House of Commons Hansard #82 of the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was senate.

Topics

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

4 p.m.

Liberal

Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC

Mr. Speaker, it was quite interesting listening to the President of the Treasury Board talk about the number of hours the House of Commons legislative committee sat on Bill C-2 and the number of hours members of the Senate sat. Then he said he did not want to reproach them, but in effect he kind of did.

I have been a member of the House of Commons since June 1997. I have had the opportunity of sitting on at least one, if not more, legislative committees prior to this one. The experience I had under this legislative committee for Bill C-2 was literally horrendous.

I sat on a legislative committee that dealt with an amendment to the Constitution of Canada. The committee was allowed the time to fully hear witnesses. The committee was given the time to hear witnesses when they brought forth briefs. Sometimes those briefs literally contained hundreds of pages. They were very dense and dealt with very complex matters. We had the time to sit, to read and to study them and to go to committee prepared. It also allowed the parliamentary staff, our researchers and our clerks, to properly do their job. It meant that the quality of the work, which was done at the end of the day, made up for the time that was taken because the legislation was not flawed.

The legislative committee on Bill C-2 was literally forced by the majority held by the government, with the cooperation of the NDP. When votes were tied, the chair, who is a Conservative member, broke the tie and sided with the government. We were calling witnesses a maximum of 24 hours before the date of the committee hearing, asking them to provide a brief on a grave issue that required serious research and reflection. In some cases they were told they did not even have five minutes to explain their position. Witnesses were leaving the Bill C-2 legislative committee, some of them almost in tears, saying that they did not have an opportunity to express themselves and that they wanted to come back. Guess who refused it? It was the Conservatives members with the help of the NDP.

I gained no pride whatsoever from the work of that legislative committee of the House of Commons. We were denied the possibility of doing quality work. We were denied the possibility of ensuring that the legislation did in fact do what the Conservative minority government had promised, which was it would provide transparency, it would provide real protections for whistleblowers in the public service and it would ensure that Canadians could have access to information and that their personal information would be protected. That bill did none of this.

The Senate attempted to correct as much as it could. Even the Senate was limited. Certain rules and regulations did not allow the Senate to do everything. The Senate was not given the scope to do everything.

What is the government trying to do now? It is trying to reinstate virtually the identical bill that went out of the House and into the Senate, knowing full well it was a flawed bill.

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

4:05 p.m.

Bloc

Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a minute to remember my former colleague, Benoît Sauvageau. He worked on this bill with me, bringing much wisdom and many improvements to it. I would like us to take a moment to remember him because he devoted a lot of time and energy to this bill.

He and I worked together for an unprecedented number of hours during that time. I have never seen such a thing here in Parliament. In 13 years, I have never seen a legislative committee sit for so many hours over such a short period of time because the government insisted on passing this bill.

The reason it was so adamant is clear: it s well aware that the Liberal convention is looming and that this bill contains detrimental provisions—provisions that affect, among other things, the $1,500 convention registration fee. Jean-Pierre Kingsley made it clear that such fees are considered donations. The bill puts a $1,000 cap on donations. It was clear to us that this would apply to the Liberal Party convention and that this was why the government wanted to ram the bill through.

Nevertheless, the important thing for the Bloc Québécois is to improve it as much as possible because we need an accountability act. As my colleague from Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine said, we fought incredibly hard for the word “responsabilité”. We had to go to the Office québécois de la langue française. We had to make use of every tool at our disposal to make the government understand that the word “imputabilité” was clearly an anglicism, not a French word at all. Eventually we won. We made the government understand that the appropriate French term was “responsabilité”. Unfortunately, a lot of time was wasted just on that, even though there were other extremely important issues in the bill.

My hon. colleague referred to this earlier, and I think it is worth mentioning because it is true: many witnesses wanted to appear before our committee. Many had things to tell us, many wanted to improve the bill and noticed flaws in it, but did not get a chance to appear because they only had 24 hours notice. They did not appear because 24 hours was not enough time for them to draft a brief, in both official languages, to satisfy the requirements of our legislative committee. These people were left empty-handed, and we can imagine that, today still, they are extremely unhappy about not having been heard. While ours is supposedly the greatest democracy, these people did not get to be heard by the committee. It is extremely important to point this out again.

I have been told that the Senate heard more than 140 witnesses and that a number of amendments will have to be taken into account because they were made in a structured fashion and make some sense.

As we have been saying since the beginning, we have never filibustered at committee and we have no plans to do so here, but we have things to say about this bill.

The merit-based appointment of returning officers is a fantastic gain. It is well known that the process for appointing returning officers was a partisan one. I know this for a fact because it happened in my region. When the Liberals were in government, a good Liberal would be appointed, a guy in charge of overseeing our campaigns. Very often, in several ridings, this caused partisanship problems to such an extent that the system did not work. In addition, being a good Liberal and a decision having been made to make partisan appointments, efforts were made to thwart the candidates from the Bloc Québécois or other parties. But no more; from now on, returning officers will be selected based on their merits, not on their political allegiance, which is an excellent thing.

We were even consulted. They actually consulted members of Parliament, asking us if we were happy with our returning officers. This is a step in the right direction to ensure the legitimacy of the selection process for someone who is, after all, appointed for a ten-year term.

This is someone who is in office for a long time. He or she must be appointed on a non-partisan basis and in light of his or her ability to play that role for the next 10 years, especially since, with a minority government like the one we currently have, we have repeated elections. We had elections in 2004 and 2006, and we could have another one next year or even this year. These people become extremely important. They have non-partisan training and have to provide services for all the candidates in their riding.

There is also the whole issue of the political party financing legislation. The Bloc could not disagree with that, because we already comply with the legislation in Quebec.

Personally, I do not have many donors who give me $2,000 during the course of the year. I receive far more $5 and $10 donations than $2,000 donations during an election campaign or a fundraising campaign. There are people involved, party members, people who do not write cheques for thousands of dollars. There are no such people in my riding, and I would be very surprised to receive such an amount. In Quebec, we already comply with this requirement, and we will continue to do so.

I feel it is time to make major changes at the federal level, because the parties could receive donations of thousands of dollars from companies. This is not conducive to non-partisan work by members or ministers.

