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.