Madam Speaker, I intend to use the next 20 minutes to try and calm the House down by being very boring. Perhaps that is some of the flavour that the House could use at this time.
In that regard, I will open my comments by addressing what we are supposed to be talking about, as opposed to screaming at each other. We are dealing with the first report of Standing Committee on Public Accounts on the audit and the financial management and the government's response to that, in particular with regard to the recommendations contained in that report regarding the Privacy Commissioner.
We all know of the abuse that went on and that was perpetrated by the prior privacy commissioner, both with regard to financial mismanagement and misuse of government funds and also with regard to the conduct and the way he treated his staff.
There are a total of 20 recommendations contained in the report. We have in front of us today the response by the government. In fact, the recommendations go some distance to deal with the abuse which we saw at that time. These are recommendations that I believe all members of the House from all parties accept as being needed in the sense of getting a proper response from the government.
It seems to me that we have heard from the parliamentary secretary today the government's response, enunciating that in some respects the government is accepting most of the recommendations, some of which have already begun to be implemented.
It is not a situation of which any of us can be proud. It was allowed to develop. We were not as diligent as I suppose we should have been as members of Parliament, as the conduct of the privacy commissioner got out of hand. We did get a hold of it.
I want to recognize the work that the public accounts committee did in preparing the report and the recommendation. They are recommendations that we should all accept and that the government or future governments should fully implement.
In particular there are recommendations with regard to the work that the Treasury Board should do. In terms of some of the response that we have had from the chair of the Treasury Board, I am a bit concerned about whether implementation will be carried out not only in actuality, but also in the spirit of those recommendations. I must admit I have some reservations that the chair of the Treasury Board has resisted, at least in spirit, the recommendations. This is something that again will have to be monitored both by the public accounts committee and by the House as a whole.
On the conduct of government officials, and some of this spills over to the issue we are dealing with in the sponsorship scandal, the conduct of the former privacy commissioner reflects an arrogance that also shows up in the sponsorship scandal. The recommendations in the report are also ones that hopefully would act as guidance with regard to the use of any funds being administered by the government or future governments.
The report has some very strong recommendations as to how people should conduct themselves, both in government, that is as elected members, and as individuals who are public servants. The attitude of arrogance that we saw from the former privacy commissioner is one which badly needs to be condemned. This attitude should not be emulated by any member here.
I wonder, Madam Speaker, if I could have the consideration of the other members of the House? If they want to carry on conversations perhaps they could move outside. I am being boring and if they want to leave the House, I would welcome them to do that and carry on their debate outside, if it could be so characterized.
With regard to the sponsorship scandal, some rules are being set out. I believe if we followed them across government agencies, departments and individuals, we would not see a repeat of the type of scandal we have seen.
The other point I want to address is this. The accusations flying about has led to the amendment as proposed by the Conservatives. We, as a party, are unable to support the amendment, and I want to address a few comments to that.
Speaking on behalf of my party, I want to be very clear why we are unable to accept the amendment and why we will vote against it. Part of it has to do with the process. It is very dangerous for the House at any time to give directions to any committee to the degree that has been proposed in the amendment. We have tried, and I believe we should be working more extensively on this, to provide greater independence to the committees, the standing committees in particular, and not direct them with the type of rigidity that I believe the Conservative Party is attempting to do.
We are trying to increase the democracy within the House of Commons and its committees and the amendment would have the impact of doing the opposite, if it passed and was carried out by the public accounts committee. We would be setting a dangerous precedent. On that almost procedural type of argument, we will be speaking against it.
Second, we will oppose it on the basis that we have made it very clear to the House and the country as a whole that we want the opportunity for the House to review, debate and pass a budget before an election. The content of the amendment and the intent of the mover and his party is to get the amendment back before the House at the earliest possible time for a vote and to treat that as a non-confidence vote. We believe the Canadians have made it very clear that they want this budget and the terms in it put in place and implemented. They do not want an election at this time, not until at least that event takes place. Seeing as the amendment is designed to end the sitting of the House and the government, we will, at this period of time, vote against it.