committee. It was to take a look at the religious significance of a provincial or municipal election, or a federal, provincial or a municipal referendum, and that the chief electoral officer may change the date of the fixed election.

Therefore, it still ascribes to the chief electoral officer the fact that he or she must follow the actual fixed election date calender generally but if these circumstances occur, there is the option that he or she may, not must, change the date.

Particularly for my friends in the Bloc, I would like to think of a circumstance where there is a referendum at the provincial level. Quebec has had this experience more than any other province in Canada. Would it make sense to actually have a fixed date for a federal election set, and at the same time there is a provincial referendum? As we know, a referendum in Quebec often does not just take the attention of Quebeckers. It often takes the attention of the whole country, as it should. It is about the federation itself.

It is reasonable for the chief electoral officer to look at the election date and, if he or she sees a conflict, he or she may decide that we should not have a federal election on the same date as, for example a referendum in Quebec on something as potent as whether Quebec remains in the federation. That is an example of why we should look at this.

This amendment would not change the spirit of the bill. It is simply a what-if scenario. As I have already mentioned and underlined, it would give the chief electoral officer an option. As an officer of Parliament, the chief electoral officer has certain key responsibilities, one being that he or she is accountable to Parliament and must abide by legislation of Parliament.

Bill C-16 , which is in front of us, has been agreed to and passed. The chief electoral officer would need to abide by it as a responsible officer of Parliament. It would simply provide the chief electoral office with the opportunity, if there is a conflict, to deal with it.

As my colleague from Winnipeg Centre said, notwithstanding that we have some problems with the messenger, although we will not shoot the messenger, in this case the Senate having sent it to us, the message is something that we certainly can live with. For that reason, we will quietly support the amendment. It is common sense but it could probably have been done by giving the authority to the chief electoral officer at another time. However, it is in front of us now and that is why it is important to acknowledge it and take a position on it now.

I want to move now to what the bill will mean, when it is passed, in terms of Canadians' confidence in our electoral system. Many more things need to be done in terms of real democratic reform to ensure every vote counts. I submit that at this point in the history of our country we do not have a system where every vote counts. However, at least this will be an opportunity to let Canadians know that, in this case, the next election will be in 2009.

We only need to look at the past couple of weeks where, sadly, the discussions and discourse in the House and around the country have been all about whether there will be an election, yes or no, and whether the government is in a position to get its elusive majority.

On the weekend, CBC had an interesting comedic overview of that. A skit was conducted as a sports broadcast and people were doing a comedy of what it is like when discussing politics. One asked, “Jim, do you think there is going to be an election?” The other responded no and they decided to discuss it the next day. They would act out the following day and have a commentary on whether there was going to be an election.

It is certainly an interesting conversation for some of us but for most Canadians it is an incredible waste of time, not to mention ink, airwaves and electricity. We should be spending our time talking about what we can do in Parliament, not speculating about when the election will be.

Canadians did not send us here to talk about when the next election will be and it is incumbent upon all of us to keep that in mind. When I go door to door and talk to my constituents about what concerns them, it is not about when the next election will be. When they do ask me whether there will be an election, I respond that 2009 is what is in that legislation and that as far as I am concerned that is when the next election will be.

That is why it is incredibly important that we support this bill and that it goes through as quickly as possible. Therefore, I do not think it is plausible or possible to support the government's motion to send the bill back to the Senate and get into that game of Ping-Pong. We need to pass the bill now so Canadians know there is a bill that has a fixed date for elections and that any manipulations or strategic moves by the government will be seen as just that because its own act will be in front of us saying that the next election is in 2009.

The bill is important because it gives us predictability and the government would not be able to manipulate the calendar. Canadians would know that, notwithstanding all the conversations that people have had in the political chattering classes, the next election will be in 2009. The whole gamesmanship of deciding when the time has come to get a majority would be put aside and we could get on to issues that matter, like the environment, the prosperity gap and ensuring that Canadians' health system will be there for them when they need it.

At the end of the day those are the issues that matter to Canadians, not whether the government can pull the plug, call an election and get a majority to do whatever it plans to do. I have some concerns about what the present government would do if it had a majority but I will not go down that path.

I was on the committee studying Bill C-16 and we looked at other jurisdictions. Ontario now has fixed date elections and it has been the practice in many other countries. Some people had concerns that this would mirror the American political model. I would allay their fears because we have other jurisdictions in Europe and elsewhere with Westminster traditions that have fixed date elections and it works for them.

When we do have fixed date elections we need to ensure there is no manipulation of the public purse. What I mean by that is if we had taken the suggestion of the Bloc to have fixed date elections in the spring, we could have seen the government come out with a budget with all sorts of goodies, which kind of sounds familiar, like the last budget we saw here to possibly manipulate citizens so it could get a favourable return on its investment, in other words, a majority government. Having the fixed date election in the fall makes sense.

Some work should be done on when political parties are allowed to spend money in order that we do not have a largesse of spending that benefits one party or another, whichever has the most cash in the bank so to speak. We also do not want perpetual elections like some people were concerned about with this legislation. That just requires us being responsible as parliamentarians

As my colleague from Winnipeg Centre just mentioned, we need to look at election expenses and the rules around election expenses and we need to tighten that up. My colleague put forward amendments to Bill C-2 to tighten that up so people would not have an advantage of playing around with finances to benefit them. When we get this bill passed, and I hope it is sooner rather than later, we will need to keep our eye on that. As with any legislation, once the legislation is passed, it inevitably changes the way things are done. We will need to look at the effects the bill might have on things like election expenses.

We hope people will not get into the habit spending a lot of money before a writ as well as during a writ because they know an election is coming, or we have candidates who are playing around with loopholes in the Election Expenses Act, like loans from someone with deep pockets and who owns a fairly large multinational corporation. We saw that in certain leadership contests where they did not pay back the loan and it is no problem. We must plug that loophole but there are others, people who own car dealerships, et cetera.

Work still needs to be done to make things fairer but this bill is a good start. Canadians will now know exactly when the next election will be. We need to focus on the bill, on what it sets out to do and on what all Canadians believe it should do, which is to give us a fixed election date. The government would no longer be able to play around and try to orchestrate its own defeat. We have responsible work being done in the House and taking away the government's ability to manipulate the date of an election will bring more fairness to the system.

We will talk at another time about what we can do in terms of reforming our democratic system but this is the first start. The NDP is proud that the government adopted our idea and we support it fully.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, let me say at the outset that the official opposition in the House of Commons supports Bill C-16. When it was before this House earlier, we supported it wholeheartedly and spoke energetically in favour of it.

Repeatedly the House leader of the government speaks of irony. In fact, I think the walls of this extraordinary chamber are dripping with irony after his speech. However, he speaks of irony in the sense of delay, and of course the delay is on the part of the government on this unnecessary challenge of that minor amendment today.

Let me look at the other initiatives around delay. The House leader speaks of Bill C-43 and the delay there, but we started that last week. The government waited four months after tabling Bill C-43, the election through consultation of senators, to bring it forward. Why not four months ago?

He talked about Bill S-4, the bill on fixed terms for senators, and the fact that it has been held up in the Senate for over a year. This has not been held up in the Senate because of Bill S-4, because there is agreement on that. What there is not agreement on is that we should have the election of senators through consultation with the provinces, or whatever, before we redistribute the seats of the Senate fairly across this country.

How can any member of this House, and particularly of the government, support Bill S-4 without first supporting the other Senate motion to redistribute seats so there is less of the imbalance that so thoroughly disfavours Alberta and British Columbia at this time? I have colleagues in the government side from Alberta and British Columbia. It is inconceivable to me that they would think of altering in any way the status, the mandate, the credibility or the validation of the Senate without first sorting out that extremely unfair distribution for western Canada. This is where we are on that.

On Bill C-16, it is doublespeak, it is Orwellian, to hear the government House leader speak today about the Liberal side or Liberal senators delaying it. Good heavens, we could have had this passed before the Easter recess. We offered to rush it right through, get it to the Governor General and make it law before we left, but no, some bogus concept of this minor amendment as somehow frustrating the will of Parliament, the will of this House, was thrown up as a delaying tactic.

My goodness, the Conservatives refer to a referendum, as if a referendum called in some small municipality somewhere in this country would be allowed to dislodge the fixed election date. What we have to remember is that this would be with the discretion of the Chief Electoral Officer, an officer of Parliament, in one of the most respected senior offices in this country and one of the offices most critical to the fair operation of our democratic process. It is nonsense to expect that this person at his or her discretion would knock off a federal date that had been set for four years in advance because of some local referendum. It is just nonsense. It would not happen and it could not happen. Therefore, that is no reason to slow this down.

The government House leader speaks of disrespect or whatever in the other place where they would dare make a minor amendment to a House bill that has gone through this process and was supported by all parties. The Senate, whatever one thinks about elected or non-elected legislative chambers at this stage in our democracy, exists as part of our democratic machinery. We all have some firm minds about that, I think, including in the Senate, in terms of having some election process for senators. However, the Senate exists as part of our democratic machinery. It has a very specific purpose, which of course is to bring second sober thought to what is thoughtfully determined in this House. When it finds some area where it feels a bill can be made better, the Senate has the perfect right and the democratic responsibility to suggest an amendment, which is what has been done in this case.

I can recall the process last fall when Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act, passed through the House after several months of debate in committee and in the House. It then went to the Senate and we heard wailing and complaining from the government side that the Senate somehow was wasting everybody's time with this critical piece of legislation by not simply rubber-stamping it.

I think we all know now what happened in the Senate. There were over 100 amendments because it was a sloppy bill. There was no time as it was rushed through the process in the House. The Senate exercised its responsibilities properly by carefully looking at that massive, complex piece of legislation involving dozens of other statutes that needed to be amended as a consequence of it. The Senate came up with sensible, helpful arrangements and amendments that the House then of course accepted. That was not delay. That was the Senate doing its work in our democratic framework of institutions.

I will go back to this issue of electing, through consulting provincial bodies during provincial elections, for the appointment of senators into vacancies that happen in any one of those jurisdictions. I simply will say that this is a good piece. Let us get that moving. Why did we wait four months? Why have we waited a year without some serious consequence and a discussion of redistribution?

Let me just turn, then, to Bill C-16 itself, because this is a completely appropriate piece of legislation. It was supported in this House. Adding a final little fail-safe in case there could be a problem through a referendum process is just good sense. The Senate has suggested that, which is what we are debating here today. We are in favour of that and therefore are opposed to the government's motion.

In regard to Bill C-16 itself and fixed election dates, we know, and the House debates on Bill C-16 I think made it very clear through speeches on behalf of all parties, that this is a sensible further step in the democratic reform of Canada. It was made very clear that the overwhelming number of democracies in the world have fixed election dates and that there is a range of advantages to fixed election dates, including that it gives some predictability to government business.

Therefore, the government can put forward legislation and have the effective administration of legislation, with a timetable, knowing that it will not be dislodged short of a non-confidence vote or a national emergency. Therefore, the business of the government and the people of Canada can be done more efficiently. It can also be done more efficiently in terms of cost. Having an electoral commission and electoral office idling full time to be ready for an election that could come at any day is not an efficient use of resources.

This is also effective in terms of voter turnout, which is perhaps one of the most critical issues of fixed election dates, something with which I think all members and all parties of this House have been in agreement. For people who are first time voters, be they students, new Canadians or seniors, we can have civics classes in schools, universities and communities to ensure that people are fully engaged in the electoral discussion of the various policies being put forward in the election by various parties. That could enhance interest and voter turnout, which of course leads to a healthier democracy.

Of course in a country such as Canada it is also immensely important to have a fixed date that avoids inclement weather. The last election in this country was held in winter. Sadly, we saw a continued reduction in voter turnout and of course, unless one has the very good fortune to live in Vancouver as I do, winter weather can be very disruptive to voter turnout. That is very important. We also want to avoid the summer holiday breaks, which we can by having a fixed election date in the early fall or late spring, in order to increase voter turnout.

For all of these reasons, it is good sound public policy and we all support it, so good heavens, let us get on with it. Let us not delay this any further. The concept of a referendum in a small community is so inconceivable as to be insignificant. It should not slow down the passage of this legislation. With the support of members of the House today, and with the vote tomorrow, I believe, or whenever we are going to vote on this, we could have this as the law of Canada and as real democratic reform and we could have it immediately.

I just suggest that it is a test to the sincerity of every member of the House in terms of the need for this reform, that we not be distracted by a small amendment. It is the result of the Senate doing its job of carefully looking to see if it could possibly be improved, which to the credit of the House, could only be improved by a tiny amendment of really no consequence at all.

I speak in opposition to rejecting this amendment and in full support of moving ahead quickly in the House right now, so that it can go on to the Governor General and become law as soon as possible.

Quarantine Act

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as the member of Parliament for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, the home for over 50 years of Canada's Emergency Preparedness College, I am pleased to participate in this debate about modernizing the Quarantine Act.

The Quarantine Act is one of Canada's oldest pieces of legislation. The original act was first adopted in Parliament in 1872. It is the only federal statute concerned with preventing and controlling the introduction and spread of communicable disease. The new Quarantine Act received royal assent in 2005 and is now in force. This legislative renewal initiative was a direct outcome of our Canadian experience with SARS.

As a member of the 37th Parliament, I had the privilege of representing the Ontario riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke during the SARS crisis. What I remember most about the debates in the House of Commons surrounding the SARS crisis, was the almost total lack of accountability from the Ontario Liberal MPs during that crisis and from the administration and the minister they were defending.

While I have certainly been pleasantly surprised by the concerns raised by Liberal MPs who are now in opposition, my question is, where were they during the 2003 SARS crisis? The purpose of a quarantine act is to be prepared for an emergency. This is the same reason we have anti-terrorism legislation, to be prepared. Canada witnessed what happens when government is not prepared. This was evident during the SARS crisis. Let us not make the same mistake twice. Our government is getting the job done.

The official opposition was irresponsible when it made the decision to go soft on terrorism. Canadians can only hope that lives will not be lost as a consequence. The bottom line in this discussion is saving lives, protecting the health of Canadians. It was the inability of the former minister for emergency preparedness in the old government who had the statutory authority but lacked a grasp of the importance of the portfolio that led to the travel advisory being issued against Toronto during the SARS episode.

Information was not communicated to the World Health Organization in a timely fashion. The leadership role that the minister in the old government was intended to assume never materialized. The minister responsible for emergency preparedness claimed it was the minister of health's responsibility to call the World Health Organization. The minister of health figured that in an emergency the minister for emergency preparedness was in charge. In the inevitable passing of the buck, Ottawa twiddled its thumbs as Canadians became ill.

It is shocking to hear MPs who are members of the old government now admit just how unprepared Canada was and how disorganized the government was to communicate accurate information to an alarmed populace for an epidemic of any kind, let alone SARS.

I listened carefully as alarmed Canadians were told to turn to no less than 17 sites on the Internet for information on SARS. This information was incomplete and the sites conflicted with one another. Given this kind of experience with a crisis, it is incredible that opposition members would want Canadians to be unprepared for a terrorism act when they voted down their own terrorism legislation. It is all about being prepared.

Canadians listening to this debate will know that it is partisan posturing to suggest that amendments to the Quarantine Act should have been our new Conservative government's first order of business when in fact Bill C-2, our new government's showcase anti-corruption legislation had to be the first order of business.

The people of my riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke and more specifically the people of Arnprior know firsthand the actions of a corrupt government when the Emergency Preparedness College, which had been located in Arnprior for over 50 years, was shut down. It was wrong to close the Emergency Preparedness College in Arnprior and, as events turned out, it was not only the people of Arnprior who suffered because of that bad decision.

In the case of SARS, the cost to the tourism industry in Toronto and the rest of the province of Ontario was in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The SARS fiasco was the culmination of a whole series of missteps by the old regime that began with the political decision to discard over 50 years of tradition and teaching excellence when the politically motivated decision was made to close down the Emergency Preparedness College in Arnprior.

With the college in turmoil, the people who were supposed to be advising the government were ill-equipped to react even if the legislation tools such as we are discussing here today were in place. What is truly unfortunate about that wrong headed decision by the scandal ridden old government to close the Emergency Preparedness College in Arnprior was the price Canadians had to pay when it came time to act during the SARS crisis.

While taxpayers' dollars were made available to large urban centres like Toronto to deal with the drop in tourism as a result of the travel advisory issued against Toronto, the effect of that travel advisory warning by the World Health Organization rippled throughout the province of Ontario. Many businesses, including small businesses involved in the tourism industry located in my riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke were adversely affected.

The old administration refused to take responsibility for the situation with SARS and it is to the credit of the former member of the House, long forgotten by his own party and frustrated by inaction, that a concert was organized to let the world know that it was safe to be in Toronto and a safe travel destination as well. It is with this background that I participate in the debate regarding Bill C-42.

The modernization of the quarantine legislation was a first step in a series of legislative initiatives, along with the establishment of the Public Health Agency of Canada and the appointment of the new Chief Public Health Officer to help strengthen Canada's public health system. Bill C-42 is a minor amendment to the new Quarantine Act. It proposes new wording to section 34.

This amendment to the Quarantine Act is a minor and technical one. It does not change the policy objective but corrects the current language used in section 34. Section 34 is a provision that supports advance notification of very important health information to federal officials. It requires conveyance operators to report in advance before arrival in Canada if there is an illness, a public health concern or death on board a conveyance.

This provision enables quarantine officers, nurses and medical practitioners designated by the minister to coordinate an efficient response and to mobilize other key health and emergency responders.

In the event of a large scale outbreak and if necessary, this provision would allow the Minister of Health to better assess whether to order the diversion of a carrier to an alternate landing site in Canada to protect the health and safety of Canadians.

In its current form, section 34 would not satisfy its intended purpose. The problem was discovered when attempting to draft a supporting regulation which was necessary to make section 34 functionally proper.

Unfortunately, this issue created a barrier for bringing the new Quarantine Act into force swiftly and a newly worded section 34 is necessary from a technical point of view.

Today, I stand before members with this bill to be forwarded to the appropriate committee for review.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin my remarks by mentioning the beautiful light that shines on this side of the House. This is not a coincidence. The sky is blue and God is a sovereignist. We are going to take advantage of this light to enlighten our colleagues, the members opposite, who form the government. I hope they will be wise enough to listen.

I could not help but smile when I saw that this legislation was coming back here to be amended. Let us not forget that, at the beginning of this session, a bill was rammed through the House, namely Bill C-2. We felt that this issue had not been debated long enough to ensure that this legislation would provide measures that could be implemented, and that it would be responsible and meaningful for our fellow citizens, whom we represent here.

Today, I see that we have to go back to Bill C-12, which was passed in 2005, when I was still a new member in this House. In fact, this bill was my first experience with the legislation here. I had to learn how to debate it in the Standing Committee on Health, along with my colleague, the member for Hochelaga, who was then our party critic on health issues. Even at that time we had serious reservations about the provisions that the government wanted to include in the bill, because we often felt that they were too intrusive or not logical enough to allow for concrete, easy and effective implementation.

We have to be very cautious and serious when we talk about infectious and communicable diseases, about viruses and bacteria that proliferate. We have to take our role seriously. At the time, we deplored the fact that people would be accountable to an authority designated by the Minister of Health, because we felt that this was a somewhat complex process that would prevent the bill from being an effective piece of legislation.

When I saw the bill and saw that there was a move to amend this section, that is, section 34, I thought to myself, “Two years later, people are finally seeing that, once again, the Bloc Québécois was right.” Naturally, it was members of the Bloc Québécois who were the first to oppose that part of the legislation, which called for an authority designated by the minister. We did so because we believed that the bill encroached too much on provincial jurisdictions, especially in the area of health.

In Quebec, our department of public health is very effective and takes great care to protect us against all communicable and infectious diseases. I know that this is not necessarily the case everywhere. A hospital in Vegreville had to close its doors this week. Also, in Loyds, hundreds of patients had to be informed that they had probably contracted HIV or hepatitis, because the doctor had not reported, as one must, these diseases to public health authorities.

It is not enough to simply enact legislation. That legislation must be respected, obeyed and enforced, and we must be able to use that legislation effectively to protect ourselves against what we could call barbarian invasions. Any mention of tuberculosis, west Nile virus or SARS is sure to arouse fear. I would remind the House that the original Quarantine Act was drafted around 1872, if I understood my hon. colleague from Richmond—Arthabaska correctly.

We know that diseases crossed borders with the influx of pioneers who came here to start a life for themselves and become proud citizens of what was then Lower Canada and Upper Canada, in other words, the Quebec and Canada of today.

Infectious diseases did not stop crossing our borders just because we passed this legislation in 1872. In the early 1900s, around 1910 or 1918, right here in Hull, on the other side of the river, a very serious Spanish influenza outbreak killed many people. It decimated entire families. We still see traces of those families today in the names of the hon. members sitting in this House and the people nearby, who live in Hull, in Gatineau. These people probably have in their lineage, among their ancestors, people who died from the Spanish flu. At the time, even though the legislation existed, we did not have the means to enforce or apply it.

As far as such epidemics are concerned, we have to think about all these soldiers we send abroad. Often we pay more attention to what is going on over there in terms of equipment, tools and armament, and not pay much attention to what they might be bringing back with them when they come home. This can be very dangerous for them. These days, a number of women take part in these missions. Many of them come back and can also spread infectious diseases to their families and children because they did not receive the necessary care when they were abroad on a peacekeeping mission or, unfortunately, at war.

It is not enough to have laws, we also need the political will to apply them. We have to start resolving the problems in our own backyard. We currently have tuberculosis epidemics in a number of our first nations communities. It is unthinkable that in 2007 there are still people suffering from tuberculosis. That is the direct responsibility of the federal government. It is a responsibility that it neglects far too often and which it has not respected because the epidemic is spreading, not stopping.

In Kashechewan, people may be forced to leave their homes and to be relocated because their water is not potable. However, they cannot do it today because there is no money. If we have billions of dollars to invest in arms, we should at least have a few million to invest in providing safe, healthy housing where individuals can live with dignity and respect. At present, this is not the case. It is much easier to adopt a laissez-faire attitude. Hundreds, even thousands of individuals will suffer from these illnesses, including tuberculosis and other diseases. They will contract them because of unhealthy living conditions. Nothing is being done about that.

The previous government ratified the Kelowna accord. We all voted in this House to honour that accord. However, the government decided otherwise and is not making any further commitments. That is most unfortunate.

First nations communities, Inuit communities, all these communities find it difficult to carve out a place for themselves in our society. It is difficult for them to have access to adequate health care, appropriate education, and affordable, healthy, safe housing. It is difficult for them, but they have been abandoned even though it is our first responsibility to help them. We abandon them, we do not invest in these societies. Why? Why is there constant encroachment, to the tune of millions of dollars, on provincial responsibilities and jurisdictions when we do not even take care of our own responsibilities?

I do not understand. And yet, some small countries who have very little do much more for their citizens. I regularly visit Cuba, because I love the island and the people. Someone will say to me that they do not have a great deal of freedom, but I sometimes wonder which one of us has more freedom. I know that they have first class health care. All Cubans can study as much and as long as they wish. Education is free. Later, the government assigns the doctors it has trained to various countries to work for humanitarian causes. These doctors are very well trained.

Whenever I go to Cuba, I am never afraid of getting sick. I know I will be taken care of. When we went to Taiwan last fall, my travelling companion got a toothache on Taiwan's national holiday. The person I was with had a toothache. We had to go to a hospital because there are no dental clinics. At the hospital, two doctors took care of us. In under 10 minutes, my companion was in a chair and personnel had administered a sedative and something to take away the pain, and all of this happened on Taiwan's national holiday. Of course, thousands of people live there and their hospitals do not have all the equipment we have here. But their government chooses to invest in human resources to provide a standard of care and services that we rarely find here.

That service standard is rare here largely because of our provincial governments. Why do our respective governments not have enough money? Because previous federal governments cut transfer payments. Beginning in 1994, cuts to provincial transfer payments, including payments to Quebec, resulted in the sorry state of our health care systems today compared to those of some small countries that have much less than we do, but that care about their citizens' health.

We support the principle underlying this bill. We are not against it. Obviously, we cannot be against what is right, but today, as we study this bill, we must ask ourselves a question. Will this bill provide enough money to train quarantine officers? Will enough money be invested in training customs agents and all of the front-line staff who meet people at the border?

That was one of the concerns expressed by the Standing Committee on Health in 2004-05. We were not certain that all steps would be taken in order to enforce Bill C-12. After two years, we see that enforcing it is very difficult indeed, and that it was not really being enforced because there were flaws in the bill. In the years to come, we will likely find other flaws in the bill, given that the Standing Committee on Health had considerable reservations about approving the bill, which was adopted on division.

If we all minded our own business, there would likely be fewer bills of this kind to review. For example, despite what the government thinks, Bill C-2 was adopted very quickly, and a number of its sections are still not in force.

Why are we asked to debate bills that seem so important to the government, only to then have it dismiss everything we determined, everything we decided, everything we wanted to be able to give to our citizens as members of Parliament here in this House? We wonder why.

I do not know. I only hope that, in the future, we will be more careful. If it is true that Bill C-42 is crucial to the proper enforcement of Bill C-12, through the amendment of section 34, it is also true that there are several other sections of the bill that should be reviewed. In enforcing—

Aboriginal Affairs

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

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

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

Canada Pension Plan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Canada Elections Act

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Criminal Code

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Agriculture and Agri-Food

[David Anderson, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary (for the Canadian Wheat Board) to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board]

Mr. Speaker, I want to point out something that may not be obvious to people and I would like to ask the hon. members a question. Are hon. members a little bit interested in why the member for Malpeque did not even talk about his motion this morning? The motion was brought forward at committee. I want to talk about it a little bit later, but members will notice that throughout his entire speech he did not talk about it, and that is probably because he is embarrassed by it.

I have been disappointed in him in a number of ways in the last couple of months. He has had two opportunities to bring forward concurrence motions this fall and unfortunately he has done both of them during scheduled committee hearings.

Earlier on we had a hearing and we were going to sit down and talk with the trade representatives from the U.S. embassy. The member for Malpeque decided that he would bring a concurrence motion forward that day. He did that. Those of us who wanted to hear about the important issue of trade with the United States at committee were not able to do so because he wanted to be in the House standing on his soap box.

Again, today we have an issue that is of importance at committee. We are talking about the EU's import system. It is very important in western Canada. I was out in Ontario last week meeting with farmers because this is really important. We finally got these folks to committee. What does the member for Malpeque do? He brings the motion to the House today, so those of us who are actively involved with the agricultural committee cannot be at the meeting for the full scope of the hearing.

The obsession he has with this issue has grown to the point where he is beginning to lose credibility. The committee has done some good work and I will admit that. Just last week we released a report on the Canadian Grain Commission. It was a review of the Canadian Grains Act and the Canadian Grain Commission. We made a number of recommendations that were very important.

We were able to bring that report forward unanimously from the committee. We thought we would be able to get some traction and some interest in that report because it has a number of very important recommendations for western Canada.

I have never heard the member for Malpeque mention it once. He never mentioned it this morning. He supported the report. He thought it was a good report, but instead of saying that these are the positive things that the government is doing on which the opposition has been able to work with the government and that these are some of the things we are putting forward, he once more bashes the government and gets on his soap box on the one thing that has become an obsession for him, which is the Canadian Wheat Board.

As the member for Prince Albert pointed out, it is interesting that he does not live anywhere near the region in which the Canadian Wheat Board operates. He may have been in western Canada 17 years ago. That is a long time ago. He has obviously not been there lately and does not particularly understand the situation there.

The committee report last week made a couple of recommendations that are very important for western grain farmers. I want to talk about them because they are the kinds of things that will make the system in western Canada work. I will come to the motion a little bit later.

One of the things that was important, and we made sure with the help of the chair, the member for Battlefords—Lloydminster, was that producer cars in western Canada be protected for our producers. Over the last few years, more and more producers have turned to producer cars to move their grain. They load their own car. They ship it out to the coast and they are responsible for the grain that is in it. It has become a very important component of shipping grain off the prairies.

During the last election campaign when I was asked about it and about our commitment to it, I said that I am committed to these producer cars. I have used them for years on my own farm. They have been important to us. In fact, we were using them for years before the Canadian Wheat Board even supported them. The last couple of years the Wheat Board has got on board and said that it wanted to manage these cars and make sure that producers maintain access to them.

Some of us were using them for quite a while before the board even got interested. Actually, it only got interested after the number of producers who were using them became great enough that the board thought it was worth its while to be bothered with them. The report last week called for the support for producer cars and the enhancement of the option of using them.

Another thing we brought forward which we felt was important was that there be an office of grain farmer advocacy in western Canada. We brought that forward as one of the recommendations from the committee. Farmers would have an office associated with the Canadian Grain Commission that would stand up for their rights. There was a suggestion to have half a dozen commissioners who would be deployed regionally across western Canada, so if farmers had problems with grain handling, grain transportation or grain grading, they would be able to go to the office of grain farmer advocacy and have their problems dealt with. We think that is a really good recommendation.

We also made a recommendation with regard to changing the grading system in western Canada. For many years we have had in place in western Canada what is called the KVD system, kernel visual distinguishability. That was removed by producers in Ontario 17 years ago. Because of the removal of that requirement in Ontario, they have been able to grow their industry. They have been able to bring a whole host of new products to market in terms of grains and cereals.

We felt it was about time that western Canadian farmers began to experience some of the benefits of that as well. Actually, opposition members from the Liberals, the Bloc and the NDP all supported those recommendations. I thought it was a very good report and I would have liked to have seen it get some attention.

Unfortunately, the opposition, particularly the member for Malpeque, has decided that it apparently is not important. He has something else that he is fixated on. The government would like to ensure that western Canadian farmers have the opportunity to know that report is out there and that it is going to be moving ahead.

Another important thing happened last Friday for western Canadian farmers. Bill C-2, the federal accountability act, was finally passed by the House of Commons for the final time and will receive royal assent shortly. This is going to give farmers access to information that for decades they have been asking for. They want to know what is going on at the Canadian Wheat Board. They want to know how their money is being spent on communication, political lobbying and those kinds of things. They are finally going to have access to that information.

In spite of the misleading information that was put out by the opposition, this is not going to force the Canadian Wheat Board to reveal all of its sales information to its competitors and those kinds of things. It would simply give farmers a tool to understand what is being done with their own money because it is their money that goes toward the running of the Canadian Wheat Board.

It has been disappointing to see the member for Malpeque ignoring the issues that are important not only to people in western Canada but also to his own riding. As I said, two committee meetings have basically been disrupted by his insistence on bringing these concurrence reports forward at this time. Both of those issues dealt with his constituency and his constituents in Prince Edward Island: the important issue of U.S. trade and what we wanted to discuss today in committee with regard to the EU's imports.

I am pleased to speak to this motion today. As we know, grain farmers in western Canada have chosen their directors for the next four years. That is going to be important. I was interested to hear the member for Malpeque this morning talk about the fact that he apparently does not want appointed directors to be farmers. He thinks they should come from outside the industry, but the minister has been good about that. He has appointed a couple of farmers to the board who would bring a perspective of experience in the business. I think there is going to be a good balance there.

The newly elected and appointed directors are going to have a number of important issues to deal with, including the fact that this government is moving in the direction of marketing choice. The government looks forward to working with the board as it moves ahead and remains committed to providing marketing choice to western Canadian farmers while continuing to preserve the board as one of those options.

Speaking directly to the matter of this concurrence debate, I appreciate some of the other work that has been done by the committee, but there needs to be a couple of points made particularly regarding this motion.

Perhaps one of the reasons the member for Malpeque did not want to talk about the motion is that it was ruled out of order twice by the chair of the committee. It was ruled out of order on the first occasion because it clearly, in the chair's opinion, walked into the area of the minister's responsibility. I will talk about that a little later.

The member for Malpeque withdrew the motion. He understood that at the time, but decided that maybe political points were more important than actually dealing with the issue, so he reintroduced it again and the motion was ruled out of order a second time.

The second time it was ruled out of order was because when a motion is reintroduced, it is supposed to be substantially different than it was the first time and it was precisely the same motion. It was ruled out of order twice. The opposition on the committee obviously outnumbers the government at this point, so opposition members made the decision that they were going to bring this forward anyway. That is why we see it here today and I assume one of the reasons why the member for Malpeque really did not want to talk about the motion itself.

Another problem with the motion is that it is unbalanced. It does not deal with the real issues. There are a number of choices that will be available to western Canadian farmers. We understand that one of them will be that farmers would be able to market their grain and have the option of going through the Canadian Wheat Board as well. That is not included as one of the options. The member has again taken the extremist position that he has held in the past and has a motion that really does not have anything to do with the options that farmers want.

He is trying to come up with another extreme position. He wants to bring it before the House so he can get his three hours of debate, but in this case, ideology has once again trumped reality. It is a bit embarrassing for us to have to bring this motion forward when it was ruled out of order twice, as I said.

The member talked a little about intimidation. I think we need to spend some time talking about some of the tactics that have been used by the opposition in this debate. One example is the motion that has been brought forward today.

Last week on Thursday a very interesting thing happened at committee. We had invited a number of witnesses to speak on the Canadian Wheat Board issue. Mr. Jim Chatenay, an elected director of the Canadian Wheat Board, was one of the witnesses we had called. We brought him here to speak on Tuesday, but the meeting on Tuesday was cancelled because the board had decided it was going to launch a legal action against the government. The chair had to check to make sure that we could hold the meeting, so we decided to hold it on Thursday.

While we were waiting for that meeting to be held, the steering committee for the agriculture committee had a meeting and decided that it was going to exclude Mr. Chatenay as a witness. He had been brought here. The committee had asked him to come and he was already here, but the steering committee behind closed doors decided that the witness list was going to be changed. We came on Thursday and the witness list was set. I want to make a couple of points.

Mr. Chatenay is a veteran of the board of directors. I told the committee that. He has been a strong voice for farmers and he had been at the committee all week. In any event I think there were reasons that the opposition had made a decision. Actually I brought forward a motion at the committee that Mr. Chatenay be allowed to sit at the table and the opposition voted against it and would not allow him to come to the table. I was wondering why that would happen, but I think there are some reasons.

In the early 1990s we had a crop in western Canada that froze in the fields. The farmers needed to get it to market in order to get their money out of it. As we looked for places to market it, the board basically said to us that it did not really think it could market that grain. It was not good grain and it was not sure it would be able to market it.

The farmers in our area, which is southwestern Saskatchewan, started looking around for another market. They went across the border. They took samples to the United States and they found out that the grain really was not that bad. Under the U.S. grading system the Americans were willing to give us a decent price for the grain. We began to set up a buyback from the Canadian Wheat Board in order to take our grain across the border.

We had a decent price for it. When we do a buyback with the board we have to give it all our sales information including the name of the company we are doing business with. It was not much later that farmers got a phone call from the company which said, “We do not need your grain. We are not going to buy it from you. We have as much of a supply of that type of grain as we want”. We found out the price that it was offering for it was bout 85¢ a bushel less than our farmers had been able to negotiate.

The bad thing about it was we watched the trucks come into our elevator, load up, and followed the trucks across the border to those same elevators. The board had taken the sale and offered it to these companies at about 85¢ a bushel less than the farmers themselves had been able to negotiate. We watched our wheat go out at that price. That of course started to make farmers angry and that really was the genesis of the 1990s opposition to the Canadian Wheat Board and an interest in marketing choice.

Out of that of course there were farmers who moved ahead and decided that they wanted to move their grain into the United States. When they started doing that, the Liberal government started pushing back on them. Farmers went to court. Actually when they won in the courts, that same day, and the member for Wascana was the minister, the government moved to change the regulations so that the farmers could not do that. As the farmers won, the government counteracted, shut things down, changed the regulations on the fly so that what farmers were doing would be considered illegal.

Farmers went ahead and moved their grain across the border. The government arrested them--and the member for Malpeque is well aware of this--and at least a dozen farmers went to jail for periods of time ranging from a few hours to a couple of months. One of those farmers in particular was strip searched a number of times. I guess he was dangerous enough that the government felt it really needed to make an example of him.

What was really a concern about it was that it was not just one agency that was doing this. There were at least five government agencies that were involved in these activities. The RCMP, Canada Revenue Agency, justice, the Canadian Wheat Board and others were all ganging up on individual farmers just because they wanted a fair price for their grain.

Mr. Chatney was one of those farmers. We can begin to understand why the member for Malpeque did not want him at the witness table. He sits over there and laughs about it. It is a joke to him, but it is not a joke to western Canadian farmers who want some choice in marketing their grain.

A graph was circulated to MPs' offices last week from one of the western Canadian grain organizations. It shows that western Canadian farmers over the last year have received on average about 50¢ a bushel less than their counterparts in the United States. We continue to pay a price for just wanting to market our own grain.

Coming back to the motion, the committee report talks about recommending a plebiscite. The member for Malpeque knows that we are having a plebiscite. We committed to having a plebiscite in the new year. It is going to be on barley. It is going to be a clear question put to a broad base of voters. It is going to allow barley producers to vote on the future of their industry. That is the way it should be.

In the new year western Canadian farmers are going to be able to vote on a clear question of whether or not they would like choice on barley. We want to stress that the Canadian Wheat Board will be one of those options. It is going to be the option of selling one's own grain or the option of using the western Canadian Wheat Board to market the grain. For feed barley that is already the way it is. Farmers have the choice of going through the Wheat Board or going on the open market with their feed barley. With malt barley right now, they have to go through the Canadian Wheat Board. We want to give them the option of whether they want some choice in dealing with their malt barley as well.

It is very interesting how well our marketing system is working right now. In western Canada this fall, feed barley, which is on the open market, has been at a higher price than malt barley, which is supposed to be the premium barley. Malt barley is supposed to receive the premium. It goes through the Canadian Wheat Board. It cannot react quickly enough to the market. The open market does react quickly. Farmers have been selling their barley onto the open market at a higher price than they can get for their premium barley through the Canadian Wheat Board.

The farmers themselves deserve to be heard. They will be heard in a plebiscite which will be held in January.

The report dictates what the questions will be and who should be able to vote. I want to point out that section 47.1 of the Canadian Wheat Board Act specifically grants the minister these powers. He has the full authority to develop the process for the vote, and I will quote from act so that it cannot be misunderstood.

The Minister shall not cause to be introduced in Parliament a bill that would exclude any kind, type, class or grade of wheat or barley, or wheat or barley produced in any area in Canada, from the provisions of Part IV, either in whole or in part, or generally, or for any period, or that would extend the application of Part III or Part IV or both Parts III and IV to any other grain, unless

(a) the Minister has consulted with the board about the exclusion or extension; and

(b) the producers of the grain have voted in favour of the exclusion or extension, the voting process having been determined by the Minister.

The member for Malpeque is quick to quote the act and demand rigid adherence to it, but he wants to ignore it, as he has done in his report, when it suits him. We need to point that out, that there are some serious inconsistencies here. On one hand he is up yelling and screaming about how the minister has to abide by this and that, his interpretation of the act and all that that means, and on the other he comes forward with a motion that clearly does not agree with the act itself. That does not bother him. He is here today. He wants to have his three hours of debate on this issue and he has brought forward a motion that basically violates the act.

The draft question that is offered in the report is one possible formulation. The Minister of Agriculture has said that he is going to listen to views about the question, but at the end of the day he is the one who is going to be developing the question that meets this commitment. He will be consulting as well.