If someone gives me a $25,000 donation, I will feel indebted. But if I receive relatively equal amounts from my various constituents or party members, I feel much more at ease. I am indebted to everyone because I am elected, but I do not feel particularly indebted to someone who gave me $25,000 or $30,000.

There was also the whole issue of whistle-blower compensation, which was discussed at length. Several witnesses testified that it was not a good idea to pay a whistle-blower $1,000, $2,000 or $5,000. That could lead to informing, something that must not be encouraged.

In any event, public servants are duty-bound to report any wrongdoing, any mismanagement in the department where they work or anyone who is not doing his or her job properly.

It does not make sense to begin rewarding whistle-blowers. It should be part of the duties of a public servant who learns about an instance of wrongdoing, work not being done properly or mistreatment to report it. How that person learns about it is not important. That person should report it without a reward. In our opinion, it did not make sense to offer a reward. The government realized this, so this is a good point.

As I mentioned earlier, the Senate heard from 140 witnesses, calling certain witnesses back to clarify certain clauses of the bill.

Some clauses are good and others are not as good. I cannot list all of them here, but one in particular is very important and the Bloc Québécois condemns the fact that the government rejected this amendment because it was an important one. The Senate proposed increasing the ceiling on fees for legal counsel from $1,500 to $25,000, or removing the ceiling altogether, at the commissioner's discretion. I would like to explain why the Bloc supported that.

We saw in committee the number of hours legal counsel spent working, yet could not keep up. The maximum of legal counsel were hired, but they could not keep up despite crazy hours.

These people deserved additional remuneration. That was part of it. The government does not agree with this. I do not know how this is going to play out, but I thought it was a good measure.

The Senate also proposed removing the $10,000 limit on awards for pain and suffering. Depending on the situation, I think the Senate was right to propose this measure. We cannot put a limit on a sum of money for pain and suffering. Each case must be examined to determine how much the individual was affected and to then decide the amount of the award. But the government rejected this amendment.

I must explain what happened during the committee's hearings. This is very important. Things were going so fast that, at one point, all committee members, from all parties, received a notice from Mr. Walsh, telling us to stop. Mr. Walsh is not just anybody. He is a very important official in the House of Commons. He is the guardian of the rights of members of Parliament and senators, in other words our rights as parliamentarians. At one point, Mr. Walsh alerted us. He told us that this bill would restrict the rights of members of Parliament and senators, that we were mixing legislative and parliamentary issues. We wanted him to appear before the committee, but some Conservative members had a fit and asked who that person was. As we can see, there are people who do not really know how things work around here. Everyone knows who Mr. Walsh is.

We said that we absolutely wanted him to appear before the committee, because what he had to tell us was very important. We were playing with our rights as parliamentarians. We were mixing judicial and parliamentary responsibilities. The work that we do here, in Parliament or in the Senate, could have been challenged. That did not make any sense. So, he brought important amendments to the committee to protect our rights as parliamentarians and elected representatives. Most of these amendments were accepted.

This proves one thing: when we try to go over something too quickly, when we try to run faster than we can, this compels the primary guardian of our rights, here in the House of Commons, to react very strongly. Indeed, the way the bill was drafted did not make sense.

Obviously there were some extremely serious problems. We solved a few of them, but there are still some left. This is not a small bill. What I find reassuring is that we demanded, and the government accepted, that the bill be reviewed in five years. At first they wanted a review in 15 or 20 years. Imagine what it would be like to work with a piece of legislation that is not reviewed regularly because it was decided that the act would be implemented for an unlimited number of years.

We agreed to support the bill on accountability. We understood that the government wanted this to go quickly, but this legislation needed to be reviewed in the next five years. This is new legislation and it is extremely complex. When it is implemented it will need to be reviewed as soon as possible in order to correct any mistakes in it. I am certain that when it is implemented we will realize there are some aspects that cannot be put into effect. We will have to go back to the drawing board and do it over.

As far as access to information is concerned, the Conservatives refused to budge. The Access to Information Act was passed in 1983. Since then, despite a number of requests for its revision, it has stayed essentially the same. The Conservative government chose not to include reform of the Access to Information Act in its Bill C-2. We would have nonetheless appreciated the government agreeing to this. If we are going to have legislation on accountability, why not include the Access to Information Act? It is complementary and we could have had a truly complete piece of legislation.

However, this did not happen because we were told there was not enough time, we were told that 100 recommendations were needed to revise the act, we were told that the accountability bill had to be adopted before the year-end, we were given 100,000 reasons save one—the real reason why we were unable to confirm all of this.

There is still a lot of confusion in this bill. We will have to see how the senators' amendments that are accepted fit in with the bill as it stands. Our legislators will be able to tell us.

This is extremely important and it cannot be done in five minutes. I know that the Conservatives want this to move along very quickly. However, so long as the two bills—the one here in Parliament and the one in the Senate—are not similar, there will be no law and we will not be able to promulgate this law. We will play ping pong for who knows how long because we will send the bill back to the Senate, the Senate will again make its recommendations that will come back to the House, we will then make our recommendations that will go to the Senate, and so forth.

It is important that we find a way to not delay unduly the implementation of Bill C-2 and we will not be the ones to do so. We have said it from the very beginning. My colleague for Repentigny at the time and I were accused of filibustering and delaying adoption of the bill. That was not our intention. We wanted the bill to be a good one. For it to be good, such an important piece of legislation on accountability must be well written and properly implemented.

I will say it again. Mr. Walsh made some very important recommendations. If Mr. Walsh had not sounded the alarm, all of us in this House would have lost fundamental rights that we cherish, our rights as parliamentarians here in the House of Commons. Mr. Walsh finally got his message across to the other side of the House. Mr. Walsh is a non-partisan individual and he is there to protect the rights of all members. If Mr. Walsh had not been there, we can just imagine what might have happened to us.

This is a very significant, important and broad bill. In my opinion, some people also raised the alarm in the Senate, and we should look at this carefully. It goes without saying that we should not engage in filibustering for no reason, but we can definitely not pass this legislation at full throttle. We must be absolutely sure, and so must our researchers and the legislators. All those who worked on this bill find it complex. They know that once it is enacted, it will become the law. We must not create conflicts of interest with already existing laws, because this bill amends a large number of them. So, things must be clear and we must do serious work. This is what we have done in the past, and this is what we will do in the future. We will support this bill, while taking into consideration the points that I made.

