Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the members who have participated in this debate. It has been to a large extent a constructive debate this afternoon. I extend appreciation for this very important breakthrough bill. This is a first for Canada and by all parties showing co-operation, it puts Canada in a position of leadership. Having said that, I would like to comment on the words of some of the members.
I marvelled at the generosity of the Speaker when the member for Red Deer was straying from the subject to such an extent. I realize there is a great deal of latitude in this parliament and there probably should be. I think he would have been ruled out of order in the Ontario house, if I can remember from my former incarnation. There were times when I did not know whether to call him Dr. No or Chicken Little, but it was a very interesting speech. Through it all and through all the raving and hair pulling about the terrible condition of this country as he sees it, there were a couple of questions which I think deserve answers.
One was his concern that this bill went through the other place first before it came to this House. I want to point out for the record that in our present system of parliament, a bill may be introduced either in the Senate or in the House of Commons. It is essentially for procedural purposes and for no other reason other than very often it makes for a more efficient process.
The hon. member for Red Deer was also concerned that this bill appears to be coming in at the last minute, because the commitment was made in December 1997. I will admit that sometimes things seem to happen very slowly around this place. I can share that point of view. The fact is that there was a tremendous amount of consultation undertaken when this bill was being considered. All the provinces and the territories were consulted, as well as the private sector. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Council for International Business, the Pacific Basin Economic Council and so on, all of these organizations had to be taken into consideration.
Perhaps in hindsight, maybe the commitment to implement something like this should have had a more extended period before it was brought in. However, the bureaucracy operated as I think bureaucracies operate, with the speed of light. It actually brought this to an acceptable point here and allowed us to go ahead with a universally acceptable debate today.
The Bloc and my friend from the Conservative Party suggested that we could have gone further. Indeed we could have gone further, but I remind the House that we are acting in concert with the OECD, those 29 highly industrialized countries; in concert with the Organization of American States; and in concert with the European Community.
All those organizations together, as this anti-corruption force takes hold and as the net is cast, will cover almost all the commerce which takes place around the world. Yes, there will be some rogue countries, but the pressure will be on all countries in the world to operate a progressively cleaner ship.
My friend from the Bloc was also mildly critical about human rights and Canada's position on human rights. Canada is encouraging every country to act positively on human rights. We are helping China on the human rights issue and progress has been made over the last years. We are doing that in every country where we have what we call constructive engagement which hopefully involves doing business but also allows countries to see how Canada acts and how the Canadian system works.
I have had the honour of receiving delegations from countries around the world that come here to study Canada, to study the government process and to study what my hon. friend from Red Deer considers to be very awkward, regressive democracy. He asks if we do have a democracy. I remind him of the words of the late Sir Winston Churchill who said “The democratic process in government is the worst form of government except for every other form of government”. As difficult as it is, our system of democracy works.
I thank all hon. members for participating in this debate and for agreeing that we should proceed together so that Canada is truly seen as a leader.