Madam Speaker, Bill C-43 is a bureaucratic aberration, a serious blow against democracy, protection of personal information, respect for jurisdictions and service to the people, nothing less.
One of our colleagues opposite just offered an explanation as to why the Minister of Revenue is acting this way. He said that there is little room left for more efficiency gains at Revenue Canada under the present structure, so the minister is creating a so-called outside agency to achieve more efficiency gains. To this end, 20% of the public service will be transferred to this agency and will no longer by subject to the Public Service Employment Act.
I would like to emphasize a number of elements of particular concern to me. What sparked off anger, or at least serious concern, in me was rereading the remarks contained in the February 1996 throne speech, where the government announced its intention to set up a national revenue recovery agency.
My colleague opposite spoke of modernization requiring that the agency have a new attitude toward its clients. He suggested that the public should be reassured about that. The problem in this bill, as it often is with bills brought in by this government, is that they are trying to create an illusion the way magicians do. When we take a closer look at the bill, we see that the opposite is true.
Who are the agency's clients? Looking through the bill, we see that they are governments, municipalities and organizations that sign agreements with the agency. The public is not a client. It is the target of recovery measures. And just what does recovery mean? It means something along the lines of “You have committed fraud. You have not paid what you owe.” This is not at all the relationship we were led to believe was the goal.
In many of Canada's provinces, the public pays voluntarily at a given time, because our system is different from many others. People pay their taxes voluntarily, because they know the law. It is not a question of recovering income of which the government would have been deprived.
This is rather serious. It is more than a change in culture. It is a change in government ethics, with productivity being given as the excuse, as I have already said. But what will this bill produce? My colleague opposite said that it combines the best of the private and public sectors. I do not bet, but I am prepared to debate this statement a few years from now with any comers. What it does is combine the worst of the private and public sectors. The worst of the private sector will be bureaucracy instead of efficiency.
In administration we learn that bureaucracy has nothing to do with being in the private or the public sector. It has to do with the size of an enterprise. GM, a private corporation, has become a bureaucracy, with significant problems as a result.
What we know about this body is that it will have a tendency to become a bureaucratic organization. Moreover, in the public sector, what would the guarantees of quality and reliability have been? The people can have confidence because, for one thing, some of the MPs here will be able to defend them and to debate issues with the responsible minister.
It is said that the minister will continue to be responsible for this super-agency, but let us look at the powers he is able to confer on others. He can delegate them to a commissioner or any other employee.
Instead of generating confidence, the opposite will be true. Much can be said about this. The fact that public servants are unionized is of concern to some, but it actually does allow them to act ethically in their duties as they must, particularly in collecting taxes.
From now on, they will be in a completely submissive position. They will, of course, try to get another union, but that will not be easy. They will no longer be covered by the Public Service Employment Act; they will be in a totally different position.
There are some really juicy parts to this bill. Care has been taken to state, under human resources, that one of the functions of the agency will be to provide for the awards that may be made to persons employed by the agency for outstanding performance of their duties, for other meritorious achievement in relation to those duties and for inventions or practical suggestions for improvements.
Where recovery of revenues is concerned, which means tax collection, let us say that any member of the public would find this a matter of concern. The government is not reaffirming the trust between taxpayers and this organization, which is a crown agency. Rather, it is trying to convert it into a bureaucratic agency—there is no other word to describe it—that will escape the necessary monitoring of the House and its parliamentarians.
I absolutely must discuss the issue of privacy. We are currently reviewing Bill C-54 on electronic commerce and the protection of personal information. In today's world, it is quite easy to match data and to obtain information on people from all sorts of sources, and to use this information in a way that might not be in compliance with the law, particularly if what we had in mind was to add things, to sign contracts with businesses and organizations, for instance.
This enormous agency that some dream about would be a perfect place to match data. We know how concerned the privacy commissioner was because the Department of Human Resources Development was matching data that, in his opinion, were supposed to be personal information. The right to privacy is a fundamental human right. We must not forget that. We are not living in Orwell's world, in 1984 , although we may sometimes think that even that world would be better than the one we are living in.
Public trust is the foundation of an effective tax collection process. But for that trust to exist, there must be accountability. How can we expect to convince the public that ministerial accountability would be exercised, given that this revenue collection agency will be evaluated based on its profitability?
On what grounds will the agency be judged cost-effective? How will the public's rights—this has to be addressed—be defended? How will these two issues be reconciled? Tragic situations can sometimes arrive; right now, recourse is available—through one's member of parliament—but this will no longer be the case.
The public must be warned that it is losing an important democratic right. It is allowing the creation of an organization where personal information may not be safe. When the workers are public servants with job security and a union, they are accountable to us. This, however, will no longer be the case.