Mr. Speaker, at the outset I would like to say that I am very honoured and privileged to respond to the statement of the Prime Minister.
The way things work around here, different parties have a turn at being in government. We have had the Conservatives and Liberals over and over. I have to admit that sometimes when I look across I am overwhelmed at the magnitude of the responsibility ministers and the Prime Minister have. I sometimes wonder what we will be like when we get there.
We received a copy of the Prime Minister's statement only in an official language which does not happen to be my own. Except for a few paragraphs, most of my speech is going to be extemporaneous since I spent most of the time available to me getting it translated into the language I could understand. I hope you will bear with me, Mr. Speaker, if some of the points I make and develop are perhaps not as well developed as we are accustomed to on this side of the House.
The Prime Minister has spoken of the necessity for integrity, honesty and openness. He speaks of that not only today but has done so on a number of other occasions. I was never a member of a political party before I was elected here. One thing that drew me to the party to which I belong, the Reform Party, was that it stressed very strongly the concepts of integrity and honesty. I assure the House and the Prime Minister that his continually talking about integrity and honesty strikes a chord with the Canadian people because they want it and I want it.
The question here is not whether we want it. In the notes that I took I see his speech included talking about integrity and honesty. That is really not the debate. We already agree on that. However, the question is how to do it.
Without being disrespectful, what we have heard today is a longer answer to a question in Question Period without the nasty interruption of another question. We heard an explanation, trying to put oil on the waters and smooth them out. We are seeing massive damage control.
I would like to take a few minutes to get down to the basics of this issue. The question before us was triggered by a particular incident that has occupied the House for the last week. First we need to ask ourselves if we would be here debating this and would we be doing it in this way if it were not for this incident? Would the government be as eager to push forward this agenda if it had not been driven to it? Perhaps this is reactionary but we
need to get on with it. We need to make sure there is integrity in government.
We need to back up one step. One of the reasons the Canadian people and the opposition so strenuously object to what has happened is back one step further. It concerns the way government works.
We all recognize that in our system of government all of us as members of Parliament are essentially powerless to influence true decision making. On a number of occasions we have put motions which have made eminent good sense to anyone who stops to think about them. Yet to a person, all of the members in the government have voted the way their leadership and their party, including their ministers, have directed on an issue. I accept that as fact. That is what has been happening. I can observe that. I have come to that conclusion.
In the perception of the Canadian people, ministers are very powerful. Indeed they are. That is why one needs to object when a minister gives even the inkling that he is exercising that excessive power in order to influence matters on behalf of his constituents, a role that is not available to ordinary MPs in opposition or in government.
We need to ask the government what has happened here. The Prime Minister has correctly stated that just because one is a member of the cabinet one should not be disenfranchised as a member of Parliament. I agree with that principle. The cabinet minister, as a member of Parliament, must be able to represent his constituents in legitimate matters. It is the variation that is at question here.
This particular incident occurred when a minister made a statement on ministerial letterhead and because he is the minister overseeing that area it can properly be viewed as being undue influence.
The ethics code does not permit that. I was able to pull this out quickly from one of my files. I quote from the ethics package: "Public office holders shall act with honesty and uphold the highest ethical standards so that public confidence and trust in the integrity, objectivity and impartiality of government are conserved and enhanced".
That principle is violated when several people are contending for a licence and one has behind him the power of a ministerial letter and the other one has an ordinary MP representing him. Because it is in the same department I believe this is a violation of the principle and ought to result in more than just an apology and "let us try to do better". We need to go beyond that.
I also want to quote from the same document with respect to preferential treatment: "Public office holders shall not step out of their official roles to assist private entities or persons in their dealings with the government where this would result in preferential treatment to any person". In this case it is evident that this has happened. It is wrong and it needs to be corrected.
We also have the question of the ethics counsellor.
I hope the Prime Minister was honest, and I have no reason to question it, when he said: "We want to have not only the appearance of more integrity, but we actually want more integrity whether it is in appearance or not". I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of the minister's motivation there. I am in agreement with it.
I will not relate all of the details of what has been going on in the past few days, but when we have an ethics counsellor who is being consulted only in retrospect after decisions are made and then, so it appears, only to help put oil on the waters, that casts great doubt on the whole procedure. I think it is a violation of the principle to have an ethics counsellor be responsible to, take his directions from and answerable to the Prime Minister only.
I do agree that the Prime Minister needs all of the assistance he can get. I believe he needs to have counsellors in the area of ethics and certainly in the areas of operating this government. He needs all the help he can get but could we perhaps in addition have an ethics counsellor with the same order of independence and accountability to Parliament as, say, the Auditor General has in financial matters?
I think it would be eminently fair, very helpful to the Canadian people and would certainly help all of us in this place as members of Parliament to understand and believe the government if there were an independent inquiry, not pushed around by political interests but one which would be truly independent and respond openly and honestly with the assessment of what has happened, a recommendation of what should be done now in order to solve this situation, what we need to do, what rules we need to change, what legislation we need to bring in and what people we need in order to make it work better and more correctly.
I conclude by simply saying that this is a very, very unfortunate blight on this Parliament. It is an area where doubt is and has been cast on the government. We can only say that it is important for us as soon as possible, as cleanly as possible and as openly as possible to bring this to a conclusion and allow the minister to resign. Let us get this done the way it ought to be done and produce in the minds of people a genuine trust in the government.