Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Souris—Moose Mountain for putting forward Bill C-310 because he has given credit to some work I did in the past. The parliamentary secretary also gave credit to the work I did in the past on bringing transparency and accountability to special interest groups. I appreciate the support the member is giving to that issue by Bill C-310.
In my view the government did respond excellently to the report I presented in 1994. It did do the things that the parliamentary secretary said. It did bring greater transparency, greater accountability to those groups involved in contributions. It also cut back drastically on many groups that were abusing the public trust by taking money from government and spending it in ways that were not necessarily beneficial to the public interest but more beneficial to themselves and beneficial to the lobbying that many of these groups undertook.
However, Bill C-310 addresses one gap that still exists in the matter of public accountability of funds to special interest groups. That is the question of grants. I cannot speak for the government, and I rarely do, but I think one of the reasons why the government is a little reluctant to bring the same level of transparency and accountability as suggested by Bill C-310 to grant receiving organizations may have something to do with what the member for Rimouski—Mitis brought up. That is the whole question of options Canada and the suggestion that perhaps an organization like options Canada or any other organization may have been using some of the money it receives from the federal government in order to promote national unity. In the climate of the referendum the province of Quebec was looking for just that kind of opportunity to attack the federal government to suggest the federal government was interfering with the unity debate.
Bill C-310 should be supported. There is never an instance when a group should not be prepared to account for itself on how it spends money to parliament or to the ministry. If the federal government wishes to support national unity then it has my endorsement to use as much money as it wants. I am sure that everyone who is interested in national unity would want to see the government use the money. There is no reason to hide behind any special interest group.
I support and endorse this bill one hundred per cent. I also wish to acknowledge that the government did act with alacrity and efficiency on the report I presented in 1994.