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

November 20th, 2006 / 5:30 p.m.

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments on this, but I still need to get some clarification. If Bill C-2 is going to make amendments to Bill C-11 to make it better, Bill C-11 still has to be proclaimed before Bill C-2 is proclaimed. We have to have an act that is actually in force and in law before Bill C-2.

If the member wants Bill C-2 to be in place and passed before we rise on December 15, should not Bill C-11 be proclaimed so that we can get the process moving? Everyone would understand the rules of the game under which they would be operating. It just is not clear enough to the public service whether or not the provisions in Bill C-11 as amended by Bill C-2 are going to be in place.

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

5:30 p.m.

NDP

Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, the concern I would have is if the government proclaimed Bill C-11 and Bill C-2 was not passed, we would end up with Bill C-11 on the books. What I am saying to the member very directly is that Bill C-11 was flawed. Procedurally the member is correct in terms of the sequence that needs to happen and could happen.

What is in front of us right now is a bill that was passed here as amended and sent to the other place where it was meddled with. Quite frankly in some cases it was gutted and the whole orientation of the bill was changed and sent back to us.

For those who would blow the whistle it is small comfort to them that the intent of the other place was to improve it. At the end of the day what we have to look at is those markers that I mentioned before. The rules have to be clarified. The public interest has to be established. In the case of whistleblowers, having Bill C-11 proclaimed and then having Bill C-2 come into play could happen.

The concern I would have is if Bill C-11 were proclaimed and Bill C-2 did not pass, we would have a substandard whistleblower act. That is not good enough for the women and men who work in the public service.

Another side to that is that we need to extend the whistleblower legislation beyond crown corporations and governments. We need to talk about people who receive public dollars who are doing research. We have heard stories of people who are doing research in universities who are trying to follow the public interest and do the public service by blowing the whistle and they are not covered by the bill. We need to take a look at that after the bill is passed and perhaps amend it down the road. I suppose that is for another day but for now, we should pass this bill. Then we could get on to getting really decent whistleblower protection for the women and men in the public service.

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

5:30 p.m.

Liberal

Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-2, the so-called accountability act, a bill that was put together with a great deal of haste and one which has returned from the other place with a number of important amendments. I would like to speak to the spirit of this bill and the underlying motivations that seem to have resulted in legislation which, as we have discovered, is technically flawed in many respects and substantively flawed in its objectives.

I appreciate the work of the senators in the other place from both parties, in particular Senator Joe Day who has put forward reasonable amendments to make this legislation better. There were 30 days of hearings in the other place, 150 witnesses and a lot of very positive work.

When Bill C-2 was presented in this House it was done so under the political environment of a recent election and the concern that many Canadians had about ensuring that the taxpayers' money was protected from abuse. From the outset many of us were uncomfortable with the rapid and now we see irresponsible rush in which the President of the Treasury Board proceeded. Liberal members raised these concerns at committee.

In fact, the vast majority of amendments proposed by the Liberal members on the Bill C-2 committee last spring were defeated by the NDP-Conservative coalition. This was done for political and partisan reasons. It was clear then that public relations and scoring cheap political points were more important than bringing forward legislation that would in fact live up to its name.

After hearing more than 140 witnesses through many hours of hearings, the Senate committee under the leadership of Senator Day has placed before us amendments that we should seriously consider. Notwithstanding the constant flow of feigned outrage from the Treasury Board president, it would be totally irresponsible for the government and the House to ignore reasonable amendments that seek to strengthen the legislation thereby ensuring that it is in line with the charter and in the public interest.

In fact, it was the Treasury Board president who suggested in his own appearance before the Senate that the bill had been, to use his exact words, “examined with a microscope”. We now find out that this microscope was more like a periscope: long on rhetoric and narrow in focus.

David Hutton, coordinator of the Federal Accountability Initiative for Reform, described the drafting process that was employed to craft Bill C-2 as “deeply flawed”. He said that the bill “is complex and is full of loopholes when you dig into it. I feel that the committees have been given an impossible task, namely trying to turn this into effective legislation that meets intent”.

In addition to repairing numerous drafting errors which should have been caught before the bill was introduced, key amendments that came back include political financing. This is an area of particular importance to me, as it is to all members of the House of Commons. Not only am I a member of Parliament but, as many other members have done, I have run campaigns for other candidates and have worked a lot of elections. I was the president of the Nova Scotia Liberal Party sitting on the national executive and got involved in the financing of political parties.

It is important that we ensure that any new political donation regime does not unfairly restrict the participation of political parties in debate. I suggest the proposed change to $2,000 per year, the limit that came back from the other place, is an important change.

In 2003 Bill C-24 was introduced and passed by the Liberal government of former prime minister Jean Chrétien. It radically changed how elections are financed in Canada, notably reducing the amount of allowable donations to political parties. The current President of the Treasury Board acknowledged the usefulness of Bill C-24, which in fact contained a clause for its review, but there has been no review. There has just been introduction in this bill of more political reform, which I do not think makes a lot of sense.