The report also proposes to use a voters list that members on both sides of this House know includes people who are not barley producers. I guess the member for Malpeque should be answering the question about why it is that he is expanding the vote in his motion today to include people who do not grow barley and who are not included in the barley industry. I am not sure what his answer would be. Perhaps later he could give us some clarification on that.

The minister has promised to have a plebiscite question considered by a broad base of voters. That is what he intends to do, but that is not what the committee report proposes, and unfortunately I am sure the opposition members will be supporting it. They should think twice about that and I would suggest that they should reject it.

I would also like to take issue with the fact that we often hear the charge that we are rushing through change. Nothing could be further from the truth. This House would be aware that in mid-September the minister launched a technical task force to explore the transitional and structural issues that might be encountered in the move toward marketing choice. The task force came out in late October. It recommends a phased in transition from a Wheat Board with monopoly powers to a marketing choice environment, preparing for change, launching the new Wheat Board with transition measures, and a post-transition period. It is a fairly comprehensive report that lays out some of the possibilities as we move ahead with change to the Canadian Wheat Board.

The task force was not marching to orders from the minister. It was giving advice to him. For example, the task force advised to start with legislative change, and we are glad to see that the minister has decided to start with consultations first. That is why at the end of October he announced the plebiscite on barley.

The plebiscite on barley is the only thing in the window right now. The board is going to remain in place. It will continue to be one of the options for marketing.

Canada's grain industry is open for business. That is the positive message that our customers overseas need to hear loud and clear. They do not need to hear some of the doomsday scenarios that have been coming from some quarters.

This is something that has had a number of us concerned. We hear from some of the people in the board and the provincial governments in Saskatchewan and Manitoba that the sky is falling. They have been screaming and exaggerating the consequences for some months. Now they tell us that some other people are actually listening to them when they say that.

The government is saying to the board, “Focus on marketing grain. Go out and do a good job of marketing grain for western Canadian farmers. As we bring some choice forward, you will have a lot more farmers who will support you as we move into that choice environment”.

It is interesting that those on the other side decided to exaggerate the possibilities as far as they could in order to scare farmers. I guess the farmers are being scared by the rhetoric that they are hearing.

The government has been very clear. We made a campaign commitment to provide marketing choice to western Canadian farmers with the Canadian Wheat Board as one of those options. That is the direction in which we continue to move.

Emergency Management Act

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate today in the debate on Bill C-12, An Act to provide for emergency management and to amend and repeal certain Acts.

The bill specifically asks for:

“...the appropriation of public revenue under the circumstances, in the manner and for the purposes set out in a measure entitled “An Act to provide for emergency management and to amend and repeal certain Acts”.

This enactment provides for a national emergency management system that strengthens Canada’s capacity to protect Canadians.

Canadians want assurances that the impact of emergencies will be minimized, that assistance will be available and disruptive effects will be limited and short-lived. To address these issues, the bill is pursuing the commitments under the national security policy, notably the review of the statutory framework for emergency management activities.

The purpose of this new act is to strengthen the readiness of the Government of Canada to prepare for, mitigate the impact of and respond to all hazards in Canada. It recognizes that emergency management is an evolving risk environment that requires a collective and a concerted approach between all jurisdictions, including the private sector and non-governmental authorities.

In summary, the bill would strengthen our readiness to mitigate the impact of and prevent or prepare for and respond to all hazards. It should be noted that the bill actually replaces the Emergency Preparedness Act of 1988 and is virtually identical to the bill introduced in 2005 by the previous Liberal government, namely Bill C-78. Accordingly, I would like to say at the outset that the Liberal Party will be supporting the bill, but there are some areas of question which we believe would be important for committee to address.

The Liberal Party certainly welcomes the reintroduction of the emergency management bill. The bill builds on our record on security since 9/11: first, an investment of over $9.5 billion to strengthen national security, to improve emergency preparedness and to contribute to international security; second, the creation of the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness; and third, the establishment of a national 24/7 government operation centre to coordinate federal emergency response.

I would like to give some background here. The bill would strengthen the capability of the government to prepare for, manage, mitigate and respond to all types of emergencies. This will become an interesting question because emergencies mean different things to different people. It would establish clear lines of authority and responsibility in collaboration with the provinces and municipalities. The bill would also facilitate information sharing between government and the private sector and with regard to the protection of critical infrastructure.

The bill replaces, as I stated, the Emergency Preparedness Act of 1988, while preserving its basic provisions in the civil emergency planning and preparedness as a key government responsibility; that delineates responsibilities between the public safety minister and cabinet colleagues; that makes provision for federal-provincial cooperation; and finally, that makes provision for post-disaster financial assistance to provinces. The issue with regard to the provinces is also an important one because of the jurisdictional responsibilities and the need for coordination of course.

The revised act grants new powers to the Minister of Public Safety to exercise national level leadership in emergency management by: first, coordinating federal response to emergencies in Canada and the United States. It is an important element that also includes matters that relate to and may have occurred within the United States but may have an impact on Canada.

Second, it establishes standardized elements for the Government of Canada emergency plans. Third, it monitors and evaluates emergency management plans for federal institutions. Fourth, it enhances cooperation with other jurisdictions through common standards and information sharing. In our experience, harmonizing those common standards will certainly be a tough situation, as it always is.

With regard to the bill more specifically, clause 2 defines emergency management as “the prevention and mitigation of, preparedness for, response to and recovery from emergencies”.

Clause 3 establishes a national leadership role for the Minister of Public Safety in relation to emergency management.

Subclause 4(1) outlines the minister's responsibilities in fulfilling that national leadership role and it includes a broad variety of responsibilities. Paragraphs 4(1)(a), (b) and (c) include coordinating functions in development, testing, implementation and evaluation of government emergency management plans. Paragraphs 4(1)(d) and (e) include monitoring potential and actual emergencies and coordinating of the government response. Paragraphs 4(1)(f), (g), (h) and (i) include coordinating emergency arrangements and responses with the provinces. Paragraph 4(1)(j) includes providing financial assistance to a province if requested. Paragraph 4(1)(l) includes providing the continuity of constitutional government in the event of an emergency.

Clause 6 outlines the general responsibility of each minister, and there are other ministries that are involved outside the Minister of Public Safety, to ensure his or her department prepares emergency management plans and sets out common standards of those plans.

Clause 7 grants the governor in council powers to make orders or regulations with respect to emergency management plans, to use federal resources in response to civil emergencies, to provide financial assistance to provinces and to declare a provincial emergency of concern to the federal government. Certainly that is an area of sensitivity that has to be properly addressed.

Clauses 8 to 10 amend the Access to Information Act to permit the government to refuse to disclose private sector information supplied in confidence to the government with respect to emergency management plans. A public interest override is included.

The bill covers a pretty broad range of responsibilities that I might look at a little later in my comments, but I wanted to touch on some of the areas that have come up already with regard to concern within the bill that we would want to look most carefully at.

The bill would allow the federal government to refocus or better coordinate the organization of its response to emergencies. This is not in contention, but we should note that there is a difference between what is called an emergency and what we might regard as a security related incident.

An emergency may be as a result of a natural disaster, whereas a security related incident might be something along the lines of a terrorist attack, for instance. They are not always the same. Most of what the bill would deal with are emergencies involving natural disasters with some component of man-made contribution in it. Being able to assess whether or not we have adequately covered those situations certainly was a matter of interest and concern.

I am a little concerned personally why it took so long for the government to get the bill to us. As I indicated, it was a bill that was substantively before the House in the last Parliament and here we are some time later, but moving on, in reality, emergencies and natural disasters have evolved and become more complex. We simply need a government minister, aside from the Minister of National Defence who historically would have been the lead minister to take charge in these matters, who would coordinate these things. That would be the federal Minister of Public Safety. That is one thing this bill does that is different from the previous bill.

The second thing we are promoting is the imposition of protection for private information of third parties in the hands of government. As I indicated, the bill provides for a related amendment to subsection 20(1) of the Access to Information Act by adding an additional paragraph to give effect to these provisions.

There also are five or six subsections of the act which would be affected. Those ostensibly relate to the circumstance where information is provided to the minister by persons who would otherwise be covered under the Access to Information Act and that their information which is given is going to be exempt. In other words, if it is given with regard to a situation where there is an emergency as defined, that information would be kept private.

The other area of the bill in which there is an amendment has to do with Bill C-2 which has just been passed by the House after receiving some important changes. It was the first full bill that was introduced by the government and I can recall that there was a lot of concern about the haste in which Bill C-2 had been drafted. It contains amendments to a wide range of legislative areas. As well, it puts a significant onus on the public service to establish a broad range of management procedures, all in the realm of ensuring that accountability is kept in place.

The other thing it does which is interesting and has come up a few times, is in Bill C-2, there are some amendments to Bill C-11, the whistleblower bill, which received royal assent in the last Parliament. It received the unanimous support of all parties. We now find ourselves with another important bill which ostensibly arose out of the case of George Radwanski, the former privacy commissioner, who for a variety of reasons was put in a situation where he resigned his position and indeed suffered some consequences as a result of his actions which I will not go into.

Bill C-12 contains a coordinating amendment to Bill C-2 that should Bill C-2 have received royal assent, this amendment included in Bill C-12 will be made to that bill.

The bill repeals the Emergency Preparedness Act, chapter 6 of the fourth supplement to the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1985.

The last clause in the bill is the coming into force clause. It is something on which I have commented before as the co-chair of the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations. We have embarked on a review. In fact at the last meeting we actually were looking at the Fisheries Act and some regulations that were necessary. This item has been outstanding for 23 years. All of the people at the table certainly were not here when it started and I suspect if we do not do something about it, there are going to be new people at the table when it ultimately gets resolved, if ever.

We also had a private member's bill dealing with the repeal of acts which had received royal assent, either entire acts or acts which included amendments to other acts which had received royal assent but had not been proclaimed within 10 years. It has some provisions whereby it could be saved during the last year. That report would be tabled in the House identifying the bills that are coming up to their 10th anniversary and would allow the government of the day to make some decisions as to whether or not it is going to act on triggering those changes.

This bill also includes coming into force. Clause 14 says, “This Act other than section 12 comes into force on a day to be fixed by order of the Governor in Council”. What that means is that cabinet is going to decide when the provisions of this particular bill come into play. This is the kind of provision which gives rise to the problem of things lingering for an extensive period of time. I am not entirely sure why there is not a specified date or some sort of horizon period. This is a very important bill. It is a bill that I would have liked to see introduced much earlier. This bill which deals with public protection and safety is very important to Canadians.

There is a proviso in the bill which caught my attention. Under “Minister's responsibilities”, subclause 4(2) states:

The Minister has any other responsibilities in relation to emergency management that the Governor in Council may specify.

This may cause some difficulty, although I am not sure and we will have to wait until we can get an opinion on it. The bill is purported to include all of the provisions and responsibilities, but that subclause includes anything else we think we should do. Those things would presumably happen through regulation or governor in council and not be available to the House to consider.

This would appear to give the government of the day a free hand in terms of adding to the bill things which probably should be included in the statutes themselves with regard to better defining this. When there is a blanket responsibility, anything else that the governor in council may specify is basically carte blanche.

We have talked often in the scrutiny of regulations committee about whether a particular regulation or change to a bill in fact has an enabling provision in the act. This has a blanket enabling provision, which means that theoretically almost anything could happen through a governor in council order. That is a matter which may very well come up if not here, then certainly in the other place.

There is another item I want to mention with regard to issues which have come up. Subclause 7(c) allows the government to make regulation to declare a provincial emergency to be of concern to the federal government. It appears that the intention of the bill is to put the federal responsibility on what would be a provincial emergency. When people look at this they are going to want to explore it a little further because of the coordinating requirements.

There is another clause in the bill which deals with making regulations, as I indicated, on the issue of whether we have any statutory jurisdiction in the United States of America. Of course, we do not have any statutory jurisdiction. That would involve an extraterritorial application of our laws. However, it does not prevent us from developing an emergency management plan. The point is that it may involve the spending of money and resources in the United States. That is a matter which gets us very much involved.

Clause 7 of the bill creates the authority to make regulation. It seems to indicate that it anticipates spending money in the United States of America. For example, subclause 7(b) talks about regulations respecting the use of federal civil resources in response to civil emergencies. The question becomes whether that includes assistance in response to United States emergencies. If we respond to an emergency management plan that we have developed with the U.S., are we talking just about the border or are we talking about Laredo or some other area, maybe even Hawaii? There are some interesting questions to which I still do not know whether we have the answers.

I am suggesting there are some technical issues and if it is intended that the minister or governor in council make regulations about joint emergency management plans, that should also be set out in the statute. I am not sure whether that is the case.

All in all, the fundamental elements of the bill appear to be consistent with the bill in the previous Parliament of the Liberal government. The Liberal caucus will be supporting the bill.

Canadian Wheat Board

[David Anderson, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary (for the Canadian Wheat Board) to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board]

Mr. Speaker, I have to say that we are finally bringing some openness and transparency to this issue. I have to congratulate the Treasury Board president and his parliamentary secretary for the tremendous job they have done in bringing Bill C-2 through the House. Now we will finally have access to information for the Canadian Wheat Board. Farmers will be able to find out what is going on there. They will finally also be able to find out the role of the member for Wascana in putting farmers in jail in the 1990s.

Business of the House

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

I have a slight concern. I believe that when I call for orders of the day, the request is going to be made that the motion for concurrence in the amendments to Bill C-2 be called for debate today.

That motion was put on notice last night. Our rules require 48 hours' notice of such a motion. The motion that has been moved and carried in the House dispensing with certain things in relation to the debate does not deal with the question of notice of the motion having been given.

Proper notice, in my view, has not been given and therefore we will need consent to call the motion now and then subject it to the rules of the debate that are included in this order.

Is that the intention of the House?

Bank Act

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

That is a good thing. The President of the Treasury Board is a trusting person, I am sure.

As I said, some amendments in Bill C-2 of this Parliament amend a bill that was passed in the last Parliament, which has not been put into force yet. It is kind of reverse order. One would think that Bill C-11 would be in place and then Bill C-2 would be passed.

I could talk for some time about Bill C-11 and why it would have been important to have it in place because there is so much work to do before it gets up to speed and is operating efficiently. We could have had more accountability within the public service and the Government of Canada had it been in force when the Conservative Party took office. However, that is the Conservatives' choice. I do not think they really wanted to have too many people with the protection to blow the whistle on a government that was not doing things properly.

Before Bill C-2 gets royal assent and comes into force, Bill C-11 must be proclaimed. Because Bill C-2 amends Bill C-11, Bill C-11 must exist in law before Bill C-2 can be proclaimed.

I am glad to hear that Bill C-2 is now in the last stages of becoming law and is ready to receive the go ahead in terms of coming into force, which means that Bill C-11 also would be proclaimed and be in force. We will see the beginning of the establishment of the human infrastructure of an effective accountability mechanism and protection for our public servants.

I thought it was important to raise with members that we are now considering a bill which has a very large number of amendments. Today in the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations which I chair, we addressed an issue where a regulation has been bouncing back and forth. It passed in this place, but on review it was found to have a flaw. We sent it back to the department saying that it should be fixed. The first piece of correspondence on that matter actually took place 23 years ago. A problem in a regulation was cited 23 years ago. The departments are still bouncing back and forth as to who is to blame and why it cannot be done.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

I am advised by the President of the Treasury Board that it just passed the Senate. That is good news for everybody because the House unanimously supported the accountability act. There were some loose ends to be tidied up.

Bill C-2 has to come back to the House. As long as everyone is happy and this place can live with the compromises, it will pass. I will reserve judgment on that until I see the documents. It is like doubting Thomas.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-37. I found it very difficult to deal with the bill. First, the bill in itself is probably one of the larger bills I have ever seen in this place. It is some 237 pages long.

It is an omnibus bill of sorts, which means it provides a variety of amendments, technical and otherwise, to a wide range of bills. When people read the bill, they cannot understand what the provisions in it mean unless they have the bill to be amended beside them so they can see the provisions that are already in place and understand the context in which they relate to that bill.

I know the members know, but Canadians should know that when we get bills such as this, members, who are involved in the finance committee, have to rely on the work and due diligence of others to make absolutely sure the provisions are there. In fact, it is probably the most extreme example that I could cite.

I have a problem with the bill because it covers so many things. I suspect that if any government ever wanted to do anything to amend certain acts, this certainly would be the way to do it, to put through a bill in excess of some 230 pages, which affects maybe 20 or 30 different existing pieces of legislation.

In order to give people an idea, the summary to Bill C-37 indicates that it is an enactment that amends a number of acts governing financial institutions. At least it is in a pocket that we understand.

The bill also amends legislation related to the regulation of financial institutions. This place has been seized over the years with legislation related to financial institutions, particularly as it relates to bank mergers and the lines of business banks can get into. I must admit it conjures up some memories of clichés that some members would use in their speeches during some of the debates about banks being terribly bad. However, most people would say that their bank branches are pretty good.

The notable pieces of legislation that are being amended are the Bank Act, the Cooperative Credit Associations Act, the Insurance Companies Act and the Trust and Loan Companies Act. All of the amendments are aimed at achieving three objectives: first, enhancing the interests of consumers; second, increasing legislative and regulatory efficiency; and third, adapting those acts to new developments. These sound a little comprehensive, but they are envelopes under which these particular amendments could be placed. There are also amendments to the Bills of Exchange Act to provide for the introduction of electronic cheque imaging.

There are also technical amendments, which cover a broad range of acts: the Bank Act, the Cooperative Credit Associations Act, the Insurance Companies Act, and I could go on. There are at least 20 of them.

I think maybe I have made my point, that ordinary members of Parliament, who are not involved in the finance committee and maybe do not have some of the background and training, will have a very difficult time. A number of votes are taken on bills like this, whether it be at second reading, committee stage amendments, report stage, third reading. I think Canadians will ask themselves this. If this is so cumbersome, if there are 230-some odd pages, if there are virtually hundreds and hundreds of amendments to dozens of acts, how can a member of Parliament, with all the responsibilities, make an informed decision and cast a vote reflective of the due diligence that has been done?

How that happens here is probably the same way it happens in real life.

I can recall being the vice-chairman of the board of the Mississauga Hospital. Under the Ontario hospitals act, the board of directors is responsible for every aspect of the administration and operation of the hospital.

I remember giving a seminar on trustees of hospitals. As I recall, the title was “Hospital Trustee: Mission Impossible”. It is impossible because we can not possibly expect volunteer members of a board of directors to be fully informed about the day to day activities of the hospital, to take full responsibilities for what the doctors, nurses and administrative people do and, if anything goes wrong, to be personally responsible for those.

What happens is the responsibilities of the board are seconded or delegated to other persons. Therefore, for the board's responsibilities, as is the case for members of Parliament, there is a delegation or a secondment of those responsibilities to others who specifically spend their time on them. They perhaps have the specific expertise and the support personnel, either within their offices or from parliamentary offices, to do the necessary due diligence, to do the checking, to ask the questions, to hear witnesses and to make some ascertainment as to the propriety of the amendments being made.

We have in this chamber always the presumption of honesty. We certainly have that as well in our committees as we bring witnesses forward. It is a process which the members of Parliament rely on their best judgment to ascertain that witnesses who appear before the committee are appropriate witnesses, that they cover the necessary areas and that they get the proper representations from the departmental officials who are responsible for having drafted this.

We also have the support of the Library of Parliament, which does some excellent legislative summaries to the extent that it can. In this regard, I suspect the legislative summary for a bill this size might very well be five times larger, maybe about 1,000 pages, but we have the resources available to us of the Library of Parliament to assist us in specific areas.

It is an onerous task. I do not purport to be fully knowledgeable and able to come here and argue the case of why members should vote for a particular clause in a particular bill that is to be amended, whether it be technical or otherwise. However, the job does get done and it gets done through a process of secondment, provided the committee is doing its work and provided the officials have done their work.

I must admit Canadians should be assured, and I wish they would get a better chance to see it, that the work done in committee is probably the most productive work that members of Parliament do. The work in committees is excellent. The quality and level of questioning of witnesses is excellent in terms of discharging the responsibility of due diligence or doing the detail with regard to the legislation before this place.

Being a legislator is an important responsibility. One of the things that I note in the bill is right at the very end. It is coincidental, but I just gave a speech a couple of days ago on a private member's bill that had to do with repealing acts that had received royal assent. They had gone through the entire legislative process of being tabled at first reading, debated at second, went to committee, committee stage amendments, report stage amendments back to the House, third reading, passed on to the other place and then went through an almost identical process and then received royal assent.

The public would think that when the bill receives royal asset it is law. It is not law until it is proclaimed. It must be in force.

The private member's bill I referred to was started in the Senate by Senator Tommy Banks. It was the third iteration of a bill that has been around since about 2002. It has to do with repealing legislation that has received royal assent but has not been proclaimed and put into force, and therefore is not active law in Canada.

I note the final provision of the bill found on page 237 entitled, “Order in Council” under the subtitle of “Coming Into Force”. It reads:

The provisions of this Act, or the provisions of any Act enacted by this Act, come into force on a day or days to be fixed by order of the Governor in Council.

This appears from time to time in bills. It means there is no set date as to when the provisions of this bill will be put into place. Often that happens because other things must occur before the provisions of the amendments within the bill could be operative. It is almost like once we pass this, before we put it in force, certain other things have to happen. Once they have happened, then the governor in council, which is basically the cabinet, sets a date fixing that certain provisions of this act would come into force.

As an aside, in most of the cases bills would generally say that the act would come into force on the date on which it received royal assent. That is fairly straightforward. There are others which have provisos that the in force date will be on a specified date, for instance, January 1, 2007.

In the reproductive technologies bill, I believe there two key areas. One is called prohibited acts under the bill. The other is controlled activities. The prohibited acts were all in force on royal assent. The controlled activities were subject to being in force by a date set by order in council. The reason for that was the controlled activities required the establishment of a board of management that would do certain things. Until that was set up, the provisions of that could not go forward.

Another example is Bill C-11 from the last Parliament, the whistleblower legislation. This legislation received royal assent in November of last year. The legislation provides protection to civil servants who have allegations of wrongdoing within the public service or anybody who is within the definition of a public servant. The bill is not in force yet.

In this Parliament we have Bill C-2, and this can get complicated in non-financial bills. Bill C-2 prescribes amendments to Bill C-11.

Statutes Repeal Act

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by saying that we support the principle underlying this bill. As my colleague said earlier, 57 bills gathering dust is a lot.

I would like to go back to Bill C-11, The Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act. As you may recall, during our study of Bill C-2, the Bloc Québécois asked that Bill C-11 be withdrawn immediately. If the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act had been enacted and implemented while we were studying Bill C-2, we would have been able to take the time we needed to study it thoroughly. If Bill C-11 had been passed before, we could have been certain that that much at least had been done rather than wait for Bill C-2 to be passed.

Bill C-2 is currently before the Senate. We do not know when it will be returned to the House of Commons. The Christmas break is approaching and we will not resume until January. It is unlikely that Bill C-2 will be adopted or withdrawn before that, and we will still have the problem of Bill C-11, which is ready and has received royal assent, but is not yet enacted. It is just one of many bills that are gathering dust on the shelf.

On the other hand, we will probably have to revise some bills, because they have been left on the shelf too long. Amendments may be needed. There will also likely be jurisdiction issues, because certain provinces, such as Quebec, have already established measures concerning some bills. We must therefore ensure that there is no duplication and that our jurisdictions are respected. Certain important changes may have already been made, which could undermine or duplicate existing legislation.

As I said, we support this bill. However, we would like to see it go to committee. We believe three amendments are important, and I will list them. We think that they will strengthen Bill S-202.

First of all, we think that the discretionary period for enacting a bill passed by Parliament could be shortened from ten years to five years. We would like to see this amended because we find ten years simply too long. We see this when we are studying a bill in committee. Indeed, most of our existing legislation is revised every five or ten years anyway. As we all know, if this measure is not in place, this could lead to some major changes. Things change with time. We must review our legislation, make it better and more modern. Furthermore, things happen outside this House. Other legislative assemblies, including the National Assembly in Quebec and other parliaments, all carry out their own measures, which could lead to amendments to one of our 57 bills.

We would also like to require the government to explain to Parliament the reasons why it does not intend to implement legislation that has received royal assent. This is unimaginable, when witnesses have been called to appear and people have worked on a bill, sometimes for as much as two years. I remember that when we revised the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, it took us two and a half years. It would make no sense to wait 10 years before looking at it again. The government therefore should report to Parliament and explain why it has decided to give royal assent to legislation but then has opted to shelve it instead of implementing it.

This also does not reflect well on parliamentarians. People say that we pass legislation but then shelve it. They find the system very cumbersome, very slow and very long. When legislation receives royal assent, the government has to be able to implement it as soon as possible.

It starts in Parliament, then is referred to a committee, where it is amended before going to the Senate, where more witnesses are called. It goes through all the steps needed to receive royal assent, then it is shelved. This makes no sense to us.

The third amendment we would like to make pertains to clause 3 and reflects the fact that members of the Senate are not elected. We therefore propose to amend clause 3, which reads as follows:

3. Every Act or provision listed in the annual report is repealed on December 31 of the year in which the report is laid unless it comes into force on or before that December 31 or during that year either House of Parliament adopts a resolution that the Act or provision not be repealed.

We would like to replace this clause with the following:

3. Every Act or provision listed in the annual report is repealed on December 31 of the year in which the report is laid unless it comes into force on or before that December 31 or during that year the House of Commons adopts a resolution that the Act or provision not be repealed.

These are amendments that the committee could discuss. It could look at whether it is possible to find common ground.

In general, Bill S-202 is good because these changes are needed. We cannot allow very important bills to be shelved.

I find that Bill C-11 was extremely important and there are currently people who will not disclose any wrongdoing as long as we have not resolved the problem with Bill C-2. Repealing Bill C-11 would not have taken any effort. The legislation was ready. We could have just continued with Bill C-2. The one was not in competition with the other. They were based on each other, in any event. I still do not understand why the government refused to implement Bill C-11, which was shelved.

I also wonder what becomes of these bills afterward. Bill C-2 will likely be passed eventually. I imagine it will come back from the Senate and we will pass it. However, what will become of Bill C-11? What happens to bills that are shelved? Will Bill C-11 become obsolete and have to be repealed? We have to ask these questions.

We will therefore support Bill S-202, but the reservations I expressed must be taken into account. I think that five years is better than 10 years. When we study some acts after 10 years, there are so many changes and amendments to make that it can take two or three years to go through committee. I saw it happen with the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. I also saw it happen with Part II of the Canada Labour Code. We spent months and months amending Part II, which had not been reviewed for 15 years. We have to set limits so that, as we asked with Bill C-2, the act can be reviewed every five years to assess its effectiveness. We will strike a committee to determine whether it is working well. If it is not, we need the power to amend it quickly and ensure it does work well.

The Bloc Québécois supports sending Bill S-202 to committee, where members will discuss its application with witnesses.

Government Accountability

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the Information Commissioner; Democracy Watch; the most experienced public servant, Arthur Kroeger; Conservatives like Perrin Beatty and Derek Burney; and every serious legal expert in the country, all say that the government's draft of Bill C-2 was a mess.

The Prime Minister gave the Senate a big job to do, which was to fix it. He also entrusted the huge Department of Public Works to the unelected Senate. When he had to go to the media to explain his definition of Québécois, whom did he send? He sent an unelected senator.

Are those the reasons the President of the Treasury Board moved the motion last night to give the Senate $53 million?

Concurrence in Vote 10--Department of Natural Resources

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I, too, hope we get around to the second motion we put forward today which I will speak to very briefly and explain. I perhaps am one of the only members of the New Democratic Party who does not believe we should abolish the Senate, or at least I did not until the last couple of months. I have had many arguments with my colleagues about our long-standing policy within the New Democratic Party that the unelected, undemocratic Senate should be scrapped and abolished. Until my frustrating experience with Bill C-2, the federal accountability act, I was a defender of the Senate to some degree.

I have now put forward this notice of opposition to the Senate. I think we should scrap the whole kit and caboodle after my experience, frankly. I have come around four-square with my colleagues of the New Democratic Party. It is a waste of money, a waste of resources. It is an obstacle and a barrier to democracy. I am furious with that other house, the other chamber.

I put forward a motion that does not scrap the Senate completely because the building itself is beautiful. My motion says that we should eliminate all the salaries, all the office budgets, all of the expenses and certainly the travel budgets of every senator. We might still have a Senate--we would not need a constitutional change for this--the senators just would not be able to do any harm any more because they would not have a budget to screw up what we do.

Federal Accountability Act

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the problem is that kind of bluster from the President of the Treasury Board is not going to clean up the Liberal leadership loans.

If the minister were serious about getting big money out of politics, he would have supported the amendments to Bill C-2 that the NDP put in to try to stop the corruption. Instead, he introduced his own new loopholes to try and backfill the reading of convention fees.

Would the minister agree that these huge Liberal leadership loans are just big money buying influence in Canadian politics, an abuse of the system? Will he promise to take steps to eliminate them, so they will not be around the next time we have a leadership race?

Treasury Board

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

Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General has told us that the Treasury Board, whose minister is responsible for the Access to Information Act, has refused to give her access to some strategic documents necessary to her investigation, going against a practice established since 1985.

How can the President of the Treasury Board, the sponsor of Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act, brag about being transparent and claim to allow broad access to the government’s books and, at the same time, demonstrate such pettiness towards the Auditor General by challenging a practice that goes back to 1985?

Federal Accountability Act

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

Before the House proceeds to the deferred recorded divisions in relation to the motion respecting Senate amendments to Bill C-2, I wish to remind hon. members that the voting process is subject to a special order adopted by the House yesterday.

Pursuant to this order I have consulted with the parties and we will proceed as follows:

First, the subamendment will be the subject of one vote.

Second, if the subamendment is adopted, the amendment will be subject to two votes: one on part C and one on part D. However, if the subamendment is defeated, the amendment will be subject to four votes: the first one on part A, the second on pard B, the third on part C and the fourth on part D.

Third, the main motion will be the subject of one vote.

I encourage all hon. members to prepare themselves accordingly.

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the subamendment in relation to the Senate amendments to Bill C-2.

The question is on the subamendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, since yesterday, a number of members have risen and spoken to Bill C-2. Many have criticized the fact that the Senate made a number of amendments, countless amendments in fact, which took several weeks of work.

Many other members also pointed out that the study of Bill C-2 last spring was rushed and done so quickly that many witnesses could not even give proper testimony, nor was there enough time to fully explore their observations.

I would like to know my colleague's opinion concerning the fact that, after the parliamentary committee had studied the bill, it was the non-elected members of the other House who went ahead and proposed a series of amendments. I think this goes against democracy to some degree, since this should normally be done by elected members.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to emphasize that the Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-2 in principle and in much of its practice.

There is no denying that nothing is more important than ethics and accountability in the work of an MP. The way we practice politics and the way people have access to public office holders clearly reveals the strength of democracy, which is the beauty of our democratic system, even if it is not perfect.

Earlier, I heard my friends, the neo-Bolsheviks, talk about electoral reform, suggesting that the current system, the first past the post system, had given Bloc Québécois members over-representation in this House.

No matter how hard I rack my brain, I do not see how this House could possibly do without a single member of the Bloc. In fact, the Bloc Québécois caucus is a formidable democratic tool, and each and every Bloc member makes an invaluable contribution to the work of this House. Naturally, I am bound by the confidentiality of our caucus meetings, but I can assure you that every Bloc member does an outstanding job. With every voting opportunity, our constituents have the opportunity to assess the relevance of the Bloc's role, and every time, in the end, we are supported in our conviction that it is important to have a political party dedicated exclusively to defending the interests of Quebec, a party that will not compromise its principles, and one that has the ability to accurately discern what Quebeckers want.

That said, of course we are not completely opposed to the idea of holding a debate on the issue of better representation. When Quebec becomes a sovereign nation, it is not certain that we will maintain the current voting system. In fact, sovereignists have thought long and hard about this issue. I am thinking of the former member for Borduas, Jean-Pierre Charbonneau, as well as André Larocque, who was deputy minister to Robert Burns, the member for Maisonneuve, in the 1970s. Robert Burns was the minister responsible for one of the most important laws enacted by René Lévesque's government, the democratic financing legislation, which is based on the concept of knowing on whose behalf we speak.

I remember certain discussions with American senators. In the United States, it is virtually impossible to get elected if one does not have millions of dollars. Yet, in many cases, having such a fortune means that individuals become spokespeople for special interest groups. In contrast, our democratic system makes it possible to secure financing thanks to strong popular support.

For example, during the last election campaign in Hochelaga, I spent $25,000. Obviously, that is not very much given the number of voters in my riding. That money did not come from businesses, interest groups or lobbies. Members of the Bloc Québécois executive in my riding, Hochelaga, raised the money during meetings with grassroots activists. That is what we do every year.

Let me say a few words about Bill C-2, which was introduced by the President of the Treasury Board. The Bloc Québécois supports the underlying principles of the bill. However, much like its creator, the President of the Treasury Board, the bill is clearly not perfect. That does not prevent him from being a respectable parliamentarian, of course. The Bloc Québécois supports this bill because it provides for a ministerial code of ethics to be entrenched in the law.

The Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-2 because it will put an end to the tradition that enabled political staff to gain privileged entry to the public service. Of course, that is not to say that the people who work in the offices of ministers or members cannot be useful in the public service, or that they are not competent people, but we have said and we still say that they should not gain entry by a somewhat privileged mechanism but rather by means of properly conducted competitions.

The Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-2 because it gives greater power to the Auditor General, Ms. Fraser, and it gives more power to the Ethics Commissioner. It should be remembered—and obviously I say this very seriously—that for many weeks, and indeed for several months, the Bloc Québécois has led the battle to extend the Auditor General’s powers of audit and control. My former colleague, the member for Repentigny, had tabled a bill to extend the control of the Auditor General to include a certain number of foundations. The principle of the bill had been agreed to by the previous government, and it has also been accepted by the Conservative government. That is good news because these foundations hold and manage millions of dollars that come from the public treasury.

The Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-2 because it will lead to the disclosure of compulsory reports in the case of leadership races. It will restrain the potential for uncontrolled spending in the great public relations exercises that leadership races have become.

The Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-2 because it contains many of the traditional demands of the Bloc Québécois. I am happy to remind the House of the battle that several members of the Bloc Québécois fought to ensure that returning officers are chosen through a more democratic process. I see my friend, the parliamentary secretary, who is the youngest member of this House. Obviously, as everyone knows, being young is a failing from which one suffers a little less each day. However, I know that my colleague, who is the youngest member of this House, and who is also the parliamentary secretary to the minister, has worked very hard in committee.

For a long time now the Bloc Québécois has tried to justify a more democratic process for returning officers. It cannot be possible, on one hand, for a person at the riding level to be responsible for making the system work, ensuring there are no irregularities, that all rules are being followed and that all the candidates have equal chances, and, on the other, for these same returning officers to be appointed by the government. In my riding there was a returning officer who was very well respected as an individual, but who certainly was not neutral politically. Mr. Léger, a notary, served as returning officer in Hochelaga—Maisonneuve. He is a very respectable person, but he was my opponent in 1993.

In 1993, I had to show him a thing or two about elections and I won a majority by several thousand votes. It was at the time when Lucien Bouchard, one of the great sovereignists of the movement, was Premier of Quebec. He ran an absolutely extraordinary election campaign and, if my memory serves me correctly, the Bloc Québécois won 49% of the vote and 55 members were elected. We clearly had a very strong hold. It was a young political party and there were a number of young members such as Pierre Brien and Michel Bellehumeur. At the time, yours truly was in his early thirties. I was 31 when I was elected and I am 44 now, but I feel just as young as I did then.

Obviously, I no longer have the same resources. There was a time when I could work for 15 or 16 hours without sleeping. Today, I could no longer do that.

To get back to the subject, and to Bill C-2, the bill contains very wise provisions to allow returning officers to be selected by competition. This was a Bloc Québécois initiative, which is to some extent reflected in Bill C-2.

The Bloc Québécois would have liked to see more democratic funding. It had also hoped that we could have refocused the provisions relating to whistleblowers. It is important that when improper conduct, bad management or fraud is witnessed by people who have responsibilities, particularly strategic responsibilities within the public service, they be able to report it to their superior and report it publicly without suffering reprisals.

An amendment has come from the other place that expands the concept of reprisal. We must of course ensure that such reprisals do not in any way prevent a public servant from pursuing a worthwhile career plan in the public service.

We support Bill C-2. In fact there are few questions that will call for more of our attention in the years to come than the question of ethics. What is our vision of public governance that meets ethical responsibilities? That is one of the questions that will concern us in the years to come.

A debate is underway in Quebec regarding the place for minorities in society. I am sure that such a debate is also taking place in other provinces. There is also the question of reasonable accommodation. How do we reconcile our broad democratic values with recognizing the place for minorities and preserving a spirit of a common public culture? How do we organize our social contract? This is what we mean by reasonable accommodation. How do we interpret the charters, be it the Quebec Charter, one of the most generous charters when it comes to human rights, and compatibility with individual values, particularly when it comes to religious convictions?

I hope that the parliamentary secretary will give us an explanation of this a little later. We do not understand why the government has not chosen to revise the Access to Information Act, when that act was part of the Conservative Party’s campaign platform. When we talk about democracy, political party financing and voting methods are not the only issues; our ability to make our institutions function in a way that allows us to have access to information within a reasonable time is also an issue.

The Access to Information Act is a major concern. Recently, I had the opportunity to take part in a seminar. Three weeks ago, my party whip asked me to make a speech on a Friday at 6:30 p.m., here in Ottawa. I cannot begin to tell the House how grateful I was that he would give me this opportunity to share the stage with a number of experts on the Access to Information Act. The seminar took place at the government's conference centre. What an archaic piece of legislation.

Here is a very specific example. In June, the Bloc Québécois made about 40 requests under the Access to Information Act. To this end, we relied on our research services and on my friend, Dominic Labrie, a powerful intellectual and an extremely brilliant man who is very familiar with the whole issue of the Access to Information Act. He is a highly educated person with great intellectual finesse, as there are in all political parties.

As we know, there are costs associated with this. A five dollar deposit is required for each request. We must also pay for each page of information that is provided to us.

Believe it or not, we submitted those 40 or so requests for information in June, and only about five of them had been dealt with by the time I made my speech, two or three weeks ago. We have yet to receive the information that we requested back in June and this is now November, just 10 days away from the month of December. Moreover, I was told that there is an increasingly common practice whereby a fee is charged for those access to information requests, based on the number of hours of research required to get the information. I was also told that this change coincided with the arrival of the Conservatives in office. I hope that this trend will be corrected.

Again, we cannot fulfill our parliamentary duties properly and we cannot have a true democratic system if we do not have access to meaningful and conclusive information. The Bloc Québécois longs for the day when each access to information request, and its reply, will be stored in the Library of Parliament, as is the case with the notices in the order paper. It would definitely be a good thing if all parliamentarians could benefit from that information.

I have even been informed that certain departments now refuse to produce written information for strategic executive meetings, for fear that someone will request access to it.

Once again I do not understand why the government did not make more of this bill, which has much to be said for it and which the Bloc Québécois supports. Indeed our political party believes in ethics and we know that this question will be of great concern in the coming years.

Our fellow citizens will no longer accept authoritarian models, ways of doing things in which members of parliament are not fully involved in the development of public policies.

