Mr. Speaker, I want to deal specifically with two issues in this important motion by the member for Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre.
One is clause (a) about expanding coverage of the act to all crown corporations, all officers of Parliament and all foundations. It is the foundations I want to focus on. Then there is clause (c) about establishing a duty on public officials to create the records necessary to document their actions and decisions.
The member for Yellowhead raised some of the issues that I think are germane to this conversation. Earlier, the justice minister talked about a meaningful democratic process and how critical it is to have access to information. When we are talking about democratic process and access to information, a variety of issues enter into this conversation. One of them is transparency. One of them is openness.
One is around the fundamental issue about demonstrating that the Canadian people can have confidence in the fact that their government is a well run government, in the fact that when taxpayers' dollars are being spent they are being spent in a way that is accountable and responsible and is producing the results that are important for Canadians.
The Minister of Justice also referred to the fact that the member for Winnipeg Centre had a private member's bill before the House. There was a discussion around whether the member would put that bill forward. It is the member's understanding and mine as well that the member for Winnipeg Centre had some assurance that if he dropped his private member's bill there would be a bill before the House to deal with this very important matter.
As we talk about access and transparency, I am going to talk about a couple of incidents, although I know my time is short. One is that the health committee currently is dealing with the issue of silicone gel breast implants.
A part of the access to information issues that this motion deals with is the issue of the records that officials keep. There were scientific panel hearings in March. The health committee asked for the minutes from those hearings only to discover that no minutes were kept.
For parliamentarians who want to find out what was conducted in those scientific hearings, which are going to be used to inform the minister's decision, there are no minutes. That is a huge problem. We have information that is germane to a decision and is important for parliamentarians to be aware of and we cannot access it.
It would seem to me that in most organizations when important decisions are being made and important recommendations are being made by key decision makers, there should be a record kept of how those recommendations were arrived at.
That is one example of the lack of information for parliamentarians. There is another example, although it falls loosely outside of the intent of this motion. The committee has also been attempting to get a 1996 cohort study that is being bounced from Health Canada to the Public Health Agency. We really cannot find this study. We cannot get access to this very critical piece of information. Access to information is fundamental to transparency and openness.
The member for Yellowhead talked about the Auditor General . I am going to talk specifically about the 2002 and 2005 reports of the Auditor General. I think it is important that in 2002 the Auditor General said about her findings that:
The essential requirements for accountability to Parliament--credible reporting of results, effective ministerial oversight, and adequate external audit--are not being met....
This is with regard to foundations and such.
The Auditor General also indicated in 2002 that:
Parliament is not receiving reports on independent, broad-scope audits that examine more than the financial statements of delegated arrangements, including compliance with authorities, propriety, and value for money. With a few exceptions, Parliament's auditor should be appointed as the external auditor of existing foundations and any created in the future, to provide assurance that they are exercising sound control of the significant public resources and authorities entrusted to them.
That seems to be a grave gap. We have billions of dollars going to foundations and yet Parliament has no oversight of this.
The Auditor General suggested a couple of key questions which I think are fundamental. It would be perfectly reasonable that parliamentarians and the public would have access to these key questions. The Auditor General suggested four key questions: Is there reasonable assurance that stewardship of public money is sound? Are the terms and conditions of the funding agreements generally respected? Is the arrangement achieving the intended public results? Are the programs and activities of the delegated arrangement consistent and coordinated adequately with related federal programs and activities?
When we are talking about foundations, it would seem that parliamentarians should have access to the kind of information that is laid out in these questions. These are fundamental. How are Canadian taxpayers' dollars being spent? Are they being spent responsibly? Are we getting the results that Canadian taxpayers expect from this kind of spending?
In 2002 we did not see a substantially different kind of circumstance, so here we are three years later hoping to see some sort of change in what is happening with foundations. The main points under the 2005 report again re-emphasize the issue. It states:
Despite a number of improvements to the framework for the accountability of foundations to Parliament, overall progress is unsatisfactory. Important gaps remain in the external audit regimen and ministerial oversight, two of the three areas examined in this audit. There is no provision for performance audits of foundations that are reported to Parliament nor do mechanisms from ministerial oversight adequately provide for the government to make adjustments to foundations where circumstances have changed considerably.
With all that has happened with the sponsorship scandal and the lack of transparency and openness, we are continuing to see the lack of action in having foundations audited by the Auditor General.