Debates of Nov. 21st, 2006

Federal Accountability Act

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-2, the federal accountability act.

First, I do not think there is any member in this place who does not share a common objective, which I believe the President of the Treasury Board said in his opening speech on April 25 of this year at the lead speech on second reading. He said, “Our goal, our commitment, simply put, is to make government more accountable”.

On this basis, I believe Bill C-2 had that goal as its fundamental principle and, as such, it received the unanimous support of all parties at second reading and through the rest of the process. I am sure all hon. members will support the bill.

However, members will know that there have been a lot of discussions over a great period of time about how the bill was done. There were concerns when the bill was first tabled. The government put forward a very significant document. I do not believe there is any other bill, which I have had to work on as a parliamentarian, that touches so many other acts. It is an omnibus bill.

The bill touches a very large number of acts and it is difficult to read. We cannot start at the beginning, go through and see the story, the lead up, the plot, the end of it and everybody lives happily ever after. It is not like that. Every section of it refers to amending some other piece of existing legislation. There are also some transitional positions, et cetera, but in the main we are basically amending a very large number of other legislation.

When we looked at Bill C-2, we had something over 200 pages. Then we were told at the outset that the government wanted it passed. I believe April 25 was the first debate, and it wanted it passed by the summer.

It begs the question about how parliamentarians discharge their responsibilities. In the prayer we start the House with every day we say that we make good laws and wise decisions. It is not possible to have done this bill justice in such a short time and yet it was at the government's insistence that we push this matter because it wanted the bill passed by the summer. It is now November.

There have been a lot of questions about whether someone has been delaying the process, whether it be in the House or in the Senate. Parliamentarians not only have the right but they have the duty to do the job as they see fit, to make good laws and wise decisions. I do not think any member of Parliament, except those possibly who were on the special legislative committee to deal with Bill C-2, had the opportunity and the time to get into the detail. However, we all had an opportunity to look at aspects of the bill in which we may have had some background.

Canadians should understand, when parliamentarians rise to vote on Bill C-2 tonight on the subamendment, on the amendment, on the concurrence and on the passage of the bill to be sent back to the Senate, that members of Parliament have had to rely on many other people in this chamber who have done the work in a great bit of detail.

I wanted to make that point because we have, with a very large bill, a situation where members of Parliament have been asked to rely on the work of others in order for them to make an informed decision. It is very difficult, and I have some reservation about some of the areas of the bill. However, because there was an alliance formed by the government and another party, the amount of time that was available for the debate and to consider amendments, even at report stage, was truncated substantially. There was a forced position. In fact, we did not even have a final vote before it went to the Senate. Basically, we deemed that the question was put and deemed that it was passed. There was no recorded division on it.

It suggests to me, and I am sure it suggests to those observers who watch the legislative process, that when a bill is put together in such haste, there will be mistakes. I do not think anyone in this place will deny the fact that there were mistakes made in the bill that Parliament passed and referred to the Senate.

In fact, the President of the Treasury Board, in dealing with the work of the Senate, estimated that there were about 154 amendments proposed by senators. The Senate is composed of Liberal and Conservative senators, and 42 of those amendments came from Conservative senators. Of the 150-some odd amendments, the President of the Treasury Board accepted, without debate, without further consideration, 57 amendments.

The fact is the President of the Treasury Board, who is the minister responsible for Bill C-2, accepted some 57 amendments proposed by the Senate to make this a better bill. For that to happen, I think the Senate demonstrated that it did the job it was put there to do.

The Senate reviewed the legislation. It came up with changes, and we are still considering other amendments. The President of the Treasury Board has laid out, and the members can see, some of the brief reasons why some of the other proposed amendments are not acceptable to the government. That is his job. I believe this debate will find there are still a couple of items that yet remain unresolved.

In the main, I think all members of Parliament understand that Bill C-2 will pass the House and go back to the Senate. I want to advise members that the Senate has already made some consideration as to what happens when it goes back to the Senate. It has decided to have the bill immediately referred back to its legislative committee to advise the Senate on the appropriate course of action to take. The Senate is ready and waiting for this bill.

I am hopeful we will see Bill C-2 pass at all stages, get it through the Senate and receive royal assent prior to the House rising. The proclamation of the bill is up to the government.

I want to make one explanation. Even though a bill passes through the House of Commons and the Senate and receives royal assent, it is not in force. It is law but it is not in force until it is proclaimed. I raise that because we have the same issue with regard to another bill, Bill C-11, the whistleblower legislation, which passed and received royal assent in the last Parliament, and I will comment on that bill.