If some people, some experts feel that major changes should be made to the bill, because it impacts on another act, or because it completely destroys it—and this could well be the case—these people should have the time to thoroughly examine this bill in order to propose the necessary changes to improve it, change it and amend it, so that in the end it will really work and we will have a true accountability act, a true piece of legislation that will compel us to be responsible as parliamentarians, ministers and elected representatives.

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

4:25 p.m.

Liberal

Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE

Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to the hon. member's remarks and I noticed she did not mention the Canadian Wheat Board and the amendment the Bloc has put forward relative to that.

However, I want to raise a question with her because it is her party, the Bloc Québécois, that has put forward an amendment to bring the Canadian Wheat Board under access to information at, no doubt, the behest of the Prime Minister. I am absolutely amazed that the Bloc Québécois would follow the endeavours of the Prime Minister to put the Canadian Wheat Board under access to information.

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

4:25 p.m.

Leon Benoit

What are you hiding?

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

4:25 p.m.

Liberal

Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE

The member opposite wants to know what I am hiding. The one thing he knows about the Wheat Board is that it is transparent. It is out there and it provides the information. The member wants access to information to apply to the Canadian Wheat Board because he wants the nuisance requests coming in from its competition, the big grain trade, so it can undermine the Wheat Board and not allow it to do its job in terms of representing primary producers and maximizing returns to primary producers. That is what that party is all about.

What I am absolutely surprised at is that the Bloc would fall for that endeavour of the government because within the province of Quebec there are other agencies similar to this. Does the same principle hold true?

The act itself states that the Canadian Wheat Board is not an agency of the Crown. It is not a government institution. It is a marketing institution of farmers. Does the Bloc not fear that by allowing access to information to apply to a farmer marketing institution it is running the risk of the same thing happening to some other agencies within Canada that operate in the interests of Quebec farmers?

I sincerely believe that the Bloc is making a tragic error as it relates to the farm community and I would ask the Bloc to reconsider its position on this amendment.

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

4:25 p.m.

Bloc

Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC

Mr. Speaker, in Quebec we have the UPA, which does extraordinary work in the agricultural markets. Our fear was that with this access to information, Quebec's toes would be stepped on yet again. Quebec is very well served by the UPA. In that regard, hon. members will simply have to accept our position. We have a different way of doing things in Quebec and we find this is an encroachment into our existing jurisdictions.

Nonetheless, as my colleague who loses his cool quite easily—I guess that is his nature—can see, we will never have unanimity here. There will always be someone complaining that something does not work in Bill C-2, that something—an article or a comma—should not be included in it. We did this work in committee and this was done in the Senate. Nonetheless, I believe that we can still discuss this and see whether there are still some things that can be settled. Through working on this bill we know it well and have assimilated it. We made some recommendations, as did the Liberal Party and the NDP. Even the Conservatives made recommendations because they themselves realized that some things did not make any sense in this bill. But we worked very quickly.

Members know my concern about passing this bill too quickly. There are still 158 Senate amendments. We are trying to pass it very quickly here in the House of Commons. In my opinion, we need to take the time to go over this thoroughly. Maybe the senators proposed other amendments because they met other witnesses who raised red flags like Mr. Walsh did for us. We have to take the time to consider this and make all the necessary improvements.

That being said, it is clear that the accountability act will never get the full support of the House. There will always be something someone does not like or some small problem. If it includes most of the Bloc Québécois' amendments, most of what we asked for, as it does now, we will vote in favour of the bill. However, we cannot ask for the moon. I think that everyone has found something in this bill that is worth supporting. I know that we will vote in favour. The NDP will probably vote in favour, but in the end, the important thing is to have a good law. We have never had a good accountability law, and it is high time we did.

Once again, we must proceed with wisdom and knowledge. We must ensure that it is well-written and that we do not end up with legislation that will cause chaos in the departments or clash with other bills. That is extremely important. So let us take our work seriously, as we have done from the beginning. Obviously, when things are different for Quebec, we will act accordingly. That is why we do not support this amendment.

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

4:30 p.m.

NDP

Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North, MB

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Rivière-du-Nord unfortunately did not answer the question posed by the hon. member for Malpeque. He asked a very important question about the future of the Canadian Wheat Board.

I rarely agree with the Liberals, but today, the member is right to ask the Bloc members why they decided to nearly destroy an organization that is so important to wheat farmers across Canada. Even though that organization is not very active in the province of Quebec and, as the member indicated, the UPA functions very well without Canada, this does not explain why the Bloc decided to destroy the Canadian Wheat Board, which is very important to the rest of Canada. Why do the Bloc members completely refuse to grasp the importance of cooperation within our agricultural sector?

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

4:30 p.m.

Bloc

Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC

Mr. Speaker, I answered the question.

The member is talking about destroying the Canadian Wheat Board. But wait a minute. The Canadian Wheat Board still exists and will continue to exist. The only thing we reject is simply that it is included in this bill. That is all. The members on the other side of the House should calm down.

We decided that the Canadian Wheat Board had no place in this bill, but it will continue to exist and operate, nonetheless. In addition, we have the UPA. We will vote based on what works for us.

If the Canadian Wheat Board is not working, we will not vote in favour of including it in Bill C-2, especially if Ottawa starts encroaching on jurisdictions that are very important to Quebec.

My job and that of other members of the Bloc Québécois is to defend the interests of Quebeckers. I repeat, the Canadian Wheat Board will never disappear. It will continue to exist, except it will not be included in Bill C-2. That is all there is to it.

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

Liberal

Keith Martin Liberal Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC

Mr. Speaker, I know it would be a big mistake for the government to pass this law.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with accountability. In fact, the definition of accountability is not even in the bill.

Does the member not think that Bill C-2 has nothing to do with accountability? Will her party say no to supporting the bill as it is going to cause gridlock in the public service?

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Royal Galipeau

I must warn the hon. member that she has 20 seconds for her response.

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

Bloc

Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC

Mr. Speaker, I will try to be brief.

