Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise this morning on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois to speak to Bill C-55.
Bill C-55 is a reincarnation of Bill C-42. Why was Bill C-42 not approved unanimously, or at least by the majority of parliamentarians in this House? Why did they not support Bill C-42?
First, because of the Bloc Quebecois' performance. MPs from every opposition party did what they had to do to make the government aware of the mistake it would make if Bill C-42 was passed as drafted. Naturally, opposition MPs tried repeatedly to ask questions of the government during oral questions period. In committee, they tried to do their job as parliamentarians and asked those who would be affected to various degrees by Bill C-42 for their input. The majority of witnesses who appeared before the committee said clearly that the federal government was on the verge of making a major management mistake by passing this bill as drafted.
The Bloc Quebecois was not satisfied to just state its position and speak up against Bill C-42; it did its part by participating in the debate to make the government aware of the problem, and putting forward amendments to fix the bill, which smacked of dictatorships and gave responsibility to just one person, for which the government could have suffered some serious consequences should one minister make an error in judgment.
As a result of the Bloc Quebecois' position and the quality of the speeches made by the Bloc Quebecois' leader, the parliamentary leader, various critics and the work done by party staff—we put forward some worthwhile and quality amendments—the government had no choice but to say “This makes sense. What they are saying is important. We are on the verge of making a mistake. We must change our bill”. This is how Bill C-55 came about.
However, Bill C-55 does not get to the bottom of things. The government put back in the bill part of what the Bloc Quebecois' amendment had modified, it removed what lobbyists did not want to see in Bill C-42, what was bothering or intimidating them. We are talking about those who have connections, or have access to various ministers on the government side. The government did not want to disappoint them. This part of the bill was eliminated.
The bill before the House has been improved, but I believe it is still unacceptable. Why? Because it would give extremely dangerous powers to a single minister who, since he may act in a moment of panic or exercise responsibilities without consulting cabinet, might make an unfortunate decision.
Of course, if it were Friday, the Prime Minister would defend his national defence minister, as he did for the public works minister. On Friday, he defended the minister. What happened on Saturday? On Sunday we learned that the two same ministers were gone. Yet, on Friday, they were considered to be good ministers. They had done what they had to. The decision they had made was important. On Friday, everything was fine.