Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak to this bill to amend the Lobbyists Registration Act. This legislation will regulate the work of those who lobby government departments and agencies on behalf of their clients' interests.
I have read the bill and support a number of its provisions. Naturally, I support the fact that the bill requires lobbyists to disclose the nature of their activities. I also agree that the departments and agencies who are being lobbied must be identified. I also believe it is a good idea that the identity of individuals or corporations involved in lobbying be clearly disclosed.
These are the main provisions I see in this bill. Basically, we expected these provisions.
Other positive aspects of the bill, to my mind, are the fact that it calls for the establishment of a code of ethics governing lobbying activities and the appointment of an ethics counsellor to oversee the application of the legislation.
Generally speaking, these are the positive sides to this bill. It would be rather ridiculous if we only had negative things to say. However, if we examine the bill in relation to what has now come to be known as the Pearson Airport scandal, we see that as it is now worded, the bill would not have prevented this scandal from occurring. We would not have received any new information besides what we already have.
With this bill, we would have learned that some lobbying took place with respect to the privatization of part of Pearson Airport. That is nothing new. We would have learned that the Department of Transport was also lobbied. But we knew that already. Perhaps an inquiry would have been called by the person responsible for the application of the legislation. Well, an inquiry was held into the Pearson Airport deal. The Prime Minister appointed a special investigator who looked into the deal and released a report, which explains why certain facts came to our attention. We have learned in particular that there was something in the wind because the investigator did not have the power to force people to testify, so that we could find out what really happened.
The bill before us provides for a code of conduct which is not a statutory instrument and cannot force people to testify.
Having reviewed the bill before us, I submit that this bill would have been of no use to us in getting to the bottom of the Pearson Airport scandal.
As you can see, this bill is seriously flawed. I will try to describe briefly the flaws I see in this bill and explain how I would like to contribute to future debates on this bill.
Flaw number one: the ethics counsellor is appointed by the Governor in Council, in other words, the government, the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, as in the case of Mr. Nixon, who was appointed to investigate the Pearson Airport deal. I would say his being appointed by the government undermines his authority. As I see it, he should have been appointed by the House of Commons, just like the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada. This gives him unquestioned prestige and authority.
Flaw number two: the code of conduct is not a statutory instrument. This code, as described in the bill, seems to be little more than a pious wish list. Lobbyists are advised to behave in a certain way, but the code is not a statutory instrument. This is going to make it difficult for the person responsible for its application to summon witnesses, to question their statements, to shed light on suspicious deals. I think the non-regulatory status of the ethics code is a major weakness of the bill before us.
Another shortcoming is that lobbyists are not required to make public the amounts involved. When a lobbyist receives $10,000 for his services, I think he is not in the same situation as if he received $1 million or $2 million.
The hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, who spoke before me, said that he thought of disclosing the amounts paid to lobbyists. The argument he just put forward to justify his change of mind is that there would be so much information that it would be impractical for potential lobbying researchers to dig out the figures. I think the hon. member changed his mind a little too fast because of an apparently flimsy justification. Whether there are 5,000 or 10,000 reports, Canadians interested in democracy will make an effort to look at them. Whether there are 10 or 20 people looking, if they see problems, they will be able to warn the population, and I think journalists will be smart enough to use this information. I think it would be important to know how much lobbyists received for their services.
Another element of the bill that has not been pointed out but should be in my opinion-I will be told, I am sure, that it has to do with the Income Tax Act or with other tax laws-is that the government has kept the tax deduction for lobbyists' fees. It is somewhat ironic that, on the one hand, the public is denied this information and that, on the other hand, since the people who hire lobbyists benefit by being allowed to claim a tax deduction, this information is provided to the Department of Revenue.
It could be said that lobbyists want to have their cake and eat it too. It means that when things are not favourable, they want to keep it a secret, but when they can benefit financially, there is no problem as long as tax confidentiality is preserved. I think that this tax deduction is very questionable, especially since President Clinton of the United States, who wants to regulate lobbying, is thinking of eliminating it.
The bill also makes a dubious distinction between two types of lobbyists: consultant lobbyists paid to make representations on behalf of their clients and in-house corporate lobbyists whose main duty is to lobby departments and governments in order to obtain benefits for their companies. The bill is tougher on consultant lobbyists than on in-house lobbyists.
But we must say that in-house lobbyists are often employed by large corporations which can afford their services and which must be accountable to the public. So I think that the lack of uniformity in the way this bill treats the various lobbyists is a major weakness which may bring the public to question the effectiveness of this bill.
Another feature I find particularly surprising is that lobbyists are not required to name the people they contacted in the agencies concerned. A report might say: "So-and-so contacted the Department of Transport, the Department of Human Resources or the Department of Justice". But we would like to know whom this person contacted. Was it the minister or a senior official? I think that it is important to find out what went on and to shed light on lobbying activities.
I shall conclude because my time is almost up. Basically, Quebecers and Canadians want to know who is lobbying. They want to know for whom the lobbying is done. They want to know how the lobbying is done. They want to know why the lobbying is done and how much it costs. I think that it is important and when the principle of this bill is considered, my party will seek to ensure that this law has all the necessary provisions so that the people of Canada and Quebec are kept informed of lobbyists' activities.