As I said, I do not think that this bill is perfect. However, I think that accountability is part of it and that we have to start somewhere if we want to make progress. As I said earlier, the Bloc Québécois will support Bill C-2.

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Royal Galipeau

Order, please. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for Mississauga South, Foreign Affairs.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Charlottetown.

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

Liberal

Shawn Murphy Liberal Charlottetown, PE

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in this debate. There has been much discussion on the accountability act since we came back here after the January election. It was discussed in detail by the House and then referred to the Senate. The Senate, as we have heard today on many occasions, spent a lot of time, energy and effort on it, and the senators have suggested a number of amendments. I believe there are 150 amendments. The bill is back before this House for debate.

I say at the outset that I do support the general principles set out in the proposed act, the broad thrust, so to speak. Some issues that I am passionate about are in here and I do support them. In my view, the most important concept by far is the one making deputy ministers accounting officers accountable to Parliament for the individual financial management of their respective departments. Others are some of the provisions concerning lobbying, the repeal of the section of the public service act that allows exempt staff preferential treatment in the civil service, appointments based upon merit, and certain provisions dealing with whistleblower legislation. I, as a member of Parliament, certainly do support them.

However, as has been pointed out by a number of speakers today, this is an omnibus bill. I believe it has about 220 pages. It deals with a whole host of issues dealing with political financing, oversight bodies, et cetera, much of which, I submit, has very little to do with accountability. I believe the previous speaker pointed that out in a question.

Just for the sake of reference, I note that there are many definitions of accountability. One that I use refers to the way in which office holders, elected and non-elected, explain the actions taken through the use of powers delegated to them by ministers or other office holders. When we refer to that definition and other definitions, we see that basically accountability is a duty to explain. It is the duty of those who are responsible to explain their actions. When we take that definition or any other definition of accountability, we can see that most of the provisions in the bill, not all but a lot of them, have very, very little to do with accountability.

To go back, the bill was referred to a legislative committee of the House. I want to thank each and every member of that committee for the time and effort they put into the bill. It was sent to the Senate. There were 150 amendments made and it was sent back to this House. I should point out for any viewers watching and listening today that a lot of these amendments are inconsequential. They are spelling errors or minor errors that were made in the original drafting of the legislation. Even some of the amendments that we are debating here today are not as substantive or fundamental as perhaps one would consider.

I would point out that we are in a minority government. No party has a majority. It is our duty and obligation to express the will of the Canadian people, so I say that once we have this debate here in Parliament, then we vote on the amendments. Then the accountability act of course will have to go back to the Senate. The accountability act will then become law and we can move on to other issues which, I submit, are just as important as the issue we are dealing with at present, or perhaps more.

I do want to spend a minute, if I may, talking about the issue that I think is so important in this proposed act. At present, I chair the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. There is a recommendation that we in our committee have made on a number of occasions and it is finally seeing the light of day in the accountability act. That, again, is the concept of making deputy ministers accounting officers to Parliament so that they are personally responsible for the financial and other administration of their particular departments. They would be accountable to organize resources, to deliver programs in compliance with government policies and provisions, to establish and monitor the system of internal control and the signing of accounts so that all accounts truly reflect the actual financial transactions that happened in their particular department, and of course there is the performance of other specific duties.

I say this in the context that deputy ministers have very difficult jobs in government now. They are under intense scrutiny from the media, the public, the courts, the opposition and oversight bodies. They answer not only to their ministers but to the Privy Council Office and the Prime Minister. There is a whole host of horizontal issues that they have to deal with on a daily basis. Generally what I am saying is that Canada is well served by its deputy ministers.

However, when I look at what has come before the public accounts committee in the last six years, I believe the pendulum has swung too far in one direction, in that the deputy ministers are too much concerned with horizontal issues and policy issues and not as concerned as they ought to be with the actual day to day management of their respective departments.

Again, I believe that this provision, if it is coupled with other provisions I will speak to, will improve that particular situation. However, it will improve the situation only if other events happen.

One issue is the whole oversight regime of the Treasury Board Secretariat. In the public accounts committee, we are presently in the middle of a review of its mandate, roles and responsibilities, with particular emphasis on the change in regime with the expected proclamation of the federal accountability act.

Again I want to say that I believe a lot of work has to be done in developing just exactly what happens to these so-called accounting officers once the act is proclaimed and on the development of a protocol, the role of the comptroller general and how this new system will work. I believe there may be some in government here in Ottawa who just consider that nothing will change. I hope they are not right.

Another issue that of course is not covered in the act goes right to the foundation of accountability and again very much relates to the topic that I am discussing, That is the tenure of deputy ministers. This is another issue that the public accounts committee has recommended for on many occasions. It has been ignored by the government. The present government and the previous government have basically said that it is no business of Parliament. I find that distressing and disturbing. I do hope that the government will follow the recommendations of the public accounts committee and increase the tenure of deputy ministers so that we can get true accountability on the management of government operations.

However, what I find extremely puzzling in this particular legislation is the total disjointedness between what the act says and what the government has been doing since it was sworn in earlier this year.

We have had the Gomery commission. I have a copy of the report right here in my hand. It is called “Restoring Accountability”. It was a very extensive work and made 19 recommendations. The accountability act deals with about five of them.

I will talk about some of the most important. One is that to “redress the imbalance between resources available to the Government and those available to parliamentary committees and their members, the Government should substantially increase funding for parliamentary committees”. Another is that it should increase resources for the public accounts committee. Another is that there should be a charter for public civil servants. The list goes on and on. Thirteen of the 19 recommendations have been ignored by this bill, basically, and some others have had only partial attention paid to them. I find that extremely troubling. I am going to come back to that a little later.

All the actions of the government are totally disjointed from what the bill states. Right from the beginning, what did the Prime Minister do? The very first thing he did was appoint his co-chair to the Senate. What was the second thing he did? Does anyone know? He appointed his co-chair/senator to cabinet. That is what he did. Does that comply with what the bill states? Is that accountability?

We had established a couple of years ago a fundamental principle of accountability in that the committees of this institution elected their own chairs. What is the third thing that the Prime Minister did? The third thing he said was that is over. The committees that the government chairs would be appointed by the Prime Minister of Canada. He would tell those people that they are the chairs and that is how the system would operate.

