Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time.
It seems to me that when we are talking about ethics, the first way to derail the conversation is to trash talk and put the opposition, or in the other case the government, on the defensive. At the end of the day all we end up doing is maybe improving our eligibility to be NBA players. Beyond that it does not seem to add much to the debate.
Possibly we can refrain from discussing specific instances and try to deal with the merits of the case. I appreciate that this may be a novel concept in this Chamber.
The motion reads:
That this House adopt the following policy from Liberal Redbook 1 and call for its implementation by the government: “A Liberal Government will appoint an independent Ethics Counsellor to advise both public officials and lobbyists in the day-to-day application of the Code of Conduct for Public Officials. The Ethics Counsellor will be appointed after consultation with the leaders of all the parties in the House of Commons and will report directly to Parliament.”
On the face of it there does seem to be merit in the motion. The response of the government to the red book promise in 1994 was to create an office of an ethics counsellor who is independent. I would dare to say that we have done that. We have created the office of an independent ethics counsellor to advise public officials, mainly the government, the cabinet and parliamentary secretaries, and lobbyists, which is a separate item altogether, of the day to day application of the code of conduct. That has been done.
The nub of the issue is whether the ethics counsellor should report directly to parliament. The ethics counsellor is to review ethical issues that come before the Prime Minister and ministers of the crown, to deal not only with real conflicts of interest but with perceived conflicts of interest. He is there to give guidance and counsel. He has additional responsibility under the Lobbyists Registration Act, which, as I said, is not relevant to this debate.
I take it as a given that the opposition is not seeking an expansion of the role of the ethics counsellor; rather, they are merely wishing to change the reporting function from what it is presently, namely to the Prime Minister, to directly to parliament. Again on the face of it, there does seem to be merit in the position of the opposition—if opposition members had no access to the decisions made by the ethics counsellor.
However, as members of the opposition know, the ethics counsellor is a compellable witness before a House of Commons committee. He is even compellable before the House. Indeed, his decisions and his material are subject to freedom of information. It is hard to imagine a more accessible officer. If a member wants to review the activities of the ethics counsellor, a committee can summon him to appear, regardless of what the Prime Minister thinks.
The essence of the debate is therefore quite simple. Should an ethics counsellor report directly to the Prime Minister with an additional reporting function to a parliamentary committee and, indeed, parliament, or should he have a statutory responsibility to report directly to parliament?
It seems to me that if there is to be a change from reporting to the Prime Minister with a potential of reporting to a committee, as opposed to reporting to parliament directly, then there has to be a case made by the opposition that the work of the current ethics counsellor is deficient in some respect. May I suggest that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
At this point it is my view that the opposition has not made its case. In fact, a number of members of the opposition have indicated that they believe that the ethics counsellor is a man of untarnished reputation. I appreciate the concession on the part of the opposition that this is not a personalized attack on the ethics counsellor.
The next question therefore becomes, is there material before the House which would lead a reasonable person to conclude that the current ethics counsellor is not doing his job in a fair or impartial manner?
Having listened to the representations of the opposition members and having read in the press about interpretations and representations of all members, I am not at all persuaded that there has been any evidence produced that this ethics counsellor is not doing his work in other than optimum conditions, and I am persuaded that he speaks with a force of moral authority to members of the government, which requires those members to take action. On the face of it, members of the cabinet, the Prime Minister and parliamentary secretaries respond very quickly to what the ethics counsellor has to say.
I suppose the best evidence is that in the course of three elections and subsequent mandates, there has not been a taint or a whiff of scandal or conflict among the members of cabinet, the parliamentary secretaries and the Prime Minister himself, notwithstanding vigorous attacks by the opposition and the press. Indeed, the press seems to be somewhat fatigued by the exercise.
The biggest endorsement, of course, is three majorities in a row. My recollection of the election is that notwithstanding the effort on the part of certain opposition parties to call into question the integrity of the Prime Minister and indeed to raise the spectre of a charge under the criminal code, it in fact had no impact on the result of the election.
The opposition has started to circle in on an issue and obviously the most political one concerns the Prime Minister and a golf course in Shawinigan. The report of the ethics counsellor exonerated the Prime Minister. This is somewhat regrettable if one is a member of an opposition party, but it is a little like calling the system of justice into question because we do not like an individual judge's decision: if we do not get a decision we like, perhaps we should change the forum so that a better decision can be obtained.
I am therefore persuaded that this system does seem to work and I have some confidence that this ethics counsellor is doing a job under conditions that he sees as satisfactory. I have yet to hear the ethics counsellor himself complain that the conditions under which he finds himself working and the person to whom he reports in fact compromise anything he might do. I can recollect no evidence of any comments by this counsellor which indicate that he feels that his work is compromised by the system.
It seems, therefore, that the opposition needs to show that the ethics counsellor is compromised by the process. It needs to give concrete and specific examples which show that the ethics counsellor and the process are compromised. It needs to show that the existing system does not work.
The opposition has demonstrated that the current system of reporting to the Prime Minister on request to a parliamentary committee, and indeed if requested to parliament itself, is a fair and open process whereby members of all sides have access to the decision and the decision making process.
In conclusion, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The system is currently working. I cannot see any compelling reason for the arguments on the part of the opposition.