House of Commons Hansard #115 of the 38th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was parents.

Topics

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

12:35 p.m.

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

She is not an officer of Parliament.

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON

I understand that. The member for Mississauga South says that she is not an officer of Parliament, but she is appointed by the government.

The member clearly pointed out in his speech that the access to information legislation is badly outdated and badly administered. The Information Commissioner has talked in the access to information committee about how he was blocked each way, how he was underfunded and understaffed and all kinds of things.

Clearly the legislation cries out for change. The Minister of Justice has indicated that he was prepared to introduce legislation in the fall, so something has to be done over the summer to get ready for this. We know there is going to be an election soon. Perhaps not, but it appears that in the next 12 months there will be an election, and maybe sooner.

The last speaker, the member from the Bloc Québécois, said that all the government is doing is delaying things. That is all it is doing.

My question is similar to the question that was just asked. Why will you not appoint a most qualified man who is up to snuff on how this is going to happen in the near future? A lot is going to be happening with respect to information. Why will you not appoint a very experienced and qualified man to lead this process?

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

12:35 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

I would remind all hon. members to address their comments to the Chair.

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

12:35 p.m.

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated in my comments to the House, I have a great deal of respect for Mr. Reid. I have no problem with Mr. Reid being with us for another year, but I think it is important for the members to understand that there is an established process of appointment for a term certain and that this has come forward in a fashion which is somewhat unusual.

I do not think the earth will stop if Mr. Reid is extended for another year, but that is not going to solve the issue. The real issue is that we continue to have the best possible people available in the positions of officers of Parliament and that we take advantage of all opportunities to ensure that the related legislation is up to date. As I said, I have no problem with the extension for Mr. Reid and I do not know if anybody else does; Mr. Reid is an honourable person and I do not think there is any reason to have.

Let us make sure that the process we take is not piecemeal. This has come forward. There has to be a strategic logic to this, reflecting the fact that it is not members of Parliament who are going to be deciding on behalf of these people. There has to be a process to make sure there is transparency in who is in the position, along with some accountability.

We have had the case of Mr. Radwanski, who in fact left in disgrace because there were certain problems that did not come out. We need to deal with this. I think we have by the setting up of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. I think we have also dealt with it with regard to the proposed whistleblowing legislation. I am quite happy in principle, but I want to make sure that the process is not sidetracked in terms of the important work that has been set up by Parliament.

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON

Mr. Speaker, the real reason why that member and the Liberal Party oppose extending Mr. Reid's work is that they recognize that Mr. Reid has done an exemplary job of exposing Liberal attempts to cover up corruption.

The hon. member was there when Mr. Reid came before the government operations committee to expose how the current Liberal whistleblower bill could have covered up the sponsorship scandal for 20 years because of provisions embedded deeply in that bill. He made indisputable legal arguments to show how the Liberals were using the bill as an attempt to cover up corruption.

I remember that this particular hon. member, this Liberal member, was fuming mad with his presentation. He was furious that this officer of Parliament would dare expose this Liberal trick. I remember that at that very moment I thought, “They are going to come for Mr. Reid and they are going to take him out because he spoke up against a Liberal trick that the government wanted to sneak through the legislative process very quietly”.

Now that Liberal member is acting as a bodyguard for Liberal corruption once again, as he does in committee on a regular basis. The member has said that he does not have a problem with extending the term. Why will he not then vote in favour of the motion to extend Mr. Reid's term? If he is really telling the truth when he says he supports the extension of Mr. Reid's term, why will he not vote for the motion which would do that?

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

12:40 p.m.

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, first I want to remind the hon. member that when Mr. Reid appeared before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates I was in the chair for that meeting and did not speak. As for him suggesting that I was furious when I did not even speak, I will say that the member has misled the House and the member has been, I believe, an embarrassment to this place. He owes the House an apology.

The member has asked and I will repeat: I have stated in my comments that I personally have no problem with extending Mr. Reid's appointment, but I also understand that as an officer of Parliament there is a process in place. There in fact is a recruitment process that has been going on for some time. That also has to be respected. There is a process in place.