Is that accountability? We have the muzzling of members of Parliament in this House. We have had the muzzling of the whole cabinet. We had the spectacle over the weekend of the Prime Minister's communications director writing secretly to the communications directors of all cabinet ministers asking for a review of their respective ministers. That is not accountability.

We had the appointments process right in the accountability act in the summary. It indicated that appointments would be based on merit. What has happened? Everyone in this institution knows what has happened. Everyone in Canada knows what has happened. Every appointment has been based upon one basic principle, membership in the Conservative Party. A person has to be a high ranking Tory.

I have been following this issue very closely since February. I cannot speak for all provinces so let me say east of Montreal. If there is anyone in this House that knows, of all the dozens and dozens of appointments that were made, of any person east of Montreal who was not a high ranking Conservative member, please stand up at the end of my speech and identify that person. I do not know that such a person exists. Is that accountability?

The point I am making is that there is a total, absolute, and utter disturbing disconnect between what the act states and the actions of the government.

I identified some of the broad thrusts that I certainly agree with and am very supportive of, but there are certain things that I really think should not be happening.

The whole act talks about compliance and the avoidance of sin. We do not need more rules. This is certainly the feeling of the Auditor General. She agrees with me on that. We have sufficient rules. We have the Financial Administration Act. We have a whole host of guidelines, policies and procedures issued by the Treasury Board Secretariat.

I believe from my experience that those are sufficient. They have to be understood. There has to be a culture of compliance. There has to be compliance in the fundamental principles of personal responsibility and accountability, and if there is any non-compliance, of course there must be sanctions.

The act calls for additional oversight bodies, a director of procurement, a director of advertising, and a director of prosecutions. It is my view that these oversight bodies are not needed. It amounts to Parliament abandoning its accountability role. It is up to Parliament and the committees of Parliament to hold the executive of government to account.

This institution is an institution of accountability. If we read the recommendations of Mr. Justice Gomery, he comes back to that fundamental principle. He comes back to restoring the imbalance that exists between the legislative branch of Parliament and the executive branch of government.

As I stated, there were 19 recommendations made and only five or six were partially adopted. I would ask members to read the recommendations. I would ask members to ask themselves why they were basically ignored and why there was no discussion about these individual very important recommendations.

The general problem is that there is an imbalance. I have pointed that out. We have the executive of government, the Governor General, the leader, the cabinet and the whole bureaucracy. We have of course the judicial arm and the legislative arm. It is our job and duty to approve appropriations, to pass legislation and, of course, hold the government to account.

Over the last 50 or 60 years we have allowed a very severe imbalance to develop between the legislative arm of government and the executive arm of government. Of course, the executive arm of government has allowed a very severe imbalance to develop between the executive generally and the office of the Prime Minister. We can see what is going on these days when the control is put on individual cabinet ministers. We do not have to say anything more. We can see what is going on.

Again, I am not suggesting that this started with the office of the present Prime Minister. This is a trend that has been developing for the last 40 or 50 years. It has gotten worse in the last eight months, but it did not start eight months ago.

In order to restore accountability, we have to cure the imbalance. I suggest and submit that the first step would be to read the first recommendation of the report of Mr. Justice Gomery. He talks about restoring that important balance that is necessary so that we have accountable institutions in Parliament. That is an issue that has been talked and written about but of course nothing ever gets done.

The point I am making is that there are some good provisions in this act. There are some that I support to my dying breath, but the act, to a large extent, has very little to do with accountability.

In closing, I agree with the overall thrust of the legislation. We have, kicking around the chamber, approximately 150 amendments. Some are very inconsequential. Some have been agreed to by the parties. It is up to us as parliamentarians to continue the debate.

It is a very complicated piece of legislation. We are getting into the law of unintended consequences, when we think it is good but when somebody else points out something in another act, it may not be as simple and uncomplicated as we first thought. Sometimes it takes a little more thinking and deliberation than we initially thought.

It is up to us to continue the debate and put the amendments to a vote in the chamber. We, representing the Canadian people, will vote on them. The amendments that pass this House will become law. The amendments that do not pass the House will not become law. Let us see the act become law as soon as possible.

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4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to what the hon. member had to say. As we know, the hon. member was actually the daily filibuster, as it were, on the former sponsorship program when the Conservatives were trying to get to the bottom of what actually happened. We know the member stood in the way of that.

What I and the members on this side of the House would really like to know is why the Liberals are using the unelected Liberal Senate to hold up the bill? If they do not agree with accountability, then they should stand in the House and vote against it. They should have some courage and not use their unelected friends in the Senate to do it for them.

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4:55 p.m.

Liberal

Shawn Murphy Liberal Charlottetown, PE

Mr. Speaker, I do not understand the question at all. The bill is in the House now. We are debating it and we are going to be voting on it. It is not being held up at all. It went to the Senate and came back with some amendments. We have only been on this for six months. It has gone through the House as quickly as any other bill that I remember.

The member for Peterborough talks about the unelected Senate. Why did his leader appoint an unelected member, a co-chair of his campaign, to the unelected Senate, and then appoint that unelected senator/co-chair to the cabinet of this country who spends $25 million per day while being unaccountable to any person in the House?

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4:55 p.m.

NDP

Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC

Mr. Speaker, we know there are many kinds of accountability in the House. Certainly, I have seen a disdain for the will of the House. I wonder if the member could comment on that specifically.

Over the last couple of days the Prime Minister talked about the fact that human rights will not be trumped by the mighty dollar in reference to China. Yet, we have a situation right now with the declaration of indigenous rights that is before the United Nations. Opposition members have supported that declaration and yet we have a Conservative government that will not listen to the will of the majority of the House and support that very important declaration on indigenous rights. I wonder if the member could talk about that kind of accountability and disregard for the will of the House.

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4:55 p.m.

Liberal

Shawn Murphy Liberal Charlottetown, PE

Mr. Speaker, I am very perplexed with what is going on in this House. I will attempt to answer that question, but we are in a minority government and I do not see the acknowledgement of that minority government.

We are here elected by people involved in 308 ridings. When a piece of legislation, whether it is a bill or a motion, is put before the House and is voted upon, that is the will of the Canadian people. That is my understanding of how the system ought to work, but that is not the way the system is working.

