Mr. Speaker, I too want to say a few words on the whistleblowing legislation that is before the House. I was not a member of the committee that studied it in detail but from my quick reading of the legislation, my understanding is that it is not very adequate and does not go very far at all.
Someone called our office a few days ago suggesting that he was with the RCMP, although I am not sure of his position, but he was concerned that the legislation was not strong enough to protect a whistleblower from the federal public service or indeed from the RCMP. He made the suggestion that a number of things in the RCMP were not going properly. I think he used the words that there was some corruption at certain levels. That was his allegation or his suggestion. However, he was suggesting that the legislation before the House would not be strong enough to protect a whistleblower coming forth and making this information public to the people.
My reading of the legislation suggests that he is probably right when he says that the legislation is not strong enough. We should have stronger legislation to protect public servants who come forward and blow the whistle on any wrongdoings. We had the case last summer where the privacy commissioner had the whistle blown on him, which was what really brought this legislation to the forefront.
It is just part of government accountability to make sure that if public servants realize there is some wrongdoing, be it criminal or otherwise, they should be protected to come forward and provide that information to the appropriate authorities and then, at the appropriate time, make that information public.
That leads me to another concern about the legislation. The person in charge of the whistleblowing information, if the bill goes through the House and through the Senate and gets royal assent, will be responsible, not to the Parliament of Canada but to the appropriate minister, in other words to the government of the day.