Mr. Speaker, normally I rise and say I am pleased to engage in the debate but the subject today unfortunately is not one that pleases anybody in the House, I hope. Fighting corruption and acknowledging that corruption is among us is a difficult situation. I remember the Prime Minister saying this morning that we should all be honourable people in the House but honourable people do not engage in corruption. I would like to see us live up to a title of honourable members.
The Ottawa Citizen today had an article about a committee meeting yesterday where I appeared as a witness. It was about an organization of parliamentarians that was trying to create an organization around the world called “global organization of parliamentarians against corruption”. This is being spearheaded by Canada and I am glad to say that the Minister for International Cooperation, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Finance all support this initiative.
I hope we can hold our heads high as a beacon to the world as we bringing parliamentarians together to put this organization in place and to strengthen parliament so that the issue of corruption is at least controlled, if it cannot be eliminated. Unfortunately human nature when not held accountable, is prone to dipping its fingers into taxpayer money and other opportunities to help itself.
I want to quote a couple of items from the Ottawa Citizen article. It says:
--parliamentarians are a critical link in stopping corruption because their job is to hold the government of the day to account...
The whole idea is to strengthen the role of Parliament so it is more effective in holding its executive to account and, by doing so, curb corruption and help the economy...
It also talks about coming up with codes of conduct and best practices for accountability that are key tools to fighting corruption. That is what I said yesterday before committee, and today we have the Prime Minister giving a great speech about how open and transparent his government is.
Let us examine how open and transparent the government really is. Allegations are surrounding the Minister of Industry that his senior staff members, his political staff members, have been travelling the country at government expense doing what perhaps may be his own leadership bid for the party.
The Prime Minister said that he had to open up the expense account statements but we still cannot get them. Funny thing is, three days after the Winnipeg Free Press asked for the information, the political staff member reimbursed the government for one of the airplane tickets to Winnipeg. Why does it take a request through the access to information for the government to say “Oh, let us be open and transparent, but let us fix it first”.
The minister of public works, whom I hold in high regard, apologized to the House for accepting a consideration in kind. However we also found that the $800 cheque, which messed up the whole scenario, was cashed after it became public knowledge. There is a two month gap which is unexplained. Why wait until it becomes public knowledge before the government says that it should be fixed before it comes out in the open?
A couple of years ago we spent months in the House on the HRDC scandal. The point was that while there was no real allegations of corruption, the President of the Treasury Board tabled in the House new rules for internal audit. When it all became public that there was a just a real rat's nest of problems in that department, it said “Okay let us see if we can fix that up”.
Let us look at the Prime Minister's statement this morning. He talked about his plan to introduce an eight point plan, or I hope legislation, to fix the problems, which we are debating today. He talked about introduction of rules relating to ministerial relationships with crown corporations.
It is a good idea, but it comes after Jon Grant talked about the relationship of Mr. Gagliano, the former minister of public works, to Canada Lands Company Limited which is a crown corporation and Downsview Park Inc. which is a subsidiary of Canada Lands Company Limited. The Liberals have been caught with their fingers in the trough so the Prime Minister is saying he will now fix the problem. The Minister of Industry was caught in allegations of wrongdoing. Now the Prime Minister says he will table guidelines for ministerial fundraising.
In the red book in 1993 the Prime Minister said he would create an ethics commissioner reporting to parliament. He now tells us he will give us the first report of the ethics counsellor who, by the way, writes the Prime Minister's responses for question period. That is some ethics counsellor. It will be interesting to see what kind of report it will be. The Prime Minister had no intention of making it public until the pressure was on.
We also have changes to the Lobbyists Registration Act. We have known for a long time that people who forget to register as lobbyists and so on are lobbying the government. The ethics counsellor who writes the Prime Minister's answers for question period is in charge of the Lobbyists Registration Act. It gives me a sore head to think of the lack of transparency and accountability and the conflicts of interest that permeate the entire situation. I am glad the Prime Minister is promising to fix the situation.
The Prime Minister says he will bring in new ideas for the financing of political parties. We have been standing in the House for years saying there seemed to be a correlation between making contributions to the Liberal Party and becoming a recipient of government contracts. It is now becoming a scandal the Prime Minister cannot ignore so he says he will bring in legislation.
The Prime Minister says he will bring in responsibility for senior public officials. As the auditor general has told us, some senior public officials did not think the rules applied to them, and whatever rules they thought applied to them they broke anyway. We sure need ethics.
The Council of Europe is a wonderful organization. It has developed a wonderful code of ethics which has been on its website for a long time. It is for all members of parliament, cabinet ministers and prime ministers. It could have been adopted a long time ago but was not.
I forgot to mention that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke, so I have a couple of minutes left.
Let us get everything out in the open. Democracy means openness, transparency and accountability to the electorate. The Prime Minister said democracy was the worst kind of government we could have apart from all the others. That may be true but let us not call it the worst kind. Let us make sure it is the best kind because it is open, transparent and accountable.
Our role as elected representatives of the citizens of Canada is to hold the executive to account. We must ask where the money is being spent, if the rules are being followed, if government members are getting benefits from their friends, and if they are ensuring contracts are open to public tender.
I sincerely hope Canada can be a beacon to the world. I hope we can say corruption has no place in our society the same way racism and bigotry have no place in our society. I hope we can demonstrate to the world that we can and should be the leader of a global organization of parliamentarians against corruption.