Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate on the motion presented by the hon. member for Charlesbourg—Jacques-Cartier. First, I want to point out that I will share my time with the hon. member for Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques. Just mentioning the name of her riding takes close to a minute of my time.
In the last little while, a number of hon. members, particularly those who sit across the floor, have said that the motion of the Bloc Quebecois and the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Mercier were pointless. We were just told that this already exists under the Standing Orders of the House of Commons.
I think there is a failure to understand the motion before us and I think that members opposite are changing the content of the motion slightly. What is the purpose of the motion presented by the hon. member for Charlesbourg—Jacques-Cartier? It is very clear.
I will repeat the motion, so that members opposite clearly understand. The motion reads, and I quote:
That... government appointments of ambassadors, consuls general and heads of regulatory bodies and Crown corporations should automatically be referred to the appropriate committee of the House of Commons for consideration, and that the relevant Standing Orders of the House of Commons should be amended accordingly.
I have the relevant standing orders and I will get back to them later on.
The hon. member for Mercier added a very important amendment asking that appointments be “referred before confirmation of the said appointments”.
Once an appointment has been confirmed, even if we call the appointee to appear before the committee and ask him all kinds of questions, that person has already been appointed and nothing will change. This is what the Bloc Quebecois wants people to understand with this motion. It wants people to realize that there is a very important lack of democracy in this process and, as others have mentioned, we are not talking about one or two appointments.
We are talking about 3,500 positions, about order in council appointments, which include some 1,000 judges, some 100 heads of missions abroad, including ambassadors, senior public servants, 500 full time employees and 1,900 other part-time employees in all sorts of organizations, commissions, committees and so on, created by the government.
This brings me to the democracy in which we live. I would like to talk, among other things, about the standing committees of the House of Commons, to which the Standing Orders refer. It is said that appointments should be referred to these committees.
Even in the committees there is a democratic deficit. We are very much aware that the government always has a majority on these committees. Once that majority is questioned by an opposition MP, as my colleague for Québec has just said, the members are automatically called back, as they are often absent—which I ought not to mention—they are called back urgently to stop the opposition motion from getting through.
When the committees are sitting and there are public hearings, people ask us “What is the point of appearing before a committee if our position is opposed to that of the government majority? We won't get heard anyway or, if we are, it won't be taken into account”. I think we have had some fine examples of that in recent years.
My colleague from Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques is here to confirm that, but I did not want to revisit the business of the unanimity on the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development. All members had called for major changes to the Employment Insurance Act. What happened next? The government totally thumbed its nose at them; it ignored the recommendations of its own MPs.
We have seen this in other areas as well, and I have had personal experience with it on the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.
Last spring, a unanimous report was tabled by all members of Parliament, those in the government majority as well as those in the three opposition parties. We adopted a unanimous report so that an important fisheries-related issue might be settled. What good did it do? The government did not take it into consideration.
As citizens, the question we must ask ourselves is the following: do we still live in a democracy or in an apparent democracy? I think that we live in a partial democracy, but there is a vast part of government that is neither accountable, nor transparent.
People wonder why citizens these days are losing interest in democracy. One only has to look at voter turnout in the last election to see this. We wonder why citizens are not getting involved in our democracy. This is dangerous, because, as people gradually lose interest in our parliamentary system, as they gradually stop going to the polls, as there are fewer and fewer of them to exercise their rights, our democracy becomes threatened. I think we need to think about this.
The motion moved by my colleague from Charlesbourg—Jacques-Cartier is very specific, even though it only refers to appointments. When I say only, I should be careful. When we are talking about 3,500 positions, all of the government is involved. There are a great many decisions involved that have a direct impact on citizens.
My colleague, the member for Trois-Rivières, spoke of the appointments of returning officers in every riding, but we could just as well mention—because my colleague, the member for Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques may well talk about it briefly—the appointment of those who, for example, preside over employment insurance cases at the Tax Court of Canada.
Again, these are political appointments. These are people who know quite well that they were appointed by the majority,and who are aware that they must respect government orders from on high. This does not do justice to taxpayers, to the citizens who are called to appear before the courts and who no longer believe in justice. As a result, they lose faith in the impartiality of the courts. Given that the judges are political appointees, people have severe doubts regarding the impartiality of the courts in which they must appear.
We could also have a look at the way board members of crown corporations are appointed. Here again, when private citizens have to deal with crown corporations like Canada Post, they are bound to think that decisions will not be free of bias. There is always some bias because the role of the executives is to defend the government policies. These people are appointed as directors or chairmen of the board precisely in order to uphold the policy of the government in office.
The motion before us raises the question of whether we are in a democracy and why we elect governments. Why do citizens elect a Parliament and form governments?
I think the primary role of the government is to serve all citizens and to redistribute services and wealth fairly. That is why we are a democracy, and not a dictatorship where a small group has total control of the government. We vote for members throughout the country, in Quebec as well as in Canada, so that they can speak for us, and express our ideals and our vision of our society.
To conclude, I think the way this government works and the way preceding governments have worked, for this has been going on for some time, is very dangerous for democracy. The manner of appointments and an increasingly secretive government are dangerous for democracy.