Mr. Speaker, Bill C-263 has as its goal the bringing of five crown corporations under the accountability provisions of the Financial Administration Act which now applies to all other crown corporations. The corporations this act seeks to include are the Canada Council, the National Arts Centre Corporation, the Canadian Wheat Board, Telefilm Canada and the International Development Research Centre.
Hon. members have listened to earlier discussions on the merits of having all crown corporations operating under a sound system of control and accountability. I can only add my support to those expressions of interest that crown corporations should be appropriately managed, but I cannot support Bill C-263.
The objective of good government management of crown investments is neither a mountain of bureaucratic rules and regulations nor a flawed system that fails to provide the adequate tools to evaluate corporate performance. Appropriate accountability must balance control against an adequate degree of empowerment for corporate managers to do their jobs effectively and efficiently. After all, crown corporations have a real and valuable public policy purpose.
I am sure all hon. members would wish to ensure that important publicly owned institutions such as the Canada Council, the Canadian Film Development Corporation and others are held accountable for the results they achieve and the money they spend. I am equally certain hon. members would not wish to see the mandates of these corporations compromised, mandates that Parliament carefully protected in corporate enabling legislation. Or is that the case with this particular bill?
Perhaps the real agenda here is to remove from these particular crown corporations their arm's length quality, their ability to act at arm's length from the government. Perhaps the real agenda is to stifle the creativity which is part of the Canada Council, part of Telefilm Canada and part of the National Arts Centre. Perhaps the real agenda is to suppress the work of the International Development Research Centre or to prevent the wheat board from performing its mandate which has been so valuable particularly to the western provinces.
What is appropriate accountability for these corporations? That is the real question. Clearly, the present system of laws, regulations and government policies affecting crown corporations has evolved considerably. It can provide both Parliament and the government with much useful information and the assurance that crown corporations are being well managed.
The Auditor General reports to this House on a regular basis on crown corporation matters. Indeed, the Auditor General is the auditor or the joint auditor for 35 out of 48 of these corporations, including four that are part of this bill: the National Arts Centre, the Canada Council, the International Development Research Centre and Telefilm Canada.
Moreover, Treasury Board reviews the operations of crown corporations. It deals with resourcing issues for those corporations that are exempt from part X of the Financial Administration Act but nevertheless require government appropriation.
Of prime importance also is the fact that each crown corporation by law has an appropriate minister. The corporations are accountable through their ministers to Parliament. These ministers must table a number of important accountability documents relating to their crown corporation, such as annual reports, summaries of corporate plans, operating and capital budgets.
Stepping back for a moment and looking at appropriate accountability in a broader context, I believe the fiscal challenges which the government is currently facing necessarily will affect the way it manages crown corporations. There will be an even greater need to find ways of delivering public policy in an efficient businesslike manner than there is at present.
Reducing or at least more carefully controlling the size of the public service would appear to be part of the solution toward meeting this need. Interestingly, I note that Bill C-263 would actually add to the size of the public service by adding those employees of the Canada Council, the International Development Research Centre and the National Arts Centre to the public service of Canada. This appears to be going in the opposite direction from that which the proponents of smaller government usually follow.
I might add that it also runs counter to the general philosophy of empowering crown corporations to be separate employers and to take direct responsibility for their personnel matters. This responsibility must be carried out fairly and efficiently in the best interests of the corporation.
It is one important example of how the use of crown corporations with their corporate structure based on the private sector model can remove layers of red tape in decision making. Less red tape in personnel administration and human resource management is one advantage of the crown corporation forum which may prove to be an increasingly attractive way of improving the efficiency with which certain government programs could be delivered. The focus will increasingly be on the expertise brought to bear on those directly responsible for the day to day running of those corporations, the expertise of the board of directors.
The public has demanded transparency and accountability from all government institutions. Foremost, the public expects integrity from those officers charged with the responsibility of running these institutions. In the early months of this government the Prime Minister made this value central to both the letter and the spirit of our actions. The quest must be for financial responsibility and common sense in the way all government institutions are run and held accountable.
We have seen a number of studies in the area of corporate governance in the past few years, including work done by Peter Dey for the Toronto Stock Exchange. What we know is that the public has effectively been expressing its frustration at being left out or ignored in both the process and structures of corporate governance in the private sector. Boards of directors and corporate managers are experiencing an upsurge in public sentiment for democratization that has affected many other aspects of the daily lives of Canadians everywhere: our families, our communities, our courts and our schools, in addition to private corporations.
The modern business corporation is now seen by many as both an economic institution and a social institution. This is closer to how our crown corporations have always been viewed in their quest to balance efficient and businesslike operations with the public policy agenda.
The growing public expectation creates pressure for more formal rules and regulations, values and ethics for both the process and the people who influence corporate decision making. The government is acutely aware of the changing scene in corporate governance. It has undertaken a number of important initiatives in this area as they relate to crown corporations, including those named in Bill C-263.
The Treasury Board Secretariat jointly with the Conference Board of Canada and the Canadian Centre for Management Development developed and published an introductory document on the roles and responsibilities of directors of crown corporations to provide important guidance on appropriate accountability for directors. It has been well received since its publication in July 1993.
In an effort to focus more attention on the goal of improving sensitivities in the area of corporate governance, a training conference was held this past fall for CEOs and chairs of crown corporations to improve the performance of crown corporate boards. One of the four major themes discussed was the challenge of balancing the corporate agenda and the public good.
These initiatives demonstrate that careful attention is being paid to the evolution of accountability issues surrounding crown corporations using an open process of consultation. Developing a new statutory accountability framework for the five crown corporations named in Bill C-263 should follow the same sort of consultative process. It should not be insensitive to the particular needs of those crown corporations affected or their many significant stakeholders among the Canadian population.
I can only suggest that the bill presented by the hon. member for Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt while demonstrating concern for the interests of Canadian taxpayers does not equally meet the test of public consultation to which this government is much committed. I urge hon. members to vote against it.