Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure and an honour to speak in favour of the motion.
A couple of things have come to mind in the last few minutes while I have been listening to the other speakers. I would be remiss if I did not add to the commendation of the hon. member who has proposed this bill. I have had the privilege of working with him in the Bill C-43 committee. It is a very healthy sign and gives me a little glimmer of hope that perhaps there are some Liberals who do believe in accountability. Sometimes we get the impression that is not there.
The hon. member was instrumental in adding to the strength of Bill C-43 in a couple of areas, in particular disclosing. When lobbyists receive government funds they must now disclose it. I believe disclosure is the first step to elimination of receiving the funds.
The best legislation in the House seems to come from private members. It is really the only time when we have this large envelope of unanimity. Perhaps we ought to consider changing the rules of the House and have government business the last time of the day on Friday and have private members' bills the rest of the time. Perhaps we would be able to change the system.
I commend the member on this principle. It is close to my heart because I believe strongly in charities and the work they do. I also believe in accountability. If it were not for that I would not have come here as a member of Parliament. That was one of my prime motivations.
I remember listening to my son whom I have mentioned before in the House. He is currently working as an administrator in an orphanage in Rwanda for a charitable organization. He and his wife are helping to look after some 400 children whose parents were killed in the unfortunate occurrence there. My son has been doing this type of work for five or six years, having been in Somalia, in the Sudan, in Bosnia and in other areas. He made a statement that I thought was very significant. He said that in the areas where he has worked the non-government organizations, the NGOs, are about twice or more as efficient as government organizations.
He talked about salaries. When he goes there he basically gets an expense allowance and that is about it. Whereas other people who are supposed to be helping receive huge salaries. He said he could not believe it. I will not mention the organizations because that would be unkind since they are not here to defend themselves. After working over there for five or ten years some of the people he mentioned will come back to Canada with a pile of wealth in their accounts because they were not spending it over there.
A charitable organization has potential for the greatest accountability. The whole idea of bringing the good we do to help people down to people and away from government needs to be strengthened. That will happen if we open the accountability and the desire of organizations to be open and honest with the people that support them.
In my experiences I made it a policy many years ago of not supporting private charitable organizations that will not open their books. In some instances I have actually written and and said: "Please send me your annual statement for last year. If it is not audited by an independent auditor I will probably not help you". I believe in that principle and it ought to be applied right across the board.
It is refreshing to see it being done in this area of tax expenditure. I say in the very best sense I can that I wish the hon. member for Hamilton-Wentworth would spread this virus of accountability throughout his caucus so we can infect every agency of government with total openness, total accountability and total declarations of how much money was received and how it was spent.
I am pleased to have spoken in favour of the motion. I certainly will be supporting it.