moved:
That Bill C-43 be amended by adding after line 2, on page 13, the following new clause:
"4.1. Section 8 is replaced by the following:
"8. The governor in council may designate any person as the registrar for the purposes of this act"".
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure once again to rise to address the issues before us in Bill C-43 and this particular amendment.
I will respond briefly to the speech made by the chairman of our committee moments ago. We appreciated his leadership in the committee. It looked at first as if it were a good process. I now have some reservations about going to committee after first reading because in the end party discipline came to rule and we were unable to finish the way we had started.
So that all members have a clear understanding of the purpose of the amendment, it says the governor in council may designate any person as the registrar for the purposes of this act.
I want to make it very clear that what we are aiming at here is to have more accountability and less of the backroom politics which have plagued our parliamentary system. This distresses many voters and taxpayers. There are lobbyists who have in
some cases better access to the government decision making loop than the access enjoyed by members of Parliament. We need to take strong action in this matter.
Bill C-43, the act to amend the Lobbyists Registration Act, now with this amendment basically designates two individuals responsible for the administration of the act. One is the ethics counsellor. That discussion does not fit under this amendment so I will simply say he or she is one of the very important elements in the administration which has to do primarily with the ethics end of it. The other is the registrar. The registrar will be enforcing the compliance of the act with respect to registration and disclosure.
Once again, our goal is for the Canadian people to say they believe now those lobbying activities are transparent. They will be able to find out about them. They will be able to find out who is lobbying who, what they are being paid, what the conditions are, what their connections are.
There will be a good check and balance against the kind of corruption which can so easily enter the open government system. What is happening today is a public debate. People can hear it; not only members of Parliament but any member of the public who wants to hear what is happening in the House has the ability to do so. They can watch it on television, they can read Hansard or they can read media reports.
However, when it comes to lobbying, that is not public. Therefore we require a mechanism whereby lobbying is made open so that the taxpayers know what is happening just like they have the right to know what is happening here. In order to achieve that we need a system whereby the accountability of the registration system is also trustworthy. That is what we are addressing in this amendment. We are saying the appointment of the registrar should go far beyond being a civil service appointment. I am in no way casting any dispersions on any office holder here past or present when I say this.
There may be perfect honesty and trustworthiness in that position but people are suspicious if they do not have real input into the appointment. Many of these public service positions are filled without even proper information being given to the Canadian people. I know that information is available but it is not publicized.
We are dealing, as the title of the report says, with rebuilding trust. This amendment will provide that this be a governor in council appointment rather than a civil service appointment. It means there will be proper notice. It means there will be an actual public debate about the individual, his credentials and his trustworthiness.
The process of giving the governor in council appointment to an individual also gives more credibility to the individual. In other words, it gives him a little more clout. He will be able to with good authority investigate where there seems to be a violation of the act. He will be more than just a person who has a job to fill. He will have a public role because a governor in council appointee will have to report and account for the way things are done.
I cannot talk about the process extensively in this debate. However, I am disappointed in one thing, getting back to the process. We were given the impression that in committee at first reading there would be no problem with bringing forward amendments at second reading and at report stage which is where we are at now. We would have liked to bring in greater strength and authenticity to the position of the registrar. Because of this process, and this is one of the things now causing me to have second thoughts about its viability, we are prevented from going as fully in this direction as we would like.
We would have liked to had the registrar make a public report and have the appointment in public and also that there would be a way for the registrar to really go after people who deliberately try to circumvent the system of registration.
I am not sure the bill as it now stands will provide enough accountability and enough authority in the hands of the registrar to do that. I really hope it will happen. The way the bill is being written and without this amendment which strengthens that position somewhat I think we are leaving it to a great extent to chance which is not sufficient for the process we are looking at here.
The whole registration system as administered by the registrar must be open. I am very pleased to see that in our committee the recommendation is that there will be electronic access to the information so that as individuals want to find out who is lobbying who, that information which is registered will have a wider accessibility. That is a very positive part of the bill and one which I am sure all members of the House would support.
I want members of the House to apply their good common sense, listen to reason and support this amendment because it strengthens the authority and the position of the registrar, the position which is really pivotal together with the ethics counsellor in making these changes work.