Bill C-2 is about accountability. I think we know that we have the support of all hon. members in the House to make the bill as good as possible, to ensure that it passes and that we get some of the important provisions started. Much of the legislation will require a lot of changes within the public service of Canada, within the administration of political parties and within all these acts. The Chief Electoral Officer will to have quite a job to do.

A week ago Friday, I was pleased to participate as a panellist at a special conference in Ottawa on the subject matter of accountability, with specific reference to Bill C-2. It was a four day conference and I followed some of it. I found out that many of the panellists and presenters were law scholars, professors from universities and experts on various aspects of law such as access to information. Members of Parliament and senators participated as well.

I found it fascinating that a debate was going on as to what we meant by accountability. It was interesting how different speakers had different definitions for accountability. Having recognized that, I went to the dictionary to find out what a lay dictionary would say about someone who is accountable. If we look up the word “accountable”, accountability is a form of usage. It basically said that accountability has to do with someone who is required to explain or justify his or her actions or decisions. That was the short definition of “accountable”.

As a chartered accountant, I worked a lot on public financing. There is a document called a prospectus which goes out to potential investors to give them all the information they need to make an informed decision about whether they want to invest in an offering. One of the principles in terms of requirements of a prospectus, which is very important, is that it give true, full and plain disclosure.

With that as background, I spoke at this conference and defined, for our purposes, accountability as a government or as anyone explaining and/or justifying their actions or decisions with true, full and plain disclosure. We can see all of a sudden that the definition is building because someone can be accountable to different degrees. We can be accountable by giving some part of a true, full and plain disclosure but the degree to which one is accountable comes into question.

I went on that theme but also wanted to look at some examples. A very simple example was in the throne speech that the government presented at the beginning of this Parliament. The Minister of Finance announced that there would be a decrease in taxes to 15.5% on the first marginal tax rate. In fact, the tax rate actually went up. It had been reduced in the last Parliament to 15% and the throne speech increased the tax rate on the first marginal bracket to 15.5%. It was an increase in taxes for Canadians.

The finance minister subsequently explained that the change in the tax rate by the previous government from 16% down to 15% was only in a ways and means motion that had not yet passed in the House. Mr. Speaker, you will know that when a finance minister announces changes, like what was done with the income trust, those things are all of a sudden in effect. Subsequently, as Parliament gets a chance to review and vote on the ways and means motion, it will formally ratify it but, if it should be defeated, we cannot go back retroactively. Therefore, the rate that was announced by the previous government was 15% and the tax returns of Canadians for the 2005 tax year showed an initial tax rate of 15%.

Had Parliament continued and not been interrupted by an election, the ways and means motion would have been voted on. Had it been defeated, the tax rate would have reverted to 16% but only from the date of the vote in Parliament that defeated the ways and means motion.

The finance minister said that since it did not pass in Parliament, as far as he was concerned the rate was still 16% and he reduced it to 15.5%. It is wordsmithing. It is semantics. There is no question that Canadians paid a tax rate of 15% on their 2005 return but the government in its throne speech and in the budget that was passed increased that tax rate to 15.5%.

Now we need to ask whether the government was accountable. Was it accountable to Canadians? The Conservatives said that they had decreased taxes but they in fact increased the taxes. When we go through that explanation, we do not get the chance to explain it to everyone and I am not sure everyone would understand. I am not even sure anyone will understand what I just said.

However, we need to apply the definition of accountability, which is explaining or justifying our actions or decisions in true full and plain disclosure, but this was not done. On that item the government was not fully accountable. It was sort of accountable but with an explanation or a qualification. It was not pure and true accountability.

With regard to income trusts, the government made a promise during the election campaign. At that point, the Conservative Party, wanting to form a government, was not accountable. Do members know why? It was because the making of a promise not to raise taxes on income trusts was interfering in the marketplace and any finance minister knows that the predictability and stability of the marketplace is the responsibility of a finance minister not to impact the marketplace unduly, not to jaundice or bias it so that there is no government interference in the financial markets.

The first decision to make that promise was to give some assurances, which would have affected the decision of investors. When they saw that as part of the Conservatives' platform, they decided that if those people were elected they would make that happen. If we look at the numbers on income trusts, more Canadians buy into income trusts because it offers a substantial opportunity for high return and a regular cashflow, which many seniors like because it allows them to emulate a pension plan.

