Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on Bill C-216 which seeks to have the Access to Information Act apply to crown corporations.
I want to say at the outset that I have a great deal of respect for the private members' bill process. It is one of the few ways in which members have an opportunity to come forward with various legislative initiatives, hopefully to make sure that our government and its operations are working well and that the best interests of our constituents are well represented in this place.
It is very relevant for me to speak on this bill because the Candu division of AECL is in my riding, in fact within a couple of hundred yards of my home. I have had communications from them. I wanted to rise because they are constituents. I want to speak on behalf of the Candu group of AECL.
It is very important that whenever we have legislation and although there may be some emotional reasons and there may be some specific very good reasons why certain bills should be in place, from time to time we have to be very vigilant that there would not be unintended consequences. It is extremely important. We have to be very, very careful of there not being unintended consequences.
When one of the previous speakers addressed the bill, he tried to articulate what reasons one may have for having the Access to Information Act extended to crown corporations. In general, accountability and transparency are very important. The member articulated four specific reasons and I would like to repeat them because they characterize what the possible intent and perhaps misguided position may be with regard to this bill.
The first reason was to identify mismanagement in a crown corporation. The auditor general is responsible for the audits of crown corporations. He has available to him all of the necessary expertise to deal with that. In fact the auditor general does report.
I cannot for a moment believe that some individual—not necessarily a member of Parliament as we must keep in mind that we are talking about the public at large—would obtain information through the Access to Information Act which would somehow expose mismanagement. This is suggesting that somehow uninformed communications or broad questions may impale some crown corporation.
These kinds of things are the responsibility of the auditor general and are done very well by the auditor general. I do not believe for a moment that mismanagement is a valid reason to expose crown corporations which may or may not be involved in commercial activity. I do not believe that would be a compelling reason to have this bill pass and have crown corporation information subject to the Access to Information Act.
There were three other reasons given and I want to group them. As a group they substantiate the fact that there is a more frivolous intent here. There were four reasons given. The first was mismanagement. The other three were to expose laziness, nepotism and political incorrectness.
Those were the four reasons given by someone who has been a champion of getting underneath charitable institutions and crown corporations. However to start having witch hunts on laziness, nepotism and political incorrectness seems to be a very unsubstantial line of thinking as to why we might need this kind of legislation.
It is important to get back to the real issue. The real issue is whether or not there are unintended consequences as a result of changes, such as making crown corporations subject to the Access to Information Act.
I want to deal specifically with the case of AECL. I want members to know that the main commercial business of AECL, which is the export of Candu reactors, is not supported in any way by taxpayers' dollars. I want to repeat that. AECL's main commercial business, the export of Candu reactors, is not supported in any way by tax dollars. There is no public subsidy on the export of Candu reactors.
Canada has never lost a cent on the Candu export deals. Money loaned by Canada stays in Canada to pay for sophisticated equipment manufactured in Canadian factories and technical project services.
Since AECL competes against some of the world's largest multinationals, it has to operate like a business and protect its commercial information.
There is also the flip side. AECL in its commercial activity deals with literally hundreds of suppliers and service vendors. Information concerning those other companies which employ tens of thousands of people is also in the records of AECL. To the extent that AECL would be subject to the Access to Information Act, not only would we be talking about the commercial activities of AECL, we would also be talking about the activities of all of those companies which deal with AECL.
I want to raise this point as it is an important one. No matter where legislation comes from, whether it be government bills or private members' bills, we have to be vigilant about the risk of unintended consequences. I believe that the AECL example is a good one. Its commercial activity is not subsidized by the government which may present a problem or a risk to AECL as well as to hundreds of other businesses which deal with AECL and which employ hundreds of Canadians.