I would say again, also with regard to Mr. Reid's testimony before that particular committee, that ultimately it was found that Mr. Reid was in fact incorrect and no changes will be made to the legislation as he recommended.

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

12:40 p.m.

Conservative

Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today and address the concurrence motion brought forward by the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.

The motion states:

That the appointment of John Reid, the Information Commissioner of Canada, be extended by an additional term of one year, effective July 1, 2005. This recommendation would not preclude Parliament from further extending the appointment after the one year extension.

There are many reasons why this government should adhere to the directive expressed in this motion. The most important reason, which I believe we will see quite clearly when we vote on this motion later, is that it is the will of both a sizable majority in Parliament and at least three of the parties present.

In a minority Parliament this is no small matter because, as we have seen already, the Liberal government does not command the full confidence of this House and needs to learn to swallow its pride and work with the other parties in the best interests of the nation.

First, the nation's best interests include providing as much stability as we can at a time of instability in this Parliament. It is not the time to change horses if we can possibly avoid it. In this regard, I note that the House agreed recently, in a spirit of cooperation, to extend the term of office of the Governor General for a year.

Second, the government must accept that the appointment of the Information Commissioner is not like most of the other appointments the governor in council makes. The Information Commissioner is an officer of Parliament and such an appointment must be approved by Parliament. MPs and senators have a much greater direct interest in appointing someone in whom we can have full confidence as an officer of Parliament.

The third reason the government should support Mr. Reid continuing as he has with his job is his curriculum vitae. He is without question the best qualified individual to fill this important role. Who else can bring to the job seven years' experience as commissioner, along with his cabinet and government experience? As a general rule, it makes sense to hire the best qualified individual for the job.

A fourth and related point is that of Mr. Reid's many accomplishments in his first seven years in this office. His latest annual report recounts some of the battles he has fought against this government, battles he has won. As a lawyer, I am impressed by his dogged determination to resolve what are thorny legal questions regarding the proper administration of the act and the exercise of his proper powers under the act.

I ask members to listen to Mr. Reid's description of these battles from his report:

For virtually all but one of the past seven years, the government and former Prime Minister Chrétien engaged in numerous legal challenges to the jurisdiction and powers of the Information Commissioner.

According to the Information Commissioner, there has never been “an organization of government that has been so viciously attacked” as his office by this Liberal administration.

Another reason he should be retained is that Mr. Reid spurred on the creation in this Parliament of the new Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, of which I am privileged to be a founding member.

As well, he is responsible for reducing the backlog of requests and substantially lowering the waiting times that existed before he took office.

It is quite a record of accomplishment. I believe Mr. Reid has created the kind of legacy with his work that is likely to benefit all Canadians in the future. It is my hope that he will be given the opportunity to continue with his reforms.

However, if the government refuses to reappoint Mr. Reid, then we are left in a quandary. His term runs out on June 30. The act is clear about what happens if the office becomes vacant on July 1. Subsection 54(4) of the Access to Information Act states:

In the event of the absence or incapacity of the Information Commissioner, or if the office of Information Commissioner is vacant, the Governor in Council may appoint another qualified person to hold office instead of the Commissioner for a term not exceeding six months...

This means that the government may well be appointing a temporary commissioner to head the office at a time of turmoil and instability. Such a commissioner would lack the approval, and perhaps the support, of the Parliament he or she is supposed to work with. That may also mean lacking the moral authority to hold this government accountable for its continued attempts to veil the administration deeper in secrecy.

Of course, the apparent refusal of this government to reappoint Mr. Reid should highlight for everyone the culture of secrecy and distrust the Liberal government is mired in.

In his appearances before our committee and in question period, the justice minister has demonstrated time and again his disregard for the principles of access to information. If this Parliament were to follow the minister's misguided approach to revising the act, we would be preventing even more information from being made available to the public. In fact, as I have pointed out in the House already, if his proposals for reform were followed just a few years ago, the sponsorship scandal, the biggest government scandal in Canadian history, would never have been exposed.

Perhaps some Liberals on that side of the House would prefer that the sponsorship scandal were never exposed. Perhaps it is embarrassing and inconvenient for some members across the way, even though they were not personally involved with the malfeasance of fellow party members. Yet better that some members be embarrassed than other members be allowed to pillage the treasury with impunity.

