Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with the hon. member's observation. The real problems that the government will surely be faced with under the direction of the new prime minister when he comes to office will not be addressed unless we have a truly independent ethics commissioner.
I want to commend the member for putting forward this amendment because as I said a moment ago, not only must there be fairness but there must be an appearance of fairness as well. I cannot understand for the life of me how any government which has come under the fire that the government has come under over the last five years, in particular with the amount of graft and corruption and the number of scandals that have plagued it, would not be rushing a bill into the House that would create a truly independent ethics commissioner. We will be going into an election six months from now. One has no choice but to surmise from it all that the government is afraid to have a truly independent individual poking around in the bag of secrets that have yet to be revealed.
I agree with the hon. member. The problems that have plagued the country and the government over the last five or 10 years will not be addressed if the government does not agree to let an all party committee look at the ethics commissioner, have a search done, have the individual appointed by that committee and report to Parliament. This is the way it should be done.
There has to be a reason. The obvious reason is that the prime minister in waiting is afraid to have his record laid before the people of Canada. He is afraid that a truly independent ethics commissioner will go poking around and find some secrets that he does not want revealed. The onus is now on the government to do something about this and to have a truly independent individual put in place.