Mr. Speaker, I think the member has raised some interesting questions. It would be easy to simply reflect on a bit of history and make a judgmental call on whether or not what we have now has been constructive and functional for Parliament and for Canadians.
The member knows that the difficulty here is with regard to the ethics of parliamentarians and their role as parliamentarians, and this other group that is the cabinet which has another environment in which it operates. Obviously the issue of cabinet confidentiality comes into play. This new ethics commissioner would be actually reporting to a committee of the House, which is a change under that direction, but I think it does call for a presumption of honesty in that the integrity of individuals being proposed here would be scrutinized by all parties. There is an honest effort here.
Could the member perhaps comment on how we get over this bridge of cabinet confidentiality? Indeed, since cabinet is responsible to the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister is ultimately accountable for everything at the farthest level, how does the member suggest we deal with the problem of cabinet confidentiality, which is probably where the most risk or concern might be, and the issue with regard to members of Parliament and their role?
I would also ask him to reconsider his comment raising the spectre of concern that somehow there would be a bias of this commissioner against any party not in government. We must have the presumption of honesty and anything like that would truly be transparent.