Mr. Speaker, without again getting into what I think is just a detestable move on behalf of the government House leader, I will wait for your ruling. I cannot believe he has actually done this.
The essence of his speech is that everything is glowing, everything is wonderful on the government side, democracy is going on without a hitch and life is grand.
I bring the attention of the House to two or three different quotes from independent watchdogs of parliament who say otherwise.
The access to information commissioner's report begins with “Mayday-Mayday, democracy is at risk”. The commissioner goes on to say that he has never in his 17 years on the job seen a government that has been so intransigent as the current Liberal government. In fact he said that the government routinely intimidates those who put forward legitimate requests for information.
The auditor general's report that was released yesterday states that the process of political patronage appointments is tainting the institutions where those appointments take place and tainting the political process. That is not a glowing report.
The privacy commissioner has routinely chastized the government for the intrusive actions of this government into the private lives of others.
It is no wonder that the government House leader is trying to eviscerate this motion today by pretending that all is well. He apparently does not want a watchdog with some teeth, he wants a lapdog to do his bidding.
An independent ethics counsellor who would report to the House through a standing committee instead of reporting to the Prime Minister, the guy who signs his paycheque, is the difference between night and day. By approving this motion today, not only could the Prime Minister keep his promise from the Liberal red book, but for once he could reassure Canadians that we will have a complete set of guidelines for members of parliaments and prime ministers, which we could have access to.
Yesterday members from the Progressive Conservative Party asked if they could see the ethical guidelines and could they be tabled in the House. What was the response? The Prime Minister said no. We cannot see or have access to the guidelines. In fact we are not allowed to even know to which standards we are being held.
By not giving the motion the chance to go ahead and by perhaps denying the House even a chance to vote on it, which I think is almost unspeakable, he is basically saying that the guidelines they are going to hold themselves to are their own guidelines. They make them up. Not only that, after they make them up, they keep them secret. Then they give them to somebody who judges them without calling in witnesses or doing investigations. Further, the person reports only to the person who is signing his paycheque, and finally, he releases only what he wants to release to the public.
When he said that this ethics counsellor has come before committees, he just had to throw in there that the current ethics counsellor comes before committees to talk about his estimates, about how much he spends. We cannot ask him about a ruling.
We know and I think the Canadian people know what is going on. The Liberals made a promise. The motion today was lifted verbatim out of the Liberal red book. The Prime Minister made a promise. All he has to do is follow through on the promise that was made in writing to the Canadian people. We did not change a single word. All he has to do is say that it is a good motion. In fact, they drafted it. All we want is to have a go at it and to have a vote on it.