Mr. Speaker, I support the hon. member for Hamilton-Wentworth's bill as well. Listening to the previous speakers, I heard the member for Cumberland-Colchester say that it could become the most important piece of legislation during this session. The member for Broadview-Greenwood said it was a magnificent achievement.
I am looking for words to give it even more applause but unfortunately, I cannot reach that high in my praise for this bill. However, to compliment the hon. member for Hamilton-Wentworth, I will say it is a good bill. It is a very necessary bill and certainly I and my colleagues of the Reform Party have no problem supporting it.
When Reformers came to Ottawa we said we would not be here on this side of the House simply to criticize the Liberal government. The way it has turned out in this 35th Parliament we have not had much choice but to criticize. The Canadian people who tune in to what is happening in Parliament will know that whenever we criticize we do at the same time offer constructive alternatives.
This is one of the times when we really do not have to criticize this bill because quite frankly after all the exhaustive research we have done on it we really cannot find too much wrong with it bill. I want to the let the House know that while the member for Hamilton-Wentworth and his research assistants have done exhaustive research to define the bill clearly, we have done exhaustive research to determine whether this was a good bill or not and indeed it is.
We basically want the non-profit organizations and the charity organizations to become more accountable in their bookkeeping primarily so we can find out what the leading members of the organization are getting paid for their services.
We know the Government of Canada contributes a lot of money to non-profit organizations, special interest groups. Of late we have had examples where expenses have been seen to be exorbitant because of the lack of accountability in how these expenses are reported. We have seen many cases where these special interest groups and non-profit organizations will skip some of the lines on the income tax return and just put in a lump sum showing lump sum salaries paid to some of the top people in the organization. This will do away with all that. We are going to get more accountability.
When I am talking about accountability I have to hold the member for Hamilton-Wentworth blameless in this because he seems to have a good understanding of what accountability means. I would encourage him to apply the same principles he did to this bill to his conversations with other members of the Liberal Party. What the Reform Party came here to do was to demand accountability from the government.
The hon. member for Hamilton-Wentworth appears to have a pretty good handle on accountability. In supporting this bill I want to encourage him to talk to as many of his colleagues as he can so that we may finally get some accountability from the government as we go forward in the 35th Parliament.
We support this bill.