Mr. Speaker, representatives of the Canadian provinces would greatly appreciate being consulted about the appointments to all agencies mentioned in Bill C-65.
I would like to mention here two of those representatives to whom I wrote recently. Ken Rostad, the Alberta minister for federal and intergovernmental affairs, had this to say: "We appreciated greatly being informed of the suggestions you made in this debate concerning consultation with provincial governments".
Let me quote also Mr. Stephen Kakfwi, the minister of intergovernmental and aboriginal affairs of the Northwest Territories: "We do not oppose this fundamental principle of consultation. If your motions recognize territorial governments for the purposes of consultation, the Northwest Territories government could support those motions".
These quotations speak for themselves.
Concerning Motion No. 2 moved by the hon. member for Elk Island, I have to say we do not support it, because it involves reducing from twelve to four the number of directors on the CBC board. We all know that this kind of board is often a haven for political friends, and that real decisions are made by the chairman and the president and chief executive officer under the approving eye of the minister. Bringing down to four the number of board members, as in the case of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, would risk turning it into even more of select club where, between friends, they would decide on the allocation and use of taxpayers' money.
We have to change that practice and ensure better provincial representation, better representation for Quebec. The number of members on the CBC board of directors has to be kept to twelve, with a fair representation for Quebec.
I would also like to take this opportunity to make a few comments on the three other motions put forward by the hon. member for Elk Island. The Bloc Quebecois is in favour of and supports Motions Nos. 10 and 11 put forward by the Reform member. The Bloc wants to maintain a National Archives of Canada Advisory Board, and to ensure that a committee of the House of Commons composed of two members from the government party and three members from opposition parties be authorized, as required by Motions Nos. 10 and 11, to select seven out of the ten members of this advisory board. That is the price for openness, and we will thus prevent the government from politicizing the operation of this National Archives of Canada Advisory Board.
One could wonder how this kind of advisory council, with such a technical mandate, could have any political influence.
In April 1986, the federal government ordered the destruction of a large part of the archives kept by the Canadian Unity Information Office, which would have helped to determine the rather obscure role the federal government played in the 1980 referendum campaign and the full amount of funds invested beyond what the Quebec legislation allowed.
Nevertheless, since the documentation has been destroyed, we have estimated that the federal government spent about $17.5 million on the NO campaign during the 1980 referendum. An advisory board partially composed of members from opposition parties might have avoided the destruction of these archives, which was done only for partisan purposes, to hide the role Ottawa played in 1980 and the excess amount the federal government invested at that time.
To conclude, I just want to add that we are in favour of amendment No. 8, put forward by the Reform member, which provides for Emergency Preparedness Canada to submit an annual report to the House of Commons.
Three of the four motions moved by the hon. member for Elk Island seek to give Parliament better control over the management of government operations and to allow opposition members to monitor more closely the operations of the National Archives of Canada. We support Motions Nos. 8, 10 and 11.
If Bill C-65 is passed, Emergency Preparedness Canada will come under the Minister of Defence. Emergency Preparedness Canada will no longer be a separate agency for budgetary purposes. Why then should a service under the Minister of National Defence have to table a separate annual report in the House of Commons? We agree that Emergency Preparedness Canada should be accountable to Parliament and the best way to ensure that this happens is to have the agency table in the House of Commons an annual report which would then be directly examined by Parliamentarians. So, we support this motion put forward by the hon. member.