I did not come in here today to criticize the weak and even dangerous proposals of the justice minister without offering a better solution.

The Liberal sponsorship scandal has done untold damage to the institution of Parliament, to the federal government and to all politicians. It has bred cynicism and distrust and has undermined the confidence that the general public has in their national leadership. We need to restore public trust and confidence and we can only do that over time by offering good government, government with integrity that is both accountable and transparent.

Our party has been hard at work examining ways to make our federal government more transparent by increasing the public's access to all sorts of government information. Transparency in government helps ensure that improper practices such as the money laundering of the sponsorship scandal are exposed. Even better, transparency in government discourages criminal or unethical activity from happening in the first place.

Here are five actions a Conservative government would take.

First, we would expand the Access to Information Act to cover all crown corporations, all officers of Parliament, all foundations and all organizations that spend taxpayer dollars or perform public functions.

Second, we would establish a cabinet confidence exclusion which would be subject to review by the Information Commissioner.

Third, we would establish a duty on public officials to create records necessary to document their actions and decisions, something that is lacking at present.

Fourth, we would provide a general public interest override for all exemptions in order that the public interest should come before the secrecy of government.

Finally, we would make all exemptions discretionary and subject to an injury test.

Of course we will make other changes to increase accountability in government as well, including increasing the powers of the Auditor General and the Ethics Commissioner, increasing protection for whistleblowers and cleaning up our campaign finance laws.

The Liberal track record on transparency and accountability is very poor at present. I would encourage the government to avoid making it worse by failing to maintain in office one of the few individuals this Parliament has confidence in, listen to the will of Parliament and reappoint John Reid as Information Commissioner.

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

12:50 p.m.

Conservative

David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member for South Surrey--White Rock--Cloverdale for his comments with respect to this important motion to reappoint John Reid for a year as the Information Commissioner.

As commissioner, he has personally advocated for reform of this act, this legislation, since his annual report in 1998. In yesterday's Globe and Mail , Hugh Winsor aptly described him as one of the most persistent thorns in the government's side.

Does the member think this is the real reason why the government is not prepared to appoint a very competent individual who has proven his way to deal with information, not only as a member of this Parliament but as Information Commissioner for the past seven years?

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

12:50 p.m.

Conservative

Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's service on the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics as the interim chair. He is doing an outstanding job.

I think the real reason behind why the Liberal government does not want to reappoint Mr. Reid is because he has done an outstanding job of exposing the waste and corruption that exists in this Liberal government. That point was made earlier today and I tried to make it in my speech.

As my colleague from Nepean—Carleton mentioned earlier, the Liberals do not trust this commissioner any longer to do their will or their bidding as a lapdog. They have lost their confidence in his ability to continue to toe the Liberal line that all is good and well in the access to information regime.

That is simply not the case. I draw attention to the comments that were made by the Liberal member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell in his speech earlier today on this motion. We heard his diatribe about how the opposition parties were not using their opposition days to their full effect.

That member does not appreciate or respect the right of Canadians to hold the government accountable through the office of the Information Commissioner. In fact, he suggested that it was wasting time to debate a motion that would call upon the government to reappoint an experienced information commissioner who had done a good job of exposing the Liberal government.

The member wonders why the opposition parties would consider it important to debate the appointment of someone he calls “an extremely competent person” or some who has “done an excellent job”. He is someone his government is refusing to reappoint because he has been too effective in exposing the government's waste and corruption.

The member blundered on ad nauseam about the fact that the Liberals had manipulated the process of his appointment. We have heard from another of his colleagues that now there has been a long extended process of hiring someone else.

I do not understand why the Liberal government would have gone to such efforts to replace somebody who has done such an excellent job, somebody it admits is doing an outstanding job. Is it because he was exposing the very things that they were trying to cover-up?

