Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this motion. Like some of my colleagues, I was a bit confused with the motion when I read it because it reads:
That a humble address be presented to His Excellency praying that he will cause to be laid before this House a copy of the Prime Minister's ethics code for ministers.
The code I have seen is a conflict of interest and post-employment code for public office holders. This was produced in June 1994. This document is available. If we are talking about that, I do not see a need to have it laid before the House.
I gather from the discussion and from the comments being made that one is looking for more than this document. One is looking for perhaps guidelines or directives that may have been issued by the Prime Minister specifically and apart from this document.
I will address my remarks to the document since I do not have anything else before me in terms of any other document. This document has some good points in it but there is a serious problem with it. The preamble talks about ethical standards, public scrutiny, decision making and a lot of very important issues for our democratic society. For example, under ethical standards it talks about how public office holders shall act with honesty and uphold the highest ethical standards so that public confidence and trust in the integrity of the activity and impartiality of government are conserved and enhanced. No one would disagree with that. It is a very important principle.
The difficulty with this document is the manner by which it goes about to enforce this code and to try to follow up on the principles stated in this code. It appoints an ethics counsellor. There is nothing wrong with appointing an ethics counsellor, but the difficulty is that when we real about the ethics counsellor it states that under the general direction of the clerk of the privy council the ethics counsellor is charged with the administration of this code and the application of the conflict of interest compliance measures set out in this part as they apply to public office holders.
It does not put the ethics counsellor in an independent position. The ethics counsellor in essence ends up reporting to the Prime Minister in secret, and that is wrong for our democratic system.
One of the things that is very important is openness and accountability to the public if we are to carry on the functions we are elected to on behalf of the public. It is very important that if there is any code of ethics set up or any kind of code of conduct that there be an independent ethics counsellor, someone who is accountable to parliament, to the elected representatives of the people.
This is very important. If we read further in this code we see where it talks about compliance arrangements. It states arrangements being made by public office holders to comply with the conflict of interest compliance measures set out in this part. They shall be approved in the case of ministers of the crown by the Prime Minister and in the case of all other public office holders by the ethics counsellor. We see that the ministers of the crown are above this scrutiny by the ethics counsellor. In terms of this kind of accountability, they account only to their boss, the Prime Minister.
This is something that is really deplorable when talking about openness and integrity for government. There was a release on June 16, 1994 by the Prime Minister, announcing the appointment of the first ethics counsellor.
It sounds quite admirable when listening to the words: “The Prime Minister today appointed Howard Wilson as Canada's first ethics counsellor. The Prime Minister also announced a comprehensive package of measures to help promote public trust in national institutions including tough new restrictions on lobbying”.
Yet we see a lot of the lobbying that takes place and we see a lot of things happening that cause us to wonder exactly what kind of accountability there is in the government structure and who can scrutinize when things go wrong.
We look at the APEC affair and what happened there. We see that the Prime Minister does not want to be held accountable for any role he may have played in that incident. We have seen various other incidents of things happening right across the country where people have called out for accountability and always it comes right back to the Prime Minister, but there is no independent body looking at the activities of what is taking place.
One very important principle of being an internal or external investigator, or external complaint handler, is independence. As a former ombudsman this is a principle that we as ombudsmen held very dearly, the idea that we must be independent of the system and must be able to report independently. The findings should be objective, clear and when the report is made it should be made in a manner that people know they have had a fair hearing.
Certainly if someone has a complaint against a minister and feels the minister is not operating in accordance with proper ethics that person will not be comforted by the Prime Minister saying it's okay. They might have more confidence if an independent ethics counsellor were to review the matter and report independently to parliament.
It is important that independence be there in a very real and meaningful way. Another section of the code talks about various permissible activities under the code. Where the Prime Minister or a person designated by the Prime Minister is of the opinion that it is in the public interest, full time governor in council appointees to crown corporations, as defined in the Financial Administration Act, may retain or accept directorships or offices in a financial or commercial operation and accept remuneration therefore in accordance with the compensation policies for governor in council appointees as determined from time to time.
Again, the Prime Minister can decide that his friends or whoever can have directorships in these corporations while they are still carrying on public duties which may or may not conflict.
There is a need to really go through this code, to see what it says and to see where the ultimate responsibility lies. The biggest problem with this code is that there is no real independent method to enforce it or to ensure that the noble values outlined in it are properly protected.
Another example of the same sort of thing comes from the military. We recently saw a military ombudsman appointed, but who is that person accountable to? The ombudsman is certainly not independent. That person is accountable to the minister. How can someone objectively review and make recommendations if that person is accountable to the minister responsible for the exact organization that is being investigated?
If the government is serious about accountability it would know that if something is being done right there is nothing wrong with scrutinizing it. Far too often we do our public servants a disservice by hiding things, by saying we cannot give this information, that it is secret and confidential. Far too often we do a disservice because if the information is given quite often it clarifies what is being done, why it is being done and a reasonable person will accept and understand that.
That is one of the biggest things we found in the ombudsman business. A lot of the complaints from the public were because people did not know what was being done. When an impartial investigation revealed what was being done quite often members of the public were willing to accept that the government had done right once it was clarified. It is this fear of the unknown that people are concerned about. Because there is not openness and accountability it leads to problems.
I will not dwell much longer on this code because it is in need of severe fixing. I see I only have one minute remaining and I cannot fix it in one minute. The biggest point is that there must be an independent ethics counsellor.
I appreciate the spirit of the motion and would certainly support it because it intends to get at the secrecy of the government and the fact that it will not hold itself accountable in a very real and meaningful way.