The first promise not to tax income trusts was unaccountable but the second one was the broken promise, the so-called double-cross, which was to all of a sudden tax income trusts. The ethical question comes up about whether a government is responsible for keeping its promises or, if it must break its promises, to at least explain and justify them in true, full and plain disclosure. However, that did not happen. In fact, the implications to the marketplace were clear. It was the mother of all free falls in the financial markets. Thirty-five billion dollars of the wealth of Canadians was wiped out in a day and half.

The government made two mistakes. The first one was interfering in the marketplace by making such a promise. The second one was breaking the promise, notwithstanding that there was some argument that the problem had to be dealt with. Even today the Canadian Association of Income Funds is providing analyses that refute the fact that there is a significant disparity between the tax treatment of income trusts and of dividend paying corporations.

On the question of accountability, it would have been a greater degree of accountability had the announcement of that decision been taken, say, on a Friday. At least the people who would be impacted would have had the opportunity to do something before the opening of the market on Monday. Instead, the government made the announcement mid-week and Canadians did not have an opportunity to consider the change and many people lost money. Was there accountability there? I would say not.

I wish I had more time to talk to hon. members about some of the aspects of the bill. I have problems with some areas. I wish the access to information provisions were stronger, as recommended by the former commissioner, Mr. Reid. There are some other matters that I believe we can deal with at a future time, so that is not critical.

On the whole, we are moving in the right direction and I congratulate all hon. members for doing as good a job as possible in the time allotted.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been discussions among all four parties and I believe you would find unanimous consent for me to put the following motion about a small French language translation issue.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Does the hon. President of the Treasury Board have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[John Baird, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I move:

That:

The amendment to clause 98, in the French version, be replaced with the following amendment:

Article 108, page 94: Remplacer les lignes 1 à 2 par ce qui suit:

(4) Les articles 41 à 43, le paragraphe 44(3) et (4) et les articles 45 à 55, 57 et 60 à 64 entrent en vigueur ou sont réputés être entrés en vigueur le 1^er janvier 2007.

(4.1) Les articles 73 à 74 entrent en vigueur ou sont réputés être entrés en vigueur le 1^er janvier 2007, mais ils

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

(Motion agreed to)

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to my hon. colleague. I do not know if I would call this a discourse. I might actually call it an anti-discourse. In the normal form of ordered debate, after 20 minutes one should actually get a sense of where the member is going.

I would say that it was almost brilliant in the way he laid out the initial issue, which is the need for accountability. By accountability, we could use the word transparency, transparency like a pool. We could look through that pool to see the problem.

The problem for the people of Canada was making the recalcitrant Liberal Party accountable so it would stop stealing people's money. We had this job before us in Parliament and this was the order of the bill. It started out that we were looking at the pool and it was a very transparent pool. Everyone agreed on the need to do this work.

The member began with a vague movement through the waters. We tried to follow the rational course of logic of where he was going until the sheer turbidity of word volume left it so vague and cloudy that we actually lost sight of the original problem of accountability, which was to make his party accountable to the people of Canada, and why we had this bill brought in.

What struck me, after hearing the hon. member's speech, was that he seemed to be very concerned that we were rushing the party into accountability, that by the end of this session we would actually deliver the goods to the people of Canada and that we should have more reflection. He talked about how the governing party had to work with other parties to force this disobedient party to actually get the bill through.

If he is so concerned about that, I would like to ask him about another bill, the softwood lumber bill. On the softwood lumber bill we had asked for national hearings because the passage of the softwood lumber bill will affect every forest community in the country. It was the Liberal Party, in collusion with the government party, that ensured there would be no hearings. It was the Liberal Party at committee that worked to ensure that debate on the major amendments that would affect the softwood lumber industry were limited to 60 seconds in its haste to get this off the political agenda.

I guess I am flabbergasted that the member is upset that we are actually trying to get something done with this accountability bill, a bill for which we have waited many years. His own party has put such brutal restrictions on the ability of members of Parliament to review legislation on softwood lumber that they will have profound implications for the future of our forest dependent industries.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are two things. First, I am not upset. Second, I know the member is flabbergasted.

I am sorry that the member did not hear all of my speech, but in the very first sentence I said that I supported the accountability act, and I have all along. Then I went into a complete description of the difficulty that an ordinary member of Parliament would have in dealing with this extensive bill. Let me give the member another example.

