Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief. I will simply say that I appreciate the work the hon. member did with respect to lobbyists during the time he was in opposition. He was a good, hard working member and he said a lot of wise things. I wish that his government had followed some of his advice.
I would like to refer to what I call the Liberals' red ink book of broken promises. At page 94 of the red book, under "The Public Trust", it says: "Nine years of Conservative government have brought our political process into disrepute. A Liberal government will restore public trust and confidence in government." Wonderful. Those are nice words. "We will regulate the activities of lobbyists by appointing an ethics counsellor". They have done it. Great. It continues: "We will reform the pension plan of members of Parliament". For everybody who was here before 1988 it is the same old trough. "We will give more power to individual MPs by providing more free votes and more authority for parliamentary committees". That is not happening. "And we will establish strict guidelines for merit in government
appointments". We have lists and lists of appointments on everything other than merit.
I would like to ask the hon. member to respond to this, because this is very serious. I believe that their commitment is honourable, but they are not following through. I would like the hon. member to explain it. He was involved in the reports in the past that made this recommendation. I am reading from page 95: "In particular, a Liberal government will appoint an independent ethics counsellor". He referred to that in his speech. I would ask him to describe how the present appointment mechanism established in Bill C-43 via the Prime Minister and the submission of reports via the registrar general to the House reflects an independence, which is so necessary.
It continues: "The ethics counsellor will be appointed after consultation". Great. But it says here explicitly: "-will report directly to Parliament". That is not happening. The hon. member needs to explain that.
The Liberal government says that it will implement the unanimous June 1993 report; that is the Holtmann report. I cannot give the House the details, but if I had the time I would list two specifics in the Holtmann report that were not implemented. The removal of the tiers was an explicit Holtmann report recommendation. That is not in this bill. The anti-avoidance schemes were specific in the Holtmann report, but not in here.
I would like the hon. member to respond as to why the government is not doing those things.