moved:
Motion No. 20
That Clause 19 be amended by striking out line 19 on page 11 and substituting the following:
"violation are reviewed by the Minister or by the Tribunal, the Minister must".
Motion No. 23
That Bill C-61, in Clause 29, be amended by adding after line 37, on page 14, the following:
"(3) For greater certainty, no lobbyist or party to a contract with the public service of Canada shall be appointed as a member of the Board or the Tribunal."
Mr. Speaker, our caucus should have discovered the word reasonable a long time ago. Perhaps we would have more good laws passed in the House of Commons. I wish we had used that in Bill C-68, the gun control bill. We probably would not have had registration. And maybe we would not have had Bill C-64 introduced at all.
In any event, back to Bill C-61. I appreciate support from the other side for a couple of my amendments, which were reasonable and included the word reasonable and were adopted by the House.
We have now moved on to the fourth group of motions. I will address Motion No. 20, which deals with clause 19. It strikes out line 16 and substitutes the following: "violation are reviewed, the minister or the tribunal". Currently in this clause it is stated: "In every case where the facts of a violation are reviewed, the minister must establish, on a balance of probabilities, that the person named in the notice of violation".
This ensures that the facts of a violation should be reviewed both by the minister and by the tribunal. It is not a matter of either or, but in fact it is both. This again is a common sense amendment. It ensures that the burden of proof is on the minister in the case of a ministerial review. It ensures that there is burden of proof on the tribunal when a case of a violation is referred to the tribunal. This is just good common practice. It is sensible. It again puts some qualifiers and quantifiers into the legislation to make it not only effective but also balanced and fair.
I cannot see why members on the opposite side would have any problem whatsoever with this amendment. Therefore I encourage them to support it.
Moving on to Motion No. 23 which deals with clause 29, this motion adds after line 37 on page 14 a new subclause (3), which would say: "For greater certainty, no lobbyist or party to a contract with the Public Service of Canada shall be appointed as a member of the board or the tribunal".
The clause prior to that says: "A member of the tribunal shall not accept or hold any office or employment that is inconsistent with the member's duties or take part in any matter before the tribunal in which the member has an interest". We certainly support that clause, but it does not go far enough. All it says is that a member of the tribunal shall not be able to enter into a contract with the federal government. What it does not preclude though is the actual appointment to the board of a lobbyist or someone with a contract with the public service.
We have had a rather negative light cast upon government and upon politicians for quite some time because of the ethics we impose upon ourselves. That perhaps might be better stated as a lack of ethics we impose upon ourselves. Yes, there are conflict of interest guidelines. As you are well aware, Mr. Speaker, there has been some question as to the effectiveness of the conflict of interest guidelines currently, even upon us as members of Parliament. There is concern in the public sector that conflict of interest guidelines be rigid, clear and enforced.
Other legislation precludes members of Parliament or members of provincial legislatures from serving on a board or body such as this tribunal. However what is not precluded is the fact that lobbyists, people who are working for the public service and have a vested interest in the work of the tribunal, are currently not excluded from appointment. This dips into the whole area of patronage appointments that are repulsive to Canadians. It seems that lobbyists have an inside track and are able to have influence behind the scenes far beyond their worth.
I suggest the House support Motion No. 23 that goes one step further than the conflict of interest in clause 29(2) by stipulating that no government lobbyist or person who has a contract with the federal government may be appointed to the tribunal. I appreciate the progress we have made this morning.