Bill S-14 (Historical)

Fighting Foreign Corruption Act

An Act to amend the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act

This enactment amends the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act to
(a) increase the maximum sentence of imprisonment applicable to the offence of bribing a foreign public official;
(b) eliminate the facilitation payments exception to that offence;
(c) create a new offence relating to books and records and the bribing of a foreign public official or the hiding of that bribery; and
(d) establish nationality jurisdiction that would apply to all of the offences under the Act.

Fighting Foreign Corruption Act

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I was quite interested to understand that the NDP is going to be supporting the bill. To get the NDP to support any bill that deals with the growth of trade or business is quite welcome by our government, considering its opposition to all trade deals. However, we note also that, as usual, it has its caveats.

What is important is that this is a bill that would make Canadian companies accountable. We are talking about a public registry. Whenever a Canadian company is not accountable and it becomes a public issue, it is a message to other Canadian companies that the government and Canadians are very serious about transparency. That, by itself, would ensure that businesses comply with the legislation.

We are thankful that the NDP will be supporting it. Three convictions have already happened, and the publicity would ensure that Canadian companies will comply with transparency, as expected by all Canadians.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague with interest. I am a little surprised that he thinks three convictions over five years is a good track record. Surely, Canada can do better than that. That is a actually a bit shameful, to have such a minimal response from the Canadian government.

I would like to respond to my colleague by referring to what we heard today about the G8 communiqué, which he has likely seen because of the role that he has. We need a commitment from our federal government that it is going to live up to international treaties and that there is going to be follow-through, whether it is on this bill, or cluster munitions, or trade practices, or matters affecting human rights. The follow-through is so important, and I do not get that sense from the member.

He talks about accountability. He says the bill will send a message. However, if we do not follow it up with the proper enforcement and the transparency, then it is not worth the paper it is written on. Three convictions is not quite good enough.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the speech from the member for Vancouver East, we would say is almost across the board. She has covered so many topics. However, when she started her speech she spoke of the fact that there have been so many time allocations in the House that our debate has been limited; I believe she said it has been 47 times.

The idea of this place and of committee is to take any bill that is put forward by anyone, be it a private member, government or the Senate, and to work together to try to make it better, yet what I find very troubling is that when we get into debate here, we oftentimes find that the government is not even engaging us. It asks the odd question, but government members are not getting up and giving speeches, putting forth a point of view and working back and forth on the bill.

In her remarks toward the end, she talked about NGOs that bring supplies to places, and refugees from Syria might be an example. They come into a country and NGOs have to pay a gratuity, a tip, or a bribe, whatever they want to call it, to get those goods off of the ship and onshore. That is a reality in the world. That is not something that is high level. Do you think that people would be sideswiped by that unintentionally?

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

I presume the member was not asking me the question, but rather his colleague.

The hon. member for Vancouver East.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I hope he was not asking you the question, as I would be happy to reply to him.

This is a very important point that the member has made. It is something that I focused on in my remarks. We have to make sure there are no unintended consequences for organizations that are trying to do the right thing by getting critical aid and humanitarian assistance to people who are literally dying or who are in severe conflict. This bill came down with a heavy hand. If it zeroes in on facilitation payments, on the basis that somehow that is bribery or corruption, I think we would be going down the wrong path.

The member makes a very good point. It is something we share in terms of understanding what enforcement will mean under this bill and getting it right.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite spoke very well. I am pleased that her party supports this legislation.

However, I am concerned about the contradiction in the bill. Companies are forbidden to pay bribes to officials, but should NGOs be allowed to pay bribes to police at checkpoints where they do the shakedowns?

Police are supposed to uphold the rules of law. Some of the NGOs are actually tasked with the job of introducing, implementing, and helping out with democratic principles in these countries. Having the law on the side of the travellers, wherein they are not allowed to pay bribes, can help to act as a shield.

Letting the employer or a government get away without paying proper wages is not our role. How can the NDP support letting the employers of the police get away without paying the proper wages?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if I completely understand the member's point, or maybe she misunderstood my point.

My point was that we want to make sure that NGOs and non-profits that are delivering very important aid do not get prosecuted when they are just doing their jobs. I certainly agree that we need to focus on officials who are doing the bribery, and we do need to make sure that people are getting paid properly. The NDP has a long track record of saying that when we engage in trade deals and various international treaties, at the top of the list is ensuring that we have proper labour conditions, safety and human rights.

