That is an important principle around here. I think it makes sense. The reason that principle makes sense is that it requires of the government that they not anticipate the will of Parliament. Parliament hasn't decided anything until it has decided something. It's not for government to seek funds on a conditional basis.
That is to say, if such and such a law passes, then we'll already have the money ready to go. That would be to prejudge the outcome of a vote in Parliament. Frankly, I think it's disrespectful to members of the governing party who aren't in cabinet because it essentially expects that they're going to do whatever they're told to do and that there won't be times when government members disagree with the government and decide to act on that disagreement.
We have already had a bill in this Parliament that was a bit of private member's business, as you may recall, Mr. Chair. It effectively dealt with genetic discrimination and the ability—or now, the lessened ability—of insurance companies to require as a condition of insurance that people submit to the insurance company any information that had come from any kind of genetic testing.
Of course, this is a problem. It was a problem in Canada that this practice was allowed to continue when many other countries had rightfully done away with it. The problem was that insurance companies may then decide to deny coverage to people based on the results of that genetic testing, and that would be a disincentive for Canadians to do that testing because they would be afraid to get information that wasn't positive, which they would then be obligated to share with their insurance company.
Essentially, the upshot from a financial point of view was that they were better off not knowing because that would mean they would be able to get the appropriate insurance, or get insurance at a cheaper rate than they would otherwise get with the risk factors known to the insurance companies. However, from a health point of view, they would be far worse off because if they made the choice based on financial considerations, then they would be in a position where they were forgoing the opportunity to have the benefit of that genetic information, to know whether they needed to be assessed for early identification of various diseases or conditions.
The government came out very strongly against that legislation, and in no uncertain terms, they communicated very clearly to their members that they were to vote against that legislation. Now imagine if the government, prior to the vote.... Spoiler alert—there were a number of backbench MPs. I think it was in the neighbourhood of 40. I could be wrong. Perhaps some members here have a better sense, but it was in the neighbourhood of 40 backbench Liberal MPs who did decide to vote against the government and pass the bill.
It's as a result of their efforts and willingness to defy the government on that particular piece of legislation that Canadians will now be able to get genetic testing, find out whether they ought to be checked out for early indications of various conditions, and not have to worry that they'll be financially penalized for that. It's as a result of that defiance, if you will, by a number of backbench Liberal MPs that the law passed.
That's great, but now imagine if the government had, for some reason, appropriated a bunch of funds for the bill, to implement something if it passed, and then it didn't pass. Well now you'd be in a position of asking what to do with that money.
If the money had been authorized, but the conditions under which it was meant to be spent didn't come about, would the government just change its plan and say, “Well, we didn't get the legislative changes we wanted, but we're going to refer back to the high-level goal now and do something that doesn't require those legislative changes”? In that case, the money would clearly be used in a way that wasn't consistent with what Parliament approved it for.
That's why it's important that the statutory and legal authorities be in place prior to the funding request. That means that the government and Parliament itself aren't prejudging what the outcome of a vote or a debate in Parliament will be. I think we can imagine a number of ways in which having a new process for federal election leaders debates would precipitate some kind of legislative change.
I had alluded earlier to the idea that—and again, just to be perfectly clear, I'm not endorsing any of these possibilities that I'm going to mention. Some of them may be laudable, others may not. Some may be ones I end up supporting, others not, but that's not where we are in the discussion. Right now we're spitballing about ways we could have a new process for federal leaders debates because we haven't been given any direction by the Privy Council Office.