Mr. Speaker, it is my great pleasure to rise in the House today to discuss Bill C-43. We cannot represent others if we cannot control ourselves. I think that is the essence of the bill. It is very important members of Parliament, parliamentary secretaries and cabinet ministers be able to control themselves.
The essence of the bill is basically to restore integrity to our system. We can all remember going through the last election that one of the big issues was respect for members of Parliament. Clearly members of Parliament were not well respected. They were held in contempt in some cases. Some of this issue has not gone away by the mere exercise of an election. There is still a great deal of mistrust out there. It is a very good move our Prime Minister is so concerned about the issue that he personally brought the bill to the House.
I would like to discuss two specific aspects of the bill into which it is basically divided. First are changes under the Lobbyists Registration Act and second is the establishment of conflict of interest guidelines.
Why would we need a lobbyist in the first place? Companies do have the right to have lobbyists. I know we talk about tier one and tier two lobbyists. Essentially companies would have the right to be represented to their governments.
I think the real essence of it is that this representation needs to be tempered. There must be a balance. What do I mean by a balance?
In my riding this week I dealt with a Mrs. Elizabeth Wardell of Bowmanville. She was trying to live on a disability income of $850 while at the same time paying $350 a month for drugs. She gets no support from our system.
I would like to argue that Mrs. Wardell has just as much right to consideration under drug patent legislation as the largest drug companies of this country. Indeed many of us may argue that she has more of a right. I will repeat again, influence must be tempered.
The most important views of this country are not those of Bay Street, James Street or Howe Street, but of Main Street, Main Street Canada. The new legislation will increase the visibility of the lobbying process.
I would like to refer to those areas of changes to the existing lobbying registration act. Lobbyists will now be required to disclose what departments and government agencies they will contact, disclose communication methods to be used and register the name of the departments and governmental agencies to be contacted.
In essence when all is said and done the ethics counsellor will be able to decide what areas these particular lobbyists are interested in focusing in government. This will give us a concept from where this kind of activity is coming from and where it is directed at government.
Many people have argued in the House that it does not have any teeth, that it is a waste of time and it is a media show. I have discovered that here are some of the teeth in the legislation. For those who do not adhere to this process there are fines of up $25,000, the role of the RCMP is being strengthened by increasing the limitation period for laying charges in summary proceedings from six months to two years. If lobbyists knowingly make false or misleading statements they could be liable to a fine of up to $100,000 and a prison term of two years.
These are very serious charges. These are very serious results of not abiding by this legislation. I think very clearly the government is very interested in cleaning up our act.
Through these changes I believe that we will start to temper the views of lobbyists and special interest groups but, more important, give government back to the people.
I would like to discuss a second aspect of this legislation which is conflict of interest. I am a chartered accountant. I have been enrolled in the Institute of Chartered Accountancy since 1974. We have a code of ethics. Most professional organizations have a code of ethics. If you break it you are out.
Why not in this House have a code of ethics? That would assume we are professionals. I will give a quick definition of professional. It is one who values the interest of their clients over those of their own personal interest.
In reality what conflict of interest guidelines and ethics counsellor are attempting to do is make the people of Canada our clients, to put the importance of our clients way above our own personal interests.
This is what the Prime Minister means when he is clear to the commitment of duty, but the interest of the electorate must come before those of ourselves.
I am sure many members of Parliament have had the same kind of problem from being a respected professional to going out and being a politician. I remember an incident at a spring fair in the last election. People would come up to me and say: "So, you are a crook too". Nobody has ever in my life referred to me as a crook. Because I had changed my cloak, if you will, and had suddenly become a "politician" aspiring to be a member of this House, I was thought of as a crook. In some ways that kind of spirit is still out there. We have to address the root causes of that. We have to set standards in this good House.
This section has teeth as well. I would like to refer to section 20 of the guidelines. This refers to parliamentary secretaries and cabinet ministers: "Guest hospitality, other benefits, including those described in section 21, that could influence public office holders in their judgement and performance of official duties and responsibilities shall be declined".
I just picked that out of interest. I wonder how many of our parliamentary secretaries and the cabinet ministers are going to be looking under their Christmas tree this year, wondering whether these things have to be returned based on this legislation. I think it is very real. It is a very real influence.
To bring the two aspects together, one being the conflict of interest aspect and the second being the reform to the Lobbyists Registration Act, the ethics counsellor basically has a number of functions. One is to develop a code of conduct in consultation with interested parties. A second is to have the powers to investigate possible breaches of the code of conduct.
The most important aspect of all is to make a public report as a result of this investigation. This will be done once a year. When I saw this I immediately thought of the Auditor General. I thought of the great opportunity for the opposition parties to make political hay from this. That is a possibility, a good possibility.
Imagine a government dedicated to integrity and changing the system that would invoke legislation of this kind which will only serve to possibly embarrass it. We can clearly see the strong commitment our party has to changing the integrity and the office of elected officials.
In conclusion, under these revised, specific codes of ethics, they will clean up our system. The only problem with these things is some people will say they do not go far enough, that we could have extended it more specifically to all members of Parliament.
The people who are exempted from this legislation are the opposition parties. There is no code of ethics for them. There is no commitment to a higher standard for them. There is no professional enrolment or engagement for them. Maybe they would like to bring forward their own code of ethics.
In any case, this is a tremendous move in the right direction for the people of Canada, empowering the people of Canada to bring back government and the voices of the people of Canada to this House.