I have raised this point in the House a couple of times already. It has to do with Bill C-11, the whistleblower bill, which received royal assent in the last Parliament but was not proclaimed. I was going to get to that in my speech. It was not proclaimed so it is not enforceable.

There are amendments in Bill C-2 which would change the whistleblower bill, but the whistleblower bill would have to be proclaimed and then Bill C-2 would be proclaimed once it got through the rest of the process, so that in combination it is where the government would like to have it. I understand that.

I am not sure if that would even meet the member's requirement for accountability simply because the whistleblower bill is important. It creates an officer of Parliament. It creates protection for public servants who come forward and disclose alleged wrongdoing by the government or government departments.

That bill should have been proclaimed. If the government had problems with it, it should have had a separate bill to make amendments to it so that we could, even by now, have had it fully in place. We could have had the protection for public servants that they do not enjoy today. It has been a waste of time. I do not believe that even that action or inaction has been fully accountable by the government.

I raised a number of those examples, but I would be happy to speak with the member about any aspect of the bill, including another bill that he referred to on the softwood deal, which I opposed and opposed and opposed.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my Liberal colleague speak about the federal accountability act. One of his key points was that the bill somehow was moved on too quickly. He implied that we should have taken longer, that we should have taken our time and perhaps even dragged things on a bit.

I would state here that there is a sense of urgency among Canadians with respect to federal accountability. Long before the election, but also during the election, Canadians saw and tasted corruption and they did not like it. They witnessed the culture of entitlement that existed within the Liberal Party. David Dingwall put it so well when he expressed the viewpoint of the Liberal Party, “I am entitled to my entitlements”. Canadians did not like that either. Canadians want change and they want it now.

When the Prime Minister finally announced the federal accountability act, Canadians cheered. Finally, there is a Prime Minister and a government that will restore accountability to government, that will bring an end to the culture of entitlement.

The point I want to make is that the House of Commons took roughly 70 days to pass that legislation. It was a priority for this House to move the legislation along. The Liberal dominated Senate took over 140 days to deal with this piece of legislation, twice as long. Canadians want accountability now, not in 2008.

How is it that my colleague justifies a Liberal dominated Senate taking over 140 days to deal with an issue that is so important to the government, to all MPs in the House and particularly to Canadians?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think the member is being fully accountable about the time. It was not 70 days that the House spent on the bill. We did not deal with it every day. The member is counting calendar days and the House does not sit on Saturdays and Sundays and we have weeks off. The bill was first debated at second reading on April 25. We rose in the third week of June. There were not that many sitting days.

The hon. member's main point is that it has taken all this time. Had we been careful and given the due diligence we should have given to Bill C-2 in the House, at committee where there was a restriction as to witnesses, et cetera, at report stage and at third reading, there probably would not have been any amendments coming from the Senate. We would not have had any amendments, which means that the bill would have already been passed and in force today. The member has to understand that if we act with haste and force the Senate to do the job that we did not do, it will take longer.

Was the government accountable in terms of how it dealt with the bill? I think not.

[John Baird, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest as I always do when my friend from Mississauga South rises to speak. I found one part of his intervention most interesting. He said he wished the access to information parts of Bill C-2, the federal accountability act, were stronger and went further. We are increasing by 30, I think, the number of agencies, organizations and corporations that are covered by the bill.

I have two questions for the member. Why would his party put forward an amendment to bring darkness where there is light at the Canadian Wheat Board? Why last November did every member of the Liberal Party vote against including a wide range of organizations and issues under access to information when Commissioner Reid came forward with his recommendation?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to the Wheat Board, this is a little more complicated than the minister has relayed to the House. The member for Malpeque laid out the case very well. I would urge the President of the Treasury Board to look at his commentary and his responses to some fairly tough but fair questions.

With regard to Commissioner Reid, I had the pleasure to join him at a conference where I was a speaker. We talked about the changes that were not there. In fact, his description of what was not there was basically an evisceration of the recommendations that he had made as the Information Commissioner. He held that position for some seven years. I know the gentleman through committee work, his experience and expertise and counsel that he has given to parliamentarians over the period he was here. I respect his opinion. In his view, and I agree with him, there were substantive changes or exclusions made from proposed amendments by him to the Access to Information Act. In that regard we have not taken the opportunity to enhance one of the most important tools we have to promote accountability in government.

I would remind the President of the Treasury Board that government is not just the elected political people, it is also the people in those departments, in his own department, collectively, who represent the government. The accountability act unfortunately has the presumption of guilt or wrongdoing as opposed to the charter principle of the presumption of innocence. We may have unintended consequences with this bill.