It is quite unbelievable, I repeat, that the government chose to table 200 clauses in this bill. Would it not have been better to review the Access to Information Act? I recall that the Conservatives made a commitment to modernize it. The Conservative platform even contained this promise:

A Conservative government would:

Implement the Information Commissioner’s recommendations for reform of the Access to Information Act.

The Information Commissioner himself tabled a complete bill. He did the work; he proposed a complete bill in October 2005.

I think this is hard to understand.

I am going to end with the following comment, because time is running out.

The bill, once it came back from the other House, also proposed a number of points which the Bloc Québécois unfortunately could not agree with. I understand that the other House would have liked there to be a commissioner.

I am going to conclude by recalling three major points. For the Bloc Québécois, it is important to be able to say yes to this bill, on the basis of a number of historical battles waged by the Bloc Québécois: the appointment of returning officers by competition; more work and greater authority for the Auditor General respecting trusts and foundations; and the possibility of restricting expenditures in leadership races and making them subject to public disclosure.

We nonetheless would have liked the Access to Information Act to be modernized so that it would work better and members of parliament would have more information, and especially so that requests for access to information might be filed in the Library of Parliament.

We would also have liked to have a broader definition of the budget officer’s role. In spite of all this, the Bloc Québécois will support the proposed amendments in Bill C-2.

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

Mr. Speaker, first I want to join with my colleague in recognizing the work of Mr. Broadbent and in saying that all of his colleagues in the House and, I believe, the people of Canada recognize his decency and the great respect he had for the trust the people put in him in being a representative in this House.

I also want to briefly say that the importance of a minority Parliament in being able to make the changes that we have been able to achieve in this bill is very significant.

I want to echo what my colleague has addressed on the issue of trust funds. Whatever we call it, money that is squirreled away, money that sloshes through the system to bankroll campaigns or various undertakings, or any kinds of things that are shrouded and hidden from the public, it is in these areas where we need to shine the light.

While I do not believe the light shines strongly enough in Bill C-2, I believe we are making progress and that some of these dark corners are little less dark because of the work we have done here over the past few months.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that my colleague from Parkdale--High Park has spoken about some of the successes reflected in Bill C-2 before us and also has highlighted some of the omissions.

It seems particularly appropriate this week that we acknowledge the tremendous contribution of the former member from Ottawa Centre, Ed Broadbent, in the work that he did around both electoral reform and the cleaning up of patronage politics in this country. It is especially appropriate this week that we acknowledge the portions of Bill C-2 that are very much attributable to some of his earlier work in the House, but also that we underscore the importance of proportional representation, because Ed Broadbent is about to be honoured very publicly on Thursday for his significant contribution to electoral reform.

That work by the former member for Ottawa Centre will be well recognized by members of the House who had the thrill, as many of us did, to sit with him in the House over that period of a year and a half prior to the last election, when he did not re-offer.

What is probably less understood and known by many members of the House is that much of the early anti-patronage work and the work to clean up electoral party financing was accomplished in a previous minority government, a minority government in which the New Democratic Party leader, David Lewis, pushed very hard and in fact got a concession from the then Liberal government to introduce election financing legislation that for the first time required full disclosure of both sources and amounts of political party contributions.

I think it is not surprising that many of the improvements in this government bill have been brought about by very good work in that same David Lewis-Ed Broadbent tradition by my colleague from Winnipeg Centre, ably supported by the current member for Ottawa Centre.

In the few remaining moments, I want to ask the member about the issue of trust funds. It is clear that the member for Winnipeg Centre was very instrumental in pushing for much tougher regulations and provisions in the law governing the use of trust funds. To this day in Nova Scotia, unbelievably, the Liberal Party still finances its election campaigns with ill-begotten trust funds from the biggest electoral party financing scandal in the history of the province.

With respect to trust funds, is it the member's view that this is an important achievement in the bill before us, notwithstanding the omission of a number of other issues, which she has already noted?

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

Mr. Speaker, 90% of the world's democracies use a system of proportional representation, even those which formerly used a first past the post system. They do this because it is more respectful of the wishes of the electorate. It gives a truer picture of the desire of the people for their political representation. I thank my hon. colleague for raising this issue.

I want to give a couple of brief examples of how our current system skews the political process. In the last two general elections, the Liberals had 50% fewer seats in western Canada than they would have had under a proportional representation system. However, there are situations such as that of the previous Reform Alliance Conservatives, who were consistently underrepresented in Ontario even though they did get a number of seats. When Preston Manning was leader, he got 20% of the vote in Ontario, but how many seats? Zero. That does not seem to represent the wishes of the electorate.

Today in the House of Commons, the Bloc Québécois has 16 more seats than it should have under a proportional representation system. Certainly the NDP should have 48 seats in the House of Commons, not 19.

I say to my hon. colleagues that if we are truly talking about democracy and the wishes of the people of Canada to have a Parliament that represents their views and interests, then something very basic is that every vote should count. For every vote truly to count, we should have a system that includes proportional representation.

Commissions have recommended this. The Canadian law commission has recommended it. A quarter of a century ago, the Pépin-Robarts task force recommended that this system needed to be changed because it does a great disservice to Canadian people and to Canadian unity in that it skews regional representation in Canada.

Bill C-2 has failed to address this issue. That is very unfortunate, because we do not often get to deal with new bills around the issues of accountability and democracy. This is truly a missed opportunity, but I would call on my hon. colleagues to keep this in mind and keep this issue on the front burner. It is an issue that we desperately need to address.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that we are elected in this House by the communities where we live, by the citizens in our ridings. We are not elected by lobbyists, by corporations or special interests. Therefore, our behaviour in the House and the actions that we take must be in the best interests of the communities that we represent.

In my community, there are many people who depend on the cultural sector for their livelihoods. We have artists, musicians, painters, film producers, television broadcasters and all kinds of people who work in the cultural sector. These are people who want to see cultural policies in Canada that defend Canadian interests, that speak about Canadian stories, that create jobs in Canada, and that help Canadians converse one with the other across our country and with all the multiplicity of cultures and peoples that we have in Canada.

If the minister is focusing her attention on the narrow needs and goals of a particular lobby group to the detriment of Canadians who depend on our government and on our regulators to defend their interests, to defend their culture, to preserve their jobs, and create new jobs in this sector, then I believe that this a grave issue that should be addressed by parliamentarians.

I know that in my community many people have contacted me about the cultural sector and want me to speak out on this. I am concerned that Bill C-2 does not go far enough in protecting us from lobbyists and I thank my hon. colleague for raising this issue again and reminding us about how we need to keep working in this area.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this important Bill C-2 on accountability.

The issue of accountability gets to the heart of our democratic system. We live in a democratic country. We are proud of that. We encourage and support other democracies around the world. Surely a strong democratic system of operation is a hallmark of the best of society. It is something that we wish for all people around the world.

But democracies are imperfect, including our own. We often have political democracy without having economic democracy. We see that in many countries, including here in Canada. While there are many criticisms of democracy, the solution to the problems of democracy is not to shun democracy, not to become cynical or turn away from democracy, but in fact to have more democracy and to strengthen the democratic institutions that we all support and which we represent here in this House.

It distresses me greatly to speak with people in my community who say that they are disgusted with politicians. They are disgusted with the political process. They do not want to be involved with elections or even with voting. There is a cynicism that really undermines the democratic process.

In the last election the issue of ethics was, I believe, the dominant issue. Lack of ethics has bred into a sense of cynicism and a disregard for the democratic process. This is a fundamental erosion of our democracy which we must address. I believe it is the most basic and most important issue that confronts us as parliamentarians.

It is easy to become lazy or complacent about the democratic process, but when we are lazy or complacent, surely that is when problems develop. As we saw in the last government, whether it was laziness, complacency or other motives, there were serious legitimate issues and concerns that were undermining not only a particular political party but our entire democracy. Others have spoken about this, the culture of entitlement, the sense that we were in essence a one party country, that there was only one party of legitimacy, which breeds that undermining of our democratic system. The proof of that was in the last election when voters decided to exercise their democratic right and chose a different path.

The former leader of the NDP, Ed Broadbent, is known as one of the leaders of democratic thought not only in Canada but internationally. He has led the call in Canada for a stronger democracy and a more ethical democracy. When Mr. Broadbent was in this House he raised the call for a number of changes that would lead to democratic and ethical reforms. I want to briefly outline those.

He called for democratic accountability, a fundamental respect for the voters who elect us to office. That means when voters elect us to represent a political party, we cannot just disregard those voters' wishes and cross the floor and represent another political party without going to those same voters to seek their endorsement for that move.

He called for fixed election dates so that no party could skew the outcome of an election by having complete control over when an election should take place.

He called for spending limits and transparency conditions on leadership contests. It is one thing to have limits on parties, but because parties are largely financed by the public, these principles around accountability should apply to leadership contests.

He called for electoral reform and a reworking of our antiquated first past the post system, so that the true views and desires of Canadian voters would be reflected in this House with a representative number of MPs.

He called for an end to unregulated lobbying and political cronyism, the revolving door between lobbyists, government staff and political staff. He called for tougher laws on the disclosure of fees and expenditures for lobbyists.

He called for a more ethical approach to government appointments, that the thousands of officials appointed to agencies, boards, commissions and crown corporations should be more democratically chosen and subject to the scrutiny of this House.

He also called for stronger access to information rules that would allow Canadians greater information about the behaviour of their government.

The bill before us today fails to live up to many of the goals outlined by Mr. Broadbent. However, Bill C-2 does make some progress and in that sense should be supported. I want to acknowledge that there are significant amendments made by the NDP which strengthen Bill C-2 and increase the likelihood of accountability and greater democracy in our country.

One of the areas to which there has been a real strengthening of the bill due to the efforts of my party is around the public appointments commission. As the vice-chair of the government operations and estimates committee, I was the member who introduced a motion rejecting the proposed head of the government's proposed appointments commission, Mr. Gwyn Morgan.

I was supported on that motion not only by other opposition members on that committee who joined me in rejecting his candidacy but by writers in Canadian Business magazine who said, “But making a partisan Tory (and party fundraiser) head of a department designed to usher in 'more open, honest and accountable government for Canadians' just wasn't a good fit from Day 1”.

More recently, in the Globe and Mail there was an article about how this person who was hailed by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives as the best possible person in the entire country for this position has gone from hero to pariah. Clearly, that was a good move to have his appointment rejected.

What we did was beef up the public appointments commission which was the key thing. It basically means now that patronage is against the law. The bill requires that there be accountability and openness when it comes to appointing people to all of the thousands of positions in agencies, boards and crown corporations.

This is what Canadians want. Canadians want the person who is the best equipped, the best qualified person to be in that position, and not someone who happens to be in the good books of the person doing the appointing.

The important thing now is that, because of the NDP amendment, the Prime Minister will have to consult with all political leaders prior to making appointments to the commission. The appointment process itself will be much fairer. This is a very significant change with which the NDP is very happy.

In addition, the NDP introduced new and stricter rules to stop the revolving door between lobbyists and senior levels of government. People do not want someone who is one day advocating for a particular company or organization, being paid for that, and in the next moment working in a minister's office. Canadians want clear rules to stop this action.

We were able to get some improvements to Canada's access to information laws, including broadening the act substantially to include all government institutions. This is not where Canadians would like it to be in terms of full access to information, but largely, thanks to my colleagues in this section of the House we have made significant changes.

We have strengthened parts of the Canada Elections Act, including outlawing the use of trust funds and lowering donation limits to $1,000. We have tightened the conflict of interest rules allowing any Canadian to make complaints to the new conflict of interest and ethics commissioner. We have also included protection of first nations rights within the act.

Canadians expect us as parliamentarians to do our job not only to represent their interests on the issues of the day, but also to be constantly reviewing the process of how we do our work. The solution for problems to democracy is a stronger democracy with more democracy. While this accountability act does not lead us to where Mr. Broadbent and the New Democratic Party would like us to be in terms of full accountability, it takes us another step down the path.

This bill has been debated, discussed, amended and scrutinized very thoroughly. Canadians want us to pass this bill into law and get going on the kinds of changes that will improve accountability in this country and strengthen our democracy.

[John Baird, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest as I always do when my friend from Mississauga South rises to speak. I found one part of his intervention most interesting. He said he wished the access to information parts of Bill C-2, the federal accountability act, were stronger and went further. We are increasing by 30, I think, the number of agencies, organizations and corporations that are covered by the bill.

I have two questions for the member. Why would his party put forward an amendment to bring darkness where there is light at the Canadian Wheat Board? Why last November did every member of the Liberal Party vote against including a wide range of organizations and issues under access to information when Commissioner Reid came forward with his recommendation?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think the member is being fully accountable about the time. It was not 70 days that the House spent on the bill. We did not deal with it every day. The member is counting calendar days and the House does not sit on Saturdays and Sundays and we have weeks off. The bill was first debated at second reading on April 25. We rose in the third week of June. There were not that many sitting days.

The hon. member's main point is that it has taken all this time. Had we been careful and given the due diligence we should have given to Bill C-2 in the House, at committee where there was a restriction as to witnesses, et cetera, at report stage and at third reading, there probably would not have been any amendments coming from the Senate. We would not have had any amendments, which means that the bill would have already been passed and in force today. The member has to understand that if we act with haste and force the Senate to do the job that we did not do, it will take longer.

Was the government accountable in terms of how it dealt with the bill? I think not.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are two things. First, I am not upset. Second, I know the member is flabbergasted.

I am sorry that the member did not hear all of my speech, but in the very first sentence I said that I supported the accountability act, and I have all along. Then I went into a complete description of the difficulty that an ordinary member of Parliament would have in dealing with this extensive bill. Let me give the member another example.

I have raised this point in the House a couple of times already. It has to do with Bill C-11, the whistleblower bill, which received royal assent in the last Parliament but was not proclaimed. I was going to get to that in my speech. It was not proclaimed so it is not enforceable.

There are amendments in Bill C-2 which would change the whistleblower bill, but the whistleblower bill would have to be proclaimed and then Bill C-2 would be proclaimed once it got through the rest of the process, so that in combination it is where the government would like to have it. I understand that.

I am not sure if that would even meet the member's requirement for accountability simply because the whistleblower bill is important. It creates an officer of Parliament. It creates protection for public servants who come forward and disclose alleged wrongdoing by the government or government departments.

That bill should have been proclaimed. If the government had problems with it, it should have had a separate bill to make amendments to it so that we could, even by now, have had it fully in place. We could have had the protection for public servants that they do not enjoy today. It has been a waste of time. I do not believe that even that action or inaction has been fully accountable by the government.

I raised a number of those examples, but I would be happy to speak with the member about any aspect of the bill, including another bill that he referred to on the softwood deal, which I opposed and opposed and opposed.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-2, the federal accountability act.

First, I do not think there is any member in this place who does not share a common objective, which I believe the President of the Treasury Board said in his opening speech on April 25 of this year at the lead speech on second reading. He said, “Our goal, our commitment, simply put, is to make government more accountable”.

On this basis, I believe Bill C-2 had that goal as its fundamental principle and, as such, it received the unanimous support of all parties at second reading and through the rest of the process. I am sure all hon. members will support the bill.

However, members will know that there have been a lot of discussions over a great period of time about how the bill was done. There were concerns when the bill was first tabled. The government put forward a very significant document. I do not believe there is any other bill, which I have had to work on as a parliamentarian, that touches so many other acts. It is an omnibus bill.

The bill touches a very large number of acts and it is difficult to read. We cannot start at the beginning, go through and see the story, the lead up, the plot, the end of it and everybody lives happily ever after. It is not like that. Every section of it refers to amending some other piece of existing legislation. There are also some transitional positions, et cetera, but in the main we are basically amending a very large number of other legislation.

When we looked at Bill C-2, we had something over 200 pages. Then we were told at the outset that the government wanted it passed. I believe April 25 was the first debate, and it wanted it passed by the summer.

It begs the question about how parliamentarians discharge their responsibilities. In the prayer we start the House with every day we say that we make good laws and wise decisions. It is not possible to have done this bill justice in such a short time and yet it was at the government's insistence that we push this matter because it wanted the bill passed by the summer. It is now November.

There have been a lot of questions about whether someone has been delaying the process, whether it be in the House or in the Senate. Parliamentarians not only have the right but they have the duty to do the job as they see fit, to make good laws and wise decisions. I do not think any member of Parliament, except those possibly who were on the special legislative committee to deal with Bill C-2, had the opportunity and the time to get into the detail. However, we all had an opportunity to look at aspects of the bill in which we may have had some background.

Canadians should understand, when parliamentarians rise to vote on Bill C-2 tonight on the subamendment, on the amendment, on the concurrence and on the passage of the bill to be sent back to the Senate, that members of Parliament have had to rely on many other people in this chamber who have done the work in a great bit of detail.

I wanted to make that point because we have, with a very large bill, a situation where members of Parliament have been asked to rely on the work of others in order for them to make an informed decision. It is very difficult, and I have some reservation about some of the areas of the bill. However, because there was an alliance formed by the government and another party, the amount of time that was available for the debate and to consider amendments, even at report stage, was truncated substantially. There was a forced position. In fact, we did not even have a final vote before it went to the Senate. Basically, we deemed that the question was put and deemed that it was passed. There was no recorded division on it.

It suggests to me, and I am sure it suggests to those observers who watch the legislative process, that when a bill is put together in such haste, there will be mistakes. I do not think anyone in this place will deny the fact that there were mistakes made in the bill that Parliament passed and referred to the Senate.

In fact, the President of the Treasury Board, in dealing with the work of the Senate, estimated that there were about 154 amendments proposed by senators. The Senate is composed of Liberal and Conservative senators, and 42 of those amendments came from Conservative senators. Of the 150-some odd amendments, the President of the Treasury Board accepted, without debate, without further consideration, 57 amendments.

The fact is the President of the Treasury Board, who is the minister responsible for Bill C-2, accepted some 57 amendments proposed by the Senate to make this a better bill. For that to happen, I think the Senate demonstrated that it did the job it was put there to do.

The Senate reviewed the legislation. It came up with changes, and we are still considering other amendments. The President of the Treasury Board has laid out, and the members can see, some of the brief reasons why some of the other proposed amendments are not acceptable to the government. That is his job. I believe this debate will find there are still a couple of items that yet remain unresolved.

In the main, I think all members of Parliament understand that Bill C-2 will pass the House and go back to the Senate. I want to advise members that the Senate has already made some consideration as to what happens when it goes back to the Senate. It has decided to have the bill immediately referred back to its legislative committee to advise the Senate on the appropriate course of action to take. The Senate is ready and waiting for this bill.

I am hopeful we will see Bill C-2 pass at all stages, get it through the Senate and receive royal assent prior to the House rising. The proclamation of the bill is up to the government.

I want to make one explanation. Even though a bill passes through the House of Commons and the Senate and receives royal assent, it is not in force. It is law but it is not in force until it is proclaimed. I raise that because we have the same issue with regard to another bill, Bill C-11, the whistleblower legislation, which passed and received royal assent in the last Parliament, and I will comment on that bill.

Bill C-2 is about accountability. I think we know that we have the support of all hon. members in the House to make the bill as good as possible, to ensure that it passes and that we get some of the important provisions started. Much of the legislation will require a lot of changes within the public service of Canada, within the administration of political parties and within all these acts. The Chief Electoral Officer will to have quite a job to do.

A week ago Friday, I was pleased to participate as a panellist at a special conference in Ottawa on the subject matter of accountability, with specific reference to Bill C-2. It was a four day conference and I followed some of it. I found out that many of the panellists and presenters were law scholars, professors from universities and experts on various aspects of law such as access to information. Members of Parliament and senators participated as well.

I found it fascinating that a debate was going on as to what we meant by accountability. It was interesting how different speakers had different definitions for accountability. Having recognized that, I went to the dictionary to find out what a lay dictionary would say about someone who is accountable. If we look up the word “accountable”, accountability is a form of usage. It basically said that accountability has to do with someone who is required to explain or justify his or her actions or decisions. That was the short definition of “accountable”.

As a chartered accountant, I worked a lot on public financing. There is a document called a prospectus which goes out to potential investors to give them all the information they need to make an informed decision about whether they want to invest in an offering. One of the principles in terms of requirements of a prospectus, which is very important, is that it give true, full and plain disclosure.

With that as background, I spoke at this conference and defined, for our purposes, accountability as a government or as anyone explaining and/or justifying their actions or decisions with true, full and plain disclosure. We can see all of a sudden that the definition is building because someone can be accountable to different degrees. We can be accountable by giving some part of a true, full and plain disclosure but the degree to which one is accountable comes into question.

I went on that theme but also wanted to look at some examples. A very simple example was in the throne speech that the government presented at the beginning of this Parliament. The Minister of Finance announced that there would be a decrease in taxes to 15.5% on the first marginal tax rate. In fact, the tax rate actually went up. It had been reduced in the last Parliament to 15% and the throne speech increased the tax rate on the first marginal bracket to 15.5%. It was an increase in taxes for Canadians.

The finance minister subsequently explained that the change in the tax rate by the previous government from 16% down to 15% was only in a ways and means motion that had not yet passed in the House. Mr. Speaker, you will know that when a finance minister announces changes, like what was done with the income trust, those things are all of a sudden in effect. Subsequently, as Parliament gets a chance to review and vote on the ways and means motion, it will formally ratify it but, if it should be defeated, we cannot go back retroactively. Therefore, the rate that was announced by the previous government was 15% and the tax returns of Canadians for the 2005 tax year showed an initial tax rate of 15%.

Had Parliament continued and not been interrupted by an election, the ways and means motion would have been voted on. Had it been defeated, the tax rate would have reverted to 16% but only from the date of the vote in Parliament that defeated the ways and means motion.

The finance minister said that since it did not pass in Parliament, as far as he was concerned the rate was still 16% and he reduced it to 15.5%. It is wordsmithing. It is semantics. There is no question that Canadians paid a tax rate of 15% on their 2005 return but the government in its throne speech and in the budget that was passed increased that tax rate to 15.5%.

Now we need to ask whether the government was accountable. Was it accountable to Canadians? The Conservatives said that they had decreased taxes but they in fact increased the taxes. When we go through that explanation, we do not get the chance to explain it to everyone and I am not sure everyone would understand. I am not even sure anyone will understand what I just said.

However, we need to apply the definition of accountability, which is explaining or justifying our actions or decisions in true full and plain disclosure, but this was not done. On that item the government was not fully accountable. It was sort of accountable but with an explanation or a qualification. It was not pure and true accountability.

With regard to income trusts, the government made a promise during the election campaign. At that point, the Conservative Party, wanting to form a government, was not accountable. Do members know why? It was because the making of a promise not to raise taxes on income trusts was interfering in the marketplace and any finance minister knows that the predictability and stability of the marketplace is the responsibility of a finance minister not to impact the marketplace unduly, not to jaundice or bias it so that there is no government interference in the financial markets.

The first decision to make that promise was to give some assurances, which would have affected the decision of investors. When they saw that as part of the Conservatives' platform, they decided that if those people were elected they would make that happen. If we look at the numbers on income trusts, more Canadians buy into income trusts because it offers a substantial opportunity for high return and a regular cashflow, which many seniors like because it allows them to emulate a pension plan.

The first promise not to tax income trusts was unaccountable but the second one was the broken promise, the so-called double-cross, which was to all of a sudden tax income trusts. The ethical question comes up about whether a government is responsible for keeping its promises or, if it must break its promises, to at least explain and justify them in true, full and plain disclosure. However, that did not happen. In fact, the implications to the marketplace were clear. It was the mother of all free falls in the financial markets. Thirty-five billion dollars of the wealth of Canadians was wiped out in a day and half.

The government made two mistakes. The first one was interfering in the marketplace by making such a promise. The second one was breaking the promise, notwithstanding that there was some argument that the problem had to be dealt with. Even today the Canadian Association of Income Funds is providing analyses that refute the fact that there is a significant disparity between the tax treatment of income trusts and of dividend paying corporations.

On the question of accountability, it would have been a greater degree of accountability had the announcement of that decision been taken, say, on a Friday. At least the people who would be impacted would have had the opportunity to do something before the opening of the market on Monday. Instead, the government made the announcement mid-week and Canadians did not have an opportunity to consider the change and many people lost money. Was there accountability there? I would say not.

I wish I had more time to talk to hon. members about some of the aspects of the bill. I have problems with some areas. I wish the access to information provisions were stronger, as recommended by the former commissioner, Mr. Reid. There are some other matters that I believe we can deal with at a future time, so that is not critical.

On the whole, we are moving in the right direction and I congratulate all hon. members for doing as good a job as possible in the time allotted.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague said earlier that Bill C-2 amended in part some 20 pieces of legislation, including the Access to Information Act. But at the same time—and a number of members have mentioned this during this debate—this bill does not go far enough in reforming the Access to Information Act. Hon. members will recall that the Conservative Party promised during the last election campaign to accept the recommendations of the Information Commissioner, who was proposing a series of measures.

I would like to ask my colleague how he thinks such a change could have been made and how it could have benefited the Access to Information Act.

[John Baird, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Quebec for giving a good speech.

I too am very unhappy with the current provisions of the act dealing with the appointment of those in charge of elections in the 308 ridings. The Bloc has been talking about such practice for a long time. Our caucus also talked about it: the member for Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington has been doing so for a long time.

Benoît Sauvageau, the former member for Repentigny, also brought it up. In fact, I remember Mr. Sauvageau once questioning me on that, asking whether we would do the right thing and include this provision in the bill. I told him we would. Following oral question period that day, he came to me and said that, in his 13 years in the House as an MP, that was the first time that a minister had given him a real answer, which I found very funny.

For the first time, the government will be cancelling 308 political appointments, patronage appointments if you will, and do things over properly. I am very pleased that the member raised this good aspect of Bill C-2.

The members on this side of the House agree with him and the Bloc on this very important issue.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address Bill C-2, Federal Accountability Act.

First, I would like to take a moment to remember one of our colleagues who worked very hard in committee on this legislation, this past spring. He did serious work and he spent many hours on this issue. Of course, I am referring to my former colleague Benoît Sauvageau, the member for Repentigny, who sat on the committee and was in charge of this issue for the Bloc Québécois. I am convinced that, wherever he may be, he is listening to us right now. I feel it is my duty to properly present the positions that he defended in committee and that accurately reflect those of the Bloc Québécois on this issue.

I should reiterate the fact that the Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-2. However, I clearly remember the work done by the legislative committee that reviewed Bill C-2. The Bloc Québécois continues to deplore the fact that it would have been in our best interests to hear many more witnesses and to do serious work in committee. This does not necessarily mean that we wanted to unduly extend debates by resorting to systematic filibustering or some other means.

However, we deplored, particularly during the clause by clause review of the bill and also when the list of witnesses was made, the government's attempt to ram through this legislation. The NDP worked as an accomplice to that end. I am using the term “accomplice” because I am not allowed to use a stronger word. The member for Winnipeg Centre literally got into bed with the government regarding this issue. He was an accomplice of the government to help it pass this legislation quickly. Had it not been for that complicity, we would have had time to hold a debate and to have much more extensive discussions on this bill.

Why does the Bloc Québécois support this measure? Because it will increase government accountability and transparency. I will list some points, since this is a major piece of legislation not only in terms of the number of clauses in it, but also the number of acts targeted. I talked about this at other stages of the bill and, as I recall, it affects 21 different acts. So, it is indeed a major piece of legislation.

As we know, Bill C-2 entrenches in law a ministerial code of ethics. It puts an end to the favouritism that allowed ministerial staff to enter the public service with priority status over qualified public servants. It strengthens the powers of the Auditor General and the Ethics Commissioner. It creates a stricter operating framework for lobbyists and reduces the influence of money during election campaigns, leadership campaigns and nomination meetings. It also creates the position of director of public prosecutions, which strengthens the independence of the justice system.

We also supported Bill C-2 because it meets some of what I would call traditional Bloc Québécois demands. The Bloc Québécois has been making these demands since it was founded, and even since the arrival of the first parliamentarians who agreed to sit under the Bloc Québécois banner. As we all know, from 1990 to 1993, they were not a recognized party in Parliament and had to sit as independents.

Nevertheless, in the years since the first Bloc Québécois members of Parliament took their seats as sovereignist members—let us not forget—we have repeatedly—especially from 1993 to 1997, when we were the official opposition—asked for one thing in particular: that Elections Canada appoint its returning officers based on merit.

I see that the President of the Treasury Board is applauding. I would just like to tell him, through you, Mr. Speaker, how pleased I am to see that, in this bill, he has agreed to one of the Bloc Québécois' traditional demands aimed at depoliticizing the appointment of returning officers. After every election, we have all had our stories, our little black books, our horror stories, perhaps, about decisions made by incompetent returning officers in every one of our ridings. Such incompetence does not just harm one particular party, political organization or electoral organization. An incompetent returning officer has a negative impact on everyone, including all of the candidates.

I could speak on this point alone, and I have done so in the past. We have only to think of the returning officer who agrees to have someone who can neither read nor write serve as a polling clerk or some of the unsuitable polling stations. In my riding, in Saint-Laurent-de-l'Île d'Orléans, I once took Jean-Pierre Kingsley, Canada's Chief Electoral Officer, to see a hockey players' dressing room during the June 2004 election so that he could understand the problem there. In an arena in a municipality the size of Saint-Laurent-de-l'Île d'Orléans, the players' dressing room is not as large as the Canadiens' dressing room at the Bell Centre or the Maple Leafs' dressing room in Toronto. It is a very tight space where there were six polling divisions and where, from beside the polling booths, you could literally see who someone was voting for. I could tell many more horror stories like that one, but members might wonder what my point was. I will therefore simply congratulate the government on granting the request from the Bloc Québécois to use an open, transparent competition, where the best qualified person is appointed as the returning officer, from now on. This will put an end to political appointments where a good Conservative or Liberal organizer was appointed to the position.

In response to another traditional request from the Bloc Québécois, Bill C-2 will amend the political party financing legislation, which will now be much more like the legislation in Quebec. I forgot to mention a minute ago that appointing returning officers using an open, transparent process where the position is posted in the newspapers is exactly the system Quebec has had since 1977, I believe. This system works very well in Quebec, I would add. The bill before us was inspired by the political party financing legislation in Quebec, which is part of the political heritage of René Lévesque, who cleaned up election practices and election financing practices in Quebec. This is another interesting aspect of Bill C-2, which prohibits corporate donations and caps individual donations at a more reasonable level.

We know that the Senate has engaged in its own analysis of Bill C-2. Of course, in the Bloc Québécois, we have our own ideas about what purpose the Senate serves and we would support abolishing it outright. It is a totally pointless organization that exists only for the plum appointments that can be handed out. Whoever is in power appoints senators of his own persuasion. We should abolish the Senate outright.

However, we have to acknowledge that the two solitudes in Canada mean that we have not reached that point yet. While a majority of Quebeckers support abolishing the Senate, people in other provinces want a stronger Senate. That is probably the case for your fellow Manitobans, in your province of origin, Mr. Speaker. As a result, there can be no consensus on this question.

When I meet people on weekends, I tell them about what the Senate costs, and when we talk about how pointless it is, I also tell them that for us, the people of Quebec, the only way to get rid of the Senate is through sovereignty for Quebec. We will have nothing more to do with the Senate of Canada, just as we will have nothing more to do with the Governor General or the lieutenant governors of each of the provinces.

However, in the present system, the Senate has done its own analysis of Bill C-2 and has proposed the amendments that are now before us. We have to say that some of those amendments may be worth considering, but others are totally unacceptable. We have done a careful, serious and thorough analysis of the government’s position on the Senate amendments. As a result, I can add that the Bloc Québécois supports the government’s rejection of several of the Senate amendments, which in our opinion do not advance either ethics or transparency.

You know that a majority of the Senate is made up of Liberal Party members. The Liberals were in power for so long in the 20th century that they had time to literally pack the joint, as it were. So they are superior, in numbers, to the Conservative senators. Probably as a result of the majority being Liberal, the senators come back to us and tell us that they would like to keep their own Senate adviser. This is another anomaly of a two-chamber system. The Senate is apparently jealously guarding its constitutional prerogatives and does not want to share the same ethics adviser. It is suggesting an amendment to us: a puppet adviser who would be under the authority of a Senate committee, and who would in fact be about as effective as Howard Wilson, Prime Minister Chrétien’s ethics adviser, was.

Mr. Wilson has appeared as a witness at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. He is a nice young man. We have nothing against him personally, but Howard Wilson was a political adviser to Jean Chrétien rather than a real ethics adviser. In this regard, we agree with the government, which is getting ready to reject this amendment tabled by the Senate.

I would like to talk about a number of other amendments put forward by the Senate. Unfortunately, since there is not enough time, I cannot do that, but my colleagues probably have some comments to make about them.

The Bloc Québécois has always maintained that strengthening legislation and policies is ineffective if there is no real will by government members to change things. Justice Gomery said in his 23 recommendations that it is all well and good to have more effective control systems, but that the culture of entitlement needs to change in Ottawa. This was the culture that existed at the time in the Liberal Party. Having been in power for a long time, the Liberal Party practically thought it was the state incarnate. The Liberals were in charge of the public purse and could pretty much do what they wanted with it.

That is what happened during the sponsorship scandal. Justice Gomery told us that regardless of whether we have the most effective control mechanisms—and I am directing this to the Conservative Party—we have to change the culture here in Ottawa. The Bloc Québécois decided to give them a chance, but a number of signs, in how the Conservatives manage, concern us. We also know that as far as lobbying is concerned, the current Prime Minister tolerates what he was criticizing the Liberals for at the time. That is why the Bloc Québécois is saying that the Liberals and the Conservatives are six of one and half a dozen of the other. They are the same whether they are in opposition or in power.

On the other hand, the members of the Bloc Québécois have real power to ensure that people act responsibly. Do not forget that as elected members we are in charge of taxpayers' money above all and not our own money. We have to be accountable to our constituents. Taxpayers no longer feel like paying and they find they are paying a lot for the services they are getting.

We are aware of this at many levels of government management, be it municipal, school, provincial or federal. In mentioning school and municipal levels, far be it from me to claim that these local managers and elected representatives are not doing a good job. They do a great job. Still, those who pay school taxes and municipal taxes, in addition to federal and provincial income and other taxes are citizens and taxpayers. They are entitled to receive the services they pay for. This is why people are becoming increasingly critical. In the vast majority of cases, administrators at the school and municipal levels do an outstanding job with few resources, and all the needs and aging infrastructures.

Where we are critical of the current Prime Minister is that he allows into his immediate entourage certain people who may have links with lobbying or with firms which they have lobbied in the very recent past. I will give you some examples. The Minister of National Defence was a lobbyist with Hill & Knowlton from 1996 to February 2004. So, for nearly ten years, his clients included such companies as BAE Systems, General Dynamics, United Defense, Irvin Aerospace, Airbus and Bennett Environmental.

The Minister of National Defence manages a portfolio of extraordinary investments and we note that the Conservatives do not have any problems finding money for defence. During the months of May and June, they purchased military equipment worth $15 billion. In a month and a half, they went out and bought tanks, boats in Halifax, and vehicles and trucks at Valcartier. They also went to Toronto and the west. In all, they bought close to $15 billion worth of military equipment. When the time comes, though, to find money for support and protection programs for women, the disadvantaged, the homeless or for SCPI, they cannot come up with any money.

Mr. Speaker, you are letting me know that my time is up. I could have gone on speaking much longer. I am almost tempted to ask you for unanimous consent so that I can continue my speech until question period, but I am going to sit down.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to complete my remarks on Bill C-2, the so-called accountability act. I have a couple of quotes that I was not quite finished with that I will get to in a moment.

It is ironic that the government by devious means, and that is the Prime Minister working with the leader of the separatist party, is attempting to disadvantage the Canadian Wheat Board, a prairie grain farmer marketing institution. In disadvantaging farmers in western Canada, the Prime Minister is really allowing the opportunity for the international grain trade, our competitors in the international market, to gain marketing advantage over Canadian farmers. It is ironic that we are talking about an accountability act and the Prime Minister is using these tactics.

It is devious because the move has nothing to do with accountability at all but, instead, shows that the Prime Minister will go to almost any length to get his way in his ideological drive to undermine the Canadian Wheat Board. This is not just a Canadian Wheat Board issue. This is about the Prime Minister's tactics, his willingness to cut a deal with the leader of the separatist party, and his ideological obsession with trying to destroy the Canadian Wheat Board, a board now controlled by farmers themselves.

Let us look for a moment at this access to information and how it will disadvantage the Canadian Wheat Board. I turn to a letter that the chair of the Canadian Wheat Board tabled with the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. It stated:

Therefore, the true beneficiaries of adding the CWB to ATIA will primarily be non-farmers such as competitors and foreign antagonists that would be able to make information requests.

Subjecting the CWB to ATIA will put it at a disadvantage to its commercial competitors. These competitors could gain access to types of information about the CWB that the CWB could not obtain from them. It would also open up sensitive information to access by its international antagonists (primarily, the United States). By way of example, since the implementation of the Canada-U.S. Trade Agreement the CWB has been subject to no fewer than 14 U.S.-led trade challenges or investigations. All of these actions have been groundless as the CWB has not once been found to be acting outside of its international trade obligations. Yet, through the CWB, western Canadian farmers have been forced to spend in excess of $15 million to defend itself against these actions. The use of access to information requests by foreign parties is certain to become another vehicle to harass western Canadian farmers.

That is in fact what will happen. The Wheat Board will end up having to pay the costs for nuisance requests from people who are opposed to the board and farmers will have to bear those costs in western Canada. The Canadian Wheat Board again is being disadvantaged.

The parliamentary secretary is one of the key people trying to get the Canadian Wheat Board under access to information and he knows full well that the government never put forward the amendment. Why? It is because its legal advice said, as the Canadian Wheat Board Act states, that the Canadian Wheat Board is not a crown corporation or a government entity. Yes, it guarantees loans, but so does the government in other circles. That is important but it is not reason enough to have the Canadian Wheat Board under access to information.

The bottom line, which the government knows full well, is that the government had legal advice stating that the board should not be under these rules. The Canadian Wheat Board will be in the unique position of being the only non-government entity that has to abide by access to information rules and the people who will be disadvantaged are the grain farmers of western Canada. The people who will be advantaged are the international grain trade competitors that we compete against, mainly stationed in the United States.

What is happening here with the Bloc proposing the amendment to bring in access to information clearly shows that the Prime Minister is willing to cut a deal with almost anyone, even separatists, to get his way and disadvantage prairie farmers in the process.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to thank my colleague from Saint-Maurice—Champlain for his question.

One of the cities in his riding is Shawinigan, which calls to mind the origins of Bill C-2, the federal accountability act.

To answer his question, I have to say that the undue speed of the work did not make for speedier results in this case. That is why I quoted several proverbs about the time it takes to do something well. Things that are worth doing are worth doing well. In the end, we always have to check and redo something we have done poorly.

As for Bill C-2, even though the government stepped up the work and tried to win a special prize from the Guinness Book of World Records, today, on November 20, we are no further ahead, and the President of the Treasury Board is no further ahead than he would have been if he had taken the time to do things properly. In addition, we would be even more pleased and even happier to pass this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague mentioned earlier a few sayings that have to do with the time it takes to act. I would like to add another one, Age quod agis. This proverb defines the municipality where I live and it means, “whatever you do, do it well”. It is similar to what my colleague was saying. She referred to the fact that she felt rushed. She noted that the witnesses called by the legislative committee on Bill C-2 were also rushed and did not have enough time to properly give their testimony.

