Mr. Speaker, I thank the House for allowing me to speak to the bill and the motions.
We have talked in previous debate about the three-tier registration system for lobbyists. We have talked about increasing the transparency of how lobbyists operate. We have talked about increasing the authority and the autonomy of the ethics counsellor. I should like to focus my input on Motions Nos. 23, 25 and 31.
Reformers were sent to Ottawa to try to influence the way government operates in the House of Commons, a return to ethics, integrity and honesty in the way the House of Commons and different government departments operate.
In the eyes of most Canadians, politicians and government people in this plastic city, as it is called in my riding, are very much in question. The average Canadians has lost trust in government, lost trust in the bureaucracy of the public service and lost trust in the way the people entrusted to operate on their behalf operate.
I will talk about integrity and trust, in particular the portion of the bill that deals with the ethics counsellor. The ethics counsellor, according to Bill C-43, will develop a lobbyists code of conduct. I do not share the same concerns about how lobbyists operate. Having been in the marketing business all my life-and I was a pretty good salesman-I look upon lobbyists as salesmen. They are selling concepts or ideas to the government on
behalf of companies or interest groups. They are there to do a job. If they do a good job I am not uncomfortable with that.
However, the part of the bill I am uncomfortable with is how the people in trusted positions react to lobbyists, whether they be the ethics counsellor, the registrar or employees. Guidelines must be put in place to ensure people in positions of trust are not privately influenced by lobbyists. In other words, it has to be an open and visible process so the people of Canada and parliamentarians are able to see clearly what is going on behind the closed doors of the people in trusted positions.
I refer to the infamous Liberal red book or the red ink book, as we prefer to call it. The red book said that integrity in our political institutions must be restored. That is a very honourable statement but the proof of the statement must be in the pudding. How is integrity in our political institutions to be restored? That is the question people ask. It is fine, in the heat of an election, to make statements and even put them in writing. However following through on the statements is the most important thing a government can do and the most important thing the people of Canada are looking for.
When Canadians see a statement in the Liberal Party red book that it is going to restore integrity in the political institutions, they are looking for some proof of it. The proof is not there.
We have a situation where the Prime Minister can appoint an ethics counsellor. We beg to ask the question: Where is the integrity in that? It opens a door to many conflicts of interest. We in the Reform Party are firmly convinced that the appointment of an ethics counsellor, if integrity in our political institution is to be restored, must be approved by the Parliament of Canada. After all, every MP in this place represents the Canadian people. We were elected to come here and do a job. A position as important as the appointment of an ethics counsellor should be approved by Parliament as a whole.
There are some examples already in the 35th Parliament in support of the Reform Party's demand that an ethics counsellor must be approved after debate in the House of Commons. Let me go through a few.
Patronage is alive and well in the country and in the government. When the Prime Minister appoints another Liberal he says that he has to appoint Liberals. We question every day in question period the qualifications of some of the appointments made by the Prime Minister and his ministers. We say that they have the qualifications but we ask if they happen to be Liberal supporters, long time Liberal friends. That is a small example of patronage being alive and well. It is something the government said it was to do away with.
Let me quote some other examples such as the minister of heritage affair. In October 1994 it was revealed that the minister of heritage wrote a letter to the CRTC on ministerial letterhead in support of one of his constituent's applications. In our opinion it was a clear conflict of interest in as much as the minister of heritage is responsible for the CRTC. The Prime Minister in his wisdom called it an honest mistake. We questioned that. We asked how many more examples of perceived conflicts of interest can be written off by the Prime Minister as honest mistakes.
The Prime Minister refused to ask for the resignation of the minister of heritage as was demanded by many members in the House. He also refused to tell Canadians what the ethics counsellor had advised him to do.
On one occasion the Prime Minister said that he had talked to the ethics counsellor. Then he said he had not talked to him and then a staff member had talked to the ethics counsellor for the Prime Minister.
Under the present guidelines of the ethics counsellor we in the House will never know what happened in the minister of heritage affair. Canadians have seen a perceived conflict of interest swept aside with some talk about an honest mistake, that maybe he should not have done that but should have done this instead.
If we had an ethics counsellor, truly independent and responsible to Parliament rather than the Prime Minister, there would be a clear obligation on the part of the ethics counsellor to report an incident such as I have described to Parliament and there would be no question as to what happened.
We can talk about the post office scandal and the perceived conflict of interest between a Liberal senator and president of Canada Post and a developer. We can talk about the direct to home satellite flip-flop just discussed in the House the other day.
What we want in Motion No. 23 is to force the ethics counsellor appointment to be approved by Parliament and that he or she would serve 10 years. In that case the ethics counsellor would no longer be at the whims of the Prime Minister as to his appointment and removal. Setting a term limit would ensure he does not become entrenched in a self-made empire, which happens all the time in this place.
The red book promises an independent ethics counsellor. Under Bill C-43 he is not independent. This amendment would truly make him independent.
Motions Nos. 25 and 31 would require the counsellor to table his code of conduct to Parliament for approval and for debate. The counsellor would report directly to Parliament, not to the Prime Minister.
Motions Nos. 25 and 31-this is very important-create accountability, legitimacy and autonomy within the ethics counsellor's department. I believe these last three words, accountability, legitimacy and autonomy, are very important to this bill and I urge members to give their support.