We are now seeing more and more situations around the world, the most recent in Bangladesh, of human misery and tragedy and what happens when there are not proper standards for corporations. They can literally get away with murder.

We are the ones who have been blowing the whistle on that for years. We have said that it is completely unacceptable and cannot continue.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, last night I had a very interesting conversation with our colleague from Windsor, who sits in your chair occasionally. We were talking about the evolution of the Speaker's position and how it has changed over time.

I cannot help but notice that all the bills we have been debating over the last week or so are from the Senate. I would like to ask my colleague, who has been here for a long time and has great experience in these matters, if she has noticed that change over her tenure in the House. Whereas the government should be bringing forward bills to the House, they seem to be bringing forward partisan bills through the Senate or through private members' business.

I wonder whether the member would care to comment on that and the dangers of going that route.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there has been a very dramatic shift in this place. I tried to outline that at the beginning of my remarks. In some ways, we need to account for and look at that. However, certainly in the last three weeks since we have had these midnight sittings, I do not think I have ever seen so many bills at one time come through from the Senate.

We have had no explanation from the government as to why this is happening. I would be fascinated to hear what the Speakers think about it, but I am sure they are probably not allowed to give their thoughts on the matter. One has to ask why the government itself is not introducing its own legislation in the House of Commons. To me, it diminishes the role of the House of Commons. It diminishes the role of members who are elected to come to this place.

The government has been introducing legislation in the Senate, which itself is mired in scandal and corruption. We have begun the process with those people, who are not elected and are not accountable, and then say, “Oh well, we kind of have to go back to the House of Commons.”

The proper way to do this is to have legislation in the House of Commons. That is our primary responsibility, to debate and examine legislation and to represent our constituents. We need to talk about these things more and keep bringing them forward, so that Canadians can understand how much has changed under the Conservative government.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for Vancouver East for the benefit of her years of experience in this House in being able to talk about those issues.

I will be splitting my time with my friend from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord.

I rise today in the House to support Bill S-14, an act to amend the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, and I do so for a number of reasons.

The bill would make four main changes to the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act. I will elaborate on a bit on these changes.

Bill S-14 would increase the maximum sentence of imprisonment applicable to the offence of bribing a foreign public official from five to 14 years. It would eliminate an exception for so-called “facilitation payments”, whereby foreign officials are paid to expedite the execution of their responsibilities. It would create a new offence for falsifying or concealing books or records in order to bribe or conceal bribery of a foreign official. It would also establish nationality jurisdiction that would apply to all the offences under the act so that Canadian nationals could be prosecuted for offences committed overseas.

Having noted my support for the bill, I want to take a moment to comment on the process by which this bill comes before us in this House.

It is of concern that we get to this place by way of a 2011 report from Transparency International. That organization ranked Canada as the worst of all G7 countries with regard to international bribery with “little or no enforcement” of the scant legislation that exists in this country on these matters. This is to say that Canada needed to be named and shamed publicly, internationally, for our lax legislation and approach to these issues of corrupting public officials in other countries.

I also want to comment on the timing of the bill, which reflects a curious pathology of the current government. The Conservatives have been in power through a minority and now a majority government since 2006. It seems to elude them that they have been here seven years and that all that they do, now that they have been in power so long, is really an indictment of their own conduct as a government. Implicit in this kind of legislation is an indictment of what they have failed to do over the previous seven years in government.

I note that earlier today the parliamentary secretary justified Bill S-14 on the basis of the fact that we are a trading nation. Well, we were a trading nation as well when the Conservatives came to power in 2006. In fact, we have always been a trading nation. We have always been a very open economy, with goods coming and going to and from this country to other places around the world. When did dawn break over Marblehead? When did the Conservative government realize that we have always been a trading nation? The issues that the bill is meant to address existed in 2006 just as well as they exist in 2013.

It seemed to have taken a series of national embarrassments, largely in the extractive industry, to get the Conservative government to recognize that it needed some legislation such as the bill that we have before us. However, it is still not clear, after all of this, that the Conservatives embrace this legislation.

We had Bill C-300 before in this House. It was a bill that would have required extractive companies receiving government support to meet certain standards. As well, it would have established a system for issuing and assessing complaints against such companies. The government saw fit to whip that vote and defeat that legislation.

We had as well the spectacle of the foreign affairs minister introducing Canadian firms to the transition government in Libya before the United Nations could even assess the needs of post-conflict Libya. Among the companies that our minister of foreign affairs took to Libya, according to media reports, was SNC-Lavalin, a company whose contracts are now being investigated in 10 different countries. It is a company that has been banned from bidding on World Bank projects for 10 years. This is a government that only very recently saw fit to take SNC-Lavalin back into Libya to introduce it to a transition government.

We know too that to date there have only been three convictions on these matters. Since 1999, I would cite the Hydro Kleen group being fined $25,000 in January 2005; Niko Resources Ltd. was fined in 2011 because its subsidiary in Bangladesh had paid for a vehicle and travel expenses for a former Bangladeshi state minister; Griffiths Energy International was fined $10 million in January 2013 after it agreed to pay a $2-million bribe to the wife of Chad's ambassador to Canada, and so on. There have been only three convictions since 1999.

All of this seeming reluctance on behalf of the government to bring forth legislation like this is confirmed by the source of this bill, and that is the Senate. The Senate is an institution with an enormous legitimacy deficit—

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Order. The hon. member for Burlington is rising on a point of order.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill S-14, An Act to amend the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, be read the third time and passed.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was in the process of commenting on the source of this legislation being the Senate and the enormous legitimacy deficit that exists in the Senate. I think that is historical, but it is particularly acute these days. In particular, the Senate really is in no position to be issuing bills on the issue of corruption, mired as it is in scandals of exactly that nature.

That said, irrespective of the source and as unfortunate as the source of this legislation is, we remain prepared to support the bill. One of the central reasons for doing so is found in the legislative history of members of this party in the House. We have long supported clear rules requiring transparency and accountability by Canadian individuals and corporations overseas.

The bill complements legislative efforts by NDP MPs to encourage responsible, sustainable and transparent management practices. I speak specifically of Bill C-323, put forward by the member for Burnaby—New Westminster, which would allow lawsuits in Canadian courts by non-Canadians for violations of international obligations, and Bill C-486, from the member for Ottawa Centre, which would require public due diligence by companies using minerals from the Great Lakes Region of Africa. These bills reflect the history of our party. They reflect a respect for the democratic aspirations of people in other countries and a respect for their aspirations for better labour standards and a healthier and safer environment.

We understand that effective environmental and labour standards in developing countries often depend on advocacy and activism by local populations, and it is very difficult for local people to hold their governments to account when the government has secret sources of revenue that remove the financial incentive to be accountable in the first place.

We support this legislation as well because the lack of anti-bribery enforcement in Canada has been a national embarrassment to us. I will skip to my conclusion on this point of the national embarrassment over the lack of legislation.

It is worth pointing out that in spite of our support for this bill, it is in effect totally underwhelming. One is left asking, is that all there is?

When the parliamentary secretary points to the openness of our country to international trade and puts forward this legislation as the solution to dealing with corruption issues in such an open and global environment, when Canadians take such pride in and value so highly our reputation on the international scene, the question of why the government always seems to aim so low arises. Why can the government not aspire to a leadership role, one that Canadians could justly take pride in? If it is worth putting forward such legislation, and we certainly believe it is, why not set new and higher standards internationally to ensure that Canadians overseas conduct their affairs to the highest levels of transparency and ethics?

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the hon. member's response to this bill. Although that party is supporting the bill, I want to tell him quite clearly that this government has provided strong leadership not only around the world but also in Canada, and every given time the NDP opposes it.

The member talked about Canada being named and shamed internationally. The record is that the NDP leader goes overseas and has no shame in condemning Canada. What a pity. What kind of official opposition goes overseas to condemn Canada?

Most importantly, when I raised the point that three companies had been convicted, I received very strong laughter from members on the other side. They may think Canadian companies are corrupt and they may think Canadian companies are bad, but we are confident that Canadian companies are doing well. That we have few convictions for bribery speaks very well for Canada. Those members should not laugh at these things.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wish the parliamentary secretary across the way had listened more carefully to my speech, because my point was quite the opposite. The NDP is not arguing that we should be named and shamed. It is with regret that we note that this legislation comes forward only in response to a public report by a credible international organization that notes our lax legislation on these issues and the need for Canada to bring itself up to what the rest of the world is doing. The legislation would only put us on par with the rest of the world and in line with the practices of 36 of 39 other OECD countries.

With respect, by no means is the NDP condemning Canadian corporate conduct overseas. We know that Canadian corporations require and look forward to a consistent set of standards and consistent enforcement so that all corporations around the world can be sure that they are playing on a level playing field.