In the member's opinion, would the bill be better and would it protect public interest better if the legislative committee had taken longer to study it thoroughly and properly, and if the whole issue of access to information had been referred to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics?

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

I would like to thank the President of the Treasury Board for his comments. Nevertheless, I would like to emphasize what I said about the question I asked each one of the witnesses who appeared before the legislative committee that studied Bill C-2. I asked each one of them if they believed that the measures in Bill C-2 would have prevented the sponsorship scandal. None of them said yes.

I would just like the minister to think about that. I know that Bill C-2 is a valiant attempt, but it cannot prevent the sponsorship scandal from happening again, even though that is what it set out to do.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak this afternoon about Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act. The Bloc Québécois really liked this bill, which seeks to make democracy more transparent. That is why the Bloc Québécois put its heart and soul into studying this bill, a process that was conducted at a fast pace.

This morning, the President of the Treasury Board stated that he was proud of his race for the Guinness record. He said that this bill could have been adopted just nine weeks after the election on January 23 and that members had put in 90 hours of work in six weeks and had passed the bill in 72 days. He was bragging and very proud of this performance, when he should have been a bit sad. Today, he can see that that whole mad dash was for nought.

I had the pleasure of sitting on the Bill C-2 legislative committee. I saw, with my own eyes, that the witnesses did not have time to explain fully. They had only two minutes each and had to speak in quick succession. The witnesses had no time to go into detail, and we did not have time to question them. They gave us lengthy documents that we did not have time to consult. We did not even have time to read them between the meetings.

It is only natural that a bill that was looked at quickly should come back to this House today with so many amendments. This is a substantial bill approximately 200 pages in length, with 300 clauses. Some witnesses even refused to appear before the Bill C-2 legislative committee, saying that they had not had time to study and analyze the bill. As a result, we did not hear all the important witnesses.

When there were witnesses, I nearly always used what little time I had to ask them one question that I felt was crucial. I asked them whether they believed that, with the bill as it is currently written, the sponsorship scandal could happen again.

Unfortunately none of the witnesses said this could not happen again, despite the 300 clauses in the bill. This needed to happen quickly and we did not have the time to look at anything. Furthermore, we knew, and we said, that this bill had some problems. If you check the blues of that committee, you will see that a number of committee members—witnesses as well as MPs—noticed these problems, raised them and deplored them. We said time and time again that there would be problems.

There is a saying that goes, “Slowly but surely”. Another one goes, “Something worth doing is worth doing well”. We cannot make a flower grow any faster by pulling on its stem. Often a bill is like a small flower. Today, this government is no further ahead. It is far from its nine weeks—maybe it had an even shorter goal—and 72 hours of work. We should have taken our time.

The work done in committee is extremely important. However, it is nice to have the time, between two witnesses, to read what the witnesses have prepared or even to read it in advance if they had time to send documents beforehand. The members of the legislative committee did not have time to read the documents beforehand and did not have time to read them afterward because they had to hurry off to attend another committee meeting. In the meantime, while we were going over Bill C-2, the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics slammed on the brakes, even though the Access to Information Act should have been included in BIll C-2.

The Access to Information Act was passed in 1983. Despite a number of requests for its review, it has stayed essentially the same. The Conservative government chose not to include the Access to Information Act in its Bill C-2. We know this is a mistake.

The President of the Treasury Board contends that further consultations are necessary. His colleague, the Minister of Justice, appeared before the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics and told us to draft legislation. We told him that the legislation was already in place. Back in 1987, the Standing Committee on Justice and the Solicitor General made 100 recommendations to reform the act.

In August 2000, the President of the Treasury Board and the Minister of Justice at the time struck a task force to review the act, the regulations and the policies on which the present access to information scheme is based. In November 2001, the Bryden committee—I do not know if that name rings a bell, Mr. Speaker, but it has been coming up regularly for quite a while in this place—proposed a dozen recommendations that it regarded as priorities. I should point out that the current Minister of Justice signed that report. This House also had an opportunity to debate this act, when a number of members introduced private members’ bills. The Information Commissioner even proposed a complete bill to the government in October 2005, that is to say one year ago.

When the justice minister came and asked us to submit a new bill to him, we said no, adding that he already had enough information, which he could have included in Bill C-2. We asked him to introduce a new access to information bill no later than December 15.

I bring up this very important motion passed in committee because I want to remind the Minister of Justice that he has very little time left to draft this bill. He has only 20 days or so left. I hope he is already working on it.

Of course, there is another proverb which says that nature abhors a vacuum. This is why the Senate proposed 158 amendments. Senators took their time. They reviewed the legislation and in fact they heard witnesses who had come before our committee. However, they took the time to talk to these people, to read their submissions and to listen to what they had to say. So, senators proposed 158 amendments. Now, the government is coming back with 50 clauses that it wants to change regarding these amendments. The Liberal Party also has an amendment dealing with at least four aspects of the bill, while the Bloc Québécois is proposing an amendment dealing with four measures.

This means that the House of Commons is doing the work that the committee should have done last spring, slowly, not too quickly, but surely.

The Bloc's amendments are very relevant. First, we have the two ethics commissioners. It is obvious that there should only be one commissioner, because the Senate's ethics counsellor is only accountable to a Senate committee. There is no need to elaborate on this situation. Let us just say that their ethics counsellor is somewhat like the Howard Wilson that we had here, who was accountable to the then Prime Minister.

As for the Canadian Wheat Board, it is appropriate that it be added to the list of organizations subject to the Access to Information Act. Why? Because three administrators are appointed by the government. The Auditor General already has the right to audit this board. Some say that the government does not fund this organization, but that is not true. It guarantees the contracts of the board's clients. For 20 years the Canadian Wheat Board has cost Canadian and Quebec taxpayers several billions of dollars. That is right. The money is not an issue. But at least the board should be subject to the Access to Information Act.

The Bloc amendments also require that documents used to prepare internal audit reports be subject to the Access to Information Act. Recent events, including the sponsorship scandal, have shown that it is absolutely necessary for the public to have access to these documents.

There is also an interpretation clause on the public interest. It seems to me that it is important to be able to act in the public interest when a document is not accessible. We must prove that it is in the public interest to have access. If it is proven to be in the public interest, it seems normal to me that a government open its books.

Finally, delegate expenses at political conventions must be considered donations because that is what they are. Delegates are charged almost $1,000 to attend a convention or meeting. However, we know that is not the real cost. Obviously a profit is made and that must be considered as financing.

These are the Bloc subamendments. As I mentioned earlier, the House of Commons is now doing the work that it should have done slowly but surely last spring.

In closing, I absolutely want to remind the President of Treasury Board's colleague, the Minister of Justice, that he only has 20 days to submit his access to information bill to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting how the government talks about the Liberal senators who hung the bill up, but I know that the President of the Treasury Board actually accepted a very large number of those amendments. Of some 140, I think 40 were actually made by Conservative senators. They have a job to do and it is reflective of the work that they did. It is a mischaracterization of the Senate's work to say that they are dragging their feet because they did their job. They had the time to do it which we were not given in this place. That is the reality.

The member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour raises some interesting aspects, but I want to share with him one thing I found at a conference two weeks ago at which I was a panellist. It dealt with accountability. One of the consistent messages coming from the legal professors and experts commenting on the bill was that they were concerned that the bill was based on a foundation of presumption of guilt of the public service, politicians and everyone involved in public life as opposed to the presumption of innocence. The concern was that many of the administrative overlays being proposed in Bill C-2 would decrease the productivity of the public service because everyone was swept under the same umbrella of guilt.

It is an interesting point for them to raise. I wonder if the member has a comment on whether or not the concerns with regard to the accountability of this place should have focused more in terms of where the risk elements were and where we needed to shore up things rather than to blanket the whole system with a layer of administrative and unproductive activity.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-2, the so-called accountability act, a bill that was put together with a great deal of haste and one which has returned from the other place with a number of important amendments. I would like to speak to the spirit of this bill and the underlying motivations that seem to have resulted in legislation which, as we have discovered, is technically flawed in many respects and substantively flawed in its objectives.

I appreciate the work of the senators in the other place from both parties, in particular Senator Joe Day who has put forward reasonable amendments to make this legislation better. There were 30 days of hearings in the other place, 150 witnesses and a lot of very positive work.

When Bill C-2 was presented in this House it was done so under the political environment of a recent election and the concern that many Canadians had about ensuring that the taxpayers' money was protected from abuse. From the outset many of us were uncomfortable with the rapid and now we see irresponsible rush in which the President of the Treasury Board proceeded. Liberal members raised these concerns at committee.

In fact, the vast majority of amendments proposed by the Liberal members on the Bill C-2 committee last spring were defeated by the NDP-Conservative coalition. This was done for political and partisan reasons. It was clear then that public relations and scoring cheap political points were more important than bringing forward legislation that would in fact live up to its name.

After hearing more than 140 witnesses through many hours of hearings, the Senate committee under the leadership of Senator Day has placed before us amendments that we should seriously consider. Notwithstanding the constant flow of feigned outrage from the Treasury Board president, it would be totally irresponsible for the government and the House to ignore reasonable amendments that seek to strengthen the legislation thereby ensuring that it is in line with the charter and in the public interest.

In fact, it was the Treasury Board president who suggested in his own appearance before the Senate that the bill had been, to use his exact words, “examined with a microscope”. We now find out that this microscope was more like a periscope: long on rhetoric and narrow in focus.

David Hutton, coordinator of the Federal Accountability Initiative for Reform, described the drafting process that was employed to craft Bill C-2 as “deeply flawed”. He said that the bill “is complex and is full of loopholes when you dig into it. I feel that the committees have been given an impossible task, namely trying to turn this into effective legislation that meets intent”.

In addition to repairing numerous drafting errors which should have been caught before the bill was introduced, key amendments that came back include political financing. This is an area of particular importance to me, as it is to all members of the House of Commons. Not only am I a member of Parliament but, as many other members have done, I have run campaigns for other candidates and have worked a lot of elections. I was the president of the Nova Scotia Liberal Party sitting on the national executive and got involved in the financing of political parties.

It is important that we ensure that any new political donation regime does not unfairly restrict the participation of political parties in debate. I suggest the proposed change to $2,000 per year, the limit that came back from the other place, is an important change.

In 2003 Bill C-24 was introduced and passed by the Liberal government of former prime minister Jean Chrétien. It radically changed how elections are financed in Canada, notably reducing the amount of allowable donations to political parties. The current President of the Treasury Board acknowledged the usefulness of Bill C-24, which in fact contained a clause for its review, but there has been no review. There has just been introduction in this bill of more political reform, which I do not think makes a lot of sense.

Clearly, the government has failed to produce any evidence that the existing limits are undermining the electoral process at the federal level. Furthermore, political donations play an important role in our democratic system. Limiting them too strictly has the potential to limit participation of smaller political parties, as well as all Canadians who wish to participate in the political system.

Why would the government introduce these strict limits? If we look across Canada at what provinces are doing in their own electoral districts, it is pretty interesting. I would like to take a minute to let people know what those limits are across Canada right now.

In Newfoundland and Labrador there are no contribution limits to political parties.

In Prince Edward Island there are no contribution limits.

In Nova Scotia there have been none. In fact, last week new political financing legislation was brought forward into the House of Assembly in Nova Scotia. I believe the limit there would be $5,000.

In New Brunswick there is a maximum of $6,000 during a calendar year to each registered political party or to a registered district association of that registered political party.

In Quebec contribution limits are a maximum of $3,000 to each party, independent member and independent candidate, collectively, during the same calendar year.

Ontario has contribution limits. The maximum contribution a person, corporation or trade union may make is $7,500 to each party in a calendar year and in any campaign period; $1,000 in any calendar year to each constituency association; an aggregate of $5,000 to the constituency associations of any one party; $1,000 to each candidate in a campaign period; an aggregate of $5,000 to candidates endorsed by any one party.

In Manitoba individuals may contribute a maximum of $3,000 in a calendar year to candidates, constituency associations or registered political parties, or any combination.

In Saskatchewan there are no limits on contributions.

In Alberta the limits are $15,000 to each registered party, $1,000 to any registered constituency association, and $5,000 in the aggregate to constituency associations of each registered party, and then further regulations in any campaign period: $30,000 to each registered party, less any amount contributed to the party in the calendar year.

In British Columbia registered political parties or constituency associations may accept a maximum of $10,000 in permitted anonymous contributions. Candidates, leadership contestants and nomination contestants may accept a maximum of $3,000 in permitted contributions.

In Yukon there are no contribution limits.

The Northwest Territories has what seem to be the strictest limits. An individual or corporation may contribute a maximum of $1,500 to a candidate during a campaign period, but a candidate may contribute a maximum of $30,000 of his or her own funds in his or her own campaign.

These election limits that have been brought in dramatically exceed any other election financing reform that has been brought in across Canada, reforms that have been brought in, in provinces led by a whole series of different types of government, different parties in power.

One witness at the Senate committee, Arthur Kroeger, the chair of the Canadian Policy Research Networks and a former deputy minister in five federal government departments, told the Senate committee:

What problem are we trying to solve? Were there abuses when the level was $5,400? I do not know. I do not remember reading of any such abuses. Were there abuses that merit the reduced levels of contributions that were permitted by business and unions? If you cannot identify the problem that justifies a provision in the bill, then have you lost balance and have you pushed things too far? Those are questions in my mind...Do we truly need to go that far to achieve good governance and are we risking harm? It is possible.

When we look at what provinces across the country have done, that would seem to back that up.

It is certainly not just Liberals who are making the case that these stringent donation limits are unreasonable and unnecessary. Lowell Murray, a Progressive Conservative senator from the great province of Nova Scotia, a highly respected figure and a former close adviser to two Progressive Conservative former prime ministers, the Right Hon. Joe Clark and the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney, said in the Senate recently, I believe on third reading, after the committee hearings, “I would delete from the bill all the provisions respecting political financing”.

There are a lot of very interesting comments, but let me just stick to the political financing piece. He talked about examples of how this legislation is flawed. He went on to say:

Another example is in the creation of a directorate of public prosecutions. This may or may not be necessary--probably not--

To get back to financing, he said:

This bill purports to introduce further reforms to our political financing and elections laws. The committee has recommended amendments to the government's proposals. I am more persuaded by the argument of Professor Peter Aucoin, who told the committee that those proposals have no place in the omnibus Bill C-2 and should be considered as part of an overall examination of elections and political financing law.

He said later in his speech:

The examination of our political financing and election laws that I believe is necessary must go forward, in my view, and my amendment would remove from Bill C-2 the various provisions relating to political financing in the hope of a principled examination of this whole field, a principled examination of our electoral and parliamentary democracy, by people who have relevant experience in it.

That speaks directly to the issue of this bill being too large and too cumbersome, trying to do too many things for political reasons and not being based on evidence nor history.

Increasing the maximum personal contribution to $2,000 from the proposed $1,000 would still be a significant reduction from the current $5,400 that came in under Bill C-24, but I would support the $2,000 limit.

There are many other amendments that involve access to information and technical changes that were necessary because it was rushed legislation. Certainly, the clearest proof of that was the recent attempt to alter the legislation to cover up the practice of the Conservative Party of not counting delegate fees as political donations, which was clearly not the intent of the act. It was never understood by any political party that I know of as being the case, and it has been acknowledged by Canada's Chief Electoral Officer as being the wrong policy.

One of the advantages of the other place looking at this so carefully was that it gave people a chance to make some comments, people who have expertise in this area. I had mentioned before Mr. Kroeger, the chair of the Canadian Policy Research Network. He also said:

If the legislation had been written by a government with more experience in office, it may not have some items in it that it does, which I will explain in a minute.

He went on to explain, and then said:

There is the other problem that some of the contents of legislation were, I think, developed during an election campaign, and there is always a risk of a bit of overkill for the sake of achieving a public effect--

Dr. David Zussman, the Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management at the University of Ottawa, indicated, in talking about the new positions in this bill:

In each case, we are creating new positions at considerable cost to the taxpayers of Canada, so we have to ask ourselves simply will these costs produce results that will make a tangible difference or a marginal difference over the information and analysis that we already have.

Alan Leadbeater, deputy information commissioner of the Office of the Information Commissioner, suggested:

--Bill C-2 would authorize new and broad zones of secrecy, which will have the effect of reducing the accountability of government through transparency...Bill C-2 will reduce the amount of information available to the public, will weaken the oversight role of the Information Commissioner, will increase government’s ability to cover up wrongdoing and shield itself from embarrassment.

These are a number of comments that came from the hearings that were held in the other place.

This is a deeply flawed bill. I support accountability and I support some of the measures that are in this bill, but these amendments that have come back from the other place are worthy of everybody's attention and support.

It is obvious to most people, except perhaps those on the government side, that this bill is a blunt instrument to achieve political gains. As is so often the case when politics is the primary motivation, bad law is created, and thankfully we now have an opportunity to correct these flaws. I encourage all parties to support these amendments and to make this legislation live up to its name, the accountability act.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the concern I would have is if the government proclaimed Bill C-11 and Bill C-2 was not passed, we would end up with Bill C-11 on the books. What I am saying to the member very directly is that Bill C-11 was flawed. Procedurally the member is correct in terms of the sequence that needs to happen and could happen.

What is in front of us right now is a bill that was passed here as amended and sent to the other place where it was meddled with. Quite frankly in some cases it was gutted and the whole orientation of the bill was changed and sent back to us.

For those who would blow the whistle it is small comfort to them that the intent of the other place was to improve it. At the end of the day what we have to look at is those markers that I mentioned before. The rules have to be clarified. The public interest has to be established. In the case of whistleblowers, having Bill C-11 proclaimed and then having Bill C-2 come into play could happen.

The concern I would have is if Bill C-11 were proclaimed and Bill C-2 did not pass, we would have a substandard whistleblower act. That is not good enough for the women and men who work in the public service.

Another side to that is that we need to extend the whistleblower legislation beyond crown corporations and governments. We need to talk about people who receive public dollars who are doing research. We have heard stories of people who are doing research in universities who are trying to follow the public interest and do the public service by blowing the whistle and they are not covered by the bill. We need to take a look at that after the bill is passed and perhaps amend it down the road. I suppose that is for another day but for now, we should pass this bill. Then we could get on to getting really decent whistleblower protection for the women and men in the public service.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments on this, but I still need to get some clarification. If Bill C-2 is going to make amendments to Bill C-11 to make it better, Bill C-11 still has to be proclaimed before Bill C-2 is proclaimed. We have to have an act that is actually in force and in law before Bill C-2.

If the member wants Bill C-2 to be in place and passed before we rise on December 15, should not Bill C-11 be proclaimed so that we can get the process moving? Everyone would understand the rules of the game under which they would be operating. It just is not clear enough to the public service whether or not the provisions in Bill C-11 as amended by Bill C-2 are going to be in place.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be very succinct. In my opinion, and in the opinion of many people with whom I worked before being elected to this place, Bill C-11 is substandard. I am delighted it was not proclaimed. I can name people who pushed to ensure that it did not see the light of day because they wanted a better bill. To be quite direct about it, it is yet another reason to get this bill through the House, back to the Senate, get the bill passed and stop the ping-pong between the two places.

Bill C-2 would change the whistleblower legislation to ensure there would be a more comprehensive way for people to report misdeeds and that they would not go into a process where they would have to wait for long periods of time. That is exactly what Bill C-11 would have done.

I was on the committee and supported the changes. It was helpful to make amendments to ensure they would have a choice. If people were to blow the whistle now, they would have the choices that were in Bill C-11 and additional ones, if they chose to use them. That is really important. This is cutting edge and if Bill C-11 had been proclaimed then, the government of the day would have had the excuse of saying it wanted to see it operate for a while.

Speak to people who have actually blown the whistle, like Dr. Chopra. Ask what he thinks of it. He would tell us, because I have talked with him, that Bill C-11 is substandard. It does not meet the test. He is delighted this is coming forward.

The final thing is to pressure the government to clean up all those cases before Bill C-2 is proclaimed and enacted. I have asked the government to do that and I hope it does it soon. People's careers have been destroyed, like Dr. Chopra, for doing nothing more than standing up and doing the right thing in the interest of Canadians.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member spent a bit of time talking about the whistleblower act, Bill C-11, which came up two Parliaments ago. It was worked on for about a year and all last Parliament.

As a consequence of the work of the government operations and estimates committee, the bill was virtually rewritten. One of the changes was to create a new position, a new public integrity officer of Parliament, who would be in the same vein as the Auditor General or the Privacy Commissioner, et cetera. That bill was unanimously passed by all parties in committee with all of those changes. It came to the House, was fully debated and unanimously passed by all parties in this place. In fact, on the second last day of the last Parliament, it received royal assent.

That bill is extremely important to the whole accountability mechanism. It provides protection for the public service, for those who feel they have information about some alleged wrongdoings or other reprisals, as defined in the bill, to come forward to get explanations to this watchdog who will report to Parliament. It is a very important bill.

I understand Bill C-2 proposed some amendments to the whistleblower bill. What I want to understand, and maybe the member can help, is that Bill C-11, although it received royal assent in the last Parliament, has not been proclaimed. This means that although it is law, it is not in force yet. All the work has been done by Parliament and passed by both Houses and given royal assent, but it is still not operative. We still do not have a process of bringing in this new officer of Parliament. We still do not have the directions to all the crown corporations and agencies that will be swept in under this because it has not been proclaimed. The government has been in office for several months and it still has not been proclaimed. It is important.

Could the member try to explain to the House and to Canadians why Bill C-11 has not been proclaimed so we can have accountability, openness and transparency now?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin my comments by following up on the point the member for Cambridge was enunciating on cleaning up politics. It is a pleasure to again speak to a bill that we worked hard on and to which I have personally contributed on the committee.

I will begin with the title of cleaning up politics because that is the title of the document put forward by my predecessor, Ed Broadbent, before the last election. The document is entitled “Cleaning up Politics: Demanding Changes in Ethics and Accountability”. The seven point plan that Mr. Broadbent put forward is pretty straightforward but still a little elusive, notwithstanding some of the important things that have been brought forward.

The first point was to have democratic accountability for MPs. What he was referring to was that no MP should ignore the wishes or intents of his or her voters for personal gain. What he was talking about is that MPs should not be able to cross the floor simply so they can be vaulted into cabinet. It is important to note that he was not talking about the present government. He was talking about the previous government. That is something we were not able to attain in this bill but we will continue to fight for that because the basic premise of democracy is not to have MPs cross the floor at their will and for their personal gain. It must stop. The government in Manitoba is putting forward a bill that will do that and the Government of Canada should do the same.

The second point on his list was fixed election dates. I am glad to say that Bill C-16 is on its way. Hopefully it will pass through the Senate a little easier than Bill C-2 will, for the sake of all of us.

The third point was to have transparent leadership contests. A certain member of the Liberal Party, who went on to become the leader of the Liberal Party and the prime minister, was able to raise $12 million for his leadership campaign. Some would say that the $12 million were not necessary because, as we all know, it was not much of a contest. However, before the government gets too high on its horse, the present Prime Minister spent $2.7 million for his leadership contest. It seems like a bargain by comparison but, nonetheless, we need to have less money injected into the body politic and take the money out of politics. We saw what kind of effect that can have on the body politic in the most recent American elections.

The fourth point was real electoral reform. We will continue to fight for this. We do not believe that what we have seen with the unelected Senate is anything that anyone can be proud of and it is certainly showing that our democratic institutions need an overhaul. One of the things we have put forward, following along many reports going back to the Pépin-Robarts report and others, is the need to change our democratic institution so it is reflective of the will of the people. We can look at perhaps a first past the post system with proportionality, such as they have in New Zealand, Scotland and, in fact, in most of the rest of the world save two other jurisdictions.

The fifth point was to end unregulated lobbying. I am pleased to say that there are changes in Bill C-2 about lobbying. I am sad to say that there are some amendments being put forward by the Senate to change that. What seems to be elusive is what my colleague, Mr. Broadbent, put forward, which is that we deal with firms that act as both lobbyists and government consultants. This is a conflict of interest as they are playing both sides of the street. We saw that with the previous government and we do not want to see that happen in the future. If a firm is working for government one day, the firm should not be able to turn around and lobby the next day. It creates a perception of influence peddling, and we have seen examples of that before.

What we need to still deal with is the fact that lobby firms, public relations firms, must have clear rules in front of them for the sake of our democratic institutions and we need to ensure it is understood that government is here to serve the people and not the friends of any particular party. Sadly, Bill C-2 does not end that type of lobbying and we need to continue to work on that. We provided amendments but they were ruled out of order.

The sixth point on Mr. Broadbent's list was ethical appointments. Just recently a panel of experts looked at reforming the National Capital Commission here in Ottawa. It should be noted that the National Capital Commission, which goes back to 1959, was always an appointed body based on who one knew and on political patronage. We hope that will change but it should not be based on a whim. It should be based on a structure so that appointments can function properly.

We proposed, and the bill does have amendments, to have a public appointments commission. Those amendments were taken from Mr. Broadbent's work on ethical appointments. We believe we should toss out the whole idea of patronage when it comes to appointments. With a possible 4,000 appointments, we believe it is dangerous to allow them to be motivated by politics. In fact, they should be motivated by merit to serve Canadian people and not to serve any political party which, sadly, was the case, not just with the previous government but back all the way to Macdonald. Canadian history is littered with problems in and around political appointments.

The commission that my colleague from Winnipeg worked on and was derived from Mr. Broadbent's idea makes sense. As was mentioned earlier, the government had concerns about the person it tried to appoint to fulfill this job. The problem was not necessarily with Mr. Morgan's abilities to do the job but with the way in which it was being done. We had in front of us a bill that would change the appointments process and the government tried to cut off the process and appoint its own person but then cried foul when it was not accepted.

The point was that we had a bill before the House which talked about a public appointments commission but the government decided it knew better and wanted to appoint its person who, quite rightly, was rejected. It was not because of the person himself or his merit. It was because the government put forward someone ahead of a bill that was in front of Parliament to create a public appointments commission. On another day I could give my opinion on that person for that job, but I will leave that.

We need to have a public appointments process and that brings in ethical appointments. It is too important for Canadians and for the body politics.

The final point Mr. Broadbent put forward was to reform the access to information and, my gosh, do we need work there. We have problems presently with the government. I recently had an access to information on something that was not controversial and I received three lines and 18 pages blanked out. I wondered if something as controversial as a museum was actually of note to the security of the country and puts us all in jeopardy. Apparently it does and one of the problems is that the Access to Information Act is too limited, too controlling and does not serve Canadians well. We clearly need to change that.

We need to ensure light is shed on government and that we have a window on the decision making of government, not simply to allow people who want to be critical of the government, while that is important, but to allow anyone who wants to understand how government works and the motivations behind policy and, quite frankly, being able to form policy, are allowed to have their voices heard by way of knowing what the decisions were of the government. There are changes in Bill C-2 but we need a heck of a lot more.

I want to talk about some of the things that we were able to provide and propose as a party. We did not oppose the idea of Bill C-2. In fact, in principle we supported it in committee and where we thought changes were needed we proposed alternatives. I already mentioned our proposal for the public appointments commission which was accepted as amended and put into the bill. One of the things I put forward was to ensure that all contracts of $10,000 or more be on the public record. We had to fight to get that in but it is in Bill C-2.

One concern Canadians had with the previous government in the sponsorship case was contracts without a paper trail. Often we did not know who was providing the service or what that service was. One of the amendments the NDP put forward in the area of procurement was to ensure that all contracts of $10,000 or more would now be on the public record. I would have preferred that it had been a lesser amount, but that is what we agreed to on compromise. Now any Canadian can find out who is providing a service to the government and who is getting the contracts. They will know if they are getting value for their money.

The NDP believes fundamentally in lowering the donation that people can make to $1,000. Sadly, in the amendments before us, the Senate has deemed it in its infinite unelected wisdom to change that to $2,000. I know this was something the Liberal Party preferred. I think most people would agree that $1,000 is fine and reasonable. We would like to see that amendment defeated. No constituent of mine has called me to ask me to ensure the donation limit is increased from $1,000 to $2,000. In fact, I would submit that any member of the House could go out and claim that was a good idea in a town hall meeting or in a householder.

The NDP also believes it is important to strengthen the whistleblowing protection in the act. Before I was elected to this place, I worked with many people in the community around whistleblowing. When Bill C-11 was before the House, it was not sufficient. I was delighted to see it was not proclaimed because it was not good legislation, as some might have suggested. In fact, people who had been negatively affected as whistleblowers were adamant. They said we needed to change those parts of the whistleblower protection act to ensure it reflected their concerns. That has been done and I hope we will not tinker with that.

Conflict of interest rules allowing Canadians to make complaints to the new conflict of interest and ethics commissioner is something we have provided by ensuring that positive propositions were added to Bill C-2.

The protection of first nations' rights within the act is something I personally moved through committee to ensure they were not sideswiped by something that was not about them. First nations were almost folded into the equation when they should not have been.

The NDP amended the bill to ensure we not only changed the appointments process, but in effect changed the whole notion of patronage. If there is one thing, as my colleague from Winnipeg has said, we should ensure that the public appointments process remains in the bill.

The way appointments were done in previous governments was via a telephone and a Rolodex and who was known in the PMO. Those days are gone, fineto, adios. Canadians have been clear that this kind of politics is not only admonished, but it is something that will not be accepted. I challenge anyone in this place to go out and debate the need to bring back patronage appointments in our democratic system and our democratic framework. Thankfully those days are gone.

We need to ensure we have a clear understanding of the bill. It is not about getting a pound of flesh. If it is about that, then I suggest members have missed the point. If the government or any of the opposition parties are trying to exact revenge with this bill, then they are clearly misguided. Canadians are tired of it. We do not need to deepen the cynicism of politics. In fact, what the opposition is trying to do is to ensure there are clear rules so we can build back the trust that has been lost with Canadians.

Recently I saw some appointments that caused me concern. The Conservative government has appointed someone to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada who goes against the consensus within the scientific community on climate change. It has appointed someone who will be responsible for providing a grant to researchers, a person who is out of step with the mainstream scientific body on climate change.

Again, we need to pass the bill to ensure we have merit based appointments so we no longer have people appointed to bodies, which are so important to the public good, who potentially undermine the public good.

If we look at the bill in total, all of us have concerns about it. We have stated those concerns in committee. We proposed alternatives to it so it would be something of which we could be proud. In the end, we wanted to go back to our constituents and say that we did everything we could to ensure we had clear rules that would bring back responsibility to government, that would bring back clear representation to our citizens, the constituents we represent. No longer could we say that the decisions being made in government were being made under a cloud of suspicion over whose interests were being served. Quite frankly, that was the equation.

We need to ensure the following: when people are lobbying the government, they are not doing it because of who they know; when people blow the whistle, they will not have their career ruined because they stood up for the public interest; when someone is appointed to the head of a Crown corporation, it is based strictly on merit alone; and when people decide they will contribute to government, it is based solely on the public good and not on their private interests. Those are the key issues we all have to look at when we look at Bill C-2.

Sadly, the amendments that have come back to this place from the other place do not do that. They are riddled with self-interest. They will undermine the public trust and ultimately, I believe, undermine the whole notion of the necessity for the other place. When we have the other place sending legislation back to this place, legislation that has been gutted of many well thought out sensible ideas for its self interest, it speaks for itself.

I could underline many of those amendments, but two in particular are worth underlining. First is changing the limit one can give from $1,000 to $2,000. This has been put forward by people who are not even elected, which raises all sorts of question marks. Many people in the other place spend much of their time raising money for political parties. Perhaps that is the reason. The other issue we have to examine is changes to lobbying. We need to strengthen our oversight on lobbying, not weaken it.

In the end, we have an unelected body, the other place, sending back to an elected body incredible amendments in terms of the number, but more important, in terms of the scope and what they will do to the bill. That raises the question of the value of the other place when it does such a thing.

When we talk about real accountability and when we see what has recently happened and how the bill has been played with and manipulated by the other place, we have to then suggest this. The next project, after the bill has passed, is to take a look at how we can reform, modify and change the other place to make it a lot more accountable and democratic so it will not meddle in the voice of everyday Canadians who elected us.

Finally, if the bill is destroyed and not passed, every one of us will have to answer as to what we did and why. My belief is Canadians wanted to see us pass a bill with clear rules and clear reform for them. The bill is not about us. It is about Canadians. We need to pass the bill and ensure the values that Canadians entrusted to us to promote are the bottom line, not the interests of people in the other place or anywhere else.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Peterborough asked about the amendments that were made by unelected senators, as he called them, but I think the evidence that this was a hastily drafted bill, poorly worded and requiring a lot of amendments, probably comes from the government itself.

I know the member for Charlottetown has spent considerable time studying this bill. When I go through the amendments, I have not counted them up yet, there seems to be certainly in excess of 40 amendments from the government itself. Could the member explain to me why that is the case? Is it poorly drafted? How many amendments are there and why did the government not do it at least half right in the first place? It was so anxious to try and make an issue of accountability, we know that, but without really dealing with accountability in a concrete way.

I might ask him, as well, is there anything in this bill to do about political patronage from the Government of Canada? We have seen some terrible appointments from the government and I wonder if this is addressed in any way by Bill C-2.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to be brief.

As I said, I do not think that this bill is perfect. However, I think that accountability is part of it and that we have to start somewhere if we want to make progress. As I said earlier, the Bloc Québécois will support Bill C-2.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I know it would be a big mistake for the government to pass this law.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with accountability. In fact, the definition of accountability is not even in the bill.

Does the member not think that Bill C-2 has nothing to do with accountability? Will her party say no to supporting the bill as it is going to cause gridlock in the public service?

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I answered the question.

The member is talking about destroying the Canadian Wheat Board. But wait a minute. The Canadian Wheat Board still exists and will continue to exist. The only thing we reject is simply that it is included in this bill. That is all. The members on the other side of the House should calm down.

We decided that the Canadian Wheat Board had no place in this bill, but it will continue to exist and operate, nonetheless. In addition, we have the UPA. We will vote based on what works for us.

If the Canadian Wheat Board is not working, we will not vote in favour of including it in Bill C-2, especially if Ottawa starts encroaching on jurisdictions that are very important to Quebec.

My job and that of other members of the Bloc Québécois is to defend the interests of Quebeckers. I repeat, the Canadian Wheat Board will never disappear. It will continue to exist, except it will not be included in Bill C-2. That is all there is to it.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in Quebec we have the UPA, which does extraordinary work in the agricultural markets. Our fear was that with this access to information, Quebec's toes would be stepped on yet again. Quebec is very well served by the UPA. In that regard, hon. members will simply have to accept our position. We have a different way of doing things in Quebec and we find this is an encroachment into our existing jurisdictions.

Nonetheless, as my colleague who loses his cool quite easily—I guess that is his nature—can see, we will never have unanimity here. There will always be someone complaining that something does not work in Bill C-2, that something—an article or a comma—should not be included in it. We did this work in committee and this was done in the Senate. Nonetheless, I believe that we can still discuss this and see whether there are still some things that can be settled. Through working on this bill we know it well and have assimilated it. We made some recommendations, as did the Liberal Party and the NDP. Even the Conservatives made recommendations because they themselves realized that some things did not make any sense in this bill. But we worked very quickly.

Members know my concern about passing this bill too quickly. There are still 158 Senate amendments. We are trying to pass it very quickly here in the House of Commons. In my opinion, we need to take the time to go over this thoroughly. Maybe the senators proposed other amendments because they met other witnesses who raised red flags like Mr. Walsh did for us. We have to take the time to consider this and make all the necessary improvements.

That being said, it is clear that the accountability act will never get the full support of the House. There will always be something someone does not like or some small problem. If it includes most of the Bloc Québécois' amendments, most of what we asked for, as it does now, we will vote in favour of the bill. However, we cannot ask for the moon. I think that everyone has found something in this bill that is worth supporting. I know that we will vote in favour. The NDP will probably vote in favour, but in the end, the important thing is to have a good law. We have never had a good accountability law, and it is high time we did.

Once again, we must proceed with wisdom and knowledge. We must ensure that it is well-written and that we do not end up with legislation that will cause chaos in the departments or clash with other bills. That is extremely important. So let us take our work seriously, as we have done from the beginning. Obviously, when things are different for Quebec, we will act accordingly. That is why we do not support this amendment.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a minute to remember my former colleague, Benoît Sauvageau. He worked on this bill with me, bringing much wisdom and many improvements to it. I would like us to take a moment to remember him because he devoted a lot of time and energy to this bill.

He and I worked together for an unprecedented number of hours during that time. I have never seen such a thing here in Parliament. In 13 years, I have never seen a legislative committee sit for so many hours over such a short period of time because the government insisted on passing this bill.

The reason it was so adamant is clear: it s well aware that the Liberal convention is looming and that this bill contains detrimental provisions—provisions that affect, among other things, the $1,500 convention registration fee. Jean-Pierre Kingsley made it clear that such fees are considered donations. The bill puts a $1,000 cap on donations. It was clear to us that this would apply to the Liberal Party convention and that this was why the government wanted to ram the bill through.

Nevertheless, the important thing for the Bloc Québécois is to improve it as much as possible because we need an accountability act. As my colleague from Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine said, we fought incredibly hard for the word “responsabilité”. We had to go to the Office québécois de la langue française. We had to make use of every tool at our disposal to make the government understand that the word “imputabilité” was clearly an anglicism, not a French word at all. Eventually we won. We made the government understand that the appropriate French term was “responsabilité”. Unfortunately, a lot of time was wasted just on that, even though there were other extremely important issues in the bill.

My hon. colleague referred to this earlier, and I think it is worth mentioning because it is true: many witnesses wanted to appear before our committee. Many had things to tell us, many wanted to improve the bill and noticed flaws in it, but did not get a chance to appear because they only had 24 hours notice. They did not appear because 24 hours was not enough time for them to draft a brief, in both official languages, to satisfy the requirements of our legislative committee. These people were left empty-handed, and we can imagine that, today still, they are extremely unhappy about not having been heard. While ours is supposedly the greatest democracy, these people did not get to be heard by the committee. It is extremely important to point this out again.

I have been told that the Senate heard more than 140 witnesses and that a number of amendments will have to be taken into account because they were made in a structured fashion and make some sense.

As we have been saying since the beginning, we have never filibustered at committee and we have no plans to do so here, but we have things to say about this bill.

The merit-based appointment of returning officers is a fantastic gain. It is well known that the process for appointing returning officers was a partisan one. I know this for a fact because it happened in my region. When the Liberals were in government, a good Liberal would be appointed, a guy in charge of overseeing our campaigns. Very often, in several ridings, this caused partisanship problems to such an extent that the system did not work. In addition, being a good Liberal and a decision having been made to make partisan appointments, efforts were made to thwart the candidates from the Bloc Québécois or other parties. But no more; from now on, returning officers will be selected based on their merits, not on their political allegiance, which is an excellent thing.

We were even consulted. They actually consulted members of Parliament, asking us if we were happy with our returning officers. This is a step in the right direction to ensure the legitimacy of the selection process for someone who is, after all, appointed for a ten-year term.

This is someone who is in office for a long time. He or she must be appointed on a non-partisan basis and in light of his or her ability to play that role for the next 10 years, especially since, with a minority government like the one we currently have, we have repeated elections. We had elections in 2004 and 2006, and we could have another one next year or even this year. These people become extremely important. They have non-partisan training and have to provide services for all the candidates in their riding.

