There is no worry. It is on the record. It is publicly known if one goes to the registrar. As long as I am not in here trying to lobby the cabinet or officials on behalf of my previous employer, I do not see where the difficulty is.
I do not understand where the members on the opposite side are coming from. What I find distressful about the tone and the approach from the members opposite is that it seems to me they are suggesting if we had some kind of a relationship with the private sector or a high profile organization we are putting ourselves in a position where we cannot be a member of Parliament where we can be above reproach.
I expect that all of my actions in relation to my previous employer to be scrutinized. I expect if I have received a campaign fund or received moneys from my previous employer to promote a particular cause or whatever, I do not have any problem with that being analysed. The opposition is really missing the point. It is saying that when one has a relationship with a major corporation that person's ability to do work as an MP is questioned.
That is a sad state. I do not want my friends in the House who are lawyers, doctors or from other professions to take this the wrong way, but we need more men and more women who have had entrepreneurial experience, who have had business backgrounds.
With that type of experience we might be able to re-energize that part of our responsibility which has to do with the economy. When opposition members single out relationships that existed either in the past or in the present with corporations or multinationals because I either worked for them or had a relationship with them, it casts aspersions on that relationship in a way that is counterproductive to why we are all here.
The essence of this bill has to do with increasing the transparency, making sure all the activities of lobbyists and their relationship with the government are enhanced, documented, that we have an ability to get a sense of how we as members of Parliament are being lobbied and sometimes even manipulated. Does this bill meet that test? I believe it does.
We have the appointment of the ethics counsellor, a new creation of this government, and as time moves on that position will evolve and be refined. The code of conduct for MPs we as a committee will work on, refine and improve. We have committed ourselves to that process and if we continue this type of debate eventually the final product will be something all Canadians and all members of Parliament can be proud of.
The bill goes a long way in taking us in that direction.