Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Newton—North Delta.
I am pleased to rise on behalf of the constituents of Fleetwood—Port Kells to speak to Bill C-11, an act to establish a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoings in the public sector, including the protection of persons who disclose the wrongdoings.
Canadians have been waiting for a long time for effective whistleblower legislation. Countries around the world have had whistleblower legislation for decades, protecting public servants who take their oath of protecting the public interest seriously.
Indeed, one wonders that if there had been whistleblower legislation years ago, we may not have had a sponsorship scandal. Who knows how much taxpayers' money could have been saved. Instead, it ended up in the coffers of the Liberal Party.
Unlike the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party has always supported effective whistleblower legislation for public servants who expose wrongdoing, corruption, waste and mismanagement.
Bill C-11 fails on a number of levels, including its enforcement apparatus, its procedural scope and its transparency mechanisms. Before voting to support this bill, I would like to see amendments made to correct these glaring deficiencies in the bill.
First, as it stands, the bill's creation of an independent commissioner to oversee whistleblowing complaints is flawed.
As was the case with the previous Ethics Commissioner, the independent commissioner will report to a minister and not the House of Commons. Past experience with ministerial reporting has not endeared anyone to the process. In fact, in the case of whistleblowing, which could easily implicate political appointees, party workers and/or elected government officials, there is nothing worse than having the commissioner report to a cabinet minister who is often beholden to these interests. An enforcement apparatus must be put in place that avoids reporting to cabinet.
This is clearly a case of the fox guarding the hen house. An independent commissioner reporting to Parliament would be freer in his or her assessments and also more likely to avoid the subtle and structural procedures and biases of cabinet and ministerial authority. Why after 12 years of Liberal rule would we trust a system that furthers ministerial power over whistleblowing?
Rather, we should be making every attempt to make the independent commissioner's office truly transparent. Quite frankly, why should Canadians trust these Liberals to guard themselves, when in the past, they have proven themselves so capable of being untrustworthy?
Second, an independent commissioner responsible to Parliament would further decentralize power from the Prime Minister's Office. As we saw in the sponsorship scandal, power concentrated in one area tends to be abused. Or as Lord Acton most famously said, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Lord Acton's words are just as applicable today as yesterday.
Part of the need for whistleblowing legislation is that power has been centrally concentrated in the Prime Minister's Office, leading to cronyism and control. By having the independent commissioner report to the House of Commons, we can further erode the incredible power of the Prime Minister's Office, promoting greater transparency, accountability and democracy.
However, democracy has not been this government's strong point. In fact, the Prime Minister came into office promising to slay the democratic deficit. We have seen in this House the exact opposite: confidence votes ignored, excessive nannying of the Prime Minister's Office, appointing Liberal hacks to the patronage appointments and absolutely no movement on democratic and electoral reform.
Bill C-11 furthers this trend by not prohibiting reprisals against public servants who bring their complaints through procedures other than the ones spelled out in the bill. Those who go through the media, police or Auditor General all face the possibility of disciplinary action under this bill. Far from opening up government, this aspect of the bill places undue restrictions on public servants and could continue a climate of secrecy in the public service.
A Conservative government would provide broad protection for civil servants in all areas of disclosure, including the media. The media's role in any democratic society is to act as a check and balance against excessive government authority and control. While we would all think that at various times the media has failed in its role, by eliminating the ability of public servants to go to the media we further erode the checks and balances of a free and democratic society. Accountability and transparency demand that public servants be allowed media disclosure.
There is nothing to keep politicians more accountable than the prospect of headlines screaming scandal and corruption, as the former head of Canada's Mint has recently discovered. Accountability through the media is a key component of any whistleblowing legislation and a Conservative government would ensure that it was included in the bill.
Transparency is further eroded by the scope of the bill, which excludes several crown corporations. There is simply no excuse not to include all government agencies. As we saw at the Mint under former Liberal MP David Dingwall, crown corporate heads often feel themselves outside the purview of Parliament and end up spending taxpayers' dollars wildly. We cannot allow this to happen by excluding certain agencies.
Transparency is also jeopardized by the time allowance for departments to refuse to release wrongdoings for over five years. Frankly, five years is too long. With such a provision in place, the sponsorship scandal would still have taken place even if it had been reported by dutiful public servants. The Liberals could have continued to keep a lid on the scandal while claiming to be ethical in government.
Such a scenario is completely unacceptable. It seems the Liberals have learned nothing about ethics in government over the last two years. While the Prime Minister is good at ethics rhetoric, when we look below the surface we see the same Liberal solutions to Liberal-made problems. It is not surprising that the solutions turn out to be no solutions at all.
Whistleblowing legislation is an important component to any reform agenda. However, it is one piece of the puzzle. Well crafted whistleblowing legislation provides transparency and accountability, but it does little to address the systemic and structural problems inherent in our present parliamentary system. For that we need a clear focus on system-wide reform measures, such as parliamentary confirmation of judges and heads of crown agencies, electoral reform, and Senate reform.
What we clearly need is leadership on both democratic reform and ethical government. We have had leadership on neither issue from the Prime Minister and I fear we never will. The only way to truly bring honest government to Canada is by implementing a broad range of democratic reforms, something a Conservative government will be more than happy to do in the not too distant future.