There is also the whole issue of the political party financing legislation. The Bloc could not disagree with that, because we already comply with the legislation in Quebec.

Personally, I do not have many donors who give me $2,000 during the course of the year. I receive far more $5 and $10 donations than $2,000 donations during an election campaign or a fundraising campaign. There are people involved, party members, people who do not write cheques for thousands of dollars. There are no such people in my riding, and I would be very surprised to receive such an amount. In Quebec, we already comply with this requirement, and we will continue to do so.

I feel it is time to make major changes at the federal level, because the parties could receive donations of thousands of dollars from companies. This is not conducive to non-partisan work by members or ministers.

If someone gives me a $25,000 donation, I will feel indebted. But if I receive relatively equal amounts from my various constituents or party members, I feel much more at ease. I am indebted to everyone because I am elected, but I do not feel particularly indebted to someone who gave me $25,000 or $30,000.

There was also the whole issue of whistle-blower compensation, which was discussed at length. Several witnesses testified that it was not a good idea to pay a whistle-blower $1,000, $2,000 or $5,000. That could lead to informing, something that must not be encouraged.

In any event, public servants are duty-bound to report any wrongdoing, any mismanagement in the department where they work or anyone who is not doing his or her job properly.

It does not make sense to begin rewarding whistle-blowers. It should be part of the duties of a public servant who learns about an instance of wrongdoing, work not being done properly or mistreatment to report it. How that person learns about it is not important. That person should report it without a reward. In our opinion, it did not make sense to offer a reward. The government realized this, so this is a good point.

As I mentioned earlier, the Senate heard from 140 witnesses, calling certain witnesses back to clarify certain clauses of the bill.

Some clauses are good and others are not as good. I cannot list all of them here, but one in particular is very important and the Bloc Québécois condemns the fact that the government rejected this amendment because it was an important one. The Senate proposed increasing the ceiling on fees for legal counsel from $1,500 to $25,000, or removing the ceiling altogether, at the commissioner's discretion. I would like to explain why the Bloc supported that.

We saw in committee the number of hours legal counsel spent working, yet could not keep up. The maximum of legal counsel were hired, but they could not keep up despite crazy hours.

These people deserved additional remuneration. That was part of it. The government does not agree with this. I do not know how this is going to play out, but I thought it was a good measure.

The Senate also proposed removing the $10,000 limit on awards for pain and suffering. Depending on the situation, I think the Senate was right to propose this measure. We cannot put a limit on a sum of money for pain and suffering. Each case must be examined to determine how much the individual was affected and to then decide the amount of the award. But the government rejected this amendment.

I must explain what happened during the committee's hearings. This is very important. Things were going so fast that, at one point, all committee members, from all parties, received a notice from Mr. Walsh, telling us to stop. Mr. Walsh is not just anybody. He is a very important official in the House of Commons. He is the guardian of the rights of members of Parliament and senators, in other words our rights as parliamentarians. At one point, Mr. Walsh alerted us. He told us that this bill would restrict the rights of members of Parliament and senators, that we were mixing legislative and parliamentary issues. We wanted him to appear before the committee, but some Conservative members had a fit and asked who that person was. As we can see, there are people who do not really know how things work around here. Everyone knows who Mr. Walsh is.

We said that we absolutely wanted him to appear before the committee, because what he had to tell us was very important. We were playing with our rights as parliamentarians. We were mixing judicial and parliamentary responsibilities. The work that we do here, in Parliament or in the Senate, could have been challenged. That did not make any sense. So, he brought important amendments to the committee to protect our rights as parliamentarians and elected representatives. Most of these amendments were accepted.

This proves one thing: when we try to go over something too quickly, when we try to run faster than we can, this compels the primary guardian of our rights, here in the House of Commons, to react very strongly. Indeed, the way the bill was drafted did not make sense.

Obviously there were some extremely serious problems. We solved a few of them, but there are still some left. This is not a small bill. What I find reassuring is that we demanded, and the government accepted, that the bill be reviewed in five years. At first they wanted a review in 15 or 20 years. Imagine what it would be like to work with a piece of legislation that is not reviewed regularly because it was decided that the act would be implemented for an unlimited number of years.

We agreed to support the bill on accountability. We understood that the government wanted this to go quickly, but this legislation needed to be reviewed in the next five years. This is new legislation and it is extremely complex. When it is implemented it will need to be reviewed as soon as possible in order to correct any mistakes in it. I am certain that when it is implemented we will realize there are some aspects that cannot be put into effect. We will have to go back to the drawing board and do it over.

As far as access to information is concerned, the Conservatives refused to budge. The Access to Information Act was passed in 1983. Since then, despite a number of requests for its revision, it has stayed essentially the same. The Conservative government chose not to include reform of the Access to Information Act in its Bill C-2. We would have nonetheless appreciated the government agreeing to this. If we are going to have legislation on accountability, why not include the Access to Information Act? It is complementary and we could have had a truly complete piece of legislation.

However, this did not happen because we were told there was not enough time, we were told that 100 recommendations were needed to revise the act, we were told that the accountability bill had to be adopted before the year-end, we were given 100,000 reasons save one—the real reason why we were unable to confirm all of this.

There is still a lot of confusion in this bill. We will have to see how the senators' amendments that are accepted fit in with the bill as it stands. Our legislators will be able to tell us.

This is extremely important and it cannot be done in five minutes. I know that the Conservatives want this to move along very quickly. However, so long as the two bills—the one here in Parliament and the one in the Senate—are not similar, there will be no law and we will not be able to promulgate this law. We will play ping pong for who knows how long because we will send the bill back to the Senate, the Senate will again make its recommendations that will come back to the House, we will then make our recommendations that will go to the Senate, and so forth.

It is important that we find a way to not delay unduly the implementation of Bill C-2 and we will not be the ones to do so. We have said it from the very beginning. My colleague for Repentigny at the time and I were accused of filibustering and delaying adoption of the bill. That was not our intention. We wanted the bill to be a good one. For it to be good, such an important piece of legislation on accountability must be well written and properly implemented.

I will say it again. Mr. Walsh made some very important recommendations. If Mr. Walsh had not sounded the alarm, all of us in this House would have lost fundamental rights that we cherish, our rights as parliamentarians here in the House of Commons. Mr. Walsh finally got his message across to the other side of the House. Mr. Walsh is a non-partisan individual and he is there to protect the rights of all members. If Mr. Walsh had not been there, we can just imagine what might have happened to us.

This is a very significant, important and broad bill. In my opinion, some people also raised the alarm in the Senate, and we should look at this carefully. It goes without saying that we should not engage in filibustering for no reason, but we can definitely not pass this legislation at full throttle. We must be absolutely sure, and so must our researchers and the legislators. All those who worked on this bill find it complex. They know that once it is enacted, it will become the law. We must not create conflicts of interest with already existing laws, because this bill amends a large number of them. So, things must be clear and we must do serious work. This is what we have done in the past, and this is what we will do in the future. We will support this bill, while taking into consideration the points that I made.

If some people, some experts feel that major changes should be made to the bill, because it impacts on another act, or because it completely destroys it—and this could well be the case—these people should have the time to thoroughly examine this bill in order to propose the necessary changes to improve it, change it and amend it, so that in the end it will really work and we will have a true accountability act, a true piece of legislation that will compel us to be responsible as parliamentarians, ministers and elected representatives.

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

Mr. Speaker, it was quite interesting listening to the President of the Treasury Board talk about the number of hours the House of Commons legislative committee sat on Bill C-2 and the number of hours members of the Senate sat. Then he said he did not want to reproach them, but in effect he kind of did.

I have been a member of the House of Commons since June 1997. I have had the opportunity of sitting on at least one, if not more, legislative committees prior to this one. The experience I had under this legislative committee for Bill C-2 was literally horrendous.

I sat on a legislative committee that dealt with an amendment to the Constitution of Canada. The committee was allowed the time to fully hear witnesses. The committee was given the time to hear witnesses when they brought forth briefs. Sometimes those briefs literally contained hundreds of pages. They were very dense and dealt with very complex matters. We had the time to sit, to read and to study them and to go to committee prepared. It also allowed the parliamentary staff, our researchers and our clerks, to properly do their job. It meant that the quality of the work, which was done at the end of the day, made up for the time that was taken because the legislation was not flawed.

The legislative committee on Bill C-2 was literally forced by the majority held by the government, with the cooperation of the NDP. When votes were tied, the chair, who is a Conservative member, broke the tie and sided with the government. We were calling witnesses a maximum of 24 hours before the date of the committee hearing, asking them to provide a brief on a grave issue that required serious research and reflection. In some cases they were told they did not even have five minutes to explain their position. Witnesses were leaving the Bill C-2 legislative committee, some of them almost in tears, saying that they did not have an opportunity to express themselves and that they wanted to come back. Guess who refused it? It was the Conservatives members with the help of the NDP.

I gained no pride whatsoever from the work of that legislative committee of the House of Commons. We were denied the possibility of doing quality work. We were denied the possibility of ensuring that the legislation did in fact do what the Conservative minority government had promised, which was it would provide transparency, it would provide real protections for whistleblowers in the public service and it would ensure that Canadians could have access to information and that their personal information would be protected. That bill did none of this.

The Senate attempted to correct as much as it could. Even the Senate was limited. Certain rules and regulations did not allow the Senate to do everything. The Senate was not given the scope to do everything.

What is the government trying to do now? It is trying to reinstate virtually the identical bill that went out of the House and into the Senate, knowing full well it was a flawed bill.

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

I would like to underscore the work done by the hon. member for Rivière-du-Nord, who is also the Bloc’s deputy leader in the House of Commons, and her former colleague, the late Benoît Sauvageau, who was a friend, a professional colleague, and a man who made a real contribution to the work of this legislative committee.

Despite the genuine effort that the members of the Bloc Québécois and the Liberal Party put into Bill C-2, the Conservatives called it in French the Loi fédérale sur l'imputabilité. This is prime example, I think, of a government in such a hurry to prove that it is doing something that it has made an elementary mistake. In English it is possible to say the Federal Accountability Act, but anyone with the least knowledge of French should know that in this language it would be the Loi fédérale sur la responsabilité.

I should add that it was Mr. Sauvageau, the hon. member for Repentigny at the time, who moved an amendment to the bill to correct the French title. Although I thanked him at the time, I would like to thank him again posthumously.

This is an ideal example, I think, which shows, first, that the Conservative government has no understanding at all of accountability when it comes to being responsible, and second, that this government’s discourse is basically dishonest.

For example, the parliamentary secretary to the President of Treasury Board just delivered a speech in which he repeated ad nauseam that the Liberals want to get illegal donations and that by amending the Canada Elections Act, the Conservatives are ensuring that registration fees for political conventions will not be included in the definition of a contribution. He claimed as well that only the Liberals interpret the existing law in this way. So they are being dishonest in this regard.

People who are listening to the work of the House on television but cannot easily get the Canada Elections Act will think it really is illegal to claim registration fees for a party convention as a political donation for which a receipt should be issued for a possible tax credit.

What the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board failed to mention is that, since being appointed the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada over 10 years ago if I am not mistaken, Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley has interpreted section 404.1 of the Canada Elections Act to include registration fees for political conventions.

Consequently, the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board is trying to mislead Canadians by claiming that it was the Liberals who misinterpreted the law in an attempt to have taxpayers foot the bill, which is not true.

The Chief Electoral Officer interprets the statute. He decides whether or not the Liberal Party of Canada, the Bloc Québécois, the NDP, the former Progressive Conservative Party, the former Reform Party and the former Canadian Alliance acted appropriately and within the law with regard to reporting convention fees.

The parliamentary secretary is trying to distort the debate. The Conservative government knew that the Canada Elections Act requires a political party to disclose the registration fees for its conventions to the Chief Electoral Officer. Then why did it not do so and why did it hide these registration fees? Today we learned that these fees totalled $2 million. This party hid the $2 million from the Chief Electoral Officer and it is now under investigation. If he really wanted to speak honestly, the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board should have mentioned it in this House

When we, Liberals and Bloquistes, put questions on the interpretation of section 404.1 to the chief electoral officer and to political party officials, everyone unanimously agreed that the interpretation of the chief electoral officer was the correct one. Convention fees should be considered political contributions and, therefore, they should be declared by the party to the chief electoral officer. The government is omitting to mention this in the House in order to create a false impression in the minds of Canadians.

When the Senate, because of the dishonest behaviour of that party, makes the law very clear on this issue, what does the government do? It wants to reject the Senate's amendment, while claiming that the Senate has dragged its feet, has engaged in filibustering, etc. This same government does not want to tell Canadians that the quality work accomplished by the Senate has made the government realize that some fifty amendments were necessary to correct the legislation, otherwise its own bill would not make sense in a number of areas.

Here is a little reminder of the facts. The Senate heard over 140 witnesses during 98 hours of hearings. It came to the conclusion that the accountability bill was seriously flawed, and that amendments to this legislation were required to live up to the commitment made by the minority Conservative government. Of course, a number of amendments were made. Some are accepted by the government today, but others are not, which explains why the Conservatives are attempting to make their gimmickry retroactively legal. Hiding political donations of $2 million from the chief electoral officer is indeed engaging in gimmickry.

If this government were honest and thePresident of the Treasury Board were an honest man, he would admit it in this House.

The Speaker of the House has already ruled, saying that if the person were honest, he would do something. So it is parliamentary. I said it, if the President of the Treasury Board were an honest man, an honest person, he would say that it is not true that this government wants to shed light on the federal government’s work. It is not true. If it were true, certain amendments that the Bloc and the Liberals tried to make as part of the House legislative committee—for example, to the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act—would not have been blocked by the Conservative members, with the support of the NDP. Still the Senate was able to adopt them.

So I return to my subject. Concerning political financing, the Senate suggest setting the limit on political party donations at $2,000 a year. This decision was made because the government was not able to demonstrate that the current limits undermined electoral procedure at the federal or provincial level, where the limits, when there are any, are much higher than those proposed in Bill C-2.

Second, donations made to political parties play an important role in our democratic system. Limiting them too strictly might affect the participation of small parties in political life. Furthermore, limiting the amount of these donations too strictly reduces the resources which political parties must have to fulfil their legitimate role in debates in Canada, and this leaves more room for third parties that wish to influence the debates. This is interesting. The Prime Minister, who was formerly, I think, the CEO or president of some federation, of an NGO, appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada for third parties to be allowed to advertise and spend during a federal election campaign, claiming that the limits the former government had put in the Canada Elections Act on spending by third parties during an election campaign were unconstitutional.

It is interesting because this Prime Minister has still not disclosed who the donors to his own party leadership race were. He still has not disclosed who the donors were to the federation which he led before returning to politics. It is interesting for a Prime Minister and a party that pride themselves on wanting to ensure accountability and transparency. But they are hiding things.

With regard to access to information and privacy, the Senate and the senators are proposing to remove the Canadian Wheat Board from the coverage of the Access to Information Act so that the board can stand up to international competition better when representing Canadian farmers. Here again, the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board is claiming that the Liberals are supporting an amendment that will remove the Canadian Wheat Board from the coverage of this act because they have something to hide. He knows that this is completely untrue.

The Canadian Wheat Board represents Canadian farmers on the international stage against competitors from other countries. Obviously, these competitors would love to have commercial, scientific and other information that helps the Canadian Wheat Board represent Canadian farmers effectively.

Wanting to remove the board does not mean hiding something from Canadian farmers. It means protecting Canadian farmers who want the board to sell their products on the international market.

I would also like to address the issue of better protection for personal information on donors to the National Arts Centre. The members of the House of Commons legislative committee in charge of reviewing Bill C-2 had understood—at least the Bloc and Liberal members had understood—that some donors to the National Arts Centre wanted their identities to remain confidential. That is their choice.

Artists may also donate their time and talent or charge much less than the regular market rate. But they do not want potential clients to know that they donated their time or gave a concert for no charge or for half price for charitable reasons or because they want to promote a certain type of music or activity. They do not want this information made public. A potential client could say the artists billed only so much and that it will therefore pay them only a given amount.

The Senate brought into place many excellent amendments. It pains me to see the government continually talk about how the senators have attempted to block the legislation, that the senators do not want to see transparency, that the senators do not want to see accountability and that Liberals, the official opposition, also do not want to see it. Nothing is further from the truth.

Let us look at it. It was a Liberal government that adopted whistleblower protection legislation, Bill C-11. It was never brought into effect by the current government. There were witnesses who came before us who said they would like to see that legislation enacted immediately. I remember Mr. Sauvageau and the member for Rivière-du-Nord asked that the government proclaim it and bring it into force immediately while we had the opportunity to study and work properly on Bill C-2. The government refused.

We then attempted to bring amendments here. Here are some of the amendments the Liberal members tried to bring forward and the government, with the aid of the NDP, blocked: one, to provide a reverse onus so that any administrative or disciplinary measure taken within a year of a disclosure would be deemed to be a reprisal unless the employer showed otherwise; two, extend the time limit to file a reprisal complaint to one year instead of the 60 days that the Conservative government proposed and is now trying to bring back; and three, remove the $10,000 limit on awards for pain and suffering and increase the amount for legal advice from $1,500 to $25,000.

Those are reinforcements that we attempted to bring forward and the Conservatives and the NDP blocked them, yet they say they are for protecting public servants who divulge wrongdoing on the part of government.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise today to take part in this debate.

The hon. members of this House and our fellow citizens who have followed the work of the legislative committee of the House of Commons dealing with BillC-2 know well that I was on this committee together with other members of the Liberal caucus. I would also like to underscore the work done by the hon. member for—

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, many of us spent the 37th Parliament and the 38th Parliament trying to get the Liberal government to introduce some measure of whistleblower protection. I had a private member's bill and I think my colleagues did, even those within the Liberal Party, trying to get the government to move.

What we wound up with in Bill C-11 was the best we could achieve with an unwilling government of the day. It was a flawed bill from the start. I like the chapter on whistleblowing in Bill C-2 far better than I ever liked Bill C-11, so there was no point in trying to implement Bill C-11 while Bill C-2, we hoped, would have had royal assent by now.

I do not agree that we should have done both of them, because implementation would have been a nightmare. The best thing we can do to introduce meaningful whistleblower protection is pass Bill C-2 as quickly as possible.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the official position of the NDP is that the Senate should be abolished. I do not share that view. I have different views. I think the Senate can be salvaged and that we should have a bicameral system of government in Canada, but what the Senate has done with Bill C-2 makes it very difficult for me to say that the Senate has any merit or should be staying in any form. The Senate has overstepped its boundary. It has interfered with this bill in a way that is far beyond what senators are mandated to do.

Let me simply and by example say that even though there was great urgency to Bill C-2 and even though we wanted the bill to be passed in the first session of this Parliament, the Senate took the entire three month summer break. When the Senate came back for a week, it lost another full week of work because one of the senators had to be on a parliamentary junket to the Philippines. One senator was on a beach in the Philippines and we had another week's delay for Bill C-2. How can that be defended? It simply cannot.

As well, many of the amendments that the Senate has put forward simply put the Senate's nose into business where it has no place being. In regard to the public appointments commission, some of the amendments put forward by the Senate say that the Senate should have a role in the process of appointing those commissioners. That is simply problematic. It is unclear if it is a constitutional issue.

Much of what the Senate did was self-aggrandizing. Fully 43 of the Senate's 154 amendments dealt with this separate ethics commissioner, as to whether there should be one, two or three ethics commissioners. It was all about the senators. It was not about making the bill better. It was all about protecting their own backyard.

I think the Senate wasted an enormous amount of time. I do not apologize to anyone for saying it. I think it was political mischief so that the Senate could delay this bill until the Liberals have had their Liberal leadership campaign. Those Liberal leadership hopefuls should fall in line now, show some leadership and tell their rogue senators to stop mucking around with this bill and allow it to pass.

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

Mr. Speaker, earlier, our colleague spoke at length about the debate in the Senate on Bill C-2. He asked whether we knew that the same discussions were taking place, the same questions were being asked and sometimes the same witnesses were appearing before the legislative committee in charge of reviewing Bill C-2.

He went pretty far in criticizing the work of the Senate and even questioned the Senate's role. The Bloc Québécois has a position on the Senate. For a long time, the Bloc has been convinced that the Senate is not really useful, although it does make its presence felt. In light of the questions he asked and the points he raised, is he going so far as to question the relevance of the Senate?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the many details about Bill C-2 that we in the NDP found worthy of support was the idea that we can put an end to patronage with a public appointments commission, so that people would get these appointments and fill these many governor in council appointments based on their merit and qualifications, not on which political party membership card is held in a person's back pocket. I would argue that this is one of the key three irritants for the general public with regard to the way politics operates in Ottawa today: it is who people know that gets them to the top.

There are literally thousands of these appointments made every year, and they used to be done from a single desk and a single telephone in the PMO. People simply would work their Rolodex of party faithful. That is who would get these important jobs, critically important jobs such as those at the Immigration and Refugee Board, jobs that do require great specific skills in order to provide a service to the public.

The public appointments commission alone would be worthy of our support. If it were a stand-alone bill or the only thing we managed to achieve in passing this bill, that alone would be worthy of the support of members of the House of Commons. I am proud to be associated with and to have played a role in the introduction of this important reform of how we do things in Ottawa.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I do not know why they would undermine the Canadian Wheat Board, because supply management in Quebec is very important to the well-being of the agricultural sector in Quebec. In a similar way, the Canadian Wheat Board is very important to the good people in the prairie provinces where I live. I do not know why they would seek to undermine the Canadian Wheat Board in this way.

As far as a Senate ethics commissioner is concerned, again, I will not get into that debate. I do not care how many ethics commissioners those members want, as long as they do not hold up the important amendments dealing with Bill C-2.

We worked like crazy on this bill. It has been a pleasure to be part of something productive. If we get this bill through the Senate this time, it will be something that we can all look back on and be proud of, because we will have changed the way Ottawa does business. We will have changed the culture of secrecy and corruption that caused us all such consternation with the past government.

I understand why the Liberal Party hates the federal accountability act. It is all about the Liberals' last 10 to 12 years. Every page of it, I suppose, would be an insult if one were a member of the Liberal Party, because a lot of what it does changes the culture of secrecy that allowed corruption to flourish in previous years. It is the job of members to put a stop to it. We are going to do our best to see the speedy passage of Bill C-2, even if it means compromising on some of the minor details.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to enter into the debate at this stage of Bill C-2.

Let me start by laying the foundation of the remarks that I hope to make. I firmly believe that if we did nothing else in this 39th Parliament other than to pass the federal accountability act and give meaning and substance to the clichés of transparency and accountability, we would at least be able to say that we spent our time well and we would have something to show the Canadian people.

I start my remarks with that note because I can say without any fear of contradiction that the federal accountability act is in a very fragile state as we speak. We run the risk, and I believe due to political mischief, of losing the federal accountability act, this great project that we undertook many months ago. At that time we cautioned that if we did not move swiftly, with a collective will and with some cooperation, a project of this magnitude is fraught with pitfalls and could easily collapse under its own weight or fall vulnerable to political influence and political mischief that have nothing to do with making the nation-state of Canada more transparent or the system accountable.

The debate will become very complex as we debate 154 amendments from the Senate. A comprehensive amendment from the Liberal Party has just been moved, as has a comprehensive subamendment from the Bloc Québécois. Let us bring this back to basics.

What we started back in April with Bill C-2, the federal accountability act, would have given us for the first time ever comprehensive whistleblower protection. That alone I would have voted for in Bill C-2, just to be able to have done that one thing in this 39th Parliament.

The public appointments commission, the PAC, alone would put an end to patronage. Imagine, on behalf of the people of Canada, putting an end to pork-barrel patronage in the 39th Parliament. We could tell our grandchildren that we did something in this Parliament if we could deliver on that one chapter of Bill C-2 alone. It would be spectacular. It would be sensational. Those things are at risk as we speak.

The parliamentary budget officer, the director of public prosecutions, all of these worthy initiatives that are not very controversial and have broad support from all the political parties, are now vulnerable. They could crash and burn as we bicker and toss back and forth between the Senate chamber and the House of Commons amendments on the most minuscule, trivial, virtually meaningless things.

Let us strip it down to basics. The one thing that is holding up the bill right now is whether or not a single ethics commissioner would administer the two codes of conflict of interest for this chamber and the Senate or if there would be multiple ethics commissioners. We are debating how many ethics commissioners can dance on the head of a pin. That is really what the whole thing boils down to. All of these wonderful initiatives will fall by the wayside if we cannot agree to something that silly.

To hear the senators tell it, it would be a constitutional crisis if there were two ethics commissioners. Constitutional crisis is a phrase that is tossed around in modern day Canada, saying constitutional crisis is the last refuge of a scoundrel in Canadian terms. It is a smokescreen to stall and delay the important reforms that Canadians expect, Canadians demand and which Canadians sent us here to put into place.

People tuning in or trying to weave their way through this quagmire that is the federal accountability act and all the amendments, subamendments and compounding amendments, should just remember that we are trying to implement whistleblower protection. We are trying to implement a public appointments commission so we cannot make political patronage appointments to unqualified nephews, et cetera. We are trying to put in a parliamentary budget officer, and we are hung up on things like how many ethics commissioners shall administer our codes of conduct. It is so petty that a lot of people would not believe that we could be tripped up so readily, to have such a noble pursuit held up, intercepted and sabotaged by such trivial arguments.

I am very proud of the role that the New Democratic Party has played in trying to make sure that at least the key elements of this bill are salvaged and come to possible fruition.

I should pay tribute to the contribution of my former colleague, the former leader of the New Democratic Party and member for Ottawa Centre, Mr. Ed Broadbent. In the 38th Parliament it was Ed Broadbent, in coming back to the House of Commons after many years of doing other work, who recognized there were enormous gaps and lapses in the ethical standards and conduct of the Parliament that he left those many years ago. He put in place a seven point ethics package. A great deal of the elements from Ed Broadbent's recommended package of reform for this House of Commons found its way into Bill C-2.

It was a natural match. For those who may think it is strange bedfellows to see the NDP in support of an ethics package put forward by the Conservative government, we did not find it to be contradictory at all. Nobody has a monopoly on ethical standards. We were pleased to see some of the things that were suggested and recommended by Ed Broadbent in Bill C-2, so we could say that we would support it.

I honestly think sometimes that we in the NDP over here in this corner are wearing blue helmets, like peacekeepers, in this initiative. We are the honest brokers in this. There is politics being played over there. There is politics being played over there, and yes, there is politics being played by the federal government in trying to achieve secondary objectives with Bill C-2. We in fact have a sincere and genuine interest in trying to fix the things that are broken so that we can be proud when we go home and tell our people what we did for them when they sent us to Ottawa.

Let us be clear. The power to kill Bill C-2 rests totally with the backrooms of the Liberal Party as we speak. It is the Liberal Senate that has been holding this bill up unreasonably. I heard comments from my colleagues. Maybe they did not notice but the Senate had this bill for months and months. It heard the same witnesses that we heard, asked the same questions that we asked, endless and needless hours of study that we believe was designed to stall this bill until the Liberal convention was finished. They were hung up on how the election financing changes would impact the Liberal leadership convention. They pretty much served notice that they were going to sabotage and undermine the bill when it was introduced in April, at least until it got past that hurdle.

I am asking them now to stop their delay and stalling tactics. They got away with it. They managed to delay implementation of the bill until their convention is over. The implementation date is January 1, 2007. They should stand down on that issue because the undemocratic and unelected Senate did not just amend the federal accountability act, it took it hostage. Today we are debating the outrageous ransom demands that still threaten to kill Bill C-2 unless we give in. Well, we have given in on a great deal, incidental issues that simply do not weigh enough to justify blocking the passage of the whole bill.

Now we are saying that it was the rudderless Liberal Party that allowed those rogue senators to run amok, as it were. It would be interesting if some of the Liberal leadership hopefuls would show some leadership and maybe intervene at this point and rein in their rogue senators, those senators who have blocked this bill and still threaten to kill it.

Let us not kid ourselves. If we send this bill back to the Senate again and the senators still do not like it--let us say it still calls for separate ethics commissioners--they have the ability to debate it endlessly, send it back to committee, make more amendments and send it back to the House of Commons, until we reach an absolute impasse, a logjam. If we delay it much further, we can all acknowledge we will be at the polls sooner rather than later. This entire project could collapse and I do not know how it would ever get rebuilt.

It is really only in minority parliaments that we can do these kinds of comprehensive amendments. I do not like our chances of getting a sequel, bill C-2 the second, through in a majority parliament, whether it be a Liberal majority or a Conservative majority. Maybe if it was an NDP majority government this initiative would survive. We would be proud to make it our first bill in an NDP government.

In much of what the Senate did, and my colleagues in the Bloc should be very sensitive to this, the Senate exceeded its place in the Constitution. It is supposed to be a chamber of sober second thought. It is supposed to watch for constitutional or legal errors that may have been made by this chamber. It is never supposed to interfere with a piece of legislation from the elected chamber to the point where it would be a serious policy shift. It is not supposed to undermine the government's initiatives or the initiatives of the elected chamber.

Many of the amendments that the other place put through did all of these things. Many of the amendments that it put through are spurious, mischievous, raise constitutional problems and some of them are simply in error. I will point out some of those should time permit.

I know that I am speaking broadly and in general terms. I will narrow my remarks to the amendment moved by the Liberal Party. I can support half of what the Liberals put forward as an amendment to the motion put forward by the government and I will have to reject the other two. Let me speak specifically.

Part A of the Liberal amendment speaks to the Senate ethics commissioner. It brings back the notion that there should be separate ethics commissioners, one for the Senate and one for the House of Commons. I do not care. It is not that important to me. I am not going to jeopardize the success of this whole project arguing how many ethics commissioners can dance on the head of a pin. I do not care if we have 10. I will recommend that the NDP vote in favour of this amendment that the senators have their own separate Senate ethics commissioner. I do not buy their line that it is a constitutional crisis, but I do firmly believe that if they are going to get stubborn and ruin this whole project, the senators can have a separate ethics commissioner.

Part B argues that the Wheat Board should not be subject to the Access to Information Act. I also will vote in favour of this. I support this, notwithstanding what went on at the committee meeting on C-2. Since that time the government has launched a full-blown attack on the Canadian Wheat Board. An absolutely mad crusade has begun to undermine the important work of the Canadian Wheat Board and I will not be a party to it.

I will officially state that I will not support anything that will undermine that great prairie institution the Canadian Wheat Board. I will proudly stand in my place and vote in favour of the Wheat Board. I will not participate in this lynch mob mentality, tactics that Mussolini would be proud of, in trying to undermine the Canadian Wheat Board, denying its members even the right to vote. Their statutory guaranteed right to vote on their own future is being denied to them by the Conservative government. I will not be a part of it. I will not be a party to it. I will support the Liberals' amendment regarding whether or not the Canadian Wheat Board should be included under the ATI provisions of the act.

Part C deals with internal audits and papers. It says that the Liberal Party believes that internal draft documents should be subject to access to information as well. I would only ask that my Liberal Party colleagues look at what the Auditor General had to say about that. She does not believe this is a good idea. She specifically spoke to this at committee not only once, but twice. She feels it would be a serious error if all of the working documents and draft notes dealing with an audit were subject to access to information requests because much of her work relies on the free communication of background information. People would bury that information and would simply not have it available if they were worried that it would become public. This is a bad idea. I wish my colleagues of the Liberal Party would reconsider this. We will vote against this one which amends Senate amendment 118.

Also, on Senate amendment 119, the Liberal Party would have us introduce the concept of a public interest override within the context of the Access to Information Act. The NDP will not support this either. There is good background for that. NDP members are not being stubborn.

We believe that if the public interest override were introduced to the bill as contemplated by Senate amendment 119, it would put the public interest override in the hands of the head of the institution and not in the hands of the Information Commissioner. It actually would weaken the Access to Information Act and the discretionary authority of the Information Commissioner. Again, I do not think the Liberals thought this through, but I wish they would reconsider. The NDP cannot support this at all.

The last element of the amendments put forward by the Liberal Party deals with convention fees. This has been the second source of mischief that has delayed and stalled this bill, the first being the dual ethics commissioner and the second being the whole sensitive subject of convention fees, election financing limits, et cetera.

NDP members read the current Elections Act the way we always have. We have no conflict. We have no misunderstanding. We do not believe it should be changed or altered in any way. We believe the election financing limit should be $1,000 per year and that convention fees should be viewed as political donations and should be treated that way, just like we have always treated them.

I know that the other parties are having problems, partly due to their own greed. When a party charges $995 for a convention fee and the donation limit per year is $1,000, that party is going to run into trouble. NDP convention fees are $135, with an early bird fee of $95. We in the NDP do not have that problem, so I would advise the parties that are having difficulty fitting in underneath the new election campaign donation limits to look inward, to have a look at themselves in the mirror. That may be where they find the problem, not within the Elections Act.

As far as the subamendments that have been put forward by my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois are concerned, I know that Bloc members are not big fans of the accountability act. It is no secret that the Bloc Québécois will do better in the next federal election if the federal government is still corrupt. Those members do not really want the federal government to be cleaned up, because they have to be able to point to a corrupt federal government to justify voting for the Bloc Québécois. We in the NDP do not buy into that and will not support that. So the Senate ethics--

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

Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciated the comments of my colleague from the Bloc Québécois concerning Bill C-2 as amended by the Senate.

We know that the government wants to restore several sections and retain the wording of the bill as it was when it left the House to proceed to the Senate.

I also know that your former colleague from Repentigny, Benoît Sauvageau, and your deputy House leader, whose constituency name I cannot remember, and I worked almost as a team on several sections of Bill C-2. At the House legislative committee, we tried to make some amendments but because of the alliance between the NDP and the Conservatives we were not successful.

I would like to know today whether the member is still of the same view concerning certain amendments that we tried without success to include but which the Senate has proposed.

For example, I point to sections 115 and 116, where we tried to add the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Technology as a body that could refuse to disclose its scientific, technical and trade secrets. At the legislative committee, we tried unsuccessfully to provide that protection to the foundation. The Senate has included an amendment to that effect. Does the Bloc Québécois still believe that this foundation should have that protection?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague from Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert for her question.

After having gone through the same delay at the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, we unfortunately had a double debate. The government was in a hurry to have Bill C-2 studied by another committee so that it could be passed while at the same time talking about transparency and accountability. The Access to Information Act is extremely important in this great debate.

The Access to Information Act helps the general public and the media access information. Information of this kind was missing, by the way, at the time of sponsorship scandal.

If people had had enough information, there might never have been a scandal. However, the Access to Information Act goes back at least 23 years and has never been thoroughly overhauled. There have been problems, therefore, and to some extent, deficiencies in the act are to blame. The general public feels that it did not have the means to protect itself.

We really wonder why the government did not wait for all the information to come in. The President of Treasury Board told us that they must consult further before proceeding. I think there was plenty of time previously for consultations on everything in Bill C-2. It is really a shame.

Among other things, there was an amendment of—

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to put a few questions to the hon. member regarding the Access to Information Act. My colleague wanted to bring up this issue but, unfortunately, he ran out of time.

As we know, the Access to Information Act was first passed in 1983. Despite numerous calls to consolidate it, to update it, not much has happened. The Conservative government even decided not to include a reform of the Access to Information Act in its Bill C-2.

Last spring, when the legislative committee reviewing Bill C-2 was stepping on the gas pedal and trying to establish a Guinness record for passing this legislation in record time, the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics was doing just the opposite: it was conducting its review of the Access to Information Act with both feet on the brake pedal.

Despite all the work done over a period of 20 years, the various governments in office have always put their foot on the brake pedal when it came to modernizing the Access to Information Act, and it is going to be interesting to understand why. Now, the Conservatives are refusing to include such a reform in Bill C-2.

Just recently, the Minister of Justice went so far as to tell members of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics that they could fix the Access to Information Act, despite all the documents prepared and all the studies made, including those by the Information Commissioner.

I have a question for the hon. member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain. We asked the Minister of Justice, among other things, to table in committee, by December 15, an access to information act. I wonder if my colleague could tell us about the benefits of potentially including the Access to Information Act in Bill C-2.

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

Mr. Speaker, I was saying earlier that one of the significant flaws of Bill C-2 pertains to access to information. I was saying that several elements are far from perfect, particularly with regard to access to information. The legislation was adopted in 1983 and has remained virtually unchanged since then. The government chose not to include reforms in this regard in Bill C-2. Thus, the government is being rather inconsistent by pushing for adoption of this legislation, as just mentioned by my colleague for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, while at the same time stating that additional consultations are needed to reform the Access to Information Act. The government should have completed its consultations before introducing this legislation. It was the President of Treasury Board who said so.

In consideration of all these factors, I would like to propose, seconded by my colleague for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, the following subamendment to the amendment just tabled, that reads as follows:

That the amendment be amended by deleting paragraphs “A” and “B”.

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

Mr. Speaker, today marks the return of Bill C-2 to the House of Commons, after adjustments by the Senate.

To begin, I would say that the Bloc Québécois will support Bill C-2. While the bill is not perfect, it introduces measures that will increase government accountability and transparency. This bill lays the foundation for introducing a culture of openness as opposed to a culture of secrecy, which we have seen before; a culture of accountability as opposed to a style of management with no regard for the values of the public good. From that point of view, the Bloc Québécois is very happy that this bill paves the way for solutions.

We support Bill C-2, especially because it introduces, in the form of a law, a code of ethics for ministers. In addition, the bill puts an end to the favouritism that enables political staff in ministers’ offices to enter the public service ahead of qualified public servants—which we have unfortunately seen in the past.

Bill C-2 also reinforces the powers of the Auditor General and the Ethics Commissioner, as well as placing more restrictions on lobbyists, which is not inconsequential. This bill significantly reduces the influence of money in election campaigns, nomination meetings and leadership campaigns. In addition, Bill C-2 establishes the position of Director of Public Prosecutions, thereby reinforcing the independence of the judiciary. Above all, Bill C-2 is a response—albeit partial—to many of the problems raised by the sponsorship scandal.

The Bloc Québécois especially supports this bill because many of its traditional demands have been incorporated into Bill C-2, in particular, the appointment of returning officers by Elections Canada on the basis of merit.

The bill establishes a Commissioner of Lobbying, who will no longer be a public servant but rather an officer of Parliament. Thanks to Bill C-2, the law dealing with financing of political parties will more closely resemble the Quebec legislation. As a result, corporate donations will be forbidden and individual contributions will be limited to a much more reasonable level.

We will be seeing the powers of the Auditor General strengthened, as I said earlier: she will now be able to follow the money to its end recipients. As well, unlike what was in the initial bill brought forward by the government, rewards for whistleblowers have been eliminated. We argued—and we still argue—that a measure like that would have resulted in an unhealthy culture of informing being created in the public service.

The Bloc had also asked for something else: that the Ethics Commissioner, rather than a minister, have the power to exempt political staff from the act, particularly in the case of students, junior employees or part-time workers.

We are also very pleased that a requirement has been incorporated in Bill C-2 for the Conflict of Interest Act to be reviewed in five years. At that time, members of Parliament will have an opportunity to consider the effects of the act. In our opinion, that exercise will tell us that the Conflict of Interest Act has no teeth and no power.

There is also, and most importantly, the request made by my former colleague from Repentigny: that the word “imputabilité” be replaced by the word “responsabilité”, so that the title of the act is now written in correct French.

