Debates of April 25th, 1995

Lobbyists Registration Act

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is there unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Then it is settled.

The question is on Motion No. 9. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And more than five members having risen:

[The Deputy Speaker]

Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), a recorded division on the motion stands deferred.

The next question is on Motion No. 21. Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

(Motion No. 21 agreed to.)

[The Deputy Speaker]

Motion No. 19 will be debated and voted on separately.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

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.

[Michel Bellehumeur, Bloc, Berthier—Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was not going to repeat what I said at the beginning, in my introductory remarks on Motion No. 1, when I took a few minutes to explain why the Bloc Quebecois had taken the stand it took at the committee stage of this bill and describe the general attitude of the hon. members who sat on this committee. But in the light of the comments made by the hon. member for

Fundy-Royal, who also chaired the sub-committee on this bill, I will focus on the causes for my disappointment, since he is here to hear what I have to say, as will the minister opposite.

I repeat, I am disappointed with this new consultation process. The main reason for referring the bill to committee before second reading was to allow members to play a more prominent role and promote dialogue between the government and opposition parties to enhance the contribution of members to the development of legislation. The idea was to give opposition members the chance to express their views on the bill now before us.

Look at the changes to Bill C-43 as a result of this process and watch what will happen, at the end of the day, to the proposals made by opposition parties this afternoon. You will see that nothing changes. It comes to the same thing. So much so that when the minister appeared before the committee as our first witness, he told us that we had a free hand, that we were the best lobbyists there was to have the act amended, but he also gave us directions. While all his directions made it to Bill C-43, amendment proposals made at committee stage by the opposition, and the official opposition in particular, including twenty or so of my own fostering greater transparency, were all rejected. That is why I want to tone down this whole thing. I think we could revert to the old process, since this one is not much different anyway and comes to the same thing.

Regarding Motion No. 19, I must tell the sponsor of this amendment straight off that I agree in principle with his amendment. I think that Motion No. 19 serves the purpose of fostering greater transparency. This is a commendable goal and we, Bloc members, will work toward and support this goal. However, what stands in the way of this motion being adopted is much more a technical consideration. Let me explain.

Motion No. 19 seeks to amend section 8 of the existing legislation, the Lobbyists Registration Act. That act is in Chapter L-12.4 of the Revised Statutes of Canada. Section 8, which is under the heading "Registry of lobbyists", reads as follows: "The Registrar General of Canada may designate any person employed in the office of the Registrar General of Canada as the registrar for the purposes of this Act". Therefore, the section 8 currently in effect deals with the designation of the registrar. What does the registrar do? His role is to keep the registry of lobbyists. This is what the existing act provides. Based on its wording, section 8 designates the registrar.

Motion No. 19 reads as follows: "8. The Governor in Council may designate any person as the registrar for the purposes of this Act." The motion therefore refers to the Registrar General of Canada. The amended section in Motion No. 19 designates the Registrar General of Canada. But who will designate the registrar? As I said earlier, the underlying principle is good. Things would be clearer if the Governor in Council were the one designating the Registrar General of Canada.

This would ensure greater transparency. However, the amendment proposed by the member does not specify who will designate the registrar. Yet, this is extremely important, since the registrar is the one who maintains the registry of lobbyists. I believe the amendment proposed in Motion No. 19 is incomplete and thus we cannot support it, since it would create a vacuum regarding the implementation of the Lobbyists Registration Act.

There is a legal principle which says that the legislator does not intervene uselessly. The legislator does not make a law for no reason. This is even more true in this case, where the legislator is represented by all of us here. Parliament does not make legislation to poke holes in its implementation. I sincerely believe that, if we support Motion No. 19, we will poke a hole in the legislation regarding who will designate the registrars. If we are going to create problems by amending the current legislation, we should stick with the existing section 8 of the Lobbyists Registration Act.

As I said, the official opposition, the Bloc Quebecois, will oppose this motion, not because of its underlying principle, which we support and which has to do with ensuring greater fairness and transparency, but because it creates a vacuum in the bill. Consequently, we will vote against Motion No. 19.

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Lincoln, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it certainly is a pleasure to speak on Bill C-43.

I had the opportunity to sit on committee and participate in the discussions. The committee was very successful in putting forward a number of amendments that reflect what witnesses had communicated to it. The disclosure of grassroots lobbying and the disclosure of government funding for associations are just two of the many amendments which have been put forward with respect to Bill C-43.

Specifically on Motion No. 19, section 8 as it exists in our present legislation reads: "The Registrar General of Canada may designate any person employed in the office of the Registrar General of Canada as the registrar for the purposes of this act". Motion No. 19 attempts to amend that with the following: "The governor in council may designate any person as the registrar for the purposes of this act".

As the bill reads today, the registrar general is able to appoint a person that is employed in his office, a public servant. That public servant is bound by codes of conduct, Public Service Commission rules, Treasury Board, all of those provisions which ensure there is no political influence. There was no evidence in committee that political pressure had been exerted on this official, nor that the nature of the duties involved would make this likely. If these duties justify parliamentary appoint-

ment in order to ensure the independence of the registrar, then countless other government officials should also be made independent.

I wonder whether the hon. member with the intent put forward in this motion realizes that it already exists. There are provisions in the registration act where if we appoint a public servant, as is the present provision, that public servant is independent of any political pressure as the hon. member is alluding to because of the code of conduct that individual is bound by as a public servant. I am struggling with the intent of the motion. The opposition party did bring out a point which supported the fact that we would be unable to support this amendment.

I will comment briefly, as other members have done, on how the committee functioned. The new structure in committee gives members of Parliament a great opportunity to affect legislation. We were able to do that with this bill by putting forward 13 amendments. We can make changes and provide input which reflects what the witnesses asked us to do.

There will now be a legal obligation for lobbyists to comply with the code of conduct and explicit authority for the registrar of lobbyists to issue interpretation bulletins. These are all things that improve the transparency and improve how the bill and its application will function.

Let us look at the comments made earlier on how the intent of the bill was to improve transparency and the statement by the opposition parties that we are not doing that, we are not going far enough. Let us just take a moment to look at what we have done thus far.

The ethics counsellor who has been appointed will develop the code of conduct for lobbyists. As I said earlier, there is a legal obligation to comply. In keeping with the spirit of increased powers for MPs, we will have the ability to review the code of conduct by the parliamentary committee.

The ethics counsellor can investigate breaches of that code and submit a detailed report of each investigation to Parliament. This report can now include fees and disbursements that were paid. These are all things that lend to the transparency of how government works. Bill C-43 goes a long way in improving the transparency.

With respect to Motion No. 19, the assumption behind the motion is that the registrar is vulnerable to political pressures. I find the arguments somewhat confused because the registrar, as stated by the Bloc in an earlier comment, is responsible for the administration of the lobbyists registry. As I said earlier, there is and was not any evidence in committee that political pressure had been exerted on this official.

If we defeat this motion, as I hope the House will do, we will maintain in the bill the ability of the Registrar General of Canada to designate that public servant who is bound by the public service code of conduct to perform the duties required.

What did the committee do? The committee did strengthen the powers of the registrar. The person will have the formal authority to audit the information contained in any return or document submitted and to issue interpretation bulletins and advisory opinions. We have strengthened that position. We have done so to allow the bill to work more effectively and to allow for that transparency.

In summary, the registrar will have the authority necessary to ensure the effective implementation of the act. I hope that we will defeat Motion No. 19.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is the House ready for the question?