Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in support of Motion No. 39. I congratulate the member for Scarborough-Rouge River for having introduced the motion.
He touches on something even deeper than what he remarked on in his own speech. That is, while we all agree that judicial processes should be as transparent as possible, this is particularly important when it comes to order in council appointments.
One of the things he failed to touch on in his speech is what we are dealing with here are boards and tribunals of a quasi-judicial nature, which may have officers of the judicial body who are appointed by government. The motion is very important in this regard, for if you have a quasi-judicial body that consists of government appointees and you do not have a mechanism whereby the deliberations of that body can always be monitored by a
representative of the elected people or by the public in some way or another, then you have a very dangerous problem.
I looked at the Immigration Act where it describes the conditions for in camera proceedings. I also noted the remark by the member for Bourassa who said that only the refugee status hearings were the ones held in camera. I submit that the refugee status hearings are precisely those hearings where all the action takes place. This is where we measure whether or not the quasi-judicial body is doing its job. This is where we measure whether or not the people appearing before it should be granted refugee status.
When it comes to the role of the opposition and the role of all members of Parliament in all this, I would expect that opposition members and government members would be extremely interested in how a refugee board or a parole board was performing. This is exactly what we should be doing. The member for Scarborough-Rouge River has a very good point that at the very least if we cannot open these hearings to journalists and the public at large, a member of Parliament should be able to attend them freely.
This is no worse a level of entrusting confidentiality than we would to a minister, a priest or any other person who has a particular position of confidence and importance in the public eye. Who could be more important, if I may say, in the public's eye than someone elected to represent the people?
The question that follows is whether the elected member will hear something he or she should not hear. The member for Bourassa was citing examples where there might be descriptions of personal abuse. I expect members on all sides of the House would respect the reasonable confidences of the innocent people whose testimony they may hear.
On the other hand, members hear independently the performance of the judicial board. For example, it is very important in the interests of democracy to make sure that order in council appointments are not gross patronage. We want to know that the people appointed by the government are people of quality who can do the job. How can we do that unless a member of Parliament from either side sits in on the proceedings?
In the final analysis, the MP has an important role in all of this quite apart from checking the quality of the job done by the members of the tribunal or that justice has served the person appearing before the tribunal. The member of Parliament has the ultimate responsibility because he or she is the law maker. We are the law makers. We cannot make laws unless we can see clearly for ourselves in person that the laws are working. If there is any area of government whatsoever where the law maker, the member of Parliament, cannot go in and see whether the laws are working, then we have a very serious problem.
I congratulate the member for Scarborough-Rouge River for raising this matter because it is a very large and important issue. I would suggest to the members of the Bloc that they should consider this very carefully. They are always saying they believe in the parliamentary system, parliamentary democracy and the need for transparency, and I believe them. I would suggest they reconsider this motion and give it their full support.