Mr. Speaker, as the Minister of Canadian Heritage announced yesterday and again today, he is placing this House in front of a fait accompli with respect to the appointment of a new President of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He has refused to subject this appointment to a parliamentary committee for approval in a free, binding vote, as the previous government had promised.
Yesterday, I asked the minister to explain to the House why this policy was changed and why candidates for the position of president and chief executive officer of the CBC had to send their resumés to the Prime Minister's Office, to the official in charge of appointments, who is a long-standing Liberal Party activist.
The minister told us that the policy had changed because the government had changed and went on to refer me to page 454 of Hansard . That was an obvious statement if there ever was one. And the reason I am rising again on this question this evening is that the minister's answer was totally unacceptable as it did not address my question.
I did refer to Hansard as the hon. minister had so kindly suggested and here is what I found, and I quote: ``The government will announce shortly the appointment of the new president of the CBC''.
As you can see, Mr. Speaker, that does not answer my question. The previous government had instituted an appointment process designed to be non-partisan, in which nominations were to be sent to recruitment committees. Since coming into office October 25, the new government has been telling us that they were following in the tracks of the previous government. Let me tell you that they have gone off the track and that openness has been thrown into the ditch.
Today, I asked the minister again why his government had made that change? To no avail.
Why did the minister not submit the appointment to the parliamentary committee on Canadian Heritage?
Why does the minister refuse to table before that committee, meeting in camera, the list of candidates who have turned down the job as reported in La Presse today.
Why does the minister refuse to be more transparent about political appointments when his Prime Minister is boasting left and right that he wants to restore the confidence of the people of Canada and Quebec in their public corporations and federal institutions?
Is it only because the minister is not an expert on parliamentary procedure, as he said himself?
At the first opportunity the government has to make good on a promise, namely to run the country with transparency, it has candidacies sent to the Prime Minister's Office instead of an impartial recruitment committee.
I think that the people of Quebec and Canada are entitled to see for themselves that the people running their public corporations are chosen on the basis of objective criteria.
Need I remind you that we are entitled to question the government's openness on this? Indeed, we have no grounds to believe that the credibility of the process of appointment to management positions in federal institutions has been improved by the recent change of government.
How many candidates refused the position in the CBC? Why did the Prime Minister break with tradition and prefer to choose a candidate from inside instead of from outside the organization? The minister had many meetings with the candidate while he was acting president of the Corporation since November. Did the minister discuss his candidacy during those meetings? Did the minister support the candidacy? Did he personally recommend it to the appointments director? Who really made the decision? The minister, Mrs. Collenette or the Prime Minister on the advice of his special adviser, the former president of the CBC?
All these questions are unanswered. Could the minister answer them directly tonight, without referring me to Hansard this time?