Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of the hon. member for Vaudreuil, who seems not to have heard, I reiterate that he portrays Bill C-49 as the greatest thing since sliced bread. This is far from being the case.
As we can see, the hon. member for Vaudreuil, too, may benefit from bills like this one after the next election, because he will lose the only city in his riding where he received a majority of votes, so that the next member for Vaudreuil may well be a Bloc member.
The current member for Vaudreuil, too, will have to stand in line in front of the Prime Minister's office, and he will probably be appointed to an administrative tribunal, as suggested in Bill C-49. I think the hon. member for Vaudreuil has all the qualities required to do a good partisan job as a member of an administrative tribunal. I am not denying his skills and abilities.
But let us get back to serious matters. In his 10-minute speech on Bill C-49, the hon. member for Vaudreuil was very careful, and with good reason, not to refer to clauses 1 through 13, preferring to focus on the reorganization of administrative tribunals, which may be dissolved, merged or combined. I agree with this. If some of our administrative tribunals are ineffective, inefficient or obsolete, the government's first responsibility is to abolish them.
Except that the bill is much more vicious. This is not the real purpose of the bill. One just has to look at the calendar to understand why the bill was introduced in this House. Let me explain: the Conservatives were defeated on October 25, 1993. During that last month, in October 1993, they proceeded to make hundreds of partisan appointments. Just imagine the worst: they did it. It is true. They appointed about 500 people to various administrative committees.
But if we take a look at the list of Liberal candidates who were defeated in the 1993 election in Quebec, and there were a lot of them, we see that the Liberal Party always rewards its friends. It always manages to find a place for them somewhere.
That is what Bill C-49 does, because the Conservatives in many cases appointed their Conservative friends for five years, which means from October 1, 1993 until October 1, 1998, and thus outmanoeuvred the Liberals. In other words, the Liberals will have been in power for four years and a few months before the mandate of these people appointed by the Conservatives expires. So they have to find a way to get them out and appoint Liberals instead, and that is the role of Bill C-49. Through you, Mr. Speaker, I wish you would say this to the hon. member for Vaudreuil.
Of course, I never saw a government come here and say: "I am going to do some patronage, some favouritism, that is the purpose of my intervention". Of course not. It is always about the government's effectiveness and about restoring fairness and equity. It is like the ministers of finance. I never saw a minister of finance, although I am certainly old enough, come here and say: "My budget is not worth a damn. It is just garbage. Just throw it in the garbage, it is not worth a damn". They always presented the budget as though it were the best thing in the world, but all these goodies, and I have been following this for the past 35 years have led to a deficit of more than $600 billion.
Bill C-49 makes no difference. It does exactly what has always been done in this Parliament, in the name of equity and justice. But
that is not what it is all about. The Liberal philosophy is not as noble as all that. It is about rewarding our friends, about not abandoning friends who will have the courage to run in the next election and be defeated as we can expect to see happening in Quebec very shortly.
They are actually achieving the dream of tendentious legislation. This is extraordinary. I must admit that in this regard you have something to teach me and all other Bloc members.
Look at the first clauses, which the member for Vaudreuil refuses to debate, preferring to linger over cuts made here and there, the outdated administrative courts no longer necessary. Look at the essence of this bill. This bill actually contains 14 clauses, and not the 300 the member for Vaudreuil wants us to believe.
Those 14 clauses have repercussions on existing administrative courts. Take the CRTC, for example. If only we had had Bill C-49 when the minister of industry overturned the decisions of the CRTC regarding Power DirecTv, but the minister regretted he did not have this bill. If this bill had been in force, instead of having to bear the unbearable and having to overturn the decision of the CRTC, the minister could have simply fired the chairman of the CRTC. He could have asked the new chairman to review this decision. The minister did not do that. He could not, so he had to bear this odious decision and to take a decision which the public completely misunderstood. I can see why. Even we in this Chamber have still not understood it.
Let's take for example, clause 5. It says that "The Chairperson of an administrative tribunal may request the Minister-not a judge of a superior court-the Minister. Of course, if the Minister is looking for favours, he must have the upper hand. Therefore, the request is made to the Minister.
- The Chairperson of an administrative tribunal may request the Minister to decide whether any member should be subject to remedial or disciplinary measures for any reason set out in paragraphs 13(2)( a ) to ( d ).
It is not difficult to understand, paragraphs 13(2)( a ) to ( d ) read as follows: a )has become incapacitated from the proper execution of that office- b )has been guilty of misconduct; c )has failed in the proper execution of that office; d ) has been placed, by conduct or otherwise, in a position that is incompatible-
This is beautiful: incompatible. Remember this, Madam Speaker, you or the member for Vaudreuil can understand what incompatible means.
Anyway, the request is made to the minister, who is told: "There is on the committee a member whom we do not particularly like. First, he is not a true Liberal." This is already incompatible. He was probably appointed by a previous government. Automatically, he is incompatible for the very reason that he is not a Liberal.
The Minister is requested to do something about it.