moved:
That a Special Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons be appointed to develop a Code of Conduct to guide Senators and Members of the House of Commons in reconciling their official responsibilities with their personal interests, including their dealings with lobbyists;
That seven Members of the Senate and fourteen Members of the House of Commons be the Members of the Committee, and the Members of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs be appointed to act on behalf of the House as Members of the said Committee;
That changes in the membership, on the part of the House of Commons of the Committee be effective immediately after a notification signed by the member acting as the chief Whip of any recognized party has been filed with the clerk of the Committee;
That the Committee be directed to consult broadly and to review the approaches taken with respect to these issues in Canada and in other jurisdictions with comparable systems of government;
That the Committee have the power to sit during sittings and adjournments of the House;
That the Committee have the power to report from time to time to send for persons, papers and records, and to print such papers and evidence as may be ordered by the Committee;
That the Committee have the power to retain the services of expert, professional, technical and clerical staff;
That a quorum of the Committee be 11 Members whenever a vote, resolution or other decision is taken, so long, as both Houses are represented and that the Joint Chairpersons be authorized to hold meetings, to receive evidence and authorize the printing thereof, whenever six Members are present, so long as both Houses are represented;
That the Committee be empowered to appoint, from among its Members, such sub-committees as may be deemed advisable, and to delegate to such sub-committees, all or any of its power except the power to report to the Senate and House of Commons;
That the Committee be empowered to authorize television and radio broadcasting of any or all of its proceedings;
That the Committee make its final report no later than October 31, 1995;
That, notwithstanding usual practices, if the Senate is not sitting when the final report of the Committee is completed, the report may be deposited with the Clerk of the Senate and it shall thereupon be deemed to have been presented to that House; and
That a Message be sent to the Senate requesting that House to unite with this House for the above purpose, and to select, if the Senate deem advisable, Members to act on the proposed Special Joint Committee.
Mr. Speaker, in presenting this motion the government is continuing to fulfil its commitment to strengthen public confidence in the institutions of government.
Earlier in this Parliament we revised and strengthened the conflict of interest code for public office holders and buttressed that new code through the appointment of an ethics counsellor for cabinet ministers and order in council appointees. We also proposed amendments to the Lobbyists Registration Act de-
signed to move the lobby industry out of the shadows and backrooms and into the light of public scrutiny.
Having done this, we will now concentrate on adopting a code of ethics for members of the House of Commons and senators. We hope that the process triggered by this motion will be based on consensus and co-operation, because this issue affects all parliamentarians in both the House of Commons and the Senate, whatever their political allegiance. That is why this government proposes that this important task be assigned to senators and members of the House of Commons rather than to the government itself. This is further evidence that the government really cares about strengthening the role and effectiveness of Parliament.
[English]
We look forward to the deliberations of the committee and we hope that in these deliberations all parties will work together toward preserving the integrity of Parliament. We all have a role to play, a responsibility for ensuring that Parliament, this most fundamental instrument of our democracy, remains an expression of the collective values of all Canadians and one in which they can justly take pride.
What Canadians have made clear is that they want parliamentarians to institute clear rules consistently applied governing their standards of behaviour.
The public's political expectations and values have undergone enormous changes over the years.
For example, in the 1950s there was little concern about conflicts between private business and public responsibilities of elected officials. I understand that at that time many ministers directly owned securities and shares of all kinds, without concern about things like blind trusts and so forth, and even held corporate directorships without causing any public concern. Today that would be out of the question.
Over the years the public has developed much higher expectations. As the art of governance has become more and more complex and intermediaries, advocates, and lobbyists of varying stripes have become increasingly present, successive federal, provincial, and even municipal governments have enacted increasingly rigorous measures to meet evolving public expectations about integrity.
Depending on their province of residence, Canadians have witnessed the development of everything from informal guidelines to formal codes of conduct for elected officials and other public office holders. They have seen the appointment of myriad ethics committees or commissioners with varying degrees of impartiality, independence, and powers of investigation. They have seen politicians subjected to new requirements for disclosure and divestiture. They have seen enacted numerous access to information regimes designed to provide the transparency required for citizens to better examine the activities of public officials.
While the emphasis of these measures has tended to focus primarily on rules of acceptable conduct for the executive, recent trends suggest a growing interest in extending the application of such measures to all public office holders, including those parliamentarians who are not ministers.
At our national level, here in the House of Commons alone, over the past eight years no fewer than four conflict of interest bills for members and senators were introduced and died on the Order Paper. That they met such a fate is instructive. It underlines just how difficult the task is of effectively reconciling the right of individual parliamentarians and their families to privacy and to private life with the public's right to expect the highest standards of conduct from those they elect. The balance will not be an easy one to achieve.
Today we are proposing that there be a special joint committee on a code of conduct for parliamentarians structured along the same lines as the highly successful special joint committees that reviewed Canada's foreign and defence policies. That is, we are proposing that fourteen members of the House of Commons and seven members of the Senate form this committee. In addition, we are proposing that the present members of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs be appointed to act on behalf of the House as members of the new special joint committee.
The special joint committee's task will be a challenging one: to propose a code of conduct to guide senators and members of the House of Commons in reconciling their official responsibilities with their personal interests, including their dealings with lobbyists. The special joint committee will be directed to consult broadly and to review the approaches taken with respect to these issues in Canada and in other jurisdictions with comparable systems of government.
I alluded earlier to the fate of the past four attempts to develop a code of conduct of this sort. Those bills did not die on the Order Paper because there was serious doubt of the need for such measures; they died because there were fundamental disagreements on the specific measures being proposed.
As parliamentarians, we all know how difficult public life can be. Ministers in particular already undergo a daily scrutiny that most Canadians would find unacceptable if it were applied to them. It is important that the new special joint committee be sensitive to this fact throughout its deliberations. I say this because if our democracy is to flourish we must all be concerned
about attracting the best people to public life. I believe that an effective code of conduct can and must take this into account.
For example, as public office holders all members of this House are potentially exposed to allegations that in carrying out their public responsibilities they could be improperly furthering their private interests. Not just ministers, but all parliamentarians must confront this in light of recent changes we have put forward to reinforce the role of both standing committees and private members.
As long as parliamentarians have private interests and have responsibilities to consider, review, or propose legislation that may eventually further those interests, this is a reality we have to face. That is why the challenges facing the new special joint committee promise to be daunting.
Consider the principle of transparency. Few could dispute that accountability without transparency is of dubious value. It is therefore scarcely surprising that disclosure has been one of the common threads running through each of the four previous attempts to define a code of conduct and that the disagreement over the scope of disclosure that would be required contributed to their foundering.
Are the disclosure provisions in the conflict of interest code for ministers, which the present government updated in June 1994, a good model for all members and senators, including those who are not ministers? There is a difference in responsibilities.
What differences should there be, as a result, in the rules? Just how rigorous should disclosure requirements be for members and senators who are not ministers? Should they apply to them alone? To their spouses as well? To their immediate family members? To whom should disclosures be made and when? At what point does disclosure become intrusive? In short, where should the balance be placed?
Similarly, a revised conflict of interest code for ministers specifies what ministers can and cannot hold by way of assets. It provides clear rules concerning divestiture, either through arm's length sales or by setting up blind trusts. There are also rules in place in cases where assets are not tradable, such as ownership of a private company.
Should some or all of these rules also apply to members and senators who are not ministers? Should these rules apply retroactively or should they be grandfathered? Again, where does the right balance lie?
All members would doubtless agree that principles, no matter how resounding or how inspiring, must be grounded in concrete requirements and must apply clearly to day to day activities if they are to be meaningful and effective.
If the committee eventually recommends a set of principles for parliamentarians regarding potential conflicts of interest that are similar to those in the conflict of interest code for ministers, then several questions would arise. Should the system be based on a self-assessment peer review or scrutinized by an independent third party? How far can or should power to investigate be extended? Should there be an ethics counsellor similar to the one established for ministers? How should this regime mesh with the Criminal Code and the Parliament of Canada Act? Should sanctions be included in a new code for parliamentarians? If so, who should be responsible for their enforcement? Indeed, what legal standing should those sanctions have, if any?
Ultimately, public accountability of elected officials is achieved through the electoral process, through elections. What happens to those who abuse the system or inflict damage to its credibility between elections? What of senators who are not subject to the discipline of the ballot box? How are they to be held accountable on an ongoing basis?
Yet again, the issue comes down to one of balance.
At the end of the day, the committee will have to assess the degree to which the public has the right to be informed about the private business of elected officials and appointed senators. These issues will not be easy to settle.
I say to all Canadians that by adopting this motion, members of the House of Commons will be signalling their determination to establish standards for ethical conduct for parliamentarians that are second to none, standards in which all Canadians can take pride.
Therefore, I ask the House to give early and full approval to this motion.