Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his comments. He has been our leader on all of these ethics issues and is an excellent example of a member of Parliament with integrity.
I appreciate his comments about Mr. Wilson. I frankly felt the same way. There were a few members in committee who went after him and I thought it was inappropriate. He is in a difficult position.
I want to read further from the committee evidence because it highlights how difficult a position Mr. Wilson was in. This is from the industry committee of June 13, 2002. I went through what powers the ethics counsellor had and I think it is really instructive:
With regard to allegations against cabinet ministers, do you not have the legislative power to subpoena witnesses?
The response was:
No, I do not.
My other question was:
If someone does not want to produce evidence, you do not have the legislative power?
The answer was:
That is correct.
Another question was:
--do you have the legislative power to compel evidence?
Mr. Wilson's response was:
I think you have to appreciate, sir, that this is a code and not a piece of legislation. It sets up the principles under which ministers conduct themselves, and some rules pertaining to disclosure.
I went on to question:
So if you determined that an infraction was committed by a certain cabinet minister, you would provide that advice to the Prime Minister, but it's basically up to the Prime Minister himself as to whether or not he decides to follow through on that infraction and dismiss that person from cabinet.
Mr. Wilson stated:
That is exactly correct. It's his responsibility.
He went on to state:
I have insisted that my role is that of a counsellor who provides advice to the Prime Minister and administers the Conflict of Interest Code.
That shows the difficult the position Mr. Wilson was in. He was appointed and he was under the purview of the Prime Minister. Then he had to report any ethical infractions, in his view, to the Prime Minister who then, as he admitted himself, would have broken the new guidelines that were being proposed.
It just sets up a system frankly where a person who is judging conflict of interest is almost put in a conflict of interest himself and his hands are tied. We do not want that situation repeated which is why we want the bill changed. It is to have a better appointment process.
In terms of Bill C-34 and cabinet ministers, and whether or not they would want to have full transparency and airing of views, I fully agree with the member. I would think that it would be Liberal members of Parliament, who have a high standard themselves, who would be the people calling loudest for transparency, openness and reform. If there is one bad apple in a bunch, if a cabinet minister is bad, it impacts on the entire cabinet. It has a reflection on the entire cabinet. We would think that the rest of cabinet would stand up and say that this is impacting on their ability to do their job and impacting on their perception by the Canadian public. They would want it stopped along with a full airing of the investigation and the facts. Therefore, it seems to me that it should be government members themselves who should be the strongest proponents of transparency.
I strongly encourage those members opposite to vote for the amendment, to send the bill back to committee so that we can have a good process at appointing a truly independent ethics commissioner.