Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to take part in the debate on a very worthwhile motion by the member for Winnipeg St. James. I am very much in favour of his motion.
The motion really addresses, even though it does not quite say so, the concept of transparency and the possibility that people should be remunerated based on their performance. I do not think there is anything particularly wrong with that. In the case of crown corporations the customers are the taxpayers of Canada.
I have been involved with the Lobbyists Registration Act. People are concerned about the accountability of government and people working with government and interrelating with the public in general. Basically the motion attempts to address that accountability.
The Ontario Securities Commission requires the reporting of salary ranges in publicly traded corporations. This is a jurisdictional problem as the previous member from the Bloc pointed out. One advantage of having federally chartered corporations respond in that way is that it will actually be spread across the country. We could have federally incorporated companies which operate mainly in Vancouver now coming under the guise of this legislation.
Another important aspect, although it was not really addressed in the member's motion, would be to deal with some of the problems of the securities exchange commissions in the country. I firmly believe there is a definite need for a national securities commission that would have a uniform standard of
securities legislation across the country. There are many people who believe that as well. It has an additional advantage in that it could possibly create new capital markets for small and medium sized businesses. That is an issue for another day.
We speak about transparency in corporations. The shareholders are very interested in what their executives are being paid. I can remember during some of the bad troughs of the last recession when our banks were having problems with Canary Wharf. I actually watched some of these institutions raise the salaries and remunerations of their executive officers, the very people who had made the decisions concerning that project. It was amazing to note at the same time that some foreign banks, especially some in the United States, were actually firing those people. It gives a different onus.
I am sure the people in the Royal Bank and others were very happy to receive at least the information. Although they might not have liked the results, they were certainly pleased to be in receipt of the information that these people had decided to give themselves a salary boost.
The transparency aspect in the recording of salary ranges is not a matter of simple curiosity. The reality is that when we expose them people start thinking the very thing we are thinking: "What is it that you did to earn that money?" Having crown corporations provide that information is nothing but good.
For instance, Canada Post was mentioned earlier in the debate. Why should its remuneration not be more directly linked to its actions as a crown corporation? In other words there should be a portion, if not dollar for dollar, of its remuneration directly related to customer satisfaction which is basically the people of Canada who use Canada Post services.
Today I attended an interesting interview. Some people from IBM were telling us how they run their corporation these days. Ten per cent of the remuneration of their employees is now based on a combination of five per cent on the profitability of the corporation and five per cent on customer satisfaction. They have a way of measuring customer satisfaction. We have to go more toward that in our governmental institutions.
I take the train to Ottawa quite often. I have often thought the executive officers of VIA Rail should possibly be paid, at least partially, based on the performance of that service. It seems that every time that train is late we should focus on the profitability of VIA Rail and customer satisfaction. Of course a lot of people would understand that these people may well have to pay money to work for VIA Rail today. If that focus were available, we may well get more efficiency in government as well as in our private sector.
I will conclude to allow other members to discuss the motion by raising the aspect of the civil service. I do not want to be getting into a position where I always seem to be bashing the civil service. Many civil servants do worthwhile jobs. I am very conscious of their concern for the Canadian citizen. I would, however, like to restore the word civil to the term civil servant. I looked it up in the dictionary on the way to the Chamber today and the word civil means belonging to the citizens, polite, obliging and not rude. Those are some of the things that we would address by making the remuneration more directly related to the citizens of the country.
I am very supportive of the motion of the member for Winnipeg St. James. It is quite appropriate that he brought it before the House tonight.