Madam Speaker, there is no doubt that the government is responsible. But being responsible is one thing and giving oneself excessive powers is quite another. Here, in Canada and Quebec, it was decided that the legislative power and the executive power, that is to say justice, should be separate.
If the government is linked directly to its courts, why bother creating any? The minister might as well make his own decisions and appoint administrators, but there is no point establishing a tribunal to settle disputes while giving himself the authority to settle disputes.
Furthermore, the real reason for these tribunals, in my opinion, is that the government wants to appoint its friends. When this bill is passed, it will be able to make at least 1,000 appointments. I say at least 1,000; the fact is there are 2,000 positions to fill in various tribunals. With an election just around the corner, the government cannot wait to be able to appoint its friends. It has not been able to do so up to now, because the Conservatives had already done the same thing, but at least in their case, they did not appoint a friend just for a month. Now, the Liberal government will we able to designate friends for one, two, three or four months, then throw them out and designate another bunch, playing this little game over and over. This whole thing is scary and downright outrageous.
At least, there were appointments for three, five or seven years in the past, but now this is all changing. Appointments are being replaced with designations and these will be for as long as the Liberals have left on their mandate. They have one year left, so designations will be for one year, and if they get re-elected, they will get to start over, appointing new people whom they can expect will work hard for them in the next election. This is what this means. This is outrageous. It is really taking us back 100 years. We are going backward instead of forward with this government, might I say a totalitarian government. Are we headed for a totalitarian regime or will democracy prevail?
We want those who have responsibilities to be free to exercise them, without having to account directly to the government. There lies the big problem. Such an approach must be strongly condemned. This is serious, much more so than what the hon. member of the Liberal Party suggested, when he said that the government's role was to manage. The government is indeed elected to pass legislation and make regulations. Then, people are appointed to implement the legislation or regulations, but the government must not get involved directly in the implementation of the legislation and regulations it puts in place. The two must be kept separate to ensure that, after it has been passed by the government, the legislation is implemented by individuals operating at arm's length, without having the government on their backs.
What the government is doing on an interim basis, by designating the chairpersons of administrative tribunals, is giving itself the power to dismiss them at any time. That is the problem with the government's interfering with administrative tribunals. In many cases, this will have serious implications for anyone who has to face the big machine often.
In the judicial system, the little guy is often the winner. He has the advantage. It used to be that this was also the case in tribunals, but with the administrative changes the government is introducing, the tables will now be turned and the big guy will win. The little guy will always come out the looser. The government will interfere directly and indirectly with the decision making process. That is totally unacceptable. The Bloc Quebecois will vote no, a strong no.