Mr. Speaker, there is a principle in law which says that one should always be presumed to be in good faith. I do not wish to use the tabling of Bill C-43 and its amendments as an excuse to go against that principle.
Yet, I find it somewhat strange that a government which used any means it could during the 1993 election, namely in the famous Toronto airport case, and swore left and right that once elected it would impose an ethics code and put some order in the scheming of lobbyists on Parliament Hill, I find it strange that this government now puts forward those concrete proposals. I also found that strange when the bill was introduced. I was among the privileged who received a short briefing the morning the bill was introduced. I was there with the leader of my party when counsellors from Justice, Industry or Commerce-I forget which-gave us a crash course on the bill.
I could already see that with the title of ethics counsellor the government had toned down those nice principles it defended in its red Bible, which was probably red with shame since the electoral campaign. The title ethics counsellor reminds me of a style of politics "à la" Pol Martin: you have recipes for favouritism and political influence. As the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell said earlier, the success of that law depends on all members and ministers. Therefore, why not acknowledge their wishes and appoint an ethics counsellor by means of a motion in this House?
You know, it is quite something to have judicial independence. This ethics counsellor will have to make rulings on quasi-judicial issues. He will have to make value judgments about the actions of members of Parliament. He will really perform a quasi-judicial function. The independence of the courts has always been recognized, whether they are judicial or administrative tribunals or, as we call them, quasi-judicial courts.
But the party that is now in office does not want to get involved in this sort of thing. It seems peculiar to me that the Prime Minister is the only one to whom the ethics counsellor is accountable, even if I do not want to assume that he would act in bad faith. The judicial courts judges who were supposed to be
charged higher parking fees in the Justice Department buildings, in Quebec, rose up against this practice, not long ago, giving as an excuse their need for independence, their need to cut all links with the administration or the executive, that is, the legislative power.
I did not really understand their reaction at that time, but in this case, it is crystal clear. The only one who will be entitled to appoint the ethics counsellor is the Prime Minister. The only one to be able to call him to account is also the Prime Minister. Again, he can only be dismissed by the Prime Minister. Now, I am told that this counsellor will be impartial, that he will not feel that the Prime Minister is trying to appeal to his emotions, depending on whether his opinions are negative or positive.
Really, all this is nothing more than a dog's dinner. Why not let Parliament, the House of Commons, all of us here make the decision through legislation about the appointment of this official. There is another side to these things. During the campaign, the Prime Minister talked about how this scheme would be nice, great, pure and neat. Now he comes up with a piece of legislation that is not clear and is stifled by its own interpretation. Bill C-43 and other bills, particularly Bills C-61 and C-62 with their infamous clauses opening the doors to lobbyists as never before, look like an invitation to lobbyists saying: "From now on the place is wide open, come and make your representations".
Let us consider clause 9 of Bill C-62: "The designated regulatory authority-" Now we have regulatory authorities. Who are they? They are public servants. "-must evaluate and decide whether to approve the proposed compliance plan-" Let us take, for example, the candy maker who decides to replace white sugar with brown sugar. He comes here and talks to the official who buys that idea, saying it is all right. Do you think that a provision like this one in clause 9 of Bill C-62 does not represent an invitation to abuse? With those compliance plans, one will be able to replace anything with anything, anytime, anywhere.
If that is not an invitation to lobbyists to come to the Hill and do their job, I do not know what it is. Bill C-61, now, is even worse.