The Bloc Québécois supports the government’s motion concerning the amendments proposed by the Senate. It supports the government’s adoption of a number of Senate amendments that promote ethics and transparency, and in particular the improvement of access by the Parliamentary Budget Officer to government financial and economic information, by replacing “access at all convenient times” with “access”.

As well, it strengthens the Access to Information Act by allowing the National Arts Centre Corporation to protect the identity of patrons who insist on anonymity.

We will also have more transparency in relation to exemptions granted to the Ethics Commissioner, who must now publish the exemptions he grants. That is amendment 16.

Amendment 95 is in response to a criticism by the President of the Public Service Commission, who was afraid that clause 106 of Bill C-2 would allow ministers to appoint special and political advisers to the public service.

The Bloc Québécois also supports the government’s rejection of a number of Senate amendments that do not promote ethics and transparency.

Some senators would like to keep their own Senate adviser and a puppet adviser under the authority of Senate committees. A number of Senate amendments would have operated to reduce the time the Ethics Commissioner and the Commissioner of Elections have to prosecute offenders. That is amendment 89.

A Senate amendment introduced a grandfather clause that would allow political staff to continue to join the ranks of the public service for another year, with priority over other applicants, and this is contrary to a measure like the one we have just supported. Some amendments proposed by the Senate operated to exclude certain public bodies from the Access to Information Act. Here again, we will have to speak to those amendments.

As I said earlier, this is not a perfect act and we regret that the government is rejecting several Senate amendments that were valid in the eyes of the Bloc Québécois. By amending Senate amendment 67, in our opinion, the government is trying to exempt certain political contributions from the scope of the political party financing legislation. The government is rejecting several Senate amendments designed to provide better whistleblower protection. The Senate suggested broadening the definition of “reprisals” in order to include “any other measure that may directly or indirectly harm a public servant”, which to our mind was much better. The Senate suggested increasing the time limit for filing a reprisal complaint from 60 days to one year. The Senate also suggested eliminating the $10,000 ceiling on awards for pain and suffering. The Senate suggested increasing the maximum for legal advice reimbursements from $1,500 to $25,000, or not setting any ceiling, at the commissioner’s discretion.

Amendment 119, which adds an interpretation clause, would authorize the communication, for reasons of public interest, of any banned document. This would be a very significant improvement to the Access to Information Act, in particular.

Then there is amendment 85, designed to solve the problem of consultants who are retained by certain departments to provide them with assistance in developing policies and who then lobby the same public servants on behalf of private clients. There is an ethical issue here.

Amendment 90 gave more clout to the lobbying commissioner. Under this amendment, the commissioner can prohibit lobbyists from lobbying for two years if they do not comply with the law. If a lobbyist failed to comply with the lobbying prohibition, he would be subject to a $50,000 fine. So this would have been a good amendment, one that would have consolidated the ethics commissioner’s power.

The Bloc Québécois condemns the idea of postponing the comprehensive reform of access to information; this very important aspect is missing from Bill C-2. We have already mentioned this and we maintain our position.

The Bloc Québécois also condemns the fact that the government is trying to exclude from the political financing legislation the contributions made by supporters during conventions. It also condemns the fact that the Conservative Party did not keep its campaign promise to subject all crown corporations and foundations to the Access to Information Act. This is no longer in the bill. It is also disgraceful that the government refused to increase penalties for people who violate the ethics legislation. Another negative aspect is the fact that the new parliamentary budget officer is attached to the Library of Parliament.

As we all know, Bill C-2 stems from the problems associated with the sponsorship scandal. The Bloc Québécois made a number of recommendations to Commissioner Gomery in order to improve the current state of accountability. The Bloc Québécois 2005-06 election platform included various recommendations along the same lines. We are very pleased that several measures regarding accountability are now an integral part of Bill C-2.

We succeeded, for example, in making the legislation concerning the financing of political parties very similar to legislation that has existed in Quebec for several years. We also achieved some strengthening of the Lobbyists Registration Act.

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

Mr. Speaker, in essence, the Senate did some very good work.

It is important to underline that the bill originally presented as Bill C-2 to the Commons committee is not the same bill before us today. There were a number of carvings away of overreach, of unconstitutionality, of a hasty and inappropriate drafting of a Conservative agenda gone wild. There will probably be a video series out soon called “Conservatives Gone Wild”. Clearly, the work of both committees was very important to the process.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague from Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, and I look forward to hearing from my other Bloc Québécois colleagues. As the member just said, the Bloc and Liberal members of the House legislative committee that studied Bill C-2 worked in concert. I think that we did good work, considering the limits the NDP and the Conservatives put on us. The Senate committee compensated for those limits.

My question for my colleague from Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe is this: The President of the Treasury Board claims that the Senate tried to slow down the whole Bill C-2 evaluation and study process and that it tried to interfere with the government's good intentions. Does he think that the President of the Treasury Board's assessment of the Senate's work—

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

Mr. Speaker, under the circumstances, the committee's work was effective. Once again, I would like to emphasize how hard Bloc members worked on this committee, especially the member for Repentigny, who has since passed away.

We did not have much time. I would like to mention two extremely important things that happened during the committee proceedings. First, during the testimony of Mr. Donison of the Conservative Party, we learned that the Conservative Party had forgotten to declare the registration fees for the convention it held in April 2005, if I remember correctly. Second, during the Senate committee hearings, the President of the Treasury Board said that these fees amounted to over $1.7 million.

These two examples show that the work of both committees on Bill C-2 was effective and important, despite the fact that both committee members and witnesses were rushed through the process. I suppose that if we had had time for more thorough discussions during the hearings, we would have come up with much better results than we did. That is entirely possible.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from the Liberal Party for this immensely interesting presentation. He has provided a thorough assessment of the situation.

I would like to come back to something he said about the haste with which the committee worked on Bill C-2 and, later, the comprehensive work of the Senate. Let us recall that, indeed, our work at committee was performed at breakneck speed. We had far too many hours of sitting each day when the committee heard witnesses. Witnesses showed up very well prepared, with submissions 30 or so pages long. Because we had heard three testimonies before and had four more scheduled that day, we did not have any time to read these submissions or even take a glance at them. We had to make do with the two minutes witnesses were allotted for their presentations and the minute we had left for putting questions to them.

As the minister indicated earlier, the committee was very proud of how quick it had been, 92 hours and seven weeks. He was pleased to see all this work be done only nine weeks after the federal election. It did not produce good work. We complained at the time about having to work too fast and not having enough time to consider, analyse and read documents. It made no sense. It is true, however, that another group took over, which took the time to study the bill and, what is most important, which took the time to reflect between reading submissions and hearing witnesses.

I have a question for the member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe. Does he believe that this really helped and made the bill better?

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member wants us to put a price tag on right and wrong, and a price tag on ethics. I do not think that is the way it works. In fact, that is not what we heard by way of blathering hyperbole from the hon. member during the hearings on Bill C-2.

However, let me remind the member that there is a law called the Canada Elections Act. There is a section in that act, if the member wishes to write it down for future reference he might be more suited to speak on the subject next time with more information, and that section is 404.(1) of the Canada Elections Act. That is the section that declares or sets out what a financial contribution for which tax receipts would be issued. We have Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley saying that the convention fees are political donations and they must be declared as such under section 404.(1).

We have, at least the way I see it, and it does not matter the way I see it I suppose but the way more importantly Jean-Pierre Kingsley sees it, a violation of the Canada Elections Act. What this amendment brought on by the Conservatives attempts to do is to codify their illegality, to slip it through under the white knight of accountability in general, when it is in fact an anathema to the whole principle of accountability and the fact that all laws should grace legal actions, they should not condone illegal actions. It is a fundamental principle that laws cannot condone illegal activity.

So, my friend asks the question the wrong way. His answer, however, is simply this: section 404.(1) exists, the Conservative Party broke that law, and now it is attempting to cover that up.

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

Mr. Speaker, I did not know that. It gives me a sense of false power, perhaps, but I will keep to the time my whip has given me and remind myself of when I need to wrap up.

I was a member of the Bill C-2 legislative committee.

First, I would like to thank the committee's Liberal members, namely our leader on the committee, the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra, and the hon. members for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine and York West. They worked very hard together, along with the leaders of the other parties, including the members for Nepean—Carleton and Winnipeg South.

I would like to add a special word in memory of the hon. member for Repentigny, who died recently.

We worked together when we could and voiced our opinions with much passion. In many cases, I recall the member for Nepean—Carleton, with exceeding passion in language, which we all remember well.

According to the hon. President of the Treasury Board, this was a project to end the role of big money in politics. How farcical. A year ago, the Conservative Party was campaigning under the slogan, “Stand up for Canada”. Today, 10 months later, its true slogan appears to be, “stand up for Conservative friends only”.

Once again, this Conservative minority government—and I emphasize the word “minority”—is trying to use the House of Commons for partisan purposes. Once again, Conservative partisanship has prevailed over the common good and the interests of all Canadians.

Today we clearly see why the minority government wanted to rush the bill through the House, the committee, then on to the Senate and through its committee. The Conservatives thought no one would see how partisan and biased it actually is in certain respects. The more time we spend on the bill, the more flaws and loopholes we find. That is why there was such a dépêche, quite a rush to get the bill out from the spotlight and the microscope of the committees, which did good work, and to the final passage of the bill in the House.

I see it, therefore, as quite ironic in that the Conservatives' campaigned on the promise of cleaning up government and to play by the rules and how today they are trying to tweak the law to sneak in some self-serving loopholes on political donations.

All this after an Elections Canada investigation targeted the Conservative Party, following a statement by the President of the Treasury Board to the effect that his party had forgotten to declare costs of some $2 million relating to its March 2005 convention.

In the process of the hearings, the President of the Treasury Board admitted, particularly in the case at the Senate level, that the Conservatives forgot to declare convention fees as political donations for their convention of March 2005. They had an opinion, which was almost, in this post-football weekend, an audible from the line, the quarterback at the Bill C-2 legislative committee, a representative of the Conservative Party at that point, merely suggested that the Conservatives did not think that convention fees were donations. That has since been ruled completely out of order and improper by Elections Canada officials and by every party in the House except the Conservatives.

Now we will see, as the theme of the response to the speech by the President of the Treasury Board, that it was really all about cover-up and legitimizing something that is quite possibly illegal. Almost $2 million is no small change. The Conservative minority talks about tightening Canadian laws and yet it cannot even follow the existing laws when it comes to political donations.

As I say, I am not the only one saying this. The people of Canada should know that the Chief Electoral Officer, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, repudiated the Conservatives' excuses and ruled that the party violated the rules.

Other complaints have been made against the Conservative Party. The Conservatives are attempting to fix their illegalities with certain portions of this law. Today, with Bill C-2, the minority government is trying to cover up its past mistakes and clean up its mess. The very fact that it is trying to change the rules, in extremis, at the last possible minute, clearly is an admission of guilt.

In addition to the convention attendance fees, les frais d'inscription pour les congrès de partis politiques, the fees paid by every party member attending a convention, in addition to the colouring of those as non-political donations, erroneously and quite possibly illegally, the Conservative Party had the temerity and gall in practice to allow corporate observers.

By way of footnote, we must remember that Bill C-24, the very fine Liberal bill brought in under the Chrétien government, made it law that corporate and union donations would not be acceptable. However, the Conservative Party has charged to this date $1,000 for corporate observer fees which were not reported as political donations.

After 70 meetings of the Bill C-2 legislative committee and following the Senate committee, I now understand what the President of the Treasury Board meant when he said that he wanted to take the big money out of politics. He meant all the big contributions that were made off the radar screen, not under the Canada Elections Act, not reportable and elicited by a Senate hearing in the spring of the year by the committee of which the President of the Treasury Board was a member.

These amounts, totalling probably more than $2 million, were corporate donations that the President of the Treasury Board and the Conservative Party wanted out of politics. They did not want them reported. Unfortunately, hijacking the House agenda to pass partisan legislation is becoming a full time hobby for the minority Conservative government.

Time and again the President of the Treasury Board stated that he wanted to reduce the influence of big money and make the political process more open.

He said it again on May 4, when he testified before the committee that was reviewing Bill C-2. Even his boss, thePrime Minister, said he wanted t o “put an end to the influence of money” in the Canadian government.

We have it at both levels. We have the President of the Treasury Board, who is sometimes given to bombast, and we can understand his enthusiasm, but on the other side we have the cold eye of the Prime Minister on this very subject saying that he wants to finish the role of big money in politics. Now we see what they meant, which is that the corporate observer status fees and the registration fees for conventions as being out of politics and not reportable. However, we did not see it at the time.

Unfortunately, this government is unable to move from talk to action. On the one hand, it boasts about being a champion for transparency, but on the other hand it finds it normal not to have declared costs of close to $2 million relating to its March 2005 convention. Today, the Conservatives want to use Bill C-2 to correct their own mistakes of the past.

Accountability, however, is not a bendable concept that can be adjusted to fit partisan objectives and past illegalities. Contrary to what the Conservatives may think, the Liberals believe accountability should apply to all parties all the time, not only when it is convenient to do so or in their case, when they get caught.

A review of Bill C-2 is necessary because there is more than just the passing illegality and cover up, Watergate-like as it is, by the government with respect to political donations.

There were some accomplishments at the legislative committee with respect to making deputy ministers more accountable to Parliament. This is a good thing, with a tighter lobbyist regime. At first the Conservatives did not want people who were past workers for them in opposition to be able to ratchet up the ladder of influence when the government changed, but there was much debate on that.

There was some discussion of the access to information program and Access to Information Act pertaining to some of the agencies, boards and commissions which it can be argued is good and bad depending on the commission, agency and board. Time does not permit, unlimited as it is, for me to get into all of the agencies, boards and commissions involved.

It bears saying there were also some Liberal accomplishments. The Liberal members, at committee, following on the advice of the legal counsel to this Parliament protected an 1868 constitutional privilege which in their haste the Conservatives tried to roughshod through the House. The Liberal opposition members removed the aspect of the secret ballot and most importantly, despite the words of the minority government, saved aboriginal first nations communities from the overreach of audit principles to be imposed by the government.

However, there were some significant missed opportunities in not properly debating, in the haste that was the aura of both committees frankly, many amendments that were brought forward by all parties with respect to some very key elements which might have made the bill stronger. There was a proposal to eliminate donations from people under 18 years of age. This was ironically proposed and was ironically defeated by the Conservative majority on the committee with the help of the New Democratic Party.

It might also be said that in the haste to put the Bill C-2 legislative committee together there were no opinions from constitutional scholars. There was neither the time nor the inclination of the leading constitutional scholars to give evidence at those committees. One wonders if we had the sage advice, for instance, of Donald Savoie and his thoughts regarding the freeze in public sector and lobbying industries with respect to how government should work, how much different a bill we might have.

Last year the Conservatives campaigned on six key words. We often think they only had five principles, but they are much more imaginative than we give them credit for. They actually used six words in their platform. They used: accountability, opportunity, security, family, community and unity, and those are good words. Now let us take a minute to analyze what the government has done since it came into power.

On the same day the Conservatives announced over $13 billion in surplus, thanks to good Liberal management, they cut funding to some of the most important community programs in the country, including: literacy, aboriginal programs, minority groups support and women's equality issues. This is their vision for community presumably from their election campaign.

They cut many youth programs that aimed at promoting exchanges between young Canadians of different regions such as the summer work student exchange program.

Furthermore, the Prime Minister publicly accused many Liberals of being anti-Israel. This is presumably their vision of promoting unity, a further campaign promise.

Conservatives decided in favour of sending a $100 monthly cheque per child to Canadian families, a sum not good enough to pay for quality day care services and child care services, especially when this measure is taxable, while creating no new child care spaces whatsoever. This must be their concept of family as enunciated in their campaign strategy.

As for security, another key word, the Conservative minority government decided to bring forward a very American “three strikes, you're out” law with Bill C-27. The concept of innocence until proven guilty is out the door. This must be the Conservative vision of justice.

Then there is the theme of accountability which is dealt by this bill. In light of what the Conservatives are proposing to do with Bill C-2, it is clear they believe that accountability should mostly be a tool to help clean their own past mistakes, especially the $2 million in convention registration fees that have not been disclosed, that are the subject of complaints officially filed with Elections Canada, and the untotalled amounts of corporate observer fees given by corporations who were, by Bill C-24, outside the scope and allowability of political contributions before this act.

We have large sums of money that have not been accounted for, so how is it that this government can stand on this bill with respect to political contributions and say that it is truly an accountability act? It cannot.

Finally, the last word in the Conservative's campaign was opportunity. Once again, what the Conservative minority government is trying to do with Bill C-2 is to create a partisan loophole, weakening the access to information laws, and watering down the federal accountability act. Opportunity is probably the word that currently best describes the government's principles and modus operandi. More specifically, it is highly opportunistic and partisan.

Today the government should truly stand up for Canada as it promised to do. It promised to adopt the recommendation of the Information Commissioner's report on access to information. It has already had two chances and yet it continues to break this promise. If the government truly wants more transparency and more accountability, it needs to leave partisanship behind and support these amendments. This is what true accountability is all about.

It is important to underline that we have supported in many instances this bill and its thrust, but it is important to underline that the concept of the bill is nothing new.

Bill C-24, as the hon. President of the Treasury Board has already said, was a very good step. It was a Chrétien government step with respect to political financing and transparency. Would that the Conservative government in its most recent clandestine fundraising activities and would that it would follow its own words of the President of the Treasury Board in the House today and be more accountable. Sadly, it is not going to be. It is going to wait until it is dragged, talk about foot-dragging, before the courts and found to have been part of illegal contribution schemes as indicated by Mr. Kingsley.

In the spirit with which the Liberal government brought in Bill C-24 and with which it promised to implement the recommendations of Justice Gomery's report, we moved forward with the deliberations on Bill C-2 and are happy in the further vein to propose these amendments. I move:

That the motion be amended

A. by

1. Deleting from the paragraph commencing with the words “Disagrees with” the following: 25, 34 to 54 (a) to (d), 55(e)(ii) to (viii), 56 to 62, 65, 94

2. Inserting in the paragraph commencing with the words “Agrees with”, immediately after the number “158”, the following: “and 25, 34 to 54, 55(a) to (d), 55(e)(ii) to (viii), 56 to 62, 65 and 94”

3. Deleting the paragraph commencing with the words “Amendments 25”

B. by

1. Deleting from the paragraph commencing with the words “Disagrees with” the following: 121, 123

2. Inserting in the paragraph commencing with the words “Agrees with”, immediately after the number “158”, the following: “and 121 and 123”

3. Deleting from the paragraph commencing with the words “Amendments 120” the letter “s” is the first word, the numbers 121 and 123 and the words “and by removing the Canadian Wheat Board from the coverage of this Act”

C. 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”

3. Deleting the paragraph commencing with the words “Amendment 118” and the paragraph commencing with the words “Amendment 119”

D. 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”

3. Deleting the paragraph commencing with the words “Senate amendment 67”

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, do I not have some time to conclude?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to share a few remarks and ask the minister a question. He is criticizing the Senate for having thoroughly studied the bill and wanting to make amendments. Yet in the same breath, he says that he wants the bill to be balanced.

Did the Senate not merely do the work that should have been done by the legislative committee responsible for Bill C-2, that is, take the time to carefully analyze each clause, hear witnesses, provide opinions, and make changes and amendments?

In fact, I myself sat on the legislative committee responsible for Bill C-2. Its schedule was very intensive, as the minister proudly pointed out. In six weeks' time, there were 72 days of meetings, totaling 890 hours. It was much too fast. The witnesses were paraded through at a dizzying pace and we did not even have the time to get to the bottom of our questions or explore all their comments. People were rushed through in groups. For example, there were people from the executive offices of all political parties, all sitting at the same table at one time. They were given only a few minutes each to speak and we had only a few minutes to ask them questions.

I feel that the Senate's work was reasonable and brought balance to this bill.

Here is my question. The minister said that he would accept certain amendments suggested by the Senate. Could he please tell us which ones he would accept?

[John Baird, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board]

moved:

That a message be sent to the Senate to acquaint their Honours that this House:

Agrees with amendments numbered 1, 3, 13, 16, 17, 21, 26, 27, 32, 33, 55(e)(i), 63, 64, 66, 70, 72 to 79, 81, 82, 84, 86, 87, 91, 93, 95, 97, 99, 103 to 106, 111, 112, 114, 117, 122, 124 to 127, 135, 144, 146, 152, 156 and 158 made by the Senate to Bill C-2, An Act providing for conflict of interest rules, restrictions on election financing and measures respecting administrative transparency, oversight and accountability; but

Disagrees with all other amendments except amendments 29, 67, 98 and 153, because this House believes that amendments 2, 4 to 12, 14, 15, 18 to 20, 22 to 25, 28, 30, 31, 34 to 54, 55(a) to (d), 55(e)(ii) to (viii), 56 to 62, 65, 68, 69, 71, 80, 83, 85, 88 to 90, 92, 94, 96, 100 to 102, 107 to 110, 113, 115, 116, 118 to 121, 123, 128 to 134, 136 to 143, 145, 147 to 151, 154, 155 and 157 are in contradiction with the principles of the bill of effectively strengthening accountability, increasing transparency, improving oversight and building confidence in government and parliamentary institutions, and that these amendments contradict the stated policy goal of rebuilding the public’s trust in the institutions of government; and

That this House considers this matter to be of significant importance and urges their Honours to respond expeditiously to this message.

More specifically:

Amendment 2 would weaken the Conflict of Interest Act by removing the prohibition on public office holders who have duties in respect of the House or Senate, or their families, on contracting with the House or Senate;

Amendments 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 12 and 15 would undermine the ability of public office holders to discharge their duties and substitute the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner for Parliament or the public as the final arbiter of an appearance of conflict by expanding the definition of “conflict of interest” under the Conflict of Interest Act to include “potential” and “apparent” conflicts of interest;

Amendments 6, 28, 30 and 31 would weaken the Conflict of Interest Act by preventing the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner from issuing an order to a minister or parliamentary secretary to recuse himself or herself from voting on or debating matters in Parliament when doing so would place them in a conflict of interest as well as limiting the timeframe within which an investigation may be carried out

Amendments 7, 10 and 14 are an inappropriate intrusion into the private lives of public office holders and their families as they would narrow the exemption for gifts to public office holders from “friends” to “close personal friends” and require that any gift over $200 to a reporting public office holder or his or her family from any person other than a relative be disclosed to the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner and publicly reported

Amendments 18, 23 and 24 would undermine the capacity of the Prime Minister to discipline ministers and maintain the integrity of the Ministry by eliminating the ability of the Prime Minister to seek “confidential advice” from the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner with respect to specific public office holders;

Amendment 19 would deter the public from bringing matters to the attention of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner through a member of either House, create unfairness to individuals who are subject to complaints whose merits have not been substantiated and undermine the Commissioner’s investigatory capacity by deleting the provisions that would protect the anonymity of a member of the public and allow the Commissioner to complete an investigation before the matter were made public by requiring members of either House to keep confidential information received from the public about a possible conflict of interest until the Commissioner issued a report;

Amendments 20 and 22 would prohibit the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner from issuing a public report where the request for an examination was frivolous, vexatious or otherwise without basis thereby reducing transparency and requiring a public office holder who has been exonerated to publicize on his or her own a ruling to clear his or her name;

Amendments 25, 34 to 54, 55(a) to (d), 55(e)(ii) to (viii), 56 to 62, 65 and 94 are unacceptable because they would continue the separate existence of the Senate Ethics Officer contrary to the goal of a unified Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner who could bring a broad perspective to bear on conflict of interest and ethical matters;

Amendments 68 and 69 are unacceptable because they contravene the objective of reducing undue influence in the electoral process by raising the annual political contribution limits from $1,000 to $2,000 and providing for a “multiplier” so that the contribution limit is increased by an amount equivalent to the limit for each general election held within a single year;

Amendment 71 would undermine the capacity of the Commissioner of Elections to investigate alleged offences under the Canada Elections Act. The amendment would shorten the overall limitation period from ten years to seven years after the offence was committed (reverting to the status quo) and change the knowledge portion of the limitation period from five years to two years from the time the Commissioner of Canada Elections had knowledge of the facts giving rise to the offence. This would not address the current problems with the limitation period that were identified by the Chief Electoral Officer and only provide an additional six months during which the Commissioner must complete several hundred concurrent investigations after an election;

Amendments 80 and 89 would undermine the authority of the Commissioner of Lobbying by removing the Commissioner’s discretion to determine whether to report on the failures of designated public office holders to verify information filed by lobbyists and shortening the period of investigation and limitation period in which the Commissioner may conduct an investigation;

Amendment 83 would seriously weaken the scope of the five-year prohibition on lobbying by designated public office holders by allowing them to accept employment with an organization that engages in lobbying activities provided that they themselves do not spend a significant part of their time engaged in lobbying activities;

Amendment 85 would create significant uncertainty in the private sector and create an inappropriate incentive for corporations to prefer consultant lobbyists over in-house lobbyists as all employees of any corporation that contracts with the Government of Canada would be prohibited for five years from engaging in any lobbying activities with the department involved in the contract. The amendment does not provide for any exemptions from this prohibition and potentially subjects these individuals to criminal liability;

Amendments 88 and 90 would add a prohibition for obstructing the Commissioner of Lobbying and create a specific offence for the failure to comply with a prohibition on communication ordered by the Commissioner. The Bill already contemplates these matters in section 80;

Amendments 92 and 113(a) would not substantively amend the Access to Information Act provisions that apply to the Commissioner of Lobbying as proposed in the Bill. However, these amendments, which only go to form, would technically mean that the government institutions listed in section 144 of the Bill, such as the Office of the Auditor General of Canada and the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, could not be brought under the Access to Information Act until the Commissioner of Lobbying is brought into existence;

Amendment 96 would undermine the merit-based system of employment in the public service by continuing to unfairly protect the priority status of exempt staff who leave their positions after the coming into force of the provision rather than requiring them to compete with public servants for positions in the public service

Amendments 100 and 102 would unacceptably interfere with the exercise of authority by the Government by requiring the Governor in Council to only appoint the Parliamentary Budget Officer from a list of candidates submitted by the selection committee. In addition, these amendments would fix the membership of the selection committee rather than leaving it to the discretion of the Parliamentary Librarian;

Amendment 101 would unnecessarily complicate the procedure by which the selection committee informs the Governor in Council of their list of candidates for the Parliamentary Budget Officer by requiring, in addition to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, that the Leader of the Government in the Senate present the list;

Amendments 107, 109 and 110 would involve members of the Senate in the appointment and removal process for the Director of Public Prosecutions. As this is a body housed within the Executive branch of the government, the involvement of the Senate in the appointment process is inappropriate;

Amendment 108 would undermine the authority of the Attorney General to determine which candidates the selection committee should assess for the position of Director of Public Prosecutions. As this position is exercising authority under and on behalf of the Attorney General, the amendment is an unacceptable interference in the Government’s exercise of its executive authority;

Amendment 113(b) would seriously weaken the audit and investigatory capacity of the Auditor General and Official Languages Commissioner. The amendment would limit the exemption in subsection 16.1(1) of the Access to Information Act so that it does not apply to records that contain information created in the course of an investigation once the investigation and related proceedings are completed and would undermine an investigator’s ability to guarantee anonymity to a potential witness;

Amendments 115 and 116 would undermine the objective of greater transparency for the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology by providing the Foundation with specific exemptions that are unnecessary given the nature of its business which is similar to that of other government institutions under the Access to Information Act such as the Department of Industry and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency;

Amendment 118, which is related to Senate amendment 113(b), would seriously weaken the internal audit capacity of the Government by permitting the disclosure of “related audit working papers” in addition to “draft reports” under the Access to Information Act where a final report has not been delivered within two years;

Amendment 119 would reverse the policy on which the Access to Information Act was based, which policy was not changed in the Bill as passed by this House. The amendment would undermine the balance between discretionary and mandatory exemptions in the Access to Information Act by giving the heads of government institutions the discretion to override existing and proposed mandatory exemptions. In addition, the amendment would give de facto order powers to the Information Commissioner, who, as a head of a proposed government institution to be brought under the Access to Information Act by this Bill, would be able to disclose records obtained from other government institutions;

Amendments 120, 121 and 123 would undermine the objective of greater transparency by forever excepting from the application of the Access to Information Act information under the control of certain government institutions prior to when those institutions become subject to the Act and by removing the Canadian Wheat Board from the coverage of this Act;

Amendments 128 and 131 would undermine the objective of stronger protection for public servants who disclose wrongdoing in the public sector by creating confusion as to the types of disclosure that are protected or not under the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act. The amendments would confuse the clear parameters set in the Act to guide public servants who are considering making a disclosure by incorporating vague common law principles, which could lead to public servants making public disclosures that they think are protected, but turn out not to be;

Amendments 129 and 132 would unbalance the reprisal protection regime proposed in the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act by expanding the definition of “reprisal” to include “any other measure that may adversely affect, directly or indirectly, the public servant” and providing for a reverse onus, such that any administrative or disciplinary measure taken within a year of a disclosure is deemed to be a reprisal, unless the employer shows otherwise. These amendments would expand the definition of reprisal to include behaviours unlikely to be under the control of the employer and managers will be reluctant to take legitimate disciplinary action for fear of being the subject of a reprisal complaint, which would expose them personally to a disciplinary order by the Tribunal;

Amendment 130 would increase the risk of disclosure of sensitive national security information by subjecting the Communications Security Establishment and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act without additional specific disclosure protection measures;

Amendment 133 would extend the time limit to file a reprisal complaint from 60 days to one year. The amendment undermines the discretion of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner who already has the authority to extend the time limit beyond 60 days if he or she feels it is appropriate;

Amendment 134 would undermine the objective of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act to balance appropriate and responsible protection from reprisal for public servants that make a disclosure without creating unintended incentives for vexatious or frivolous complaints. The amendment would remove the $10,000 limit on awards for pain and suffering, leaving the amount to the discretion of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Tribunal;

Amendment 136 would undermine the principles of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act by increasing the maximum amount for legal advice from $1,500 to $25,000, or to an unlimited amount at the discretion of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner. The legal assistance is intended to provide any person who could become involved in a process under the Act with legal advice as to their choices, rights and responsibilities. In relation to reprisal complaints, the Commissioner investigates and determines whether a reprisal complaint should be brought before the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Tribunal and is a party before the Tribunal so that he or she can present the findings of the investigation. The amendment would make all processes under the Act far more legalistic and litigious;

Amendments 137 and 138 would give the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner the power to compel evidence and pursue information held outside the public sector. This amendment is unacceptable as it would increase the risk of challenges to the Commissioner’s authority and jurisdiction without providing significant assistance to the discharge of his or her mandate under the Act, which is to investigate wrongdoing and complaints of reprisal related to the public sector;

Amendments 139 to 143 would increase the risk of harm to the reputations of those that are falsely accused of wrongdoing as the narrowing of exemptions provided to the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner and other heads of institutions under the Access to Information Act, Privacy Act and Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act would increase the risk of their names being released to the public;

Amendments 145, 151 and 154 would limit the capacity of the Governor in Council to organize the machinery of government, specifically with respect to the establishment of the Public Appointments Commission and the position of the Procurement Auditor, and as such are unacceptable;

Amendment 147 would explicitly require reappointments to the Public Appointments Commission go through the same statutory requirements as an appointment. The amendment is unnecessary and redundant because a reappointment is a new appointment and, as such, must conform to all relevant statutory requirements;

Amendment 148 would involve members of the Senate in the appointment of members to the Public Appointments Commission. As this is a body housed within the executive branch of the government, the involvement of the Senate in the appointment process is inappropriate;

Amendment 149 would create confusion as to the proper role of “appointees” in the Governor in Council appointment process under the Salaries Act by expanding the mandate of the Public Appointments Commission to include educating and training appointees, who are not involved in the appointment process;

Amendment 150 would expand the term of appointees to the Public Appointments Commission from five to seven years and is unacceptable as that length of term is not necessary for the efficient and effective working of the Commission;

Amendment 155 would undermine the confidence of private sector suppliers in the government as a business partner and could increase the number of legal actions brought against the government by giving the Procurement Auditor the discretion to recommend the cancellation of a contract to which a complaint relates. The Procurement Auditor was not provided the powers, duties and functions to discharge a mandate that would include reviewing the legal validity of a contract award, but rather the mandate was focussed on whether government procurement practices reflect the government’s commitment to fairness, openness and transparency in the procurement process;

Amendment 157 would increase the risk of disclosure of sensitive national security information by removing the ability of the Governor in Council to prescribe, through regulation, those departments would fall within the jurisdiction of the Procurement Auditor; and

That this House agrees with the principles set out in parts of amendments 29, 67, 98 and 153 but would propose the following amendments:

Senate amendment 29 be amended to read as follows:

Clause 2, page 32: Replace lines 23 to 25 with the following:

“64. (1) Subject to subsection 6(2) and sections 21 and 30, nothing in this Act prohibits a member of the Senate or the House of Commons who is a public office holder or former public office holder from engaging in those”

Senate amendment 67 be amended to read as follows:

Clause 44, page 58: Add after line 5 the following:

“(4) Section 404.2 of the Act is amended by adding the following after subsection (6):

(7) The payment by an individual of a fee to participate in a registered party’s convention is not a contribution if the cost of holding the convention is greater than or equal to the sum of the fees paid by all of the individuals for that purpose. However, if the cost of holding the convention is less than the sum of the fees paid, the amount of the difference after it is divided by the number of individuals who paid the fee is considered to be a contribution by each of those individuals.”

Senate amendment 98 be amended to read as follows:

Clause 108, page 94: Replace lines 1 to 2 with the following:

“(4) Sections 41 to 43, subsections 44(3) and (4) and sections 45 to 55, 57 and 60 to 64 come into force or are deemed to have come into force on January 1, 2007.

(4.1) Sections 63 and 64 come into force or are deemed to have come into force on January 1, 2007, but”

Senate amendment 153 be amended to read as follows:

Clause 259, page 187: Add after line 12 the following:

“16.21(1) A person who does not occupy a position in the federal public administration but who meets the qualifications established by directive of the Treasury Board may be appointed to an audit committee by the Treasury Board on the recommendation of the President of the Treasury Board.

(2) A member of an audit committee so appointed holds office during pleasure for a term not exceeding four years, which may be renewed for a second term.

(3) A member of an audit committee so appointed shall be paid the remuneration and expenses fixed by the Treasury Board.”

He said: Mr. Speaker, it is no great pleasure for me to make this speech here today.

Today I am rising to speak once again to Bill C-2, the federal accountability act. I would like to say that it is a pleasure for me to rise again to speak to this bill, but I am very disappointed by the attempts of certain senators to dilute this piece of landmark legislation.

This government was elected on a plan for change. This government was elected because Canadian voters and Canadian taxpayers wanted change. Voters said they wanted an honest and accountable government, a government they could trust. They want to know that elected officials and public service employees act in the best interests of Canadians. I believe that this trust must be earned each and every day and it starts with making government more accountable.

That is why our first legislative priority focused on making government more open, more honest and, most important, more accountable. The public was so suspicious of government as an institution that the then leader of the opposition made a commitment that this would be the first piece of legislation his new government would bring forward, so that there would be no excuses as to why it was not introduced and successfully passed.

On April 11, only nine weeks after this government officially took office, I was very pleased on behalf of Canadians and on behalf of the entire government caucus to introduce the federal accountability act in this House. The act and the accompanying federal accountability action plan, almost as important as the act, focus on making everyone in government more accountable, from the Prime Minister down.

We understand that our success as a nation depends on instituting a more effective capability to get things done better for ordinary working Canadians and their families. By instituting an unprecedented level of rigour and scrutiny across the federal public sector, the federal accountability act provides a firm foundation for rebuilding Canadians' trust in government.

I will tell the House that in drafting this legislation we paid careful attention to a couple of very important factors.

First, we did not want to establish more red tape, more bureaucracy or a significant increase in the number of rules. Most of the new entities created in our bill replace or strengthen the independence of existing ones. Where there are new rules, we have endeavoured to make them simpler, more straightforward and more effective.

Second, we did not want to build a government that stifled innovation and created within the public service a culture that is overly risk averse. We wanted to balance more effective oversight with flexibility. This is incredibly important if we want a dynamic public service for the next generation and the next century. We want to have the best and the brightest in the public service, recognizing that whenever people of good faith act, there will be mistakes from time to time.

In drafting Bill C-2, this government listened to many stakeholders. We received contributions from all parties in the House. I believe that made this piece of legislation stronger. Members of the House of Commons worked to pass the federal accountability act in 72 days. They thoroughly reviewed and analyzed hundreds of separate clauses and amendments. They put in well over 90 hours of work in six weeks, above and beyond their regular duties, to make sure they got it right.

I would like to acknowledge the hard work of the member for Nepean—Carleton in that committee. He worked tremendously hard with all the government members on the committee.

I would also like to recognize a number of others.

I would like to recognize the member for Winnipeg Centre, who worked tremendously hard on this issue. We often disagreed with the member, but we never disagreed on the fact that he was well motivated and wanted to strengthen the bill. I congratulate him for his work. I was particularly pleased with some of the amendments he brought forward, particularly the one in regard to putting the Canadian Wheat Board under the access to information regime. That was one of the best amendments to the bill and we were very happy to support my friend from Winnipeg. I will say to the member from Winnipeg that I read the paper on Saturday and simply want to remind him of the great amendment that he brought forward.

I also want to acknowledge the member for Vancouver Quadra. We often disagreed, but he brought a high level of commitment to the task and I should recognize that.

I would also like to thank the former hon. member for Repentigny, Benoît Sauvageau, who worked very hard. As a new member and new minister, it was definitely a great pleasure for me to work with Mr. Sauvageau. His efforts, hard work and friendship were well known to all members. Above all, I would like to underscore here in this House just how important his work was, enabling us to introduce this bill within the first 72 days of this 39th Parliament.

Benoît Sauvageau will be greatly missed, not just within the Bloc Québécois caucus and his own constituency of Repentigny, but by those of us on all sides of the House. Many Canadians watch Parliament, not least of which my performance, and they see a very adversarial system from time to time. What they do not see is quite often members from different parties are able to work together. The late member for Repentigny's work is the best example of that.

I firmly believe that we did a good job in the House of Commons. The committee did a good job. The government did not get everything it wanted, but the bill came out of the special committee stronger than it went in. I firmly believe that this House did its work. I do note that not a single member of Parliament in the House of Commons wanted to go on record as opposing this bill. I do recall that the member for Vancouver Quadra said in his first two minutes of speaking that he supported the bill, as did the member from the Bloc Québécois, and of course the New Democratic Party.

Aside from a few typos and ambiguities in wording, the bill as sent to the Senate was effective, comprehensive and carefully focused. Unfortunately, the majority of the more than 100 amendments proposed by the Senate have drastically diluted the objectives of Bill C-2's wide portfolio of initiatives. I have grave concerns that most of the amendments passed by the Senate, if left in place, would do irreparable damage to the overall intent and effectiveness of the federal accountability act. These include the most egregious examples of amendments, including increasing the political donation limit from $1,000 to $2,000.

We want to end the role of big money in politics. One thing we can say about Mr. Chrétien and the Liberal government he led is that they did a lot in this regard. We are finishing the Chrétien work and making it even more modest to ensure that it is middle class Canadians, and not the interests of a few high powered financial contributors, who have a bigger voice in politics. This was a welcome change of which I think all members took great note.