The government has decided to go down this route. We are prepared to accept its decision to basically overlay an administrative burden and some very onerous tasks on the public service, which may in fact reduce productivity in the public service and which may do more harm than good.

I would have thought from my own perspective that the better approach to improving the accountability of government, being elected as well as unelected persons responsible for taxpayers' dollars, would be to look at the areas where there was significant risk or examples of where there were problems to be dealt with. It would be better to deal with those on a more focused or surgical basis rather than to overlay and have the presumption of guilt to all involved.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this important Bill C-2 on accountability.

The issue of accountability gets to the heart of our democratic system. We live in a democratic country. We are proud of that. We encourage and support other democracies around the world. Surely a strong democratic system of operation is a hallmark of the best of society. It is something that we wish for all people around the world.

But democracies are imperfect, including our own. We often have political democracy without having economic democracy. We see that in many countries, including here in Canada. While there are many criticisms of democracy, the solution to the problems of democracy is not to shun democracy, not to become cynical or turn away from democracy, but in fact to have more democracy and to strengthen the democratic institutions that we all support and which we represent here in this House.

It distresses me greatly to speak with people in my community who say that they are disgusted with politicians. They are disgusted with the political process. They do not want to be involved with elections or even with voting. There is a cynicism that really undermines the democratic process.

In the last election the issue of ethics was, I believe, the dominant issue. Lack of ethics has bred into a sense of cynicism and a disregard for the democratic process. This is a fundamental erosion of our democracy which we must address. I believe it is the most basic and most important issue that confronts us as parliamentarians.

It is easy to become lazy or complacent about the democratic process, but when we are lazy or complacent, surely that is when problems develop. As we saw in the last government, whether it was laziness, complacency or other motives, there were serious legitimate issues and concerns that were undermining not only a particular political party but our entire democracy. Others have spoken about this, the culture of entitlement, the sense that we were in essence a one party country, that there was only one party of legitimacy, which breeds that undermining of our democratic system. The proof of that was in the last election when voters decided to exercise their democratic right and chose a different path.

The former leader of the NDP, Ed Broadbent, is known as one of the leaders of democratic thought not only in Canada but internationally. He has led the call in Canada for a stronger democracy and a more ethical democracy. When Mr. Broadbent was in this House he raised the call for a number of changes that would lead to democratic and ethical reforms. I want to briefly outline those.

He called for democratic accountability, a fundamental respect for the voters who elect us to office. That means when voters elect us to represent a political party, we cannot just disregard those voters' wishes and cross the floor and represent another political party without going to those same voters to seek their endorsement for that move.

He called for fixed election dates so that no party could skew the outcome of an election by having complete control over when an election should take place.

He called for spending limits and transparency conditions on leadership contests. It is one thing to have limits on parties, but because parties are largely financed by the public, these principles around accountability should apply to leadership contests.

He called for electoral reform and a reworking of our antiquated first past the post system, so that the true views and desires of Canadian voters would be reflected in this House with a representative number of MPs.

He called for an end to unregulated lobbying and political cronyism, the revolving door between lobbyists, government staff and political staff. He called for tougher laws on the disclosure of fees and expenditures for lobbyists.

He called for a more ethical approach to government appointments, that the thousands of officials appointed to agencies, boards, commissions and crown corporations should be more democratically chosen and subject to the scrutiny of this House.

He also called for stronger access to information rules that would allow Canadians greater information about the behaviour of their government.

The bill before us today fails to live up to many of the goals outlined by Mr. Broadbent. However, Bill C-2 does make some progress and in that sense should be supported. I want to acknowledge that there are significant amendments made by the NDP which strengthen Bill C-2 and increase the likelihood of accountability and greater democracy in our country.

One of the areas to which there has been a real strengthening of the bill due to the efforts of my party is around the public appointments commission. As the vice-chair of the government operations and estimates committee, I was the member who introduced a motion rejecting the proposed head of the government's proposed appointments commission, Mr. Gwyn Morgan.

I was supported on that motion not only by other opposition members on that committee who joined me in rejecting his candidacy but by writers in Canadian Business magazine who said, “But making a partisan Tory (and party fundraiser) head of a department designed to usher in 'more open, honest and accountable government for Canadians' just wasn't a good fit from Day 1”.

More recently, in the Globe and Mail there was an article about how this person who was hailed by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives as the best possible person in the entire country for this position has gone from hero to pariah. Clearly, that was a good move to have his appointment rejected.

