Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this bill. When I became an MP ten years ago, there was already talk of needing to take measures to toughen ethical standards in the government. In the meantime, it has become apparent that there was a serious need in this area and that it was important and urgent to take action.
We have before us a bill that sets out to improve the situation. Fortunately, this bill was sent to committee before second reading. This allowed us to have amendments that improve the bill and strengthen its provisions.
We are assured that the leaders of recognized parties in the House of Commons will be consulted on the appointment of the ethics commissioner, since this will be a statutory obligation henceforth. The Prime Minister had made a commitment to this effect, but it was not part of the draft legislation. It was immediately included during consideration by the committee.
When we look at what happened in the case of the former Privacy Commissioner, Mr. Radwanski, we realize that it is good for things to be clear and accurate vis-à-vis the Prime Minister. Yesterday, he said that when Mr. Radwanski was appointed, all the parties in the House voted in favour of his appointment. He then had to apologize because the Bloc had voted against it.
With a change like this comes an obligation for consultation and written records. As such, we can be assured that the appointment is made properly. So this is an improvement.
The other improvement that was accepted in committee is that the House will have a little more control over the ethics code. Initially, the bill said that the Prime Minister was to prepare an ethics code. Parliamentarians were never meant to see it.
With the proposed amendment, there will be an obligation to table the ethics code. We will then be able to judge its content and check that it is not full of holes, like those that allowed for Mr. Radwanski's appointment, and correct it in a definitive manner. It is important to ensure that a bill will improve the situation.
Nevertheless, other elements could have been added to the bill and were not. For example, the Liberal majority rejected the amendment whereby candidates could be proposed when an ethics commissioner is being appointed.
With it, the selection could have been made from among a number of candidates put forward by all parties as well as the general public. This would have made it possible to screen candidates, and thus right at the start to avoid selecting only the cronies of the regime. After the appointment of such people, they do things which put the government in an awkward position, as we have seen in the case of the Privacy Commissioner. This lands the President of the Treasury Board in dangerously hot water.
In this case, a partisan appointment gave us an administrator who was very lax, coupled with a President of Treasury Board incapable of keeping a close enough rein on his spending. The bottom line: all Quebeckers, all Canadians were the losers. In the end, we appointed someone who lacked some of the required qualifications, someone whose partisan behaviour was tolerated by the government. As a result, funds were wasted and those funds came from the tax dollars of all the people of this country.
In the case of the ethics commissioner, we will have a little more control over his appointment and his actions. There is still no provision that would make it possible to propose several candidates, in order for there to be a choice. Nevertheless, we can say that this is, overall, a bill that will improve the situation and be of some use.
Let us recall the whole history of the ups and downs since 1993, the situations we have seen over and over again. The present ethics counsellor was appointed by the Prime Minister, and was answerable to him. He was, therefore, in conflict of interest when he was required to provide an opinion on a consultation, whether for the Prime Minister or for someone in cabinet. We were left with a situation where the adviser was required to pass judgment on the person responsible for his appointment. That was a completely unacceptable arrangement.
This was a long, drawn out battle to ensure that in future the person appointed is verifiably qualified for the job.
In that sense, consulting all party leaders will ensure that the assessment does take place. Should a party leader disagree with a given appointment, we will be able to say so publicly. We will be able to show disapproval, thereby allowing the public to form a judgment about the merits of this appointment.
I think that we will see the results of these improvements in the next few months and years. They are contained in a bill nearing the end of third reading. We are hoping for a favourable outcome, which will at least remedy some of the rather inappropriate behaviour of the government. In the past decade, on a number of occasions, there has been an indication of the government's inconsistency with respect to messages from the Prime Minister's office, and the facts have borne this out.
It is true that, at the same time, the former minister of finance was in a conflict of interest because of his private holdings, which results in him paying his taxes abroad, and that the Prime Minister tolerated that because, after all, he was the one who had appointed him as the Minister of Finance. But that is no excuse for the behaviour of the former minister of finance. I do think changes are in order in that respect.
Then there was the whole series of consultations conducted by the ethics counsellor, which became something of a joke. The counsellor was asked to assess the merits of actions taken by Mr. Gagliano when he was the Minister of Public Works and Government Services. He found that there were major problems. However, because he reported directly to the Prime Minister, I would say he did not have the courage to condemn things he ought to have condemned.
Now, with this new bill, the person appointed will have all the independence necessary. He or she will be able to form judgments truly independent of government and get more reliable input that can be taken into account.
Let us remember that during the 2000 election campaign, that was one of the Prime Minister's arguments, when he pulled an opinion from the ethics counsellor out of his bag of tricks. He used this phenomenon, since the general population was unaware of every detail surrounding the appointment of this ethics counsellor, of all the consequences and of all the peculiar situations that had arisen.
During the 2000 election campaign, the Prime Minister, as leader of the Liberal Party, had an opinion published and it became the opinion of the ethics commissioner. A citizen who did not know all the facts might have thought, “Wow, that is extraordinary; it must really mean that the government's behaviour is pure as the driven snow”. Still, when we dig a little deeper into the issue, we find that this opinion had been issued by a subordinate and not by a person answerable to the House of Commons and the elected representatives. Thus, it was not a person who was independent of the government.
The amendments to this bill ought to make it possible, in the end, to make substantial improvements that should have an impact. As soon as the new ethics commissioner is named, it will be possible for us—I hope and believe—to obtain much more independent opinions.
There will also be a preventive aspect to this. When the ministers recognized the ethics counsellor—not the person, but his status and his dependent relationship to the Prime Minister—it was quite funny. Knowing that the ethics counsellor would not cause them any problems, thinking that “he is in our pocket and that is how it works”, that allowed them to behave in dubious ways.
From now on, ministers will have to look at things more closely and before taking actions that might place them in a conflict of interest position; they will have to think twice, because the ethics commissioner will be able to issue important public opinions that will have an impact on public opinion. I think that democracy will be much better served in this way.
In conclusion, the Bloc Quebecois is very pleased that a certain number of its amendments have made their way into the bill. We think this is an interesting turn of events, and we hope that the bill will be passed as soon as possible.