Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to follow a substantial amount of the debate today and I wanted to comment on a number of themes that have been raised.
First of all, I will declare that I support Bill C-34. It moves us in important directions to the extent that is possible given some of the pragmatic difficulties that members may have raised. There is no simple solution to finding the perfect candidate that is acceptable to all and even after that, if the decisions were not acceptable or not viewed to be acceptable, there would be some sort of allegations of bias, et cetera. This is a very difficult position to fill for both the Senate and the House.
Following up on this last dialogue with regard to the appointment process and whether there is an election, the members will know that under the act this is an order in council appointment. The position of the ethics commissioner is the equivalent to the level of a deputy minister. It is not an officer of Parliament. It is not an appointment of Parliament the same way that the Auditor General would be or the privacy commissioner or the information commissioner or the official languages commissioner. It raises the question about whether or not this position is in fact properly positioned in terms of the authority and the responsibility that the House would like to see.
As members will know, officers of Parliament are very independent. They have their own offices and, as we know from the Auditor General's office, have the mandate to discharge certain responsibilities. As we learned from the issue of the case of the former privacy commissioner, Mr. Radwanski, even Mr. Radwanski could not be removed from office by Parliament without a vote of Parliament. It is a whole different situation.
I raise the question about whether or not some members are saying that this position in fact should be an officer. Is that what it is going to take for that position to have the respect of the House?
Members should recall that when we vote on an officer of Parliament, the appointment of the Auditor General or the appointment of a new privacy commissioner when we have that interim position filled, under our rules always has been a straight vote of Parliament. If we are going to start having a special voting arrangement for the ethics commissioner, should that not also apply to the officers of Parliament? There should be some consistency in terms of the importance that we place on it. Maybe the question should be, why is this position not an officer of Parliament? I am not sure of the answer. I hope that we might be able to get the answer to that.
The other aspect as I saw throughout the debate has to do with who is covered and why. In having an ethics commissioner together with a code of conduct for members of Parliament is going to certainly enhance the transparency and the accountability of all members of Parliament and that is important. I think everybody agrees with the principle that it is important that we do whatever we can to build the confidence of the Canadian public in the profession of being a member of Parliament.
If we discuss this in a more frank sense, and many members have raised this, the issue or the risk area has never been members of Parliament at large. Members of Parliament have a budget to conduct their work, probably about 75% of which is the cost of employees and a very small amount is actually discretionary once all of the office bills, the rental of equipment and all the other things are paid. We have very little discretionary money. Effectively the influence that we would have is certainly not related to our ability to deliver grants or funding for any program that we have sole responsibility for. We do not.
Historically, the interest has been mostly related to the cabinet. Based on the debate that has gone on today, it is even further than that. Many of the examples that have been raised by members have to do with the Prime Minister's position itself and the ethics of the activity of a sitting Prime Minister.
It is very interesting that probably the genesis of the need for this kind of bill has less to do with members of Parliament at large and more to do with the cabinet and indeed the Prime Minister's Office.
The question then has to be asked, have we created in the bill a position which is going to squarely hit the target? I am not so sure that members are convinced that we have done all we could within the bill in terms of crafting the position of the ethics commissioner.
There is no question that members of Parliament would be under the umbrella of the responsibilities this person would have under our code of ethics, et cetera, and accessible and certainly transparent with regard to Parliament. The cabinet I am not so sure.
I know that in 1994 when I first came to Parliament the whole issue of the appointment of an ethics counsellor, not a commissioner but an ethics counsellor, and having that person report directly to Parliament was problematic. It was raised by the designate himself, Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson raised the whole issue about how could he discharge the responsibilities of his position and still protect the confidentiality of cabinet and those matters that would in fact be subject to cabinet confidentiality. It leaves a gaping hole.
That does not mean that everything a cabinet minister does is subject to cabinet confidentiality. In fact many of their actions and their programs are all very transparent and subject to the scrutiny of all, not only parliamentarians but the Canadian public at large. The question does become, how do we get at those items, how do we have that accountability, that ethical scrutiny, of those matters which fall under cabinet confidentiality?
To put an even finer point on it, the issue comes down to the person who is in the Prime Minister's Office. This is the most senior person in our political democratic system in Parliament. It is the Prime Minister.
That ethical scrutiny does not happen when someone raises an allegation. It happens each and every day, every time the Prime Minister speaks, every time the Prime Minister makes a decision. It happens every time there is an order in council, i.e., a decision of the cabinet, who sit at the pleasure of the Prime Minister and therefore, effectively it is the Prime Minister making the statement and it is attributable to him or her.
It is a very interesting question about whether or not the intent and the motivation of members who have raised some of the allegations in the House today are really trying to pass judgment on the ethical activity of a sitting Prime Minister.
That happens daily. The scrutiny is here in this place every day during question period. The scrutiny is in observing and participating in all of the things that happen in this place, whether it be in international affairs or another subject.
Certain cases have come up. Let me preface this part by saying that throughout the debate there has been some suggestion, and certainly allegations and innuendo in specific cases like Alfonso Gagliano and the sponsorship programs and the HRDC boondoggles. Floating around there also has been this insinuation of corruption and illegality.
