What I find appalling in this is that we have been discussing this matter for two days, accusing the government of all sorts of things, including a lack of openness, and saying that this bill does not achieve the objective set by the government. We have said that government members are reneging on their own election promises. We have said all kinds of things in this House but the Liberals listening to us are not saying anything. Silence means consent. They are not saying anything because we are right. This bill is an empty shell and does not do anything to ensure openness.
I will read some of the clauses so that you can understand why the average citizen thinks this bill is a crock.
With respect to the code of conduct, the bill provides that: "The Governor in Council may designate any person as the Ethics Counsellor for the purposes of this Act". The term "governor in council" means the Prime Minister and his team. This piece of legislation will therefore be administered by a friend of the Prime Minister.
According to another clause, the code of conduct-to be developed by a friend of the Prime Minister who will be appointed to the post of ethics counsellor by the Prime Minister-is not a statutory instrument. The government goes to the trouble of indicating in the bill that the code is not a statutory instrument and should not be implemented as such.
Another clause states that: "The investigation shall be conducted in private". This confirms, once again, that we are right in saying that they were not honest in drafting this bill.
According to another clause, "After conducting an investigation, the Ethics Counsellor shall prepare a report of the investigation, including the findings, conclusions and reasons for his conclusions, and submit it to the Registrar General of Canada". Again, this investigation will be conducted secretly and the Prime Minister will receive a nice report, while we will have to make do with the reasons for the conclusions they will condescend to share with us.
I understand why they feel uncomfortable and do not wish to rise in this House to defend this bill. I will use parliamentary language to avoid being censured. I understand why they do not wish to rise. What I do not understand is why, before this bill was tabled in this House, they did not warn their caucus that they were reneging on their election promises, that the bill did not go far enough. They could have argued that we need transparency because nobody wants to be a member of Parliament anymore. Nobody trusts us any more.
I was a lawyer before I became a member of Parliament. People used to tell me that lawyers had a bad reputation but when I informed them that I wanted to go into politics, they told me, "Are you crazy? It is even worse than being a lawyer".
This bill gives us an opportunity to increase openness, to improve the reputation of members of Parliament. What did they come up with? A mess. Instead of restoring confidence, they are abusing the trust of Canadian taxpayers, and that is unacceptable.