Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Gomery, for being here today.
I can certainly echo the words of my colleagues, in that we do appreciate the work that you've done in uncovering a lot of Liberal corruption and arrogance, and I might say even a sense of entitlement that pervaded that entire regime. But you did point out, fairly, that that part was the first part, and that the second part of your report was the most important part. In your report you laid out a number of recommendations to improve government accountability and transparency.
In an article yesterday you were quoted as saying, “I think they owe the fact they are in office to the work of the commission. That wasn't the objective, but it was the consequence and I think they are ungrateful to treat me that way.”
We could probably argue at length as to the reason for the change in government in January 2006, but I can tell you that on the doorsteps in my riding, the primary concern of the voters was that we improve the transparency and accountability. Whether that's through your recommendations or through the Federal Accountability Act never was part of the discussion. But you did say today, in response to a question, that all you expected was that your report would be studied, and I can assure you that has happened.
The Federal Accountability Act, without question, is the most comprehensive accountability legislation that's been introduced in Canada, and I might say that was the promise of the Conservative Party during its campaign to introduce the Federal Accountability Act. The promise to adopt every one of Justice Gomery's report recommendations was not part of our platform. But in fairness, we did adopt a number of the amendments that were suggested by opposition members, and that point needs to be made very clearly. There were dozens of amendments that were proposed and adopted in this new legislation.
But I would just like to compare, if I could, just for a moment, some of the recommendations that were made by your report, sir, with some of the changes that are in the Federal Accountability Act. As you pointed out, there are many of them. We could list them by number; I don't want to take all of my time to do that. But recommendations 2, 4, and 5 were adopted, possibly from a little bit of a different perspective, but adopted nonetheless.
The issue of exempt staff having a code of conduct is clearly embedded in the Federal Accountability Act. In fact, not only is it in there, but training sessions have occurred so that exempt staff are included.
Regarding recommendation 15, relating to the registration of lobbyists, you recommended that we increase from two to five years the time the registrar has to file notice of investigation and prosecution. We extended that to ten years.
So I think in many ways, many of your recommendations were adopted, possibly through knowing that they would be part of your recommendations, possibly as part of the process. But my question is this. Do you believe that there is more accountability in government today than there was prior to the adoption of the Federal Accountability Act?