Indeed, Mr. Speaker, I believe this is a symbolic example of the situation regarding the ethics counsellor.
I would like to remind you of a sentence which was in the red book of the Liberal Party of Canada. It says: "The integrity of government is put into question when there is a perception that the public agenda is set by lobbyists exercising undue influence away from public view". Hence, what our citizens want, according to the Liberal red book, is better information on the influence of lobbyists.
Opting for an ethics counsellor appointed by the Prime Minister and accountable only to the Prime Minister, is like saying that the person who is going to look into the situation has a direct tie with the one who might be implicated. This shows concretely that Liberals did not go to the core of things and did not deal, in a definite, long term way, with a situation which is unacceptable to the people.
This is something we had been trying to deal with following the last election campaign, and I repeat that Liberals will be accountable to the people for not having used the solutions which, in the end, were the results of a consensus in our society.
Today, the decisions needed are very complex and we have to make sure that things are open enough and that the people who are going to pass judgment have an independence somewhat similar to the one enjoyed by the auditor general. If the auditor general were not independent of the government, do you think that he could systematically report on the government's efficiency like he is now doing? A new auditor general would be brought in before he could get a second report out. The same goes for the ethics counsellor. The Prime Minister will either give him a very limited role or he will simply be obliged to give in to pressure from the lobbyists and, in this way, serve to cloak their activities even more. We have before us a perfect example-the MP's question is quite germane-of the fact that the government did not fulfil its mandate and that is the main reason the Bloc Quebecois will not support this bill.