The Senate also proposed amendments to delay the implementation of the new political financing laws until as late as 2008. That is too late. These measures should be put in place in very short order so that Canadians can have the benefit of this new regime.

We had discussions with members of the official opposition and we made what I think is a reasonable and honourable compromise to have these new limitations come into effect on January 1 so it would not affect the current Liberal leadership convention. This was also an issue which was spoken to by the Bloc Québécois and others. In the spirit of working together, in the spirit of cooperation, something, Mr. Speaker, which you know I bring to this House each and every day, we agreed to consider a change.

With respect to political staffers jumping the queue and getting priority placement over other applicants for public service jobs, the Senate wants to allow partisan political aides to get into our non-partisan public service. This is something that has deeply troubled public servants in the nation's capital for many years, where they want to compete for a job but the competition is cancelled and a political appointee gets the job.

If we believe in the merit principle, there should be competition, and that is what we are seeking to do. This is an issue which was brought to my attention even before the election by the Public Service Alliance of Canada representatives, and it is certainly one which I support. Political aides, whether they be Liberal, Conservative or what have you, have a great deal of experience, but they should have to compete like everybody else for a job in the public service.

The other concern I had was the removal of the Canadian Wheat Board from inclusion under the Access to Information Act. We want to bring light where there is darkness. We believe that wheat and barley producers in western Canada should have the right to know what is going on at their Wheat Board. That is important. I was terribly distressed to see the unelected Liberal Senate try for the very first time to remove an agency from coverage under the Access to Information Act. Some people said we were not going far enough but then wanted to retreat. I say to the Canadian Wheat Board and its supporters, what have they got to hide? Let us bring more openness to the Canadian Wheat Board.

Adding exemptions for foundations under the Access to Information Act caused all of us a great deal of concern. It is no exaggeration to say that many of the Senate's amendments would place an unfair burden on the private sector, would shackle managers in the public service and would stifle innovation. This is especially true with the Senate's amendments to the sections dealing with whistleblowing.

Whistleblowing is important to me. It is important to the member for Nepean—Carleton, and I know it is important for all members. For my constituents in Ottawa West--Nepean this was an issue in the recent election. We want our public servants to be confident that they can step forward and follow a simple process to report wrongdoing without concern that they could lose their jobs and not be able to provide for their families. This is a change in culture that we want to take within the public service.

I suspect the measures contained in the federal accountability act go further than measures in any other western democracy with respect to protecting whistleblowers. I am very proud of that.

This House presented a balanced piece of legislation to the Senate and we are now faced with the task of having to restore that balance. This is especially dismaying given that the government demonstrated its willingness to work with the Senate to achieve a strong consensus. We agreed to a number of amendments to the bill, some before it ever reached the Senate, and others subsequently during the clause by clause deliberations in the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. I should underline the great work done by the chair of that committee, Senator Don Oliver. He is an exceptional Canadian and he did an excellent job.

Unfortunately, this spirit of cooperation was either misunderstood or simply ignored by some hon. senators. That leaves the members of the elected House of Commons facing a major challenge. We must rebuild this legislation. We must strengthen it. We must restore the measures for increasing the accountability that Canadians want and deserve.

We will look at each of the Senate's proposed amendments on a case by case basis. We will judge each one on its merits. Some are acceptable, but the government cannot support them all.

I am very eager, as are my constituents in Ottawa West--Nepean, as I believe are Canadians in general, that the bill be implemented quickly, but we will not compromise our commitment to deliver more accountable government simply for the sake of expedience. In fact, let us be clear. The Senate, in proposing a host of counterproductive amendments, has unnecessarily delayed passage of the bill. Canadians will see this for what it is and I believe they will ultimately hold those responsible to account.

The federal accountability act and our federal accountability action plan as passed by the House focused on fixing problems. They focused on rewarding merit. They focused on achieving value for money and on being more honest and building a more effective government.

On June 16 I noted in the House that if this Parliament could do one single thing, it would be to end the culture of entitlement and replace it with a culture of accountability. This government remains absolutely committed to achieving that crucial objective.

I urge members of the House to help us meet this challenge by demonstrating the same spirit of cooperation they so wisely adopted four short months ago. Together we can ensure that the federal accountability act serves the purpose it was designed for: to provide a government based on openness and honesty which reflects the very best that Canada has to offer.

Government Appointments

[John Baird, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians want all political parties to come together and to pass the most comprehensive election financing reform law ever presented in Canada. Canadians want the House of Commons to get rid of corporate cash, union cash and to reduce to only $1,000 what individuals can contribute to political parties.

I thank all members of the House for their speedy passage of Bill C-2, the federal accountability act. They obviously shared my view that we had to get this important legislation in law. I hope we will continue to see that in the hours and days ahead.

Federal Accountability Act

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the undemocratic and unelected Senate has not just amended the federal accountability act, it has taken it hostage. Yesterday the senators sent us their outrageous ransom demands threatening to kill Bill C-2 unless we gave in. The rudderless Liberal Party is letting the Liberal Senate run amok. Who is going to rein in these rogue senators before this whole project crashes and burns?

Bob Rae has 11 Liberal senators in his pocket. Does he condone the unelected Senate undermining and sabotaging the federal accountability act? The member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore has 10 Liberal senators. Does he support reform or is he trying to defend the status quo of Liberal corruption? The member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville's Senate supporters say that Bill C-2 is leading to fascism. Mr. Kennedy's supporters tried to delete whole sections of the bill.

Which one of these future Liberal leaders wants to show some leadership and tell the senators to smarten up, know their place and stop sabotaging this important piece of legislation?

Business of the House

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, we will be calling that debate that the hon. member just mentioned in due course.

Today, we will continue the debate on Bill C-27, the dangerous offenders act.

There is an agreement to complete Bill C-25, proceeds of crime, tomorrow. In a few moments I will be asking the approval of the House for a special order in that regard.

When the House returns from the Remembrance Day break, we intend to call for debate a motion in response to the much anticipated message from the Senate regarding Bill C-2, the accountability act. As well, we hope to complete the report and third reading stages of Bill C-24, the softwood lumber act.

Thursday, November 23 will be an allotted day

I want to inform the House that it is the intention of the government to refer Bill C-30, the clean air act, to a legislative committee before second reading.

Ethics

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

Mr. Speaker, faced with a government that boasts about its transparency and prides itself on having introduced Bill C-2, we were naturally very surprised to learn that the fax machine in the constituency office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency was used by his father, Elmer MacKay, a former Solicitor General of Canada, in his work as a lobbyist defending an individual who is facing fraud charges in a court in Germany.

Will the minister acknowledge that his father's use of that office equipment constitutes inappropriate use of House of Commons property?

Judges Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I assure the member that I will use every influence I have in this place to assure that true accountability is actioned upon this House and the Canadian public. The member will know, interestingly speaking of constitutionality and legal issues, that his government with Bill C-2 tried to introduce provisions that were found to be unconstitutional which would have meant opening up the Constitution with respect to the independence of Parliament.

The Library of Parliament submitted a brief. It was found that the Minister of Justice and presumably the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada did not do their research and they would have posited a law that included unconstitutional provisions. It is shameful. I know we can do better.

I look forward to the cooperation of the hon. member for Fundy Royal and I look forward to being didactic in showing him that unconstitutional laws should not be presented by attorneys general or parliamentary secretaries.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Canada Elections Act

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

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

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

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

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

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Federal Accountability Act

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday marked the first anniversary of the release of the Gomery report. The report was an unequivocal condemnation of the Liberal Party and its practices. The Gomery report turned out to be a lifting of the cloak of secrecy off the Liberal Party, revealing a culture of entitlement, corruption and gross mismanagement of taxpayers' money.

Thankfully Canada's new government introduced the federal accountability act as its first order of business. Regretfully, a full year after the release of the Gomery report, Bill C-2 has still not been enacted into law.

Despite the unanimous consent of the House, the Liberal controlled Senate has stalled, delayed, refused, undermined and attempted to dismantle legislation that is designed to restore the faith of Canadians in their political system.

Bill C-2 has been carefully considered, debated sufficiently and is supported by the people of Canada, including the constituents in the riding of Peterborough. Let us get on with passing Bill C-2 and stop the shenanigans in the unelected Senate.

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

Mr. Speaker, on October 23, I put a question to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services. I noticed that he was not in the House. Since the election on January 23, the minister, Michael Fortier, has been like a ghost. He has been missing. It is funny that I should be asking my question this evening, because it is Hallowe'en. He must be hiding somewhere.

Hon. members will remember that when the Conservative Party was in opposition, it said it had principles. One of those principles was that the Senate should be elected. Another principle is that no one should represent the government, especially in a department, without being elected.

Right after the January 2006 election, to Canadians' astonishment, the new Conservative government decided to appoint Michael Fortier as Minister of Public Works and, in addition, as a senator. Just like that, two principles were swept away in the Ottawa River. They were lost.

In response to my question for the government, I was told that Mr. Fortier is doing a good job and that he is representing the government and Montrealers well. But how can the government judge whether Mr. Fortier is representing the people of Montreal well? We mentioned the election in Repentigny. This is the perfect opportunity for him to run. But it seems he is afraid of losing. If he is afraid of losing, or if the government is afraid of losing him, perhaps he is not doing such a great job of representing the people of Montreal.

The worst part is seeing a governing party that believed strongly in democracy when it was in opposition. A person must be elected to represent Canadians. Now, in Quebec, there is no need to be elected.

I remember when the Liberal government appointed Pierre Pettigrew to cabinet. A Liberal member resigned and there was an election. The government did not wait for an election: somebody resigned—or died, as is the case in Repentigny—and then an election was held.

That is also what happened to the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville. He was appointed to cabinet at the same time, so one of the Liberal members resigned. An election followed.

Today's Conservative Party, which was in opposition at the time, opposed the Liberal appointments. Now it is talking about Bill C-2, the accountability act.

Can the Conservatives explain to Canadians and to parliamentarians why the Minister of Public Works is not answering questions in the House of Commons? He is hiding in the Senate to avoid answering Canadians. It is shameful.

I would like an answer from the government. I am hoping they do not just tell me he is doing a good job, as they did on October 23. It is not up to the government to decide that. It is up to the citizens. I await the parliamentary secretary's answer.

Budget Implementation Act, 2006, No. 2

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, It is an honour to stand in the House and speak to this important issue. One could suggest that there is no more important issue that a government brings to the House than the budget.

When I talk to constituents about the proposals that have been put forward by the government they see this budget as an opportunity missed. Quite frankly, it is an opportunity missed because when we look at the fiscal accounting presently, we see that most recently there was a surplus of $13 billion of Canadians' money that we all contributed to in the general pot.

When the government was in opposition it was very clear on its concern, which we agreed with, that before the money that is in the surplus side of the equation goes to deal with the accumulated debt, we should have a debate and Canadians should have an opportunity to suggest where those moneys would go.

We saw most recently that the government, instead of taking its own advice when it was in opposition, and instead of having a debate and talking about where the $13 billion of surplus should go, it decided, with the stroke of a pen, to make the decision for Canadians on where the money should go.

Strangely enough, the government also decided to cut a billion dollars worth of programs, programs that affect everyday people. For example, the billion dollars in cuts affected people who are working in communities, be it here in Ottawa or across the country, who volunteer their time and sweat to help out local museums. This is one of the strangest cuts I have seen in a long time.

The government cut summer employment programs. The rationale was that these were subsidies for the private sector. I am not sure if it looked at the list that most of us look at each year to look at the summer employment opportunities, but I know in my riding none of them were subsidies to private sector ventures. In fact, all of them were helping out community based, not for profit enterprises.

For example, the Vietnamese Community Association cobbled together moneys for a summer employment program and, with the help of a meagre amount of money from the federal government, it put together a summer work employment program that gave an opportunity for youth to help it with the work that it does, helping people every day.

These kinds of opportunities for students in summer employment programs not only help these community based groups, but they also give opportunities for youth to be apprentices in certain areas, to gain very valuable experience in administration and be able to contribute to their community.

At the same time as the government had the $13 billion surplus, other cuts had to do with people who are working in areas to help people who are most disadvantaged and people who are working in the area of literacy. We have heard a lot about that. Giving people an opportunity to climb out of the darkness of illiteracy is something I believe is not only something government should do, it is something the government must do.

To see people who recently were in the news who were well into their eighties speaking publicly about coming out of the darkness of illiteracy and being able to finally contribute and be a full-fledged citizen is something that not only tugs one's heart strings but, more important, it allows us to understand the importance of these programs.

We had the government with this proposition in opposition, which said that when we have a surplus of Canadians' money, not the Liberal Party's money, not the Conservative Party's money, not the Bloc's money and not the NDP's money, we should be able to debate this. The Conservatives were very vigorous in opposition on this and we agreed with that.

One of the reasons we support and we propose to have someone oversee the budget spending, which we see in Bill C-2, is for this very reason. We do not just have the money holus-bolus written off because the Liberal Party, or the Conservative Party in this case, decides it should go wherever it likes. It should be opened up and there should be evaluation. We are hoping to see that when Bill C-2 comes into effect.

It did not happen with the Conservatives because it was just $13 billion and away it went with no debate. They went against what they said in opposition.

We need to look at how the process works. The billion dollar cuts, to which I referred, and the $13 billion surplus were outside of the budgetary framework and did not allow us as parliamentarians to debate it. We are bringing it up with regard to the billion dollars and will have motions brought to the House.

One with which I am sure the government will have a problem is the rebate to tourists. It obviously did not do its homework on that. It suggested only 3% of tourists take advantage of it but the government forgot that when people are in countries of origin that is when they take advantage of the GST rebate. Obviously it forgot to ask people how the program works and did not get the right statistics on it. We will probably see the government flip-flop on that. With that program the government showed the haste with which it made the cuts and it did not build it into the budget. It was in-between the budget of last year and the budget that will be coming up in the spring.

What is happening here is that the government is changing the mechanisms of how we debate as parliamentarians with regard to how citizens' money should be spent or, in this case, how their money is taken away. That is of concern because every citizen expects us to represent them and they expect that we will follow the rules and procedures of the House. To have a billion dollars worth of cuts without allowing us to have a debate on it is very problematic. Proposed cuts should come before the House for debate to ensure that everyone is fully aware of how it will affect our communities and the bottom line of the government.

This process and procedure of fiscal management should be done within the budgetary process and not the surprises that we have seen from the government, both on the surplus and the billion dollar cuts.

The final thing I will say about the billion dollar cuts is that they were clearly ideological cuts. We know the previous government booked more than the government cut when the previous prime minister came into power. In fact, he was going to cut five times as much. We know that was booked and that the government had to exact those savings. We see that now with the $2.5 billion it will try to get out of procurement.

I will take a minute to focus on procurement. The previous government went to Chicago and hired a consulting group. It was supposed to cost $1.5 million for the Chicago consulting group, A.T. Kearney, to come up with a plan on how the government could save money through reverse bid auctioning, which has been thrown out at this point. However, the price of the contract escalated all the way to $24 million.

My constituents became aware of this contract and when I became aware of it I mentioned it in the House. We had a contract, to be clear, that started off at $1.5 million and ballooned to $24 million. The icing on the cake was that the information the government got from A.T. Kearney was useless. That was what everyone in this town told the government before, that it was on the wrong track. We had to get the attention of the government to tell the government it was on the wrong track. Finally, it canned the project after we had sent $24 million to the consulting company out of Chicago. In my opinion, that is fiscal mismanagement. We thought we were done with that kind of mismanagement with the previous government.

I could go on about all the other programs that were affected and the missed opportunities here for young people, for post-secondary education, the no help for seniors and the child care plan that is a child care scam, but I will save that for another day. For reasons aforementioned, I cannot support the budget.

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

Yes, it is accountability. Every day the same minister gets up in the House and pounds on the Liberals about Bill C-2, which is being stalled in the unelected other House. At the same time, the Conservatives have a minister sitting in the other House who is not elected, is not accountable and does not answer to Canadians. This is wrong. Conservative members should be in the House, accountable to Canadians, accountable to the House of Commons, the people who have been elected by Canadians. This is completely anti-democratic.

Canada is supposedly the best country in the world, yet we have 1.4 million children going hungry. There are more homeless on the streets of Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, than we have ever had. How could the Liberals be happy or proud about that? They said they had to pay down the debt, but they did on the backs of Canadians.

This is entirely unacceptable. The Liberals have absolutely nothing to be proud of from their 13 years in power. They made cuts to health care in 1994 and now more cuts are being made today. Our grandparents and our children are in hallways in hospitals across the country: in Montreal, Moncton, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. It is unacceptable to take money to pay down the debt at the expense of people who are sick. The Conservatives are doing no more than the Liberals did.

Procedure and House Affairs

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for allowing me to speak today to this extremely important issue.

For those who are watching this, it may seem a rather arcane issue dealing with the provisional Standing Orders but these are the rules upon which we can function and serve our constituents and our country in the House. These are the rules that have been put together to enable us to serve our country and our communities.

None of this is new. These provisional Standing Orders were put forth and supported strongly by the Conservatives when they were in opposition and by us in an effort to open up this place and make it more democratic.

How extreme are the provisional Standing Orders? What are these rules that we are actually talking about? Why do we want them to continue and why does the government wish that they not continue?

One of the Standing Orders would allow individuals in this House to question the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition for 10 minutes after they make a speech on a government motion. What is so flawed and so bad about enabling members for the first time to ask questions of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in response to words they have uttered in this House?

This is the type of questioning that is the pillar of our Westminster system. It allows members to represent their constituents and ask the person who holds the highest office in the land the questions that their constituents are concerned about. This was never allowed before under the provisional Standing Orders.

It is logical that the Conservative Party would have supported this in opposition and why my party supported these particular changes. It was a very important move to open this House up and become more democratic.

These rules also allow members to split their time with other members. One of the frustrations I think we all have, because there are limited times and limited slots in which to speak, is that we all wish to have an opportunity to speak to particular motions that occur.

Historically, a member only had 10 minutes to speak and therefore only a few members of Parliament had the opportunity to articulate their views and those of their constituents in this House on a motion. The changes we are talking about today allow members to split their time. It allows more members to voice their views in this hallowed chamber. Is that so bad? Is that so undemocratic? Is that such a violation that the government cannot live with this?

These provisional Standing Orders also allow us to debate concurrence motions. Another frustration I think we all have is that all of us have passed motions in committees. A lot of good work occurs in committee and, in many ways, a lot of the more constructive work on issues actually occurs in committees. The environment in committee tends to be a little more collegial and a little less confrontational than what we have in the House. It is perhaps because we are less than two sword lengths away from each other.

However, the reality is that motions passed in committee are oftentimes constructive motions, policy driven motions and motions in the public interest. Those motions, historically, have disappeared into the aether because we never had a mechanism upon which those motions could come to the House for a more fulsome debate and where the public could be made aware of those issues through the substantive debate that would take place on those issues.

In the foreign affairs committee, for example, we in the Liberal Party passed substantive motions and supported motions dealing with Afghanistan, HIV-AIDS, Zimbabwe, Darfur, the Congo and a number of other crises occurring in the world, and we passed those motions. Sometimes, with the use of these Standing Order changes, those motions and motions like them have been allowed to come to the House so the public can listen to the debates and hear the constructive solutions being offered by members from all sides.

Why on earth would government members not want these orders, which allow members from all sides, including their own, to represent their constituents and articulate their solutions, to continue?

Why on earth would the government desire to quell, quash and stop these democratic interventions that allow a more fulsome and constructive debate and a more solution oriented, policy and factually driven debate where we ultimately get action on the issues Canadians care about?

The Conservatives would block it because we have a government that is unlike any other that we have seen before. We have a government not by the people and for the people. We have a government by one person, for one party. The new Prime Minister is not one who is necessarily cut from the cloth of others. His viewpoint is one that is rooted in ideology, where ideology trumps science, fact and everything but the pursuit of power.

It stems from a type of thinking that comes from an obscure professor in the U.S. named Professor Strauss. This is the Straussian view of the world that is held by a few but important individuals. The intellectual bedmates of the Prime Minister are people like Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld. They are all acolytes of this professor who lived earlier on in the 20th century.

Professor Strauss' view of the world was not one rooted in democracy. He believed that effective government came from the top, from a small number of people driven by ideology, who would force their will through a government structure and implement those solutions for a country. However, the inherent danger in that is that it violates the very roots of democracy and of this institution. That is what we have now. We have a Prime Minister driven by ideology, not driven by science and not driven by facts.

I will give some examples, the most egregious example of which is the issue of drug policy. That was manifested this summer in the almost willingness of the government to not allow the safe injection sites to continue in Vancouver. The government maintained that it needed more studies. These studies were done by some of the top researchers in the world and they were published in The Lancet. The studies showed very clearly that the safe injection site in Vancouver saved lives, saved money and was humane. These studies, which were done by independent assessors, some of the top scientific minds and researchers in Canada, showed that the safe injection site in Vancouver worked.

When I spoke to the Minister of Health he said that more studies were needed and he only extended this safe injection site for one year, not the three and a half years that were required. Why? It is because the government thinks it can hold an election and get a majority and, I believe, stop that safe injection site. The Conservatives will also not allow any other similar sites to occur in any other part of the country. Why? It is because ideologically they believe that safe injection sites are immoral and not in the interests of the public, but that completely ignores the facts.

We have, it is sad to say, a government run by one Prime Minister who believes that he is an omnibus cabinet minister. That is why we are seeing cabinet ministers, some of whom are very bright people and have very good ideas, being asked to shut up and to not offer any constructive solutions on how they can build public policy. All public policy comes from one person, the Prime Minister and a small number of people around him. The cabinet members are simply asked to trot out these solutions that the Prime Minister offers. That is not democracy.

The public who voted for the Conservative Party, particularly those people who are rooted in the Reform angle and who strongly believe in democracy and democratizing this House, would find it anathema to them that their government would not support these Standing Orders that allow members from all sides, including their own, to offer solutions in a constructive way.

It is sad to say that when the Prime Minister calls on his cabinet ministers, it is really to ask them to play the fall person to deal with mistakes that he has made.

The most recent example is the so-called environment bill, which has nothing to do with environmental protection. It has nothing to do with greenhouse gas emissions, the reason being that the Prime Minister at heart has chosen to ignore the signs, to ignore the facts and to believe that global warming is not really occurring. He is trusting his ideological belief over the actual scientific evidence, which demonstrates very clearly that global warming is occurring and is due to greenhouse gas emissions and that we have to act to make the changes necessary to ensure that we will be able to reverse this trend. It is very important for us, given our location in the world and the implications for the heating of our glaciers and our arctic areas, which is having a profound impact not only upon our country, but upon the world.

The other area is the so-called accountability bill. The accountability bill has nothing to do with accountability. It is but another example of many of the Prime Minister couching something in a certain way to lead people to believe that it is something it is not. The accountability bill is going to destroy the ability of the public service to innovate and to do the job it has done so honourably for so many decades. It also is going to prevent good people from joining the public service. We are having now and will have in the future a major problem with respect to attrition taking place in the public service and our need to attract to the public service the smart, dynamic, hard-working individuals we have always had.

Why should people join the public service if Bill C-2, the accountability bill, comes to pass, when they will have to be continually watching over their backs and continually having a hammer over their heads, and when their ability to influence and innovate is dramatically affected in a negative way? There are already checks and balances over the behaviour of the public servants, like there are over the behaviour of the House. We do not need any more of those.

Furthermore, the accountability bill has nothing to do with accountability, because accountability is the obligation of us as elected officials and of senior government officials to tell the public what we are doing before we do it and to respond to what has been done in the public interest. That is not what the accountability bill is about at all. In fact, when asked in the House to define simple public accountability, not one of those members could do that.

Furthermore, there is not even a definition of accountability in the bill. I hope the public recognizes that it is not what it seems and that the government is engaging in a number of behaviours and interventions that are diametrically opposed to the public good.

Not supporting these Standing Orders, not making these Standing Orders a matter of the rules on which the House continues, will be a complete violation of what the Conservatives have always supported and what we have commonly come to know as our basic democratic rights as members of Parliament.

We can also see that the government has been engaging in another pattern of behaviour, one that I have not seen in 13 years. It is quelling and quashing the ability of the public service to deal with members of Parliament, particularly those in opposition. It is very difficult for us to get information about what is occurring in the public service and to have meetings with public servants, who have always been very forthcoming in providing us with briefings in areas of our responsibility.

Since the new government has come along, I think the message has come down from on high, from the Prime Minister's Office, that members of the public service and the bureaucracy are not allowed to speak to members of the opposition. Roadblocks have been put in place to prevent us from being able to attend meetings and from dealing with and addressing members of the public service in a forthright and transparent fashion. That is a complete violation of our ability to do our jobs as members of Parliament in the service of the public.

The government also clearly is engaging in the behaviour of putting forth policies and using issues in a way that can harm Canadians. I will give but one example.

In the extension of the mission to Afghanistan, the Prime Minister framed the argument as being that if we do not support the extension of the mission then we do not support our troops. What an absolute pile of nonsense. That is an absolute use of our troops for the Prime Minister's own political gain. All of us, I think, at least those of us in the opposition, were extremely angry that the Prime Minister would have used our troops, who are giving their lives abroad for us, in such a naked political way.

We asked the Prime Minister's government to have the briefings and the information so we could respond and vote on this particular issue in a way that is responsible. There is no other duty that we have in this House, no other issue that is more difficult and no other issue that deserves more attention than when we put the lives of our troops on the line for the interests of our country.

Yet the government and Prime Minister gave the people of our House, members of Parliament, a mere 48 hours in order to respond. There was not enough time to get the information on issues such as the following. What is the government going to do in terms of the development framework in Afghanistan? What are the government's plans for training the Afghan security forces? What are the government's plans for dealing with the insurgency coming from outside Afghanistan? What is the government's plan to deal with the poppy crop? As Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, said very clearly, “If we do not destroy poppies in Afghanistan, then poppies will destroy us”.

Why, in those four areas, could we not simply get the answers that would enable us to ensure that the conditions for the success of the mission were going to be there? The reason the Prime Minister did not allow it is that the Prime Minister knew his government was not putting out the interest, the attention and the resources to deal with those four issues that are conditional to the success of the mission in Afghanistan. He would rather use the issue as a political ploy to try to divide the opposition and to be able to erroneously show the public that those who do not support an extension at this time are somehow against our troops, which is absolute rubbish.

Behind that is a more evil intention. That evil intention is the desire on the part of the Prime Minister to use our troops for political gain. They should never be used for political gain. I hope the public sees that. I hope public understands that what we are trying to do is make sure that the conditions for the success of our mission in Afghanistan are there.

We also have been very clear in trying to articulate and demonstrate to the public that the policies the government has pursued in some areas are not what they seem. The government has trotted out policies on taxes. What it has done is raise the taxes on the poor. How on earth could any government in good conscience raise taxes on those who are the most vulnerable in our society? That is what the government has done.

The government talks about a child care program. Is the child care program a child care program? No, it is not. It is $1,200 before taxes for Canadians for their children under the age of six. That amounts to less than the cost of the cup of latte a day. That is not child care.

I hope the public understands that what we are trying to do here in this House with respect to these particular Standing Orders is enable and codify these orders in the House, which would enable us to have debates the public can see, give all members the ability to put forth solutions that would enable us to be constructive in the interests of our constituents, and enable us to work in the interests of the public.

We do not have enough opportunities to do that. These Standing Orders will enable us to do that. I think it is quite remarkable that the Conservative government that is now in power is now trying to block the very tools that will enable all MPs to be able to do their job.

I particularly ask members of Parliament who are in the backbenches of the Conservative Party to reflect on why their Prime Minister has muzzled them, has tried to muzzle the press and has muzzled his cabinet. The Prime Minister believes that he is the omnibus prime minister and that he is the font of all good ideas, but there is a dramatic danger there, in that no one person can be the government. It requires the best efforts of all people.

I hope the Canadian public understands that. I hope the government comes to its senses and supports these Standing Orders becoming permanent.

Criminal Code

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

Mr. Speaker, I am acquainted with the hon. member. We worked very hard and diligently on Bill C-2, the accountability act. I am very familiar with his absolute ability to have a drive-by political bombast, as we just witnessed.

If there was a question there, the question should have been on Bill C-23, but I will underline that this party is about keeping communities safe. This party, on this side, does care about victims' rights, which is precisely why, and it is so evident in the member's question and comment, we like to take a fact-based approach.

We would have appreciated the Minister of Justice and the parliamentary secretary coming to the justice committee with some studies or some facts to back up their storefront democracy version of events. This suggests that these laws that they are proposing, mostly written on the backs of napkins and usually three pages in length, are the panacea, and that they do not give people out there a false sense of security.

We believe in keeping communities safe and spending some of that $13.2 billion in surplus on resources in the community. I would love to discuss this with the hon. member and have him say that we are not giving enough to the police forces in our communities, that we have cut $4.6 million from a trial project administered by the RCMP, who they so steadfastly support and so do we, for drug-impaired reactions.

I know it is very difficult for members opposite to focus on what is before them, but this bill is the fruit of the good work of people at the Law Commission, and people in the Department of Justice. It is a good bill, having nothing to do with the Minister of Justice and his parliamentary secretary and the members opposite.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, let me first say I find it incredibly amusing that the Liberal member for Mississauga South would stand and try to give this government a lecture on ethics and fundraising when all Canadians know that the Liberal Party of Canada perpetrated the largest money fraud and money laundering scheme in the history of the Canadian Parliament.

The sponsorship scandal is what I am referring to, in which millions of dollars were illegally diverted back to the Liberal Party of Canada, and because of it, we have the genesis of the accountability act. It was the result of the sponsorship scandal. That is why we now have the toughest anti-corruption law in Canada being considered before the Senate. It is to put an end to those practices that the Liberal Party purported to put onto Canadian citizens and taxpayers for many years.

For that member to stand and suggest that our Prime Minister was going to a fundraising event that really flew in the face of fundraising laws of this country is absolutely incorrect. I find it passing strange that any member of the Liberal Party could actually suggest that.

Let me also say that I find it particularly peculiar that the member for Mississauga South, who I thought would have more than a passing knowledge of electoral law in Canada and in the various provinces, would make such a ludicrous statement. I am sure the member understands that there are different election financing laws in Canada and in various provinces. In fact, in Ontario, the law states that contribution limits are $8,400 for corporations or individuals or unions. Plus, another $8,400 can be contributed during an election campaign.

Even more fundamental than that, if the member for Mississauga South were actually doing his homework or chose to investigate, he would understand, because he would have found out, that the recipient of the fundraising event that the Prime Minister attended was the PC Party of Ontario, not the Conservative Party of Canada. There is a huge difference. One is a provincial party and one is a federal party.

The Prime Minister did not receive any financial benefits, nor did the Conservative Party of Canada, yet the member has the audacity to stand in the House and try to accuse this government of breaking some sort of fundraising law when nothing of the sort occurred. In fact, when Bill C-2 is finally passed, and I desperately hope that happens within the next few weeks, it will be the one piece of legislation that I think will define this government, because it is the strongest anti-corruption law that this Parliament has ever considered.

The problem right now is that the Liberal Senate does not want to pass this law. The Liberals are purposely slow-walking this legislation in the Senate. Why? Not for due diligence, but to try to thwart our government for bringing in this law prior to the Liberal leadership convention.

This is unconscionable. It is shameful that unelected Liberal senators, for their own political benefit, would try to slow-walk the most important piece of anti-corruption legislation this country has ever seen. That is exactly what is happening. It is shameful. It is unconscionable. The member should be ashamed of himself. In fact, on behalf of his Liberal senators, he should apologize.

Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development

[Gary Merasty, Liberal, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the first report of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, presented on Friday, May 12, 2006, be concurred in.

I rise to speak on this motion with the hope that this government will acknowledge and understand the ramifications of its choice to kill the Kelowna accord. I believe it does not understand how gravely it has hurt first nations, Inuit and Métis communities, directly and indirectly.

Over the spring and summer, we have seen the Conservatives' attitude toward Kelowna regress, from saying that they supported the accord, to “putting the wheels on” the accord, to finally denying that it ever existed.

Not only did the government mislead Canadians, it also misled the aboriginal people of Canada. Premiers across Canada were shocked by the government's betrayal. For example, the Premier of Saskatchewan and the leader of the official opposition voted unanimously in support of a motion urging the federal government to implement the agreement.

First nation, Inuit and Métis leaders were stunned by the complete lack of consultation before the government chose not to honour the agreement. No one could believe the Conservative government would simply cut and run from its commitments.

Perhaps the Conservatives like to tell themselves that the new consensus struck at Kelowna was nothing significant. To do so, however, ignores this landmark agreement and reinforces over 100 years of distrust and shame.

Kelowna is a high-water mark, one achieved through collaboration and good faith, aimed at reconciling the wrongs of the past.

My elders tell me that in order to move forward, we must truly understand the past and the present to properly envision the future. We must understand the three phases of modern aboriginal-state relations. Every member in this House must be able to grasp these words before we are to truly understand what will be lost if the members of this House continue to vote against the Kelowna accord.

The first phase was an ad hoc/crisis phase. During this period of time from the 1950s until 1969, the federal government's approach to working with aboriginal people was with ad hoc responses to crises occurring in the communities. It was not until a crisis occurred that the government would respond. No medium, short or long term goals were ever taken. No constructive plans were ever enacted. This was simply and purely crisis management.

The second phase was an adversarial phase. The introduction of the 1969 white paper sparked aboriginal Canadians to respond strongly to its recommendations. Aboriginal people were tired of being swept under the rug and ignored until the last possible minute as they suffered misguided, imposed directives often disguised to assimilate the people and their lands.

From the 1970s until the mid-1990s, aboriginal Canadians found their voice and explored many avenues to speak out and affirm their rights. We demanded that our rights be recognized, respected and protected. We succeeded.

In the courts, we attained victories in Calder, Guerin, Baker Lake, Sparrow, Delgamuukw, Marshall, Powley, Haida, Mikisew and many others. First nations, Inuit and Métis rights were recognized and affirmed in section 35 of the Constitution. The United Nations also gave support to aboriginal Canadians, particularly in the case of Ms. Sandra Lovelace, who asserted her rights on the international stage and prevailed.

However, this was also a time of conflict, marked with protests, such as those at Oka, Ipperwash and others. Relationships were strained with increasing distrust and hostility. That had to end. We needed to move on and we did.

The relationship began to change in the mid-1990s. Canadian courts demanded that governments use political fora to address and deal with first nations, Inuit and Métis issues.

Self-government negotiations sprang up across the country, with an acceleration of programs being devolved to aboriginal control. Round tables were set up to deal with socio-economic issues. Real improvements in the lives of aboriginal people began to be made.

These were the three phases of aboriginal-state relations leading up to the Kelowna accord.

I also want to briefly make mention of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.

In 1996, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, RCAP, was concluded. RCAP emerged from the Oka crisis in 1990, with the then Progressive Conservative government realizing it could no longer ignore aboriginal people, something this government should take note of.

RCAP was incredibly ambitious in its vision and all-encompassing in its scope. Based on 177 days of hearings and 3,500 witnesses, a six volume, 5,000 page report could be boiled down to one key statement: that Canada can no longer allow aboriginal people to remain dependent upon the nation.

It laid out the history of how aboriginal people became dependent, of how their world became one of poverty and social upheaval. RCAP identified three characteristics of government action that led to this upheaval: first, the systematic denial of aboriginal peoples' nation status; second, the violation of most agreements made with aboriginal peoples; and third, the suppression of culture and institutions.

RCAP also made recommendations to overcome the incredibly challenging realities of dependency and poverty. In particular, it argued that substantial key investments be made with multi-year commitments. In time, those investments would pay for themselves, realizing net savings over the long term for the government. For example, RCAP recommended an immediate $3 billion investment in housing that would result in Canada recovering more than twice that amount over the next number of years.

Poverty has become the reason for expense, but empowerment of the people and communities will be the way out. If the Kelowna accord is not honoured, this situation of empowerment and moving beyond dependency will not be reversed. Moreover, it is incredibly unsettling that the three key factors of oppression identified in RCAP, which I went through, namely, the denial of nation status, abandonment of agreements, and suppression of culture and institutions, are once again the government's agenda.

This minority government has a negative trend of undoing much of the progress made over the last 10 years. This relationship building stage is giving way to an adversarial stage once again. Yes, we are moving backwards with the Conservative government.

First, it has denied the nation status of aboriginal people. The UN declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples has been strongly opposed by the Conservatives, mostly on the basis that it would “revive 'extinguished' rights”, as if section 35 of the Constitution and many Supreme Court decisions did not exist.

Second, it has violated agreements. Most important, of course, it trashed the Kelowna accord over the objections of the first nations, Métis and Inuit peoples of this country.

Third, it has suppressed culture and institutions. This is what it is doing with the cuts to literacy and skills training, scrapping the first nations SchoolNet program and the court challenges program, and cutting off funding for band elections.

I am not sure who the Conservative government purported to represent when it chose to kill the Kelowna accord. Everybody, and I mean everybody, wants the accord honoured.

The background or context of our choice is this. Let us look at some of the facts.

First, Canada is going through its most significant demographic shift in more than 50 years. Baby boomers are retiring while the aboriginal population is poised to enter the workforce in unprecedented numbers. The time to invest in education and post-secondary is now. At no other time has it been more important to support first nations, Inuit and Métis education.

Second, because of the baby boom occurring in the aboriginal community, we are experiencing overcrowded housing. It is not uncommon to see three families and up to 16 or so people living in one house. The Saskatoon StarPhoenix described in detail the results of this overcrowding on health, on education and on self-worth.

Black mould is killing the people of Black Lake in my riding and many other communities across Canada. An elder passed away literally having black mould growing in her lungs.

Tuberculosis is rampant in my riding. I urge members to read the article in the StarPhoenix of September 26 and see a woman, a wife, a mother, lying in a coma from the complications of tuberculosis. Her husband and family are devastated. My daughter, Taylor, had to live with TB medication for a year. The government has ignored the TB outbreak in Black Lake like it has ignored the TB outbreak in Garden Hill. How can kids study or do homework in these conditions?

The StarPhoenix editorial board called this a “public health horror”. The Regina Leader-Post editorial board called it “a national disgrace”. And the government is going to tell me that it is not going to vote in favour of solving these issues. I hope government members can sleep at night.

A key reason why the Kelowna accord is so crucially important is that it provides the means to empower aboriginal communities to respond to the facts I have just laid out for members. If the Conservatives do nothing, not only will opportunity be lost but another generation will be lost to dependency and poverty. This must not and cannot happen.

The Kelowna accord represents, in the context of this speech, two things: first, the progress of the aboriginal people, the progress that they have made to improve the lives of their people, to have government recognize their rights, and to ultimately take their rightful place in Canadian society. Of course, these struggles are best described in the three phases I spoke of earlier.

Second, we need to begin to see the recommendations made in RCAP in 1996 implemented. This report was widely supported by aboriginal leaders across the country as a report which began to finally recognize our struggles, but also provided solutions for consideration.

Therefore, the Kelowna accord represents hope for first nations, Métis and Inuit people, and prosperity for Canada. It is a high watermark in aboriginal state relations, clearly leading toward implementing the nation to nation relationship necessary to resolve longstanding conflicts related to the numerous issues that could only be addressed through an improved legislated relationship recognizing the jurisdictions of each party.