The present government does not acknowledge that it is in a minority situation. We are seeing that day after day where it completely ignores the motion that the member across is talking about regarding indigenous people, but a whole host of other motions.

If I had two hours, I could go over the whole list of legislation, motions and bills that are totally and absolutely ignored by this government. I do not understand that at all and we are here talking about accountability. That is a question that will have to be put to the Prime Minister.

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4:55 p.m.

Liberal

Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE

Mr. Speaker, the member for Peterborough asked about the amendments that were made by unelected senators, as he called them, but I think the evidence that this was a hastily drafted bill, poorly worded and requiring a lot of amendments, probably comes from the government itself.

I know the member for Charlottetown has spent considerable time studying this bill. When I go through the amendments, I have not counted them up yet, there seems to be certainly in excess of 40 amendments from the government itself. Could the member explain to me why that is the case? Is it poorly drafted? How many amendments are there and why did the government not do it at least half right in the first place? It was so anxious to try and make an issue of accountability, we know that, but without really dealing with accountability in a concrete way.

I might ask him, as well, is there anything in this bill to do about political patronage from the Government of Canada? We have seen some terrible appointments from the government and I wonder if this is addressed in any way by Bill C-2.

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5 p.m.

Liberal

Shawn Murphy Liberal Charlottetown, PE

Mr. Speaker, there are two or three questions in that statement. First, I want to deal with the last one.

We talked about the patronage appointments and I challenged anyone in the House if they were aware of anyone east of Montreal who was appointed to please stand and point that out and correct me. I want to point out and let the record show that no one stood. That is a sad indictment of what is going on with this particular government.

The second issue he talks about pertains to the amendments. Yes, there were about 40 made by the Conservatives and about 100 made by the Liberals. In fairness to both sides of the House, this is a very complex omnibus bill. I believe it has around 221 pages. It involves a lot of other acts. We are dealing with situations where if we make one amendment it involves another act. Sometimes it deals with the executive arm of government and sometimes it deals with the legislative arm.

It is not simple. In fairness to everyone who was involved, it is my honest view that the legislative committee put a lot of time, effort and work into this and did its best. I believe the Senate equally put perhaps more time. It had more time to spend on it.

It sounds like a lot of amendments, but again, a lot of them were inconsequential, some of them were spelling typos and things like that, and it is just a matter of the work that went into it. It relates to the complexity of the legislation. As has been pointed out before, the amendments are before us. Let us talk about them. Let us, by representing the Canadian people, vote on them and let us see that this legislation becomes law.

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5 p.m.

Conservative

Gary Goodyear Conservative Cambridge, ON

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member. For heaven's sake, for 13 years we had a government that stacked all these boards with its own members. These boards are now recommending certain members who happen to be Conservative. I think that goes to say how very intelligent some of the recommendations are. We have only been in government for nine months and we sure cannot clean up 13 years of Liberal appointees.

This government made an attempt to put forward the name of a man who was the top, most respected CEO in the entire country. His name is Gwyn Morgan. He would have worked for $1 and would have taken these decisions out of the hands of folks who use patronage to get ahead and infiltrate, almost to the point of infesting all of those areas.

I know the members opposite have a hard time believing or even thinking that anyone but a Liberal could make an appointment to the bench or make any kind of an appointment. However, we put forward an opportunity to remove the patronage issue from this process. To hear the member stand and complain about what is going on is, frankly, very funny but atypical of the members opposite.

I wonder if the member would like to comment on our attempts to clean up the process versus the members' opposite attempt to keep the status quo.

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5 p.m.

Liberal

Shawn Murphy Liberal Charlottetown, PE

Mr. Speaker, I believe the member for Cambridge misunderstood the point I was making.

The point I was making concerned the hypocrisy of what was stated by the proponents of the bill and what is stated in the bill, which is that these appointments would be made on merit. I challenged and I will challenge again and again, if there is anyone east of Montreal, of all the dozens and dozens of order in council appointments made since February of this year, to stand up and identify anyone who was not a high ranking Conservative.

The point I am trying to make is that the Conservatives said that appointments would be made on merit. They put this into legislation but they did not follow it. There has not been one appointment made and if there is one I would ask anyone to stand up but nobody will stand up.

What I am saying is--

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5:05 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

I apologize to the member but the time provided has run out.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Ottawa Centre.

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5:05 p.m.

NDP

Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I will begin my comments by following up on the point the member for Cambridge was enunciating on cleaning up politics. It is a pleasure to again speak to a bill that we worked hard on and to which I have personally contributed on the committee.

I will begin with the title of cleaning up politics because that is the title of the document put forward by my predecessor, Ed Broadbent, before the last election. The document is entitled “Cleaning up Politics: Demanding Changes in Ethics and Accountability”. The seven point plan that Mr. Broadbent put forward is pretty straightforward but still a little elusive, notwithstanding some of the important things that have been brought forward.

The first point was to have democratic accountability for MPs. What he was referring to was that no MP should ignore the wishes or intents of his or her voters for personal gain. What he was talking about is that MPs should not be able to cross the floor simply so they can be vaulted into cabinet. It is important to note that he was not talking about the present government. He was talking about the previous government. That is something we were not able to attain in this bill but we will continue to fight for that because the basic premise of democracy is not to have MPs cross the floor at their will and for their personal gain. It must stop. The government in Manitoba is putting forward a bill that will do that and the Government of Canada should do the same.

The second point on his list was fixed election dates. I am glad to say that Bill C-16 is on its way. Hopefully it will pass through the Senate a little easier than Bill C-2 will, for the sake of all of us.

The third point was to have transparent leadership contests. A certain member of the Liberal Party, who went on to become the leader of the Liberal Party and the prime minister, was able to raise $12 million for his leadership campaign. Some would say that the $12 million were not necessary because, as we all know, it was not much of a contest. However, before the government gets too high on its horse, the present Prime Minister spent $2.7 million for his leadership contest. It seems like a bargain by comparison but, nonetheless, we need to have less money injected into the body politic and take the money out of politics. We saw what kind of effect that can have on the body politic in the most recent American elections.

