Mr. Speaker, before question period, I started pointing out the flaws in Bill C-43. I mentioned the staging of the ethics counsellor's appointment and the authority he was supposed to have. I highlighted the discrepancies in the Liberal position and their about face regarding several points, including the different categories of lobbyists.
One will recall that the Liberals, when they were in the opposition, wanted to have only one category for lobbying because, in their opinion, lobbying was lobbying.
But once they came to power, their friends, probably the ones who fund their electoral campaigns, told them: "No, no, no! We would rather it stay the same, with three different categories". So, the Liberals reviewed their position and now, Bill C-43 meets the lobbyists' demands, maintaining three categories.
Before question period, I was dealing with the third flaw I found in Bill C-43. In total, there are eight major flaws which were deliberately introduced with a view not to reach the stated goal of Bill C-43, which is transparency. The third flaw I found has to do with the compulsory filing of a return. As I mentioned earlier, the scandal regarding Pearson airport, in Toronto, is ample proof of how lax the present rules are in this area.
One will recall that the privatization contract was signed at the height of the federal electoral campaign, in 1993, and that subsequently an inquiry looked into that deal. The Nixon report, issued on November 29, 1993, revealed several instances of misconduct on the part of lobbyists, officials and political aids to the ministers concerned. The report raised several other questions which have remained unanswered to this day. For example, who are the lobbyists who contravened the most elementary rules of ethics? When did these events occur? How did they act illegally or unlawfully? Who are the officials and political staff members who went too far in this matter?
The Liberal government did not answer those questions. They chose to close their eyes to such stratagems which undermine the credibility of our democratic institutions. Most unfortunately, Bill C-43 offers nothing new. We remain totally in the dark. The clique exercising such undue influence will continue to have its way, and that is terrible. While they were in the opposition, members of government had promised they would bring transparency into this issue.
If the Liberals were serious about transparency for all government undertakings, why do they now refuse to force lobbyists to indicate which contracts they are trying to influence the federal administration on? Furthermore, why do they refuse to disclose which contracts are attributed in a discretionary fashion, without any call for tenders? I regret that the Liberals absolutely refuse to shed any kind of light on this issue.
If the Liberal government were really serious when it talks about integrity and transparency, would it not demand that lobbyists also disclose their fees? I learned, through the Minister of Industry, that in Ottawa, some lobbyists charge up to $5,000 a day to negotiate small arrangements with government.
In such a case, people have the right to know who is paying this kind of money, who has an interest great enough to pay up to $5,000 a day to have a minister or the government change its position or decision. But no, Bill C-43 says nothing about that.
When they were on this side of the House, the Liberals were in favour of such disclosure. They thought, quite appropriately, that lobbyists should disclose their fees. I will give you specific examples of Liberal members who have changed their tune since they took office.
The member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, and government whip, said on February 2, 1993: "In other words, the public has the right to know who does what and for whom, and at what cost". When in opposition, that is what they were asking the government. Put even more eloquently, on February 16, 1993, the current Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry said, about the disclosure of lobbyists' fees: "One of the reasons I stand firm on the issue of disclosure is that your organization does not work only in the area of politics. You now have a polling department and a media relations unit. Your organization"-he was answering someone in committee and knew what he was talking about-"has a strong influence not only on consumers but also on government and the media. In a town like ours you only have to be a few days in the press centre to have almost any idea accepted. One of the reasons I believe your fees must be disclosed is that it sometimes happens-Take the referendum for instance: millions of dollars have been put in the system by lobbying firms advocating a position while we knew almost nothing about them".
The parliamentary secretary to the minister said only a few months ago that lobbyists fees had to be disclosed. Today in Bill C-43, the minister says that fees will not be disclosed. What did members say? What did the parliamentary secretary to the minister mention? I will not answer that question. I will not answer it because I find it deplorable that a member did not raise to express his concerns and or defend the ideas he had when he was in the opposition. Power corrupts and gives Alzheimer's to Liberals.
I would now like to refer to another issue over which the Liberals ranted and raved when they were in the opposition, and that is the contacts initiated by lobbyists with ministers and officials. They seem less concerned about that issue today, although the problem remains unsolved.
Suppose that Bill C-43 had been in force during transactions which led to the contract to privatize Pearson airport. I often choose that example because it was a scandal known to all Canadians and to the Liberal themselves. The new registry would have told us on what contract a consultant lobbyist had worked, and that this lobbyist contacted the relevant department, in this case the Department of Transport. So what? Such are the changes brought about by Bill C-43. That is the information we would have.
This new obligation to disclose is being presented as a bold move by the government and the Liberal majority in the committee. It goes without saying that, for the Bloc Quebecois, it is essentially pointless. It is obvious that a lobbyist trying to influence the government on an issue relating to the privatization of an airport would contact the Minister of Transport. That is obvious, we do not need a bill to know that; one does not have to be a rocket scientist to guess that.
To really have transparency in its dealings, the government should have agreed to lobbyists revealing their meetings with a minister and the names of the senior officials involved. Bill C-43 should have required lobbyists to say they had contacted a given minister or a given senior official at a given time, that they had discussed a given issue, that they wanted the government to make a decision on a given subject. Bill C-43 does not say anything about that; it does not give us what we wanted.
Such transparency would have helped to restore the integrity of institutions in people's minds. Once again, the government missed the boat. Once again, we proposed some amendments to this end, but the government said no to the transparency and the integrity proposed by the Bloc Quebecois.
Also, why not require lobbyists to reveal their political ties? It would be interesting to know that a given lobbyist is employed by a given political party. It might be interesting to know that a given lobbyist had once been a candidate for a political party. It might be interesting to know that a given lobbyist is the president of an association or was a minister's chief campaign organizer. It might be interesting to know also that a given lobbyist gave $1,000, $2,000 or $3,000 to the Liberal Party's fundraising campaign. It would be interesting to know that.
But no. When the Liberals had trouble collecting a nickel, that was required from the government, the lobbyists had to reveal that. But now that they are in office, now that they have cocktails and luncheons at $1,000 and $2,000 a plate, they do not want this information. They have changed their tune.
Since time flies, I will not deal at length with the contingent fees some lobbyists ask from those who hire them. They say: I will charge you $5,000 an hour-as in the example given by the minister-to make representations to the government, and if you win your case, you will pay me $250,000 on top of my fees. I am using large figures to put my point across more clearly, but that is what is meant by contingent fees.
The Bloc Quebecois thinks Bill C-43 should prohibit contingent fees. Of course, as you have seen, Mr. Speaker, the Liberals rejected that amendment. However, witnesses who appeared before the committee said that contingent fees lead to scandals and influence peddling. The higher the contingent fees, the more forceful lobbyists will be in their representations to the minister and the more they will use all kinds of tactics. Today, the Liberals find that quite acceptable. It is not. Those are the kind of things they criticized when they were the opposition, but now that they are in power they are too busy at the trough and feel everything is fine. Such smoothies.
I repeat that I could keep talking for hours on this important issue. As a matter of fact, it is so important that the committee heard about 80 witnesses. We received brilliant briefs. This was the third time a group of parliamentarians reviewed this issue. We have had the Cooper Report, we have had the Holtmann Report and now you have before you today the Zed Report.
Three times, parliamentarians have said: "We have to give teeth to the Lobbyists Registration Act". And what do we have before us? A toothless bill, a spineless bill, that will not reach the goal of openness that had been set. There is nothing new in this bill, and scandals will occur again.
Talking about scandals, about current events also, as you could see during question period, all kinds of revelations are being made. These issues have been raised for weeks now. We are not the only ones saying that there is something strange going on in the government machinery, something that is going wrong. Except of course for The Gazette . But nobody wonders why The Gazette is supporting the government.
What all these elements are showing us I think is that there has never been such an urgent need for a bill to closely regulate the lobbyists. That is what current events show us, with the saga of patronage by the Liberal government in its policy on direct to home satellite broadcasting.
Here is what Jean-Robert Sansfaçon wrote in today's Le Devoir : ``Seldom has the federal government been more obviously under remote control than with this decision to suspend the rules set out by the CRTC. This is an action whose only purpose is to allow onto the scene a certain player, none other than the company run by the Prime Minister's son-in-law, André Desmarais. Once more, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Michel Dupuy, looks like a puppet, unable to apply either the letter or the spirit of the Canadian Broadcasting Act''.
All that has been done through lobbying, meetings and visits with the minister. And all that is the doing of the powerful PowerCorp lobby.
We now have Bill C-43 before us. It could not have come at a more appropriate juncture. We have the proof we need to say that with Bill C-43 as enacted, as drafted, nothing will change and scandals as those we have witnessed this week will occur again, and our questions will never get answered. We will never really know what guided the minister in his decisions, his visits, his meetings, etc. That is a true scandal.