It represents a new consensus in which all parties at the table agreed to jointly work toward resolving, issues such as housing, health, economic development and more. For the first time, Métis, Inuit and first nations people would be allowed at the table to set the agenda, the objectives, and the action plans to address social justice issues which have for too long been rampant in our communities. Finally, the cost of doing nothing was clearly understood, or so we thought.

Enter the Conservative minority government. How things have changed for the worse. Aboriginal people were betrayed as the Kelowna accord was killed without a second thought. Let us look at this novice Conservative government performance over the last eight months.

Of course, the Kelowna accord was not honoured. The government barely respected the residential school agreement, as I am sure there were some detailed discussions against this in cabinet. It refused to sign onto the UN declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. The government was able to convince one country to side with it after unsuccessfully trying to convince others with horrendous human rights violations against indigenous peoples in their countries.

The government dragged its feet on responding to the Caledonia land dispute. It undermined the Dehcho nations negotiations on the Mackenzie pipeline and I know there is more to come.

Why do I say this? Let us look at some of the trends emerging on the government side. Let us list them.

Trend no. 1, there is no consultation with aboriginal people. There was no consultation on a decision to kill the Kelowna accord, no consultation on Bill C-2, no consultation on the UN declaration, and no consultation on the water or limited consultation on the water quality panel it set up.

There was no consultation on land claim issues, no consultation and no role for aboriginal people on the ministerial advisory committee on child care spaces initiative, and no consultation on the post-secondary review process which, coincidentally, the AUCC does not feel is fair consultation anyway.

There was no consultation on cutting the aboriginal procurement strategy, no consultation on cuts to education capital, and no consultation on cutting funding to Ontario first nations elections. And of course, there was no consultation on the federal budget of 2006-07.

Overall, this Conservative government just does not care enough to consult with aboriginal people. Aboriginal people are getting the message that the government does not want to talk to them.

Trend no. 2, there is a diminishing of aboriginal rights. One of the principles of the UN declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples is the recognition of collective rights. In fact, the Minister of Indian Affairs stated in the Globe and Mail that “the text (in the declaration) could be used to revive rights that were lawfully extinguished or ceded by treaty.”

What rights were extinguished lawfully? This is the basis upon which aboriginal people have battled the government for decades. Aboriginal people were swindled and prevented from defending themselves. In fact, many first nations people could not even hire a lawyer to act on their behalf.

This tells the aboriginal people that the minister is not open to discussing aboriginal rights in a fair and reasonable manner, especially it seems, collective rights. I think there is a reason to why collective rights are being targeted.

The Minister of Indian Affairs was quoted as saying in a Saskatchewan newspaper that fee simple land ownership is the only solution to dealing with aboriginal poverty. This is an entirely American policy. In the United States the Dawes act of 1887 stole Indian land from the Indian people on the premise of eliminating poverty.

In the book, Reconciliation: First Nations Treaty Making in British Columbia, Mr. Penikett, who is a well-respected authority on aboriginal rights, writes a passage that states:

Theodore Roosevelt praised the Dawes Act as “a mighty pulverizing engine to break up the tribal mass”. Through foreclosures and state tax collections, settlers soon grabbed all the best land. In less than a lifetime, Indians had lost half of their remaining lands in the United States.

Will this future Conservative government on reserve private land ownership legislation be known as the member for Calgary Centre-North act?

The minister's comments tell the first nations of Canada that the goal of the government is clearly not to respect their collective rights but to open up reserve lands for speculators. But, it does not end there.

The next issue the government is dressed in sheep's clothing on is matrimonial real property. Clearly, first nations women are not fairly or legally protected when it comes to the Indian Act. It is a very discriminatory piece of legislation that must be eliminated. In June 1992, Ms. Nellie Carlson of the group Indian Rights for Indian Women said:

Historically the Indian Act has thoroughly brainwashed us. Since 1869 Indian women already were legislated as to who she should be. Six times the Indian Act changed on Indian women. But each time she lost a little bit of her rights as an Indian.

To resolve this issue requires a very complex set of negotiations to take place. The respect and recognition of the first nations dispute resolution processes is necessary. The membership rules of the Indian Act, and specifically the Bill C-31 amendments must be changed to further protect the rights of first nations women.

Socio-economic conditions must be addressed. Recognition of women's rights within the communal land ownership context must be addressed effectively. If it is the plan of the Conservative government to establish fee simple land ownership in order to divide up matrimonial property upon dissolution of marriage, it will not work. If this is the plan, first nations women may end up losing more of their rights as Ms. Nellie Carlson described.

The move of the Conservative government is clearly to establish fee simple land ownership through any means possible, recognizing of course what the Prime Minister did recently when he stood proud to denounce the rights of the aboriginal people of this country as race-based.

Aboriginal people have fought hard to have their rights recognized through the avenues available to them in this democratic country. It is an embarrassment for us as Canadians to see the path upon which the Conservative government wants to take us.

I want to cite Mr. Penikett's book one more time. He talks extensively about the fears of aboriginal people when it comes to the Conservative government. He writes:

Judging from previous statements by Conservative MPs, the possibilities include Aboriginal leaders' worst nightmares:

Deeply cutting financial transfers for education, health and housing programs;

Using the constitution's notwithstanding clause to limit Canada's obligations to Aboriginal peoples;

Ending the separate Aboriginal fishery;

Adopting Harper mentor Tom Flanagan's proposal to legislate “extinguishment”;

Initiating Dawes Act-style privatizing tribal lands; and

Offering individual cash buyouts for Aboriginal rights and title--

Well, Mr. Penikett called it.

The Kelowna accord best represents the hopes and dreams of the aboriginal people of this country to be recognized as equals in their own country and as significant contributors to the building of this great country that today we are all so proud of. They want to be proud of Canada, too, but this government is making it very difficult.

The Conservative government knew that it was never a matter of enough money. The rich treasury that we have seen in the last few days clearly points to the fact that the Conservative government chose not to honour the Kelowna accord and to make cuts right where it hurts.

Ethics Commissioner Report in Relation to Member for Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to exercise my right to speak, pursuant to subsection 28(9) of the appendix to the Standing Orders of the House of Commons.

On June 21 of this year a report by Ethics Commissioner Bernard Shapiro on an inquiry precipitated by the member for Ottawa—Vanier was presented to the House. This report offends all manner of natural justice and fairness, and out of respect for the House and our democratic institution I am obligated to respond.

If anything demonstrates the need for swift passage of Bill C-2, the federal accountability act, it has to be the decision of the current Ethics Commissioner to willingly get involved in partisan political activity in the aftermath of a federal election campaign.

The inquiry was a blatant waste of taxpayers' dollars, the cost of which should be borne by the Liberal Party as an election expense.

In order to understand the proper sequence of events, it is important to correct the version presented by Mr. Shapiro.

The member for Ottawa—Vanier made his partisan allegations in a letter to the Ethics Commissioner dated January 11, 2006 during the last federal election. The February 9 letter referred to by Mr. Shapiro was the second request after the initial turndown, the reasons for which Mr. Shapiro has refused to disclose, even though he is obligated to report his reasons as per subsections 27(6) and 28(1) of the Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons.

It was brought to my attention by a member of the media that on January 12, 2006, the day after the member for Ottawa—Vanier wrote to Mr. Shapiro, a member of the Liberal Party, Stephen Heckbert, issued a partisan press release disclosing the actions of the member for Ottawa—Vanier and his partisan allegations.

As I would be unaware of a letter being written and it would not be expected that the Ethics Commissioner would release the contents of private correspondence, it would appear that the information came directly from the individual making the allegation to be used in a partisan political manner during the last federal election.

This public disclosure is in direct violation of subsection 27(5) of the members' code. The code expressly states:

--Members should respect the process established by this Code and permit it to take place without commenting further on the matter.

Furthermore, subsection 27(6) states the following:

If the Ethics Commissioner is of the opinion that a request for an inquiry is frivolous or vexatious or was not made in good faith, or that there are no or insufficient grounds to warrant an inquiry or the continuation of an inquiry, the Ethics Commissioner shall so state in dismissing the request. The Ethics Commissioner shall report the dismissal in accordance with section 28 and may recommend that further action be considered against the Member who made the request.

Subsection 28(1) states:

Forthwith following an inquiry, the Ethics Commissioner shall report to the Speaker, who shall present the report to the House when it next sits.

This is an apparent failure of the Ethics Commissioner to respect subsection 27(6) and subsection 28(1) of the members' code. As of today's date no report, as required by the members' code, has been presented to the House.

Upon investigation, I have been informed that it has been indicated to the Table Clerks of the House by the Ethics Commissioner that Mr. Shapiro is of the opinion that if a request for an inquiry falls outside the commissioner's mandate, he is not required to report the dismissal for such a request to the House even though the code clearly directs Mr. Shapiro to issue a report in that circumstance.

This action then begs the question: If the January 11 request was outside the mandate of the Ethics Commissioner, what changed between January 11 and February 9, other than the government, to cause Mr. Shapiro to pursue this frivolous request?

My next concerns are as follows. It is important for all members of Parliament to know what we can and cannot do under the members' code. If the Ethics Commissioner has decided that he is not going to respond to a request and then decides he is not going to inform anyone, how are members supposed to know what our obligations are under the members' code?

Another very serious concern is the way the Ethics Commissioner has decided when to report to the House. In the case of the inquiry regarding the cabinet selection, Mr. Shapiro states that there was no contravention of the members' code and then proceeded to issue a report on the crossing of the floor that was clearly outside his mandate. The Ethics Commissioner cannot have it both ways.

In my case, by refusing to report on a non-meritorious request as per subsection 27(6) of the members' code, I am being denied the right for further action to be taken against the member for Ottawa—Vanier for breaching the members' code.

From the outset it was clear that the office of the Ethics Commissioner was being used for partisan political reasons, which further demonstrates the lack of consistency that was used to pursue this frivolous request.

After Mr. Shapiro wrote to my office informing me of his decision to participate in partisan harassment arising from an election campaign, my office responded with the following letter:

This letter is in response to your letter of March 27th, 2006, in which you advise of your intention to carry out an investigation into certain alleged violations by the member for Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke of the Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons.

I note that the “incidents” allegedly giving rise to the complaint occurred when the Parliament was dissolved.

I draw to your attention the following quote from your report regarding the Inquiry involving the Prime Minister.

“Upon dissolution of the 38th Parliament, the House as an Assembly ceased to exist...In addition, members of the House cease to exist constitutionally...It logically follows from this that the member making the request must have the capacity to do so”.

As one must be a member of the House of Commons for the Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons to apply, by your own finding, the members' Code has no effect on persons when they are not Members (i.e., between the date of dissolution and the return of the election writs).

The allegations made by the Member for Ottawa--Vanier against the Member for Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke were made at a time when neither individual was subject to the members' Code.

If someone is not able to bring forward a complaint during this period, by the same logic, one cannot be a target of a complaint during the same period, for the same reason.

For the reasons stated, you are without jurisdiction to conduct your inquiry.

I would request that you immediately cease all further inquiry into these allegations.

In a letter January 23, 2006, in response to the member for Calgary Southeast, Mr. Shapiro had this to say, and I quote directly from Mr. Shapiro's own words to the member for Calgary Southeast:

Aside from the consideration above, your request raises another issue related to my authority to initiate an inquiry at the request of a member of the House of Commons after Parliament has been dissolved.

After dissolution of Parliament there are no longer any members of the House of Commons.

While this does not appear to be clearly stated in the Parliament of Canada Act, I note that section 69 indicates:

“For the purposes of the allowances payable under sections 55 and 63, a person who, immediately before a dissolution of the House of Commons, was a member thereof shall be deemed to continue to be a member of the House until the date of the next following general election”.

Between the dissolution of the 38th Parliament and the commencement of the 39th Parliament, members of the House of Commons constitutionally cease to be members.

As well, with the dissolution of Parliament, the House of Commons as an Assembly, as well as its activities, cease.

As a consequence, the Standing Orders of the House of Commons have no effect.

As the members' code is Appendix I to the Standing Orders, it too has no effect during dissolution.

As a result, I am therefore not in a position to consider a request by a member for an inquiry against another member on the basis of the members' Code.

Incredibly, Mr. Shapiro totally flip-flopped from the position he took when he responded to the member for Calgary Southeast when he made the decision to pursue partisan attacks on who a prime minister could appoint to his cabinet.

Of far greater consequence to the privileges of all members of this House was the assertion by Mr. Shapiro that the “deemed” concurrence of the report issued to the House by his office on April 4, 2006 was somehow parliamentary approval for the absolute inconsistency that has been the hallmark of decisions made by Mr. Shapiro.

I draw attention of members to subsection 28(10) of the members' code:

A motion to concur in a report referred to in subsection (4) or (5) may be moved during Routine Proceedings. If no such motion has been moved and disposed of within 10 sitting days after the day on which the report was tabled, a motion to concur in the report shall be deemed to have been moved and adopted at the expiry of that time.

This I submit to all members is the same type of negative option that some telecoms use to get subscribers to sign onto services they do not really want.

This stealth method of changing the Standing Orders of the House of Commons by an employee of this chamber is absolutely unacceptable.

Any changes to the way this House governs its affairs should only be done with open debate and a vote by all members. Changes to the Standing Orders should never be “deemed to be adopted” as a default option.

I now read into the record my letter to Mr. Shapiro of May 1 after he stated he would issue a report with or without my cooperation:

Further to your letter of April 18th, 2006, please be assured that as a Member of Parliament I accept the obligations and demands as required of MPs by the Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons (the members' code).

I welcome the opportunity to co-operate with any officer of the House of Commons in the performance of their responsibilities.

At the same time, it must be noted that in order to request information from a member relating to her functions and the way in which she carries out those functions, the person or officer must have the jurisdiction to make the request.

In order to understand the basis upon which I am being requested to co-operate with your office, it is both necessary and appropriate to ask before responding to such a request for a clear understanding of exactly what I am being required to respond to in the context of the members' code.

In the letter of February 9, 2006, the Member for Ottawa—Vanier alleges that sections 8 and 10(1) of the Members' Code may have been breached.

In both of these provisions, a conflict only occurs when a Member's “private interest” is involved.

Please identify the private interest, as defined in these two sections of the Members' Code, that it is alleged I have furthered in the performance of my public duties.

It was with particular interest I note that you cite the Board of Internal Economy and their bylaws as an authoritative source, where you “find that the alleged conduct does relate to the carrying out of duties and functions of a Member”.

I draw to your attention the relevant section of the Parliament of Canada Act whereby the Board of Internal Economy derives its statutory authority:

Sections 52.6 and 52.8 of the Parliament of Canada Act read:

“52.6(1)The Board has the exclusive authority to determine whether any previous, current or proposed use by a member of the House of Commons of any funds, goods, services or premises made available to that member for the carrying out of parliamentary functions is or was proper, given the discharge of the parliamentary functions of members of the House of Commons, including whether any such use is or was proper having regard to the intent and purpose of the by-laws made under subsection 52.5(1)”.

The same authority of the Board is specifically referenced in section 6 of the Members' Code, which provides:

“6. Nothing in this Code affects the jurisdiction of the Board of Internal Economy of the House of Commons to determine the propriety of the use of any funds, goods, services or premises made available to Members for carrying out their parliamentary duties and functions”.

As I understand the allegation put forth by the member for Ottawa—Vanier, he is questioning the manner in which I may or may not have used resources in my constituency and Ottawa offices, resources that are provided to me and all Members as part of our Members' Operation Budget.

These budgets, their purpose and use, are within the exclusive domain of the Board of Internal Economy.

This, in and of itself, is grounds for dismissing the request for an inquiry by the member for Ottawa—Vanier.

He refers to section 2(a) and (b) of the Members' Code as possible grounds to proceed.

In the principles enunciated in section 2 of the Members' Code, I categorically and absolutely reject any and all allegations contained in the correspondence, including attachments sent by the member for Ottawa—Vanier behind this partisan political attack.

I remind the Ethics Commissioner that this allegation was made during the January 23, 2006 election campaign.

What purpose can possibly be served by resurrecting a partisan slur campaign?

The campaign is over.

In spite of efforts by the member for Ottawa—Vanier and the Liberal Party, the voters of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, in their wisdom, saw right through this partisan attack, increasing my plurality.

Democracy has spoken.

The fact that the Liberal Party continues to use the office of the Ethics Commissioner for partisan political purposes should in and of itself be subject to an inquiry by your office based on this same section.

What is also clear from this exchange and by your own admission, is the contradictory position you took in the inquiry involving the cabinet selection after the Valeri decision.

There is a need to establish, in clear terms, exactly what authority the office of the Ethics Commissioner possesses to enforce the Members' Code during dissolution of Parliament. This is an issue that is most appropriately the purview of Parliament in the context of legislation now before the House.

While I am prepared to respond to all requests that are made within the scope of the jurisdiction given to you by members of the House of Commons, I am unable to respond to the present inquiry without the information and responses requested in this letter.

Like anyone asked to respond to a person in authority on an allegation as serious as breach of ethics, I am entitled to know the jurisdiction of the person requesting a response, as well as the case I have to meet.

As a result, I request a response from you prior to issuing any report to Parliament, should you insist on proceeding with this frivolous pursuit.

Pursuant to section 52.5 of the Parliament of Canada Act, Bylaw 102, I consider the final paragraph of your April 18, 2006 letter to me to be a breach of section 2(d) of that bylaw and will respond appropriately.

Incredibly, even after receiving this correspondence, Mr. Shapiro continued his misguided attack. His final comments in the subsequent report he tabled represent a partisan double standard when compared to his introduction to the inquiry into the actions of the hon. member for York West, when he had this to say:

Regardless of public perception, the mandate or authority of the Ethics Commissioner does not extend to all areas; the Ethics Commissioner cannot be considered a general ombudsperson with the authority to respond to citizens who are dissatisfied with their particular experience with a parliamentarian, minister or public office holder.

Rather than consistently applying the same standard that was applied to the member for York West, Mr. Shapiro proceeded to act in a manner which he had previously acknowledged was outside his mandate.

My closing remarks I now direct to the other place as it considers Bill C-2, the federal accountability act.

During testimony from Mr. Shapiro, it was pointed out that he had a preference for a non-legislated code of conduct, and the need for someone with a background in the law, either as a current or former member of the bench of a tribunal, was questioned as being unnecessary.

The case I put forth in front of Parliament today clearly demonstrates the absolute requirement for a legislated code of conduct and for the Ethics Commissioner to have a background in the law.

It has been recognized that Mr. Shapiro has been reading into the code things that are not there. His actions clearly demonstrate that the proposals set forth by the government in the federal accountability act are absolutely necessary to restore the credibility to the position of Ethics Commissioner.

One of the columnists for the Globe and Mail made this observation on a decision by Mr. Shapiro:

--the Ethics Commissioner, like a judge on a court or a commissioner at an inquiry, should be bound by the strict letter of his or her mandate...It was simply his job to decide whether the MPs' code of conduct had been violated. It hadn't. Case closed.

It was a lapse in judgment, another in a long list....

For the office of the Ethics Commissioner to function with any credibility, it must do so in an unbiased, non-partisan fashion. The federal accountability act seeks to make those changes.

A senator from British Columbia during hearings in the other place on Bill C-2 asked how an individual whose appointment was voted in favour could be protected from falling into disfavour amid partisan allegations. Members vote for the office. It is then up to the individual appointee to conduct his or herself in such a fashion as to bring credibility to that position.

It is my feeling that Bill C-2, the federal accountability act, will clean up the current shortcomings that now exist in the Ethics Commissioner's office. I urge the other place to pass this legislation now.

Had the federal accountability act been in place, Mr. Shapiro would have been compelled to fulfill the requirements of the position of Ethics Commissioner as intended by this House, and the frivolous, vexatious, partisan request by the controversial member for Ottawa—Vanier would have been properly dismissed, as it eventually was, without the waste of taxpayers' dollars, which was the final result.

Canada Transportation Act

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today to speak at second reading of Bill C-11. This bill is about 60 pages long and is one of those bills that we cannot read in isolation. We have to have the existing legislation there so we can follow the amendments. Unless the House is prepared to give me an extension of about two hours, I am not going to address the whole bill. I will address certain aspects of it.

We are talking about the Canada Transportation Act and the Railway Safety Act. There are certainly many provisions of interest in this bill and they have been debated and discussed by hon. members through this debate, but I would like to look at a couple in particular.

Bill C-11 proposes that the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities be allowed to regulate the advertised pricing of airfare. This is an issue which is of great interest to Canadians, considering the recent history and volatility within the airline industry. It remains to be heard from the minister what his specific intentions are with regard to future airfare advertising regulations.

The whole question of regulations is kind of interesting to note for all hon. members. When we debate bills and vote at the various stages, we do so without the regulations, which do not come until after the legislation is passed, has gone through the Senate, received royal assent and is proclaimed. Then we get the regulations. There always has been this issue about whether or not there is this creeping problem where we have executive-made law, where the cabinet is enhancing what the insinuation of the legislation is through the regulations. It is the reason why we have the scrutiny of regulations committee, a joint Commons-Senate committee, to look at those regulations as they come through and to ensure that the regulations are authorized by the legislation.

I thought I would put that in because it is a very important aspect as it relates to this bill and it is incumbent upon the committee to do this. I am sure we will see this bill go to committee for review. We have to ensure that we get an indication from the government, from the minister, about the intent. What is the intent here? How can we, from an informed point of view, make decisions with regard to appropriate amendments to the legislation, if necessary?

The bill itself provides hints but no guarantees, and that is the issue. That is the problem with the regulations. Subsection 86.1(1) states:

The Agency may, on the recommendation of the Minister, make regulations respecting advertising in all media, including on the Internet, of prices for air services within, or originating in, Canada.

Subsection 86.1(2) of the same clause suggests that the minister may require that prices should include all costs to the carrier and all charges, but it does so without limiting the generality of the minister's power to regulate under subsection 86.1(1). Again it is this uncertainty, as a consequence of having the details, and the devil always is in the details with regard to regulations.

Members may recall that the issue of airfare pricing attracted a great deal of attention a few years ago when airport improvement fees and security charges became prevalent throughout the airline industry. At that time, the Liberal government recognized that protecting consumers was of utmost importance. Much of the materials we find in Bill C-11 are the provisions of the amendments to the Canada Transportation Act, which have been presented in bills in prior Parliaments, but which did not proceed through the full legislative process due to the call of an election.

The provisions that are in question today were inherited from the previous legislation. There are too many situations right now, quite frankly, and what we are trying to address is that every day Canadians are faced with misleading and simply false information. That is the reality that we are faced with when we are trying to decide, as consumers, how to spend our hard-earned dollars.

The wide range of fees and taxes on airfare can be particularly confounding as well. Charges vary depending on which airport one is in, the airport of origin and the destination, then based on whether it is domestic or international. Even then, in some cases when a flight connects through certain particular airports rather than others, there are other complications, so the comparabilities from airline to airline are in some difficulty too.

Then, of course, we cannot forget the taxes. When all the charges, fees and taxes are summed up, the actual price of an airline ticket can be substantially above the base price, which is usually the advertised price. Let me repeat that. The base price, without all those add-ons, is the one that usually appears in the advertising. The consumers really get a surprise when they see the add-ons.

The right to set regulations could simplify these charges into a single tax-inclusive number, which when advertised by one airline would lend itself to comparison with other advertisements by other airlines. It is possible to take for granted the importance of advertising in our society. Market economies depend on competition. The competition itself depends on the ability of purchasers, in this case the Canadian consumers buying airline tickets, to distinguish between prices in a meaningful way.

I would go so far as to say that the efficiency cannot be properly encouraged in a market without clear pricing. That is the issue. We do not really have clear pricing, at least in the eyes of the consumer.

We must see prices clearly in order to choose based on price. Only when we choose based on price do we encourage businesses to offer a better deal. This is competition. That is the purpose of healthy competition. It is to ensure that there is fair pricing. Competitive pricing means that there is a win-win.

Clearly we are supportive of the principle of price advertising clarity. However, we do not know precisely what kind of price advertising regulations the minister intends to undertake. This is a problem and it is something that I encourage the committee to address exhaustively when it looks at this legislation.

Specific types of regulation can certainly have some unintended effects as well. Forcing airlines to disclose a certain amount of information in their advertising may in fact interfere with the message in unproductive ways or confuse the consumer. If we go a little too far we may find that people do not focus in on exactly the key elements of the pricing mechanism.

We have all seen the commercials for automobiles, which contain a great deal of detail. That is an example of listing all these little things. In fact, many Canadians would argue that they contain too much detail to be of much use. Calling on the airlines to display a similar level of detail may in fact not be where we want to go. I think this is another issue that the committee should address very carefully.

As we know, industries are thoroughly interconnected. I am not just talking about the airline industry. When we think about it, even the advertising industry is obviously affected. Depending on what our requirements are, certain modes of advertising are more desirable, more productive or effective than others, so that depending on what we do in this legislation may have some consequential impacts on other industries. We have to ask ourselves whether or not new regulations will cause one type of media to take a greater share of advertising dollars than another type. It could have any number of effects, all of which we can only speculate about.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities began his remarks by outlining some details. We will be required to do our jobs, but full disclosure in any event is certainly essential. We do not know what regulations the minister will be eventually bringing forward. It is going to be difficult for us to assess some of these finer points in terms of the impacts on the industry and related industries or linked industries.

This brings me to another important point. As parliamentarians, we obviously have a duty to consider legislation very carefully, but the government is understandably anxious to more forward with certain priorities. This is one that we cannot rush. This is one that we have to be very careful of. We know it has taken some time to get to this point yet again. When we start the House every day we say prayers and one of our pleas is that we make “good laws and wise decisions”. That is always the case. Certainly we want to make sure that Bill C-11 ultimately makes the necessary amendments to make the Canada Transportation Act a better law.

Whether the bill is the size of Bill C-2, the accountability bill, which is five times the size of a normal piece of legislation, or whether it is like Bill C-3 on international tunnels and bridges, a very few pages, we cannot forget that when we give a bill our approval it eventually becomes law, with consequential effects for Canadians, whether we have had the foresight to see them.

This bill in particular has some potential pitfalls that are going to call on those responsible for scrutinizing the bill at committee to do their very best, to engage the best possible witnesses, to try to foresee, to try to identify some of those pitfalls and to absolutely ensure that the legislation does not have unintended consequences.

In terms of Bill C-11, we are asking the government and the minister in particular to take the time to properly address the many questions that flow from the amendments it proposes. The Minister of Transport spoke about another provision in Bill C-11 that is of interest. He indicated that he intends to amend the Canada Transportation Act to create a mediation process for disputes concerning federal transportation matters that fall within the jurisdiction of the Canadian Transportation Agency.

This is very interesting. It is an evolution that was previously found in Bill C-44 in a prior Parliament. Proposed subsection 36.1(1) would require a unanimous agreement of the parties in order to proceed, but in those circumstances it would seem to be a very useful process.

Any time that we can provide for alternatives to litigation in the area of transport, we do a favour to the parties who are looking for win-win solutions. We would like to explore that as fully as possible as well. The process suggests a quicker timeline and would inevitably be cheaper than lawsuits. That usually is the case. Many of our legal friends in the chamber certainly remind us of that from time to time, although for the life of me it really makes me think of the softwood deal and some of the dynamics that have occurred there.

To go back to this bill, in February 2004 CTA chairwoman Marian Robson wrote that 95% of matters that had been referred to mediation by the agency were resolved to mutual satisfaction. We can see that the history is very good in this regard.

Entities that fall under the domain of the Canadian Transportation Agency are more than likely parties that have ongoing contractual relationships. By its very nature transportation infrastructure is not particularly fluid and there may not be many possible alternative commercial relationships. Quick, amicable resolutions free up resources and ultimately lead to better prices and better services for Canadians.

My colleagues and I are supportive of these measures and commend the minister for bringing back these elements of amendments from previous Liberal bills.

Finally, I would like to dwell very briefly on the issue of corporate governance. It is a subject matter that has attracted quite a bit of attention these days and the CTA is a very important agency. The agency is responsible for balancing divergent interests in a fair and open manner. It licenses air and rail carriers and resolves complaints between shippers and railways regarding rates and service. It approves proposed construction of railway lines. It even participates in international bilateral negotiations and administers bilateral agreements.

Eyebrows were raised in the House when the minister asserted that changes to the makeup of the Canadian Transportation Agency will provide for cost savings. I think people's eyebrows usually go up when governments say they are going to save--it is almost like “show me”--but these are initiatives through which, if they are sound in terms of their operational impact, that is possible, and we certainly would like to see that.

It appears that the current board made up of seven part time members will be replaced by a board of five members in the full time employ of the CTA. These five members would be located here in the national capital region. The minister talks about efficiency of centralization, noting that more than one member must sign off on decisions the agency takes, and I would like to hear from the minister about how the agency will do its job better.

As we know, the bill is the third attempt to bring forward legislation on these particular matters. Let me say that Bill C-11 is made up of many, many amendments, some 60 pages of them. It was very difficult. I compliment all hon. members who took the opportunity to do the necessary work, the due diligence, to review the legislation so they could bring an informed debate to the House at second reading and so we could move the bill on through the legislative process with our eyes wide open with regard to the key elements that are of concern to parliamentarians and to consumers and the service providers as well.

An important part of our review was the statutory review of the Canada Transportation Act. I was very interested to hear the Minister of Transport, standing in his place earlier, mention that he would be tabling further amendments addressing the subject of rail shipping disputes. Certainly we have had a great deal of discussion on that. I know that the committee is going to be very cognizant of the concerns raised by all hon. members.

He talked further of consultations that are now complete and new conclusions that the Conservative minority government has drawn. I should note that Bill C-11 requires another statutory review of the Canada Transportation Act, something that makes a lot of sense given its primacy in an area, namely transportation, that is of broad importance to Canada and certainly to all Canadians.

As my hon. colleague from Ottawa South, the opposition critic for transport, has stated, we are looking forward to seeing the bill examined and revised as necessary at the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as the official opposition critic for transport it is enlightening to hear an evolving NDP position on the bill.

I would like to go back to a theme the member raised and put a couple of questions to him. He did raise the question of transparency and accountability and then really took it quite hard to the government in terms of its accountability and appointments process. I have a hard time reconciling those comments with the activities over the past six months of his colleague, the member for Winnipeg Centre, who has been in large part the stalking horse and the apologist for this government on its Bill C-2, the federal accountability act.

I would like to remind the member about some of the wonderful appointments taken on by the previous government in the past, including the appointment, for example, of Stephen Lewis, for whom we fought tooth and nail to get appointed as Under-Secretary-General to the United Nations. There was the appointment of Ed Broadbent for seven years as the President and CEO of Rights and Democracy in Montreal and, of course, my very good friend Mike Harcourt, the former NDP premier of B.C. who was appointed on three separate occasions by the Liberal government to take on some very important public policy work.

My question for the member, now that he has raised a number of issues which I am looking to discern through to find out how we can improve the bill, is the environmental question. There is no greenhouse gas reference in this bill whatsoever. This is at a time when the government purportedly is in the process of devising some sort of new environmental plan or strategy. I guess it will go along with the theme of a new government, a new environmental policy. I am not sure where it is. It has been seven months, to correct the record. How does the member take the fact that under Bill C-11 there are no environmental measures, no greenhouse gas references and, clearly, no effort to deal with the environmental and climate change challenge?

Lobbyists

[John Baird, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, what I can say and what the Ethics Commissioner stated very clearly is that these two individuals worked for Parliament, but not for government. That is very important. It is very clearly stated that if you have access to the trust of cabinet ministers, if you have access to government information, if you have contacts with the government while working in a minister's office, you cannot be employed as a lobbyist for five years. This is one of the reasons for implementing Bill C-2 before looking for a better bill to—

Political Financing

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard all kinds of sanctimonious bluster from the President of the Treasury Board over this already.

The fact is it was the NDP that filed the complaint with the elections commission on June 29. Three months later, the commission cannot get the Conservatives to cooperate and show their books, to open their political contribution books. I was shocked to learn the elections commissioner does not even have the authority to audit a political party's books.

The Conservatives turned down every amendment we put forward on election financing in Bill C-2. How can they stand here and say they are committed to openness and transparency if they will not cooperate with the elections commissioner?

Canada Elections Act

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and speak to Bill C-16.

I chose to run for political office, as many here did, to make a difference. I believe we were sent here by our constituents to improve the state of the nation.

One of the areas where our nation definitely needs improvement is the structure and the function of our democracy. Before the last election, our party put forward a seven point plan to clean up and improve the state of our democracy. A friend of mine and a colleague of many who are here, Mr. Broadbent, proposed the seven point plan to clean up and put in the hands of Canadians some ideas that we could then bring to this place to improve the state of our nation and, indeed, the state and health of our democracy.

I want to go over those points. We know that with the accountability act the government quite smartly and rightly took some of our ideas and brought them forward. We certainly contributed to the committee on Bill C-2 in which the member for Winnipeg Centre and I proposed, as opposed to just opposing, ideas. We proposed some of the ideas that we had put forward in our plan, which was available to Canadians not only during the election but before the election.

To summarize the seven point plan, the first was to have democratic accountability in the House. We proposed that no member of Parliament could ignore his or her voters and wheel and deal for personal gain. No member of Parliament should be permitted to ignore the wishes of their voters and change parties. This was before the interesting musical chairs by the member for Vancouver Kingsway. We wanted to ensure that the wishes of voters were honoured. To cross the floor and become a member of another party, without first resigning his or her seat and running in a byelection, was not on.

Democracy is something that is evolving. It is an experiment of sorts and it is something where we know that when voters are not honoured, they do one of two things. Fist, they just walk away from the process, and no one wants to see that happen. Sadly, we have seen that happen over time. Second, they propose to change things.

The first thing we wanted to do in our seven point ethics packages was to ban floor-crossing. We saw that it dishonoured the wishes of voters.

The second point of our seven point plan was that election dates should be fixed, which is the spirit in the proposition the government has put before the House in Bill C-16. There are many reasons for that, which I will explain in a minute.

Point three, which we proposed before the last election, was to set spending limits in leadership contests. We saw in the previous Liberal Party leadership contest the contestant, who then became the prime minister, had over $12 million in the bank. Obviously, there was not much competition in the end, but he had lots of money. We had concerns at the time about the amount of money in leadership contests, and it was not just with the Liberal Party. Parties are largely financed by the public and the same principles pertinent to the public good should play to the internal affairs of parties as they do to electoral competition between parties.

Point four was electoral reform. This has been a demand, a suggestion, a proposition that was made probably before I was born. An organization of Canadians from coast to coast has been brought together from all parties. It has decided to focus on electoral reform, which obviously needs fixing.

Many people have suggested we look to the other healthy democracies that have proportional representation, that the will and the spirit of the voters is represented in legislative bodies. This clearly has not happened in the last number of elections. We need a process and we need to ensure that we get on with that process.

Fair Vote Canada, the organization to which I referred, has been tireless in advocating for fair elections so voters are not cheated, which has happened. It is not about parties. We know we have had majority governments that are false majorities, governments that are based on 38% and 39% of the vote. That is clearly wrong, it is undemocratic and it should be changed.

Point five was that unregulated lobbying and political cronyism must end. We have started on that path with some amendments we made on Bill C-2. We have to change government appointments so they are not patronage appointments. We have made some changes, but there is work to be done.

Point seven was access to information. Clearly, that is the window on democracy. It is a bit clouded now. We are working on that and there is more to come.

Now let me turn to the bill before us. The reason why we put forward fixed election dates long before others were talking about it in this place was because we saw the concerns that people had with the executive power, which has been concentrated over time, in the hands of the Prime Minister's Office. Some put it back to just after Pearson. We saw this lead to the deepening of cynicism among the voters of Canada. We had a previous government call a snap election when it was clear that the opposition at the time was not coalesced or organized. Why? Because it could win the election.

As was mentioned, governments sometimes go on too long. We remember the previous Conservative government, which waited until 1993 to finally let Canadians have their say. We could see a government call a snap election to get power or a government that hangs on to long. We see the benefit of having fixed election dates, but there are many other reasons, if we look to the people who have studied it.

I refer to Henry Milner, who is an author, visiting scholar and professor of political science at Laval University. He has studied this, and I consider this an objective opinion. He is one of the people we tapped into taking a look at fixed election dates. He showed that Canada is only 1 out of 12 of 40 comparable democracies that does not use some form of fixed election dates. Clearly, when we look at the juxtaposition between our democracy and others, it is worth examining, and he did that. He also said that these numbers contradicted the widely held misperception that flexible election dates were incompatible with parliamentary systems, as some have suggested.

I will turn to concerns with the fact that there have not been constitutional changes proposed in the bill. In effect, a prime minister can walk down the street and still call for an election. My colleague has made a proposal. In committee we will look at proposing ways to ensure that there are criteria on what is a confidence vote.

Most parliamentary democracies in Scandinavia and continental Europe, including several Westminster style systems, have what is called a flexible fix. In other words people would have concerns if there were a loss of confidence and the government should fall and set criteria accordingly. That is really what we are talking about: not fixed election dates, but nuance. It is a flexible fix so if there is a minority Parliament and the government loses the confidence of the House, there is an opportunity to go to the people, and that will not change. Therefore, we have fixed election dates when it is opportune.

Like many others, I am concerned that the present government is simply trying to engineer, between policy and brokerage politics, the fall of the House so it can then gain a majority. I actually think that with this debate and this bill in front of us people will become wise to that kind of backroom politicking. Not only with fixed election dates would we avoid the cynical use of power within the Prime Minister's Office, as we saw with previous governments, but the public would be aware of a fixed election date in October and would then question the government if it were orchestrating the fall of the House. The government would need to make that political argument. Is it playing brokerage politics simply to have the House fall so that it could gain a majority government? I see that as an important debate to have.

By adopting a precise date, preferably early in the fall as has been suggested, it would allow a campaign to take place at the end of the traditional vacation period in Canada. We also must take rural Canada into account. If we were to have an election too early in the fall it would affect farmers. Farmers, goodness knows, have had enough challenges and they do not need another one in front of them.

Although many of us had a terrific time going door to door in the last election and found it very invigorating ploughing through the snow, many of us, and probably most Canadians, would rather that be a footnote in history and not a practice to embrace.

If we were to build in provisions for holding early elections when necessary and in such an event stipulate that the following election would occur on the designated date four calendar years later, I believe Canadians would embrace that and it would help fix democracy.

I want to conclude by emphasizing the fact that this is something the NDP proposed before the election and it is something we embrace. We have some concerns but they can be dealt with in committee. We fully support fixed election dates.

I would like to leave the House and Canadians with the fact that this is not the end of electoral reform and democratic reform. Canadians are demanding that we fix our democracy, that we embrace the idea of democratic reform and that we embrace the idea of proportional representation. Canadians would then have genuine confidence in democracy. This is the beginning, definitely not the end. I look forward to engaging in debate with my colleagues.

Access to Information

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government's access to information plan will not strengthen accountability. It will clearly weaken it.

Bill C-2 will actually reduce the amount of information available to the public and increase the government's ability to cover up wrongdoings.

The government's approach to the access to information reforms came as a surprising disappointment to many, including the Information Commissioner.

According to the commissioner's recent report:

No previous government...has put forward a more retrograde and dangerous set of proposals to change the Access to Information Act.

The Prime Minister just makes it up as he goes along, falsely accusing the Information Commissioner of intent to interfere with journalistic freedom instead of acknowledging the shortcomings of his own accountability act.

It is a step backwards and will actually work against openness and transparency. That is certainly not what I call accountability.