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

12:55 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON

Mr. Speaker, I noted the hon. member across the way responded with great fury once again to my earlier question. I pointed out that he was at the committee listening to the testimony of Information Commissioner Reid. The Information Commissioner exposed Liberal tricks and Liberal loopholes hidden in the whistleblower law. That hon. member across the way was so furious that an officer of the House would go to lengths such as these to expose Liberal tricks he could hardly even speak. In fact, the member across the way stood in the House and acknowledged that he could not speak he was so angry. He could not even say a word.

I said at that moment to myself that the Liberals would come for John Reid's job because he did something rather remarkable. He exposed loopholes in a law that the Liberals were trying to pass off as a whistleblower law, loopholes that would have seen a sponsorship scandal that was covered up for as long as 20 years.

Those loopholes in the law would have prevented journalists and others from filing access to information requests, the kind of which were used to expose the sponsorship scandal to the Auditor General in the first place. In other words, this loophole would have made it against the law for people to inform the Auditor General and others of potential scandals.

The government wanted to sneak it in so it could never be caught again the next time it engaged in a scandal of this kind. John Reid stopped the Liberals. Now they are coming for his blood. They are coming for his job. They want him out of office.

Would the member comment on the shady motives of the government with respect to firing this honourable, decent man, Commissioner Reid?

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

12:55 p.m.

Conservative

Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Nepean—Carleton talks about his experience at a committee. My experience at the access to information and privacy committee was very similar.

When the justice minister was making his proposals for amendments to the Access to Information Act, I took the time to review the document. It was a lengthy document, probably 30 or 40 pages. About halfway through the document, I noticed one sentence at the top of a particular page. If it had been adopted by the House, it would have done exactly what the hon. member said. It would have prevented the sponsorship scandal from ever being exposed.

The sentence basically stated that if consultants were hired by a minister of the Crown, that information would be excluded from access to information requests. Yet I draw to the attention of the House that it was that kind of information which tipped off the Auditor General several years ago. That is when she began her investigation on what has become known as the sponsorship scandal. If that little sentence had been adopted in law, as proposed by the Liberal Minister of Justice, those kinds of sponsorship scandals or other possible corruptions, which perhaps are going on as we speak, would never have come to public light. That is how the Liberals play the game.

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

12:55 p.m.

Conservative

Andrew Scheer Conservative Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK

Mr. Speaker, we have heard some statements today describing the furor that erupted from the Liberal side of the committee when Commissioner Reid outlined his findings. It so angered them when he brought these loopholes to light. He showed the witnesses and members of the committee what the Liberals were trying to sneak through. They were angry over what Commission Reid had done.

Does the hon. member see a parallel to the anger that we saw from the Liberals when the Auditor General brought to light the sordid facts of the sponsorship scandal? What did we see the Liberals do then? We saw them slash her budget. We saw them take direct vengeance on an officer of the House when she exposed Liberal wrongdoing, Liberal corruption and the sleazy details of cash in envelopes being passed over the table. Now we see them doing the same thing to the Information Commissioner.

Does the hon. member see a parallel in what is going on here with the pettiness that happened to the Auditor General when she brought those sorts of facts to light?

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

1 p.m.

Conservative

Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for drawing such a stark and obviously apparent example of another situation where the Liberals got caught red-handed and reacted in a like manner in the sense that they tried to limit the power of the Auditor General by cutting her budget to investigate the government's corruption. That is a great analogy.

We have the Information Commissioner and the Auditor General, both responsible for investigating government corruption, both getting information and catching the Liberals red-handed and then both being attacked by the very government that they are supposed to investigate for doing such a good job. How is that for a reward?

People do what they are supposed to do. They expose Liberal corruption. What do the Liberals do? They do not thank them. They do not give them a gold watch or a plaque. They cut their budget or they try to fire them. This is the level of contempt that the Liberal government has for people whose job it is to expose corruption.

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

1 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

Is the House ready for the question?

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

1 p.m.

Some hon. members

Question.

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

1 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

1 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

1 p.m.

Some hon. members

No.

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

1 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

1 p.m.

Some hon. members

Yea.

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

1 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

All those opposed will please say nay.

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

1 p.m.

Some hon. members

Nay.

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

1 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And more than five members having risen:

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

1 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

1 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

At the request of the chief opposition whip, a recorded division on the proposed motion stands deferred until tomorrow at 5:30 p.m.