Mr. Speaker, the second motion of the Reform member stresses other shortcomings of Bill C-78.
First of all, I would like to say that Motion No. 2, standing in the name of the hon. member for Calgary Northeast, is redundant in the first subsection. I will explain. The hon. member would like the annual report required under clause 16 of the bill to be transmitted to the Solicitor General and either tabled in the House or referred to the justice committee. However, according to Standing Order 32(5):
Reports, returns or other papers laid before the House in accordance with an Act of Parliament shall thereupon be deemed to have been permanently referred to the appropriate standing committee.
This means that once the report of the commissioner has been tabled in the House it is immediately referred to the Standing Committee on Justice. The member of the Reform Party does not have to worry. It is already in the Standing Orders and therefore subsection (3) is superfluous.
Subsection (4) tries to define much more precisely the work of the commissioner. He would have to give a lot of details in the report that he must submit to the Solicitor General every year.
Clause 16 of Bill C-78 requires that the commissioner submit a report on the operation of the program to the minister, who in this case is the Solicitor General. The clause is quite vague as to the content of this report.
All the bill says, and I quote, is: "a report on the operation of the Program during the preceding fiscal year".
Things cannot be put more succintly. The bill does not provide any satisfactory answer to many questions that I think are obvious.
What the government has given us is nothing more than Canada-wide legislation that will be administered by the RCMP and to which provincial and local police authorities will have to adapt.
Today, we still do not know how co-ordination between the different police groups will be ensured, because Bill C-78 is silent on this issue. In fact, the silence of this bill is most certainly its main characteristic. What concerns me is not what is in the bill, but what was omitted.
A series of questions remain unanswered. Once the bill has been passed by Parliament, how long will it take to put the program in place? What budget will be allocated to the program? How does this amount compare with the current budget? How many people are expected to benefit from the program each year?
It is all fine and well to want to protect informers, but we should know how much this is going to cost. Indeed, we do not even know which envelope the Solicitor General intends to take the money from.
As we know, the witness protection program will be a kind of contract between the RCMP and the protectee. Let us examine the respective rights and obligations of the parties to this agreement.
The commissioner's obligations come down to almost nothing. As indicated in clause 8 of the bill, he only has:
-to take such reasonable steps as are necessary to provide the protection referred to in the agreement to the protectee;
That is all. So, I hope that he will take the necessary steps. But what kind of steps are they? Only the commissioner will know because, once again, the bill does not explain what these steps will be. Thus, these "reasonable" steps are the only obligations the commissioner will have to fulfill.
As for the protectee, he must first provide the information or evidence required by the inquiry or the prosecution that has made the protection necessary. Second, the protectee must keep his or her hands clean, that is refrain from activities that constitute an offence against an act of Parliament. Shoplifting could be in this category.
Last, he or she must accept and give effect to reasonable requests and directions made by the commissioner in relation to the protection provided to the protectee and the obligations of the protectee.
If the protectee deliberately contravenes his or her obligations under the protection agreement, the commissioner may terminate the protection, provided that the protectee can make representations concerning the matter.
This bill puts things very succintly. I suppose that to correct these flaws, some practices are going to evolve allowing the RCMP to completely evade the power of supervision of Parliament.
This is the danger with poor legislation. Police forces create their own rules without any respect for the law. In fact, they are the ones who actually write it as circumstances change. I ask you this: When are we going to see the federal government assume its responsibilities and legislate in a detailed and precise fashion so that those who must enforce these laws know how to proceed?
Since the motion of the member from Calgary Northeast tries to fill some gaps, we are going to support it.