Clearly, the government has failed to produce any evidence that the existing limits are undermining the electoral process at the federal level. Furthermore, political donations play an important role in our democratic system. Limiting them too strictly has the potential to limit participation of smaller political parties, as well as all Canadians who wish to participate in the political system.

Why would the government introduce these strict limits? If we look across Canada at what provinces are doing in their own electoral districts, it is pretty interesting. I would like to take a minute to let people know what those limits are across Canada right now.

In Newfoundland and Labrador there are no contribution limits to political parties.

In Prince Edward Island there are no contribution limits.

In Nova Scotia there have been none. In fact, last week new political financing legislation was brought forward into the House of Assembly in Nova Scotia. I believe the limit there would be $5,000.

In New Brunswick there is a maximum of $6,000 during a calendar year to each registered political party or to a registered district association of that registered political party.

In Quebec contribution limits are a maximum of $3,000 to each party, independent member and independent candidate, collectively, during the same calendar year.

Ontario has contribution limits. The maximum contribution a person, corporation or trade union may make is $7,500 to each party in a calendar year and in any campaign period; $1,000 in any calendar year to each constituency association; an aggregate of $5,000 to the constituency associations of any one party; $1,000 to each candidate in a campaign period; an aggregate of $5,000 to candidates endorsed by any one party.

In Manitoba individuals may contribute a maximum of $3,000 in a calendar year to candidates, constituency associations or registered political parties, or any combination.

In Saskatchewan there are no limits on contributions.

In Alberta the limits are $15,000 to each registered party, $1,000 to any registered constituency association, and $5,000 in the aggregate to constituency associations of each registered party, and then further regulations in any campaign period: $30,000 to each registered party, less any amount contributed to the party in the calendar year.

In British Columbia registered political parties or constituency associations may accept a maximum of $10,000 in permitted anonymous contributions. Candidates, leadership contestants and nomination contestants may accept a maximum of $3,000 in permitted contributions.

In Yukon there are no contribution limits.

The Northwest Territories has what seem to be the strictest limits. An individual or corporation may contribute a maximum of $1,500 to a candidate during a campaign period, but a candidate may contribute a maximum of $30,000 of his or her own funds in his or her own campaign.

These election limits that have been brought in dramatically exceed any other election financing reform that has been brought in across Canada, reforms that have been brought in, in provinces led by a whole series of different types of government, different parties in power.

One witness at the Senate committee, Arthur Kroeger, the chair of the Canadian Policy Research Networks and a former deputy minister in five federal government departments, told the Senate committee:

What problem are we trying to solve? Were there abuses when the level was $5,400? I do not know. I do not remember reading of any such abuses. Were there abuses that merit the reduced levels of contributions that were permitted by business and unions? If you cannot identify the problem that justifies a provision in the bill, then have you lost balance and have you pushed things too far? Those are questions in my mind...Do we truly need to go that far to achieve good governance and are we risking harm? It is possible.

When we look at what provinces across the country have done, that would seem to back that up.

It is certainly not just Liberals who are making the case that these stringent donation limits are unreasonable and unnecessary. Lowell Murray, a Progressive Conservative senator from the great province of Nova Scotia, a highly respected figure and a former close adviser to two Progressive Conservative former prime ministers, the Right Hon. Joe Clark and the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney, said in the Senate recently, I believe on third reading, after the committee hearings, “I would delete from the bill all the provisions respecting political financing”.

There are a lot of very interesting comments, but let me just stick to the political financing piece. He talked about examples of how this legislation is flawed. He went on to say:

Another example is in the creation of a directorate of public prosecutions. This may or may not be necessary--probably not--

To get back to financing, he said:

This bill purports to introduce further reforms to our political financing and elections laws. The committee has recommended amendments to the government's proposals. I am more persuaded by the argument of Professor Peter Aucoin, who told the committee that those proposals have no place in the omnibus Bill C-2 and should be considered as part of an overall examination of elections and political financing law.

He said later in his speech:

The examination of our political financing and election laws that I believe is necessary must go forward, in my view, and my amendment would remove from Bill C-2 the various provisions relating to political financing in the hope of a principled examination of this whole field, a principled examination of our electoral and parliamentary democracy, by people who have relevant experience in it.

That speaks directly to the issue of this bill being too large and too cumbersome, trying to do too many things for political reasons and not being based on evidence nor history.

Increasing the maximum personal contribution to $2,000 from the proposed $1,000 would still be a significant reduction from the current $5,400 that came in under Bill C-24, but I would support the $2,000 limit.

There are many other amendments that involve access to information and technical changes that were necessary because it was rushed legislation. Certainly, the clearest proof of that was the recent attempt to alter the legislation to cover up the practice of the Conservative Party of not counting delegate fees as political donations, which was clearly not the intent of the act. It was never understood by any political party that I know of as being the case, and it has been acknowledged by Canada's Chief Electoral Officer as being the wrong policy.

One of the advantages of the other place looking at this so carefully was that it gave people a chance to make some comments, people who have expertise in this area. I had mentioned before Mr. Kroeger, the chair of the Canadian Policy Research Network. He also said:

If the legislation had been written by a government with more experience in office, it may not have some items in it that it does, which I will explain in a minute.

He went on to explain, and then said:

There is the other problem that some of the contents of legislation were, I think, developed during an election campaign, and there is always a risk of a bit of overkill for the sake of achieving a public effect--

Dr. David Zussman, the Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management at the University of Ottawa, indicated, in talking about the new positions in this bill:

In each case, we are creating new positions at considerable cost to the taxpayers of Canada, so we have to ask ourselves simply will these costs produce results that will make a tangible difference or a marginal difference over the information and analysis that we already have.

Alan Leadbeater, deputy information commissioner of the Office of the Information Commissioner, suggested:

--Bill C-2 would authorize new and broad zones of secrecy, which will have the effect of reducing the accountability of government through transparency...Bill C-2 will reduce the amount of information available to the public, will weaken the oversight role of the Information Commissioner, will increase government’s ability to cover up wrongdoing and shield itself from embarrassment.

These are a number of comments that came from the hearings that were held in the other place.

This is a deeply flawed bill. I support accountability and I support some of the measures that are in this bill, but these amendments that have come back from the other place are worthy of everybody's attention and support.

It is obvious to most people, except perhaps those on the government side, that this bill is a blunt instrument to achieve political gains. As is so often the case when politics is the primary motivation, bad law is created, and thankfully we now have an opportunity to correct these flaws. I encourage all parties to support these amendments and to make this legislation live up to its name, the accountability act.

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

5:45 p.m.

Ottawa West—Nepean Ontario

Conservative

John Baird ConservativePresident of the Treasury Board

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the speech by my colleague from Nova Scotia. If the amendments presented by the Liberal Party are not adopted, does he plan to go on record as opposing the bill?

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

5:45 p.m.

Liberal

Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS

Mr. Speaker, I think it is safe for anybody in public life to take things one step at a time. The most important thing for us to do is to make the case for these amendments, to put them forward, and to convince my hon. colleague, the President of the Treasury Board, that they in fact enhance his bill and make it easier to accomplish the goals that are stated.

We should all vote on those amendments and then decide how we vote on the bill. He is not Kreskin. He will not know how I vote until later this week or next week, but I will give it every consideration.

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

5:45 p.m.

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting how the government talks about the Liberal senators who hung the bill up, but I know that the President of the Treasury Board actually accepted a very large number of those amendments. Of some 140, I think 40 were actually made by Conservative senators. They have a job to do and it is reflective of the work that they did. It is a mischaracterization of the Senate's work to say that they are dragging their feet because they did their job. They had the time to do it which we were not given in this place. That is the reality.

The member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour raises some interesting aspects, but I want to share with him one thing I found at a conference two weeks ago at which I was a panellist. It dealt with accountability. One of the consistent messages coming from the legal professors and experts commenting on the bill was that they were concerned that the bill was based on a foundation of presumption of guilt of the public service, politicians and everyone involved in public life as opposed to the presumption of innocence. The concern was that many of the administrative overlays being proposed in Bill C-2 would decrease the productivity of the public service because everyone was swept under the same umbrella of guilt.

It is an interesting point for them to raise. I wonder if the member has a comment on whether or not the concerns with regard to the accountability of this place should have focused more in terms of where the risk elements were and where we needed to shore up things rather than to blanket the whole system with a layer of administrative and unproductive activity.

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

5:50 p.m.

Liberal

Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's point is entirely correct. One of the things that makes the bill so flawed is that it attempts to solve a lot of problems which actually do not exist and does not get at some of the problems that do exist.

We heard from the opposite side that some of these recommendations came as a result of circumstances reported by Justice John Gomery. In fact, Professor Denis Saint-Martin of the University of Montreal said, in terms of recommending what needs to be fixed, the two approaches are totally different. In some other ways, as I indicated with political financing, we are not getting at what the problems really are. We are focused on the wrong issues and taking attention away from those things that really matter.

We in this place all agree that the people at the Public Service of Canada are worthy of our respect and we are thankful to them. They are honest hard-working people. We need to ensure that any changes that we make respect that and if there is behaviour that needs to be corrected, we catch that behaviour, but not blanket the entire public service and direct our attention on circumstances or issues that are not broken. We should focus on things that need attention.

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

5:50 p.m.

Conservative

Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the presentation made by my counterpart across the way. I just checked the member's financial return on the Elections Canada website. He had four individuals who gave $1,000 or more. One of them gave over $1,000. I want to know, if he only had one donation in the last election from an individual for over $1,000, why he is worried about capping it at $1,000? He did get six corporate donations of $1,000 or more which is interesting, but I want to know why he is concerned about that one donation?

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

5:50 p.m.

Liberal

Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS

Mr. Speaker, I am glad that my colleague from Burlington cares enough about me to be checking up on my personal information and my campaigns. I would be happy to send him my brochures and he might learn a little bit from that.

The fact that I only had one donation of more than $1,000 shows that we do not act in self-interest on this side of the House. We act in the public interest on this side of the House. We want to do what is right for Canada. We want to do what is right for all people. We want people to participate in the democratic process in a way that makes sense.

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

5:50 p.m.

Bloc

Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak this afternoon about Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act. The Bloc Québécois really liked this bill, which seeks to make democracy more transparent. That is why the Bloc Québécois put its heart and soul into studying this bill, a process that was conducted at a fast pace.

This morning, the President of the Treasury Board stated that he was proud of his race for the Guinness record. He said that this bill could have been adopted just nine weeks after the election on January 23 and that members had put in 90 hours of work in six weeks and had passed the bill in 72 days. He was bragging and very proud of this performance, when he should have been a bit sad. Today, he can see that that whole mad dash was for nought.

I had the pleasure of sitting on the Bill C-2 legislative committee. I saw, with my own eyes, that the witnesses did not have time to explain fully. They had only two minutes each and had to speak in quick succession. The witnesses had no time to go into detail, and we did not have time to question them. They gave us lengthy documents that we did not have time to consult. We did not even have time to read them between the meetings.

It is only natural that a bill that was looked at quickly should come back to this House today with so many amendments. This is a substantial bill approximately 200 pages in length, with 300 clauses. Some witnesses even refused to appear before the Bill C-2 legislative committee, saying that they had not had time to study and analyze the bill. As a result, we did not hear all the important witnesses.

When there were witnesses, I nearly always used what little time I had to ask them one question that I felt was crucial. I asked them whether they believed that, with the bill as it is currently written, the sponsorship scandal could happen again.

Unfortunately none of the witnesses said this could not happen again, despite the 300 clauses in the bill. This needed to happen quickly and we did not have the time to look at anything. Furthermore, we knew, and we said, that this bill had some problems. If you check the blues of that committee, you will see that a number of committee members—witnesses as well as MPs—noticed these problems, raised them and deplored them. We said time and time again that there would be problems.

There is a saying that goes, “Slowly but surely”. Another one goes, “Something worth doing is worth doing well”. We cannot make a flower grow any faster by pulling on its stem. Often a bill is like a small flower. Today, this government is no further ahead. It is far from its nine weeks—maybe it had an even shorter goal—and 72 hours of work. We should have taken our time.

The work done in committee is extremely important. However, it is nice to have the time, between two witnesses, to read what the witnesses have prepared or even to read it in advance if they had time to send documents beforehand. The members of the legislative committee did not have time to read the documents beforehand and did not have time to read them afterward because they had to hurry off to attend another committee meeting. In the meantime, while we were going over Bill C-2, the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics slammed on the brakes, even though the Access to Information Act should have been included in BIll C-2.

The Access to Information Act was passed in 1983. Despite a number of requests for its review, it has stayed essentially the same. The Conservative government chose not to include the Access to Information Act in its Bill C-2. We know this is a mistake.

The President of the Treasury Board contends that further consultations are necessary. His colleague, the Minister of Justice, appeared before the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics and told us to draft legislation. We told him that the legislation was already in place. Back in 1987, the Standing Committee on Justice and the Solicitor General made 100 recommendations to reform the act.

In August 2000, the President of the Treasury Board and the Minister of Justice at the time struck a task force to review the act, the regulations and the policies on which the present access to information scheme is based. In November 2001, the Bryden committee—I do not know if that name rings a bell, Mr. Speaker, but it has been coming up regularly for quite a while in this place—proposed a dozen recommendations that it regarded as priorities. I should point out that the current Minister of Justice signed that report. This House also had an opportunity to debate this act, when a number of members introduced private members’ bills. The Information Commissioner even proposed a complete bill to the government in October 2005, that is to say one year ago.

When the justice minister came and asked us to submit a new bill to him, we said no, adding that he already had enough information, which he could have included in Bill C-2. We asked him to introduce a new access to information bill no later than December 15.

I bring up this very important motion passed in committee because I want to remind the Minister of Justice that he has very little time left to draft this bill. He has only 20 days or so left. I hope he is already working on it.

Of course, there is another proverb which says that nature abhors a vacuum. This is why the Senate proposed 158 amendments. Senators took their time. They reviewed the legislation and in fact they heard witnesses who had come before our committee. However, they took the time to talk to these people, to read their submissions and to listen to what they had to say. So, senators proposed 158 amendments. Now, the government is coming back with 50 clauses that it wants to change regarding these amendments. The Liberal Party also has an amendment dealing with at least four aspects of the bill, while the Bloc Québécois is proposing an amendment dealing with four measures.

This means that the House of Commons is doing the work that the committee should have done last spring, slowly, not too quickly, but surely.

The Bloc's amendments are very relevant. First, we have the two ethics commissioners. It is obvious that there should only be one commissioner, because the Senate's ethics counsellor is only accountable to a Senate committee. There is no need to elaborate on this situation. Let us just say that their ethics counsellor is somewhat like the Howard Wilson that we had here, who was accountable to the then Prime Minister.

As for the Canadian Wheat Board, it is appropriate that it be added to the list of organizations subject to the Access to Information Act. Why? Because three administrators are appointed by the government. The Auditor General already has the right to audit this board. Some say that the government does not fund this organization, but that is not true. It guarantees the contracts of the board's clients. For 20 years the Canadian Wheat Board has cost Canadian and Quebec taxpayers several billions of dollars. That is right. The money is not an issue. But at least the board should be subject to the Access to Information Act.

The Bloc amendments also require that documents used to prepare internal audit reports be subject to the Access to Information Act. Recent events, including the sponsorship scandal, have shown that it is absolutely necessary for the public to have access to these documents.

There is also an interpretation clause on the public interest. It seems to me that it is important to be able to act in the public interest when a document is not accessible. We must prove that it is in the public interest to have access. If it is proven to be in the public interest, it seems normal to me that a government open its books.

Finally, delegate expenses at political conventions must be considered donations because that is what they are. Delegates are charged almost $1,000 to attend a convention or meeting. However, we know that is not the real cost. Obviously a profit is made and that must be considered as financing.

These are the Bloc subamendments. As I mentioned earlier, the House of Commons is now doing the work that it should have done slowly but surely last spring.

In closing, I absolutely want to remind the President of Treasury Board's colleague, the Minister of Justice, that he only has 20 days to submit his access to information bill to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

6 p.m.

Ottawa West—Nepean Ontario

Conservative

John Baird ConservativePresident of the Treasury Board

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by saying to the people watching this broadcast on television that the member for Malpeque will probably be making a speech. I therefore recommend that they postpone their suppers, because if they stay tuned, I am sure they will hear a good speech.

I would like to thank my colleague, the member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, for her speech. I am comfortable supporting the subamendment our colleagues from Quebec introduced. In light of the sponsorship scandal, it is very important for us, for all members of Parliament, to clean up the regulations and to clean up Canada's laws, and I am pleased with the member's positive intervention during this debate.

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6:05 p.m.

Bloc

Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC

I would like to thank the President of the Treasury Board for his comments. Nevertheless, I would like to emphasize what I said about the question I asked each one of the witnesses who appeared before the legislative committee that studied Bill C-2. I asked each one of them if they believed that the measures in Bill C-2 would have prevented the sponsorship scandal. None of them said yes.

I would just like the minister to think about that. I know that Bill C-2 is a valiant attempt, but it cannot prevent the sponsorship scandal from happening again, even though that is what it set out to do.

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6:05 p.m.

Liberal

Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member. I am still really baffled by the Bloc's position on the Canadian Wheat Board. In the member's remarks, her information was inaccurate on several points as it related to the Canadian Wheat Board. I know that the committee was rushed. I know the Conservative government tried to rush the bill through so as not to give members on the committee time to really review the act properly.

The member indicated that there are three directors appointed by the government. There are actually five directors appointed by the government. There are 10 members elected by producers. According to the legal definition under the act, and by the government's own legal advice, it is not an agency of the government. In fact, subsection 4(2) of the Canadian Wheat Board Act states:

The Corporation is not an agency of Her Majesty and is not a Crown corporation within the meaning of the Financial Administration Act.

The fact of the matter is that what will be the net impact by the Bloc amendment putting the Canadian Wheat Board under access to information and doing Prime Minister Harper's bidding for him is--

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6:05 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

I remind the hon. member for Malpeque that he must refer to other members of Parliament by either their riding name or their title, not their family name.

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

6:05 p.m.

Liberal

Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE

Mr. Speaker, my sincere apologies.

The president of the Canadian Wheat Board, in his letter to the Senate committee, not the House committee, said that this is what the impact would be:

The cost of responding to such requests is not insignificant...Therefore, the true beneficiaries of adding the [Canadian Wheat Board] to [Access to Information Act] will primarily be non-farmers such as competitors and foreign antagonists that would be able to make information requests.

In other words, these are nuisance requests.

There are several single desk selling agencies in Quebec quite similar to the Canadian Wheat Board, without, of course, appointed directors, but they are not entities of the government of Quebec either. Why would the Bloc Québécois be willing to impose, desirous of imposing, additional costs on primary producers? It is the producers who pay all the costs to the Canadian Wheat Board, not the Government of Canada. Why would the Bloc be willing to get in bed with the Prime Minister and disadvantage western Canadian grain farmers in terms of competing with the rest of the world? Why?

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

6:05 p.m.

Bloc

Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois does not wish to be a nuisance to any organization or individual, quite the contrary. You know how committed to the interests of Quebeckers we are; we always go for what makes good common sense.

Common sense would have it that the Canadian Wheat Board should be subject to the Access to Information Act. There might be five directors instead of three, but becoming subject to the act does not weaken the board. In fact, it would allow it to become even more relevant, to self-criticize, to be more transparent and more democratic. The fact of the matter is that the last remarks of the hon. member for Malpèque could be applied to every other crown corporation so as to exempt them for exactly the same reasons, arguing that there will be nuisance requests.

The Access to Information Act contains all that is necessary to deal with requests that are frivolous, unfounded or a waste of time.

The Canadian Wheat Board has cost taxpayers in Quebec and Canada a few billion dollars over the past 20 years. Given that it comes under the Auditor General's supervision, it would only be normal that it also be subject to the Access to Information Act.

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

6:10 p.m.

Bloc

Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague mentioned earlier a few sayings that have to do with the time it takes to act. I would like to add another one, Age quod agis. This proverb defines the municipality where I live and it means, “whatever you do, do it well”. It is similar to what my colleague was saying. She referred to the fact that she felt rushed. She noted that the witnesses called by the legislative committee on Bill C-2 were also rushed and did not have enough time to properly give their testimony.

In the member's opinion, would the bill be better and would it protect public interest better if the legislative committee had taken longer to study it thoroughly and properly, and if the whole issue of access to information had been referred to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics?

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6:10 p.m.

Bloc

Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to thank my colleague from Saint-Maurice—Champlain for his question.

One of the cities in his riding is Shawinigan, which calls to mind the origins of Bill C-2, the federal accountability act.

To answer his question, I have to say that the undue speed of the work did not make for speedier results in this case. That is why I quoted several proverbs about the time it takes to do something well. Things that are worth doing are worth doing well. In the end, we always have to check and redo something we have done poorly.

As for Bill C-2, even though the government stepped up the work and tried to win a special prize from the Guinness Book of World Records, today, on November 20, we are no further ahead, and the President of the Treasury Board is no further ahead than he would have been if he had taken the time to do things properly. In addition, we would be even more pleased and even happier to pass this bill.

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

6:10 p.m.

Liberal

Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT

Mr. Speaker, for the first time this year I will have to agree with the President of the Treasury Board: when the member for Malpeque speaks, he will be dynamic, so people at home should wait and listen.

I want to ask again about the Canadian Wheat Board. In a normal year and under normal circumstances, the Wheat Board costs the Government of Canada absolutely nothing.

The members of the House are perplexed that the Bloc is not supporting the amendment, because Quebec depends on supply management. Would the member like all the supply management organizations in Quebec to come under the federal government? The idea is that the Wheat Board is not a federal government body. It is the farmers' organization. We do not want to impose federal government regulations on the Wheat Board. We want to keep it independent.

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

6:10 p.m.

Bloc

Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC

Mr. Speaker, it seems that the member for Malpeque's speech is not to be missed.

I thought that my colleague was going to talk about my speech, but that is okay.

The Canadian Wheat Board is financed in part—if one can say “in part”—by Quebec and Canadian taxpayers. That is why we feel it is important that it be subject to the Access to Information Act.

The Auditor General can investigate the organization. The government appoints five directors. It is not quite the same as a crown corporation, but we cannot say that whether some crown corporations are subject to the act depends on how much money they get from the government. The Canadian Wheat Board is funded in part by the government—indirectly, perhaps, but it is funded. Directors are appointed and the Auditor General can investigate. We think it makes sense for it to be subject to the Access to Information Act.

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

6:15 p.m.

Liberal

Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by commenting on a point the member made in his remarks. The fact is that the Government of Canada does not in any way subsidize the Canadian Wheat Board.

What the Government of Canada does, from time to time, by order in council, is it provides guarantees to the wheat pools in terms of the marketing of grain. I will give an analogy. It would almost be the same as acting like a bank. If the government were to provide a loan guarantee to a manufacturer, it would not be reasonable to expect that the manufacturer should then become subject to access to information. On the contrary. A person interested in the issue would make an access to information request to the government that provided the money.

It therefore is wrong to suggest that the Government of Canada is providing billions to the Canadian Wheat Board because it is not. An incident occurred five or six years ago where it had to provide some millions of dollars to back up the government guarantee on initial prices but that money went to producers, which was a good thing. I would hope that the Bloc Québécois reconsiders its motion to put the Canadian Wheat Board under access to information.

I am pleased to speak to the accountability act and amendments made thereto. Specifically I will address the amendment made to put the Canadian Wheat Board under the Access to Information Act. It was interesting earlier listening to the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board as he tried to justify putting the Canadian Wheat Board under access to information but he failed miserably in terms of his argument.

When I asked the parliamentary secretary to justify his statement that farmers wanted access to information to apply, he failed to answer the question and went on a bit of a rant by saying that anyone who would oppose access to information must not want any crown corporation to fall under access. He knows that is not true. We believe that, yes, government agencies and government departments should fall under access to information, but let us be clear, the Canadian Wheat Board is not a government agency and that is the bottom line.

However, even the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food has tried to imply the same thing many times. In fact, in a letter to the chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs who was looking at this bill, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food said:

Mr. Ritter argued that the CWB is not considered a Crown corporation. However, it is a government entity that was established by the Government of Canada through legislation and regulation. The CWB is therefore accountable to the Government of Canada and access to information rules should apply.

It is also important to note that the Government of Canada does [not] have [any] involvement in the operations of the Canadian Wheat Board.

That parliamentary secretary is wrong also. The Canadian Wheat Board does provide basically the same as access to information but does not need to deal with the nuisance requests that we get through access to information. It provides an annual report. It has elected directors and those directors hold meetings with their constituents, the same as we do. That is a way of providing access. They hold annual meetings at which financial officers of the Canadian Wheat Board are there to answer questions. They have full access through the audited report. The Auditor General also is a possibility, as well as the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.

In many ways, the government opposite does remind us of a government in the 1800s in terms of some of the policies it brings forward. Maybe it is thinking back to the time prior to 1998, when in fact the Canadian Wheat Board was seen as an agency of the Government of Canada, but that changed legislatively in 1998. Amendments to the Canadian Wheat Board Act were made and control of the corporation was given over to farmers. What it says in the act itself about whether it is an agency or not is found in subsection 4(2) of the Canadian Wheat Board Act, which states:

The Corporation is not an agent of Her Majesty and is not a Crown corporation within the meaning of the Financial Administration Act.

Simply put, this amendment is back in here by the Bloc at the behest of the Prime Minister, who will do almost anything to undermine the board's competitiveness. The parliamentary secretary and the President of the Treasury Board are basically allowing it to happen.

Let us look at a little history. Initially, the government and the President of the Treasury Board himself did not bring forward a government amendment to put the Canadian Wheat Board under access to information in the first instance. There is a reason for that. The minister knows and he knows full well that the legal advice from within the Government of Canada from the Department of Justice was not to put the Canadian Wheat Board under access to information, because it is not a government entity and it is not a government agency. That is why. To this day we have not seen an amendment from the government itself to put the Canadian Wheat Board under access to information.

When the bill was at committee, it was really the NDP member for Winnipeg Centre, in his brief love affair with the Conservative government as they worked on the accountability act together, who was trying to do things. I do not know why or for what. For a favour? Certainly we often see the leader of the NDP getting up to support the Prime Minister time after time. They are certainly in bed together on the environmental issues and in terms of destroying Kyoto, but I digress.

Clearly the member for Winnipeg Centre made an amendment in haste to put the Canadian Wheat Board under access to information and the government was overjoyed to accept it. When the bill came back to the House, the NDP had seen the error of its ways and agreed to vote in favour of another amendment that would have taken access to information out of the bill.

However, in the meantime, something happened. We really do not know what. We do know that the Prime Minister had a little chat with the leader of the separatists and suddenly the Bloc Québécois voted against the amendment to take the Wheat Board out from under access to information.

Was a deal cut? I do not know, but it seems awfully strange to me that a discussion between the Prime Minister of Canada and the leader of a separatist party would create a deal to put the Canadian Wheat Board under access to information. It is awfully suspicious.

We do know what the end result of this will be. The Prime Minister will do anything to undermine the Canadian Wheat Board. What for? The Americans have challenged us 11 times and we have won every time. The people who will gain if the Canadian Wheat Board is destroyed are those in the international grain trade, mostly centred in the United States. Is the Prime Minister doing favours for them? Or who? In any event, we know that the Bloc sold out western farmers in that amendment by putting access to information up against the Canadian Wheat Board.

When the bill got to the Senate, the place of sober second thought, the Senate did in fact amend it and got it out again.

When the bill got to the Senate, the place of sober second thought, the Senate amended it and sent it out again. Now we have the Bloc bringing forward the amendment again. What is happening is interesting. Something is going on between the Prime Minister and the leader of the separatist party but it will be the farmers in western Canada who will be paying a price for the Prime Minister's little arrangement with the leader of the separatist party.

Now we have this deal for the third time to weaken the board by access requests. The government has only one agenda with respect to the Canadian Wheat Board and that is its destruction through any means, which it will take right up to the very line of legality.

The parliamentary secretary told the western producer, which was quoted in an April 20 article of this year after the bill had been introduced and the provision of the Canadian Wheat Board was not included, and keep in mind that I said the President of the Treasury Board and the government did not include it, that “The minister”, meaning the President of the Treasury Board, “told me that there is every intention to make the change (to include the Canadian Wheat Board) but there just wasn't time to get it into the bill”.

He went on to say that the real problem was trying to “get the wording right” in order to find a way to prevent the loss of commercially sensitive information. Given that the government never introduced the amendment, we can only conclude that it never found the right wording to protect the commercially sensitive information and the government accepted the NDP amendments to include the Canadian Wheat Board because it no longer cared if that information was protected.

Hartley Furtan, a noted agriculture economist, in a recent report on the Canadian Wheat Board, stated:

The cost of CWB services varies from year to year depending upon the volume handled. The actual costs are reported each year in the annual report. Comparable marketing costs for large private grain trading firms are not publicly available.

What we are really seeing here is that the Canadian Wheat Board is being put at a disadvantage. We must keep in mind that the Canadian Wheat Board is for farmers. It maximizes returns back to primary producers and farmers pay the full cost. The cost of access to information and these nuisance requests coming from the likes of Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland, friends of the Prime Minister obviously, will be a cost that farmers bear. No other commercial grain organization is under that kind of requirement. Why is the Government of Canada imposing that kind of prohibitive cost on primary producers in western Canada?

In a letter from the president of the Canadian Wheat Board to the standing committee on legal and constitutional affairs had this to say:

Farmers already have access to the sorts of information that ATIA could provide for them through the information policy instituted by the board of directors. If the CWB becomes subject to ATIA the administrative costs to farmers will increase with no incremental benefit in increased transparency. The cost of responding to such requests is not insignificant. Therefore, the true beneficiaries of adding the CWB to the ATIA will primarily be non-farmers such as competitors and foreign antagonists that would be able to make information requests.

Subjecting the CWB to ATIA will put it at a disadvantage to its commercial competitors. These competitors could gain access to types of information about the CWB that the CWB could not obtain from them. It would also open up sensitive information to access by its international antagonists (primarily, the United States).

Federal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

6:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

The hon. member for Malpeque will have five minutes left for his speech the next time the House resumes consideration of this bill.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

6:30 p.m.

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that in the modernization of parliamentary proceedings, a change was made where during the adjournment proceedings the presenter and respondent were permitted to take a place that was opposite each other. Because there were so few people in the House it would give them a chance to have a dialogue. That change was adopted by the House and I am pleased that I had an opportunity to leave that fingerprint on this place.

Back in June I asked a question of the foreign affairs minister. It had to do with Mr. Huseyin Celil who had travelled to Uzbekistan, had been detained by the Uzbek authorities and had been sentenced in absentia to death in China for apparently alleged terrorist activities, et cetera.

I have had this conversation with the parliamentary secretary before, but it is timely that we have just come through a situation with the APEC meetings that the Prime Minister had an on again, off again, on again, off again meeting, albeit an informal one, 15 minutes long to discuss numerous issues. Interestingly enough the name that came up with regard to human rights was Huseyin Celil.

Mr. Celil has become the government's poster boy on the issue of human rights. I am really surprised that at the APEC meetings the Prime Minister chose Mr. Celil as the person whose case would be used with regard to our concerns for human rights.

Canada has a long tradition of defending the rights and freedoms of the individual. We have a Canadian citizen, Mr. Celil, an imam of the Muslim faith.

I had asked my question at a time when Mr. Celil had been detained by the Uzbek authorities. There is a relationship between Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, China and others. It is called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. It is similar to Interpol. It basically says that if someone is in a jurisdiction and there is a quasi-Interpol notice that the person be detained, it will cooperate and have the person extradited to a jurisdiction.

The issue is that Mr. Celil was detained in Uzbekistan when he was there visiting with family members and he was going to be extradited. I asked the foreign affairs minister whether he would visit the ambassador in the U.S., since Canada does not have an ambassador from Uzbekistan, to negotiate the release of Mr. Celil and send a delegation to Uzbekistan to get Mr. Celil into Canada's hands. The answer from Uzbekistan was that it would have preferred to have Mr. Celil released to Canada but Canada had shown insufficient interest in the file.

After Mr. Celil has been extradited to China, why is it that now we are talking about Huseyin Celil when it is in fact too late?

6:30 p.m.

Calgary East Alberta

Conservative

Deepak Obhrai ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs

Mr. Speaker, in his presentation, the member for Mississauga South said that Mr. Celil had been sentenced in absentia, and I can tell him that he has not. As far as we are concerned, we have been informed that the investigation continues, that Mr. Celil has not been tried or sentenced so far, and no trial date has been set. I thought I would correct that piece of information and bring it to the member's attention.

In reference to the issue of Mr. Celil, the Minister of Foreign Affairs has made extensive representations to the government of China. The minister has met with Mr. Celil's family and continues to take a personal interest in this case. The Government of Canada takes this case very seriously and continues to approach the Chinese at every opportunity and at every level of government.

Repeated representations have been made. In fact, just this past weekend, the Prime Minister spoke directly with the Chinese president and raised Mr. Celil's case. Canada continues to stress that he is a Canadian citizen. The Minister of Foreign Affairs has raised this issue with the Chinese foreign minister on three occasions, most recently in person during a bilateral meeting at the APEC meeting in Vietnam.

I would like to assure the hon. member that we are making every effort to obtain access to Mr. Celil in China. We will continue efforts to confirm Mr. Celil's well-being and to ensure that he is afforded due process and that his rights are protected. Meanwhile, DFAIT officials continue to maintain regular contact with Mr. Celil's family in Canada.

Canada and China share important political, economic and people to people ties. Canada remains committed to building our strong bilateral relationship. This government is chairing Canada's relationship with China very effectively. Our primary goal is to protect the interests of Canadians in tune with our values. We understand China's considerable and growing importance to Canada and to the world politically and economically. For these reasons, we are committed to full and constructive relations with the government of the People's Republic of China wherever our interests are at stake, including in trade and investment, human rights and the rule of law, security, for example, on crime and terrorism, health and on the environment.

Are there challenges in our relationship? Of course there are challenges. There are differences in outlook and interests in all bilateral relationships. That is the nature of and reason for diplomacy. This government will always defend the interests of Canadians and will seek to influence China on issues of significance to Canada.

Canada maintains five diplomatic missions throughout China. Canada's embassy in Beijing is our largest in the world. It operates major trade and political development assistance and immigration programs. China is Canada's second largest trading partner after the United States, and commercial activity between our two countries continues to grow. China is also a source and destination for investment and a partner for science and technology.

The government is working to create the right environment for Canada's business community to benefit from China's potential in all these areas through the negotiation and implementation of various agreements. Therefore, our relationship with China is very important and we bring this issue out in front.