What we did was beef up the public appointments commission which was the key thing. It basically means now that patronage is against the law. The bill requires that there be accountability and openness when it comes to appointing people to all of the thousands of positions in agencies, boards and crown corporations.

This is what Canadians want. Canadians want the person who is the best equipped, the best qualified person to be in that position, and not someone who happens to be in the good books of the person doing the appointing.

The important thing now is that, because of the NDP amendment, the Prime Minister will have to consult with all political leaders prior to making appointments to the commission. The appointment process itself will be much fairer. This is a very significant change with which the NDP is very happy.

In addition, the NDP introduced new and stricter rules to stop the revolving door between lobbyists and senior levels of government. People do not want someone who is one day advocating for a particular company or organization, being paid for that, and in the next moment working in a minister's office. Canadians want clear rules to stop this action.

We were able to get some improvements to Canada's access to information laws, including broadening the act substantially to include all government institutions. This is not where Canadians would like it to be in terms of full access to information, but largely, thanks to my colleagues in this section of the House we have made significant changes.

We have strengthened parts of the Canada Elections Act, including outlawing the use of trust funds and lowering donation limits to $1,000. We have tightened the conflict of interest rules allowing any Canadian to make complaints to the new conflict of interest and ethics commissioner. We have also included protection of first nations rights within the act.

Canadians expect us as parliamentarians to do our job not only to represent their interests on the issues of the day, but also to be constantly reviewing the process of how we do our work. The solution for problems to democracy is a stronger democracy with more democracy. While this accountability act does not lead us to where Mr. Broadbent and the New Democratic Party would like us to be in terms of full accountability, it takes us another step down the path.

This bill has been debated, discussed, amended and scrutinized very thoroughly. Canadians want us to pass this bill into law and get going on the kinds of changes that will improve accountability in this country and strengthen our democracy.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my hon. colleague's speech with great interest because there are major steps that need to be advanced.

Picking up on what the Treasury Board President has said about shining a light into dark places, I would be very interested in seeing if he would be willing to shine the light just a little to the left of him and down one row because there are certainly lots of questions being raised in that direction in terms of the heritage minister and her key links with lobbyists.

I refer the House to a speech given last week by Glenn O'Farrell, president of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters. He stated that there was:

--an unprecedented level of regulatory review, from telecommunications, to radio, to the future of television in Canada...we need to pick up the pace.

The message from that industry is clear. It wants the government to move on its little wish list. I am sure the hon. member already knows that Glenn O'Farrell ran a large fundraiser for the heritage minister when she was in opposition last year. In fact, it was run in the boardrooms of Corus Entertainment.

I would like to follow up on this with a newspaper quote where it states:

This cloud over Canadian Heritage policy could not come at a worse time. With the need for a new CRTC chair, the prospect of a new policy initiative to address the future of Canadian broadcasting and content rules, and the focus on copyright reform, the department promises to be in the spotlight in the months ahead. These initiatives may now be forced to share that spotlight with a regular stream of questions about [the heritage minister's] fundraising activities that could leave Canadians asking whether there is a hefty price tag associated with key government policies.

The hon. member comes from a city that is dependent on broadcasting. There are thousands of jobs in the television industry in Toronto. I would like to ask if she has any suggestions that this government might want to look at in order to help keep the heritage minister on the straight and narrow, to have her listen to all groups and not just key lobbyists who meet with her at fundraisers. Is there a way that we can work with the heritage minister so she could have a broader input apart from the people who write cheques for her?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that we are elected in this House by the communities where we live, by the citizens in our ridings. We are not elected by lobbyists, by corporations or special interests. Therefore, our behaviour in the House and the actions that we take must be in the best interests of the communities that we represent.

In my community, there are many people who depend on the cultural sector for their livelihoods. We have artists, musicians, painters, film producers, television broadcasters and all kinds of people who work in the cultural sector. These are people who want to see cultural policies in Canada that defend Canadian interests, that speak about Canadian stories, that create jobs in Canada, and that help Canadians converse one with the other across our country and with all the multiplicity of cultures and peoples that we have in Canada.

If the minister is focusing her attention on the narrow needs and goals of a particular lobby group to the detriment of Canadians who depend on our government and on our regulators to defend their interests, to defend their culture, to preserve their jobs, and create new jobs in this sector, then I believe that this a grave issue that should be addressed by parliamentarians.

I know that in my community many people have contacted me about the cultural sