Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you very much for inviting me to appear before you today.
I am the President of the Quebec Institute of Applied Ethics. We reflect on ethical matters in the management of government and large organizations.
In my opinion, the introduction of Bill C-2 is an ethical moment that must be hailed. This type of idea was put forward a long time ago, but it is now in the process of becoming concrete. As the saying goes, no one is opposed to virtue. However, the challenge is to make this virtue concrete, and to go beyond good intentions.
Bill C-2 is ambitious. It deals with a number of matters that have some connection with ethics. However, it remains silent on a number of matters, and these are the things that disturb me as an ethicist.
I will deal with only two issues in the time I have today. First, I will make a few comments on the meaning of the words used in the French and English versions of the bill and their frequent inconsistencies. Second, I will put forward some ideas about the role of the commissioners of ethics, integrity and conflicts of interest.
Misnaming things simply causes more trouble. There is certainly a desire to do the right thing in this bill, there is an interest in ethics. But we need to know what is meant by ethics. It is consideration given in order to make fair decisions consistent with the values of the state. These values have a direct link to the common good. In a responsible ethical decision — since this is mentioned in the bill — the decision-maker has a choice of means for achieving this objective. The ethical consideration occurs before the decision is made, not afterwards.
We note that the terms “imputabilité”, “reddition de comptes” or accountability all refer to a time after the decision, whereas the word “responsabilisation” refers to a time before the decision. I think there is some inconsistency in the translation, because the terms are used as synonymous, and that gives rise to a problem. Words can sometimes change meaning. Sometimes accountability means “responsabilisation”, and sometimes it does not.
I have done some research on the meaning of the words. I noticed that the word “éthique” appears 45 times in the bill, while the word “ethics” appears 291 times. That is a problem. The word “responsabilisation” appears six times, while the word “accountability” appears 141 times. The term “reddition de comptes”, which is the accurate translation of “accountability” never appears in the bill.