Mr. Speaker, my intervention will be more a comment than a question, although I am sure the member will want to respond to it.
He indicated that we have spoken about the lack of independence of the counsellor. Then he went on to say that he had more faith in these people than that. So do we. That is why I think the process, as defined, is so very unfortunate.
The person in the position right now is an honourable person. It certainly is not a goal of mine to see if I can find where someone has made an error. That is not my goal. I have not found anything on him. I do not think there is anything of a serious nature or anything at all.
He is a man of integrity. He is a man that can be trusted. Unfortunately, because he is appointed by the Prime Minister, because he answers to the Prime Minister and because there is no independence from that particular role, the individual can be as honest and as clean as the day is long but he will not be able authentically to convince Canadian people of it. Try as he might, because of that close relationship there will always be people who have not forgotten the previous government, even on the assumption that there is nothing wrong with the government. I do not buy that, by the way. Everyone has problems from time to time.
When we form the government next time I am sure there will be allegations made about us. That is when I want the ethics counsellor to be independent. When false allegations are made the person who makes an investigation and reports on them must be truly seen to be independent so that he is trusted. Then when he says there is nothing wrong it will be taken as a true statement instead of one that is manipulated. That is why we are saying that the ethics counsellor should be totally independent from cabinet and from the Prime Minister.
The added problem in Bill C-43 is that both the ethics counsellor and the registrar report through the minister. There have been comments on that point: "What is wrong with that? Don't we trust our ministers?" Yes, we do, but if there is a true or false allegation against any minister, particularly the minister who will act as registrar general, the case is totally weakened by the fact that he would bring forward the report on himself. No one would believe it and it might be totally true. That is what is so unfortunate.