The fourth point was real electoral reform. We will continue to fight for this. We do not believe that what we have seen with the unelected Senate is anything that anyone can be proud of and it is certainly showing that our democratic institutions need an overhaul. One of the things we have put forward, following along many reports going back to the Pépin-Robarts report and others, is the need to change our democratic institution so it is reflective of the will of the people. We can look at perhaps a first past the post system with proportionality, such as they have in New Zealand, Scotland and, in fact, in most of the rest of the world save two other jurisdictions.

The fifth point was to end unregulated lobbying. I am pleased to say that there are changes in Bill C-2 about lobbying. I am sad to say that there are some amendments being put forward by the Senate to change that. What seems to be elusive is what my colleague, Mr. Broadbent, put forward, which is that we deal with firms that act as both lobbyists and government consultants. This is a conflict of interest as they are playing both sides of the street. We saw that with the previous government and we do not want to see that happen in the future. If a firm is working for government one day, the firm should not be able to turn around and lobby the next day. It creates a perception of influence peddling, and we have seen examples of that before.

What we need to still deal with is the fact that lobby firms, public relations firms, must have clear rules in front of them for the sake of our democratic institutions and we need to ensure it is understood that government is here to serve the people and not the friends of any particular party. Sadly, Bill C-2 does not end that type of lobbying and we need to continue to work on that. We provided amendments but they were ruled out of order.

The sixth point on Mr. Broadbent's list was ethical appointments. Just recently a panel of experts looked at reforming the National Capital Commission here in Ottawa. It should be noted that the National Capital Commission, which goes back to 1959, was always an appointed body based on who one knew and on political patronage. We hope that will change but it should not be based on a whim. It should be based on a structure so that appointments can function properly.

We proposed, and the bill does have amendments, to have a public appointments commission. Those amendments were taken from Mr. Broadbent's work on ethical appointments. We believe we should toss out the whole idea of patronage when it comes to appointments. With a possible 4,000 appointments, we believe it is dangerous to allow them to be motivated by politics. In fact, they should be motivated by merit to serve Canadian people and not to serve any political party which, sadly, was the case, not just with the previous government but back all the way to Macdonald. Canadian history is littered with problems in and around political appointments.

The commission that my colleague from Winnipeg worked on and was derived from Mr. Broadbent's idea makes sense. As was mentioned earlier, the government had concerns about the person it tried to appoint to fulfill this job. The problem was not necessarily with Mr. Morgan's abilities to do the job but with the way in which it was being done. We had in front of us a bill that would change the appointments process and the government tried to cut off the process and appoint its own person but then cried foul when it was not accepted.

The point was that we had a bill before the House which talked about a public appointments commission but the government decided it knew better and wanted to appoint its person who, quite rightly, was rejected. It was not because of the person himself or his merit. It was because the government put forward someone ahead of a bill that was in front of Parliament to create a public appointments commission. On another day I could give my opinion on that person for that job, but I will leave that.

We need to have a public appointments process and that brings in ethical appointments. It is too important for Canadians and for the body politics.

The final point Mr. Broadbent put forward was to reform the access to information and, my gosh, do we need work there. We have problems presently with the government. I recently had an access to information on something that was not controversial and I received three lines and 18 pages blanked out. I wondered if something as controversial as a museum was actually of note to the security of the country and puts us all in jeopardy. Apparently it does and one of the problems is that the Access to Information Act is too limited, too controlling and does not serve Canadians well. We clearly need to change that.

We need to ensure light is shed on government and that we have a window on the decision making of government, not simply to allow people who want to be critical of the government, while that is important, but to allow anyone who wants to understand how government works and the motivations behind policy and, quite frankly, being able to form policy, are allowed to have their voices heard by way of knowing what the decisions were of the government. There are changes in Bill C-2 but we need a heck of a lot more.

I want to talk about some of the things that we were able to provide and propose as a party. We did not oppose the idea of Bill C-2. In fact, in principle we supported it in committee and where we thought changes were needed we proposed alternatives. I already mentioned our proposal for the public appointments commission which was accepted as amended and put into the bill. One of the things I put forward was to ensure that all contracts of $10,000 or more be on the public record. We had to fight to get that in but it is in Bill C-2.

One concern Canadians had with the previous government in the sponsorship case was contracts without a paper trail. Often we did not know who was providing the service or what that service was. One of the amendments the NDP put forward in the area of procurement was to ensure that all contracts of $10,000 or more would now be on the public record. I would have preferred that it had been a lesser amount, but that is what we agreed to on compromise. Now any Canadian can find out who is providing a service to the government and who is getting the contracts. They will know if they are getting value for their money.

The NDP believes fundamentally in lowering the donation that people can make to $1,000. Sadly, in the amendments before us, the Senate has deemed it in its infinite unelected wisdom to change that to $2,000. I know this was something the Liberal Party preferred. I think most people would agree that $1,000 is fine and reasonable. We would like to see that amendment defeated. No constituent of mine has called me to ask me to ensure the donation limit is increased from $1,000 to $2,000. In fact, I would submit that any member of the House could go out and claim that was a good idea in a town hall meeting or in a householder.

The NDP also believes it is important to strengthen the whistleblowing protection in the act. Before I was elected to this place, I worked with many people in the community around whistleblowing. When Bill C-11 was before the House, it was not sufficient. I was delighted to see it was not proclaimed because it was not good legislation, as some might have suggested. In fact, people who had been negatively affected as whistleblowers were adamant. They said we needed to change those parts of the whistleblower protection act to ensure it reflected their concerns. That has been done and I hope we will not tinker with that.

Conflict of interest rules allowing Canadians to make complaints to the new conflict of interest and ethics commissioner is something we have provided by ensuring that positive propositions were added to Bill C-2.

The protection of first nations' rights within the act is something I personally moved through committee to ensure they were not sideswiped by something that was not about them. First nations were almost folded into the equation when they should not have been.

The NDP amended the bill to ensure we not only changed the appointments process, but in effect changed the whole notion of patronage. If there is one thing, as my colleague from Winnipeg has said, we should ensure that the public appointments process remains in the bill.

The way appointments were done in previous governments was via a telephone and a Rolodex and who was known in the PMO. Those days are gone, fineto, adios. Canadians have been clear that this kind of politics is not only admonished, but it is something that will not be accepted. I challenge anyone in this place to go out and debate the need to bring back patronage appointments in our democratic system and our democratic framework. Thankfully those days are gone.

We need to ensure we have a clear understanding of the bill. It is not about getting a pound of flesh. If it is about that, then I suggest members have missed the point. If the government or any of the opposition parties are trying to exact revenge with this bill, then they are clearly misguided. Canadians are tired of it. We do not need to deepen the cynicism of politics. In fact, what the opposition is trying to do is to ensure there are clear rules so we can build back the trust that has been lost with Canadians.

Recently I saw some appointments that caused me concern. The Conservative government has appointed someone to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada who goes against the consensus within the scientific community on climate change. It has appointed someone who will be responsible for providing a grant to researchers, a person who is out of step with the mainstream scientific body on climate change.

Again, we need to pass the bill to ensure we have merit based appointments so we no longer have people appointed to bodies, which are so important to the public good, who potentially undermine the public good.

If we look at the bill in total, all of us have concerns about it. We have stated those concerns in committee. We proposed alternatives to it so it would be something of which we could be proud. In the end, we wanted to go back to our constituents and say that we did everything we could to ensure we had clear rules that would bring back responsibility to government, that would bring back clear representation to our citizens, the constituents we represent. No longer could we say that the decisions being made in government were being made under a cloud of suspicion over whose interests were being served. Quite frankly, that was the equation.

We need to ensure the following: when people are lobbying the government, they are not doing it because of who they know; when people blow the whistle, they will not have their career ruined because they stood up for the public interest; when someone is appointed to the head of a Crown corporation, it is based strictly on merit alone; and when people decide they will contribute to government, it is based solely on the public good and not on their private interests. Those are the key issues we all have to look at when we look at Bill C-2.

Sadly, the amendments that have come back to this place from the other place do not do that. They are riddled with self-interest. They will undermine the public trust and ultimately, I believe, undermine the whole notion of the necessity for the other place. When we have the other place sending legislation back to this place, legislation that has been gutted of many well thought out sensible ideas for its self interest, it speaks for itself.

I could underline many of those amendments, but two in particular are worth underlining. First is changing the limit one can give from $1,000 to $2,000. This has been put forward by people who are not even elected, which raises all sorts of question marks. Many people in the other place spend much of their time raising money for political parties. Perhaps that is the reason. The other issue we have to examine is changes to lobbying. We need to strengthen our oversight on lobbying, not weaken it.

In the end, we have an unelected body, the other place, sending back to an elected body incredible amendments in terms of the number, but more important, in terms of the scope and what they will do to the bill. That raises the question of the value of the other place when it does such a thing.

When we talk about real accountability and when we see what has recently happened and how the bill has been played with and manipulated by the other place, we have to then suggest this. The next project, after the bill has passed, is to take a look at how we can reform, modify and change the other place to make it a lot more accountable and democratic so it will not meddle in the voice of everyday Canadians who elected us.

Finally, if the bill is destroyed and not passed, every one of us will have to answer as to what we did and why. My belief is Canadians wanted to see us pass a bill with clear rules and clear reform for them. The bill is not about us. It is about Canadians. We need to pass the bill and ensure the values that Canadians entrusted to us to promote are the bottom line, not the interests of people in the other place or anywhere else.

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5:25 p.m.

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, the member spent a bit of time talking about the whistleblower act, Bill C-11, which came up two Parliaments ago. It was worked on for about a year and all last Parliament.

As a consequence of the work of the government operations and estimates committee, the bill was virtually rewritten. One of the changes was to create a new position, a new public integrity officer of Parliament, who would be in the same vein as the Auditor General or the Privacy Commissioner, et cetera. That bill was unanimously passed by all parties in committee with all of those changes. It came to the House, was fully debated and unanimously passed by all parties in this place. In fact, on the second last day of the last Parliament, it received royal assent.

That bill is extremely important to the whole accountability mechanism. It provides protection for the public service, for those who feel they have information about some alleged wrongdoings or other reprisals, as defined in the bill, to come forward to get explanations to this watchdog who will report to Parliament. It is a very important bill.

I understand Bill C-2 proposed some amendments to the whistleblower bill. What I want to understand, and maybe the member can help, is that Bill C-11, although it received royal assent in the last Parliament, has not been proclaimed. This means that although it is law, it is not in force yet. All the work has been done by Parliament and passed by both Houses and given royal assent, but it is still not operative. We still do not have a process of bringing in this new officer of Parliament. We still do not have the directions to all the crown corporations and agencies that will be swept in under this because it has not been proclaimed. The government has been in office for several months and it still has not been proclaimed. It is important.

Could the member try to explain to the House and to Canadians why Bill C-11 has not been proclaimed so we can have accountability, openness and transparency now?

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5:25 p.m.

NDP

Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I will be very succinct. In my opinion, and in the opinion of many people with whom I worked before being elected to this place, Bill C-11 is substandard. I am delighted it was not proclaimed. I can name people who pushed to ensure that it did not see the light of day because they wanted a better bill. To be quite direct about it, it is yet another reason to get this bill through the House, back to the Senate, get the bill passed and stop the ping-pong between the two places.

Bill C-2 would change the whistleblower legislation to ensure there would be a more comprehensive way for people to report misdeeds and that they would not go into a process where they would have to wait for long periods of time. That is exactly what Bill C-11 would have done.

I was on the committee and supported the changes. It was helpful to make amendments to ensure they would have a choice. If people were to blow the whistle now, they would have the choices that were in Bill C-11 and additional ones, if they chose to use them. That is really important. This is cutting edge and if Bill C-11 had been proclaimed then, the government of the day would have had the excuse of saying it wanted to see it operate for a while.

Speak to people who have actually blown the whistle, like Dr. Chopra. Ask what he thinks of it. He would tell us, because I have talked with him, that Bill C-11 is substandard. It does not meet the test. He is delighted this is coming forward.

The final thing is to pressure the government to clean up all those cases before Bill C-2 is proclaimed and enacted. I have asked the government to do that and I hope it does it soon. People's careers have been destroyed, like Dr. Chopra, for doing nothing more than standing up and doing the right thing in the interest of Canadians.