This causes me some concern because in this place, when there are statements made to suggest that there is corruption in government, that is a reflection within the public's eyes, not just of the people who happen to be sitting on this side of the House but of the entire House.
One of the challenges we have had for many years is how to raise the level of this position in terms of public perception. We cannot just throw out the language and allow people to draw a conclusion that the government is corrupt or that a minister is corrupt. That is an illegal act. It constitutes a matter which under the law would be illegal.
Earlier a member was taken to task on whether there was one example of an illegality. There was not. There was nothing forthcoming. There certainly have been allegations and innuendo and we have to accept that.
Let me deal forthrightly with the situation of Mr. Gagliano who is now an ambassador. I was his parliamentary secretary. I was there during the period of Groupaction and the other companies, the sponsorship programs, the reports and paying for things that were not there. I had first-hand knowledge of what was transpiring and what was coming out. It was one of those situations where it was very difficult for a minister to defend himself because most of it was allegations which were plausible but were not yet dealt with by a jurisdictional authority.
The current Minister of Public Works and Government Services came in. I think the House will agree that he has been very forthright in terms of dealing with those allegations and how important it was that if there were payments that should not have been made, all attempts would be made to recover the money and that if there were any allegations of wrongdoing, they would be referred to the proper authorities. Those things have now happened to some extent and continue to unfold, even though it was over a year ago that this actually broke.
The public accounts committee has looked into this. The Auditor General in her review indicated that some employees broke virtually every rule in the book. The question now becomes, if there are department personnel who did not discharge their responsibilities, to what extent is a sitting minister of that department responsible for their failure to perform and in fact their performing in a way that breaks the basic rules of the House or of Parliament and the Financial Administration Act specifically?
Ministers have to take the flak, but the allegations do not relate now to either the current minister, the previous minister, or in fact the minister prior to that, who was Mr. Gagliano. Mr. Gagliano has not been implicated in these in any fashion. In this place because the opposition role is to try to embarrass the government, it is easy to talk about Mr. Gagliano and Groupaction and say, “Look at this paying for reports that we did not get”. However, there is no evidence whatsoever that has come out that Mr. Gagliano was a party to that.
Members will know that this action is still proceeding, but we have been operating in this place and the allegations and innuendoes have been made on the basis of guilty until proven innocent. Whatever happened to the presumption of honesty? How low do we have to go to compromise our reputations to smear everybody in this place simply for cheap political points? When does that stop? When do we start realizing that when matters go, whether it be to the RCMP or to the Auditor General, that those people are in those positions to discharge their responsibilities to get the answers that we need to know.
Once members get all the information, I do not know how many people are going to have to rise in this place and apologize for jumping the gun, for accusing or for presuming guilty until proven innocent. I think that we really have to be careful on this.
On Bill C-34, we need to have an ethics commissioner, yes. I am not so convinced we need a person to scrutinize ordinary members of Parliament. We all know cabinet probably has the highest risk position of being in situations where a potential conflict or an ethical breach might occur. Quite frankly we are all the ethics commissioner when it comes to the prime minister, as is every Canadian because they express themselves when they see things.
Mr. Wilson has made some pronouncements on certain things. There is nothing to say that opposition members have to accept his words, but he is a man of honour and integrity. Some members may not think so. I do. I know that under this act, Parliament, all parties, will have to be consulted on this. Parliament will have a vote and nominees will be appointed through order in council, subject to receiving the ratification by the House.
For me though, the question is whether it will be sufficient to have this person simply occupy a role that is equivalent to deputy minister. Maybe it should be the same level as an officer of Parliament. Is that important enough? I think it might be. I had not really thought about whether there were good reasons why it should not be, other than the fact that I do not know how one bridges this problem with having confidentiality. I am not even sure if maybe there should be two: one for cabinet and one for all other MPs or cabinet members acting in a capacity of an MP as opposed to acting in their role as a cabinet minister.
These things have been certainly discussed and thought out. We have come forward with a bill at this point. Members probably are not very convinced that it will satisfy everybody's wish list, even right down to whether two-thirds of the people have to support a nominee for it to be ratified. Are we going to a U.S. style, where people who are appointed to positions of responsibility somehow have to stand a test of scrutiny? Probably in this place one-third of the members of Parliament would be against anything the government brought forward. That is part of the parliamentary process. That is part of democracy. Disruption and delay is part of democracy. We do not do that with the appointments of Supreme Court justices.
I raise these questions, some of them rhetorical. We are at third reading. This is not where changes are made. In fact there are opportunities to recommit back to the committee, if the House feels strongly about it, or to accept this as a starting point and then consider, as we do with all pieces of legislation, whether we have squarely hit the target.
However I want to caution members, as we think about things like opening up the process so the public can also lay allegations against members of Parliament, that we risk breaching our parliamentary privileges and maybe raise more disruption and cynicism about our roles, if we are open to receive all allegations. I raise those maybe rhetorical-type questions for the consideration of the House.