Mr. Speaker, I was alarmed to note that the first speaker on the government side deliberately tried to mislead the House and confuse the issue in that he claimed that they had a code of ethics. We were not talking about the general code of ethics and government members know that. We are talking about a public code of ethics and we are asking for a copy of the ethics code which the Prime Minister has for his ministers. It is two different things.
Let me put it this way. Every speaker on this side of the House knows full well the difference. They have stated so. When ethics counsellor Howard Wilson reports, he reports only to the Prime Minister.
That reporting is in secret. That is exactly the thing the Reform Party is trying to clear up before not only this House but this nation. Canadians deserve an independent ethics counsellor accountable to parliament and who will operate under the authority of a public ethics code. That is what my hon. friend from Prince George has in his motion. That is what Canadians want. That is what we will be voting on. I fail to see how the party opposite can continue to confuse a very simple issue.
I have a copy of the Ottawa Sun which states that the auditor general says that the defence department is blocking his bid to investigate buying practices. It goes on to say that almost a year after tabling detailed department questionable equipment purchasing practices the auditor general told the Commons defence committee that he is still being stonewalled. By whom? None other than the defence minister, a member of cabinet. That is the real guts of this motion. This is what Canadians want.
The private sector, the banks, the businesses, the major industries all pride themselves on having ethics codes. But not this government. When it comes to taxpayer funded institutions such as the House of Commons, what do we get? Stonewalling. This is zero accountability.
In the life of this parliament we have seen what is happening. Look at the APEC inquiry to judge the actions of the RCMP. What does the government do? It orders in a whole troop of lawyers. The government is not being investigated. When the students want lawyers, no way. That in itself is a real conflict. Canadians are seeing it as a conflict.
There is a growing trend. The last survey that I saw on the accountability of government listed professions that are respected the least. Who topped the list? Members of parliament. Who came a close second? Lawyers.
I asked a group of grade 11 students to write down what was the most common thing they had heard or what they thought about the House of Commons. The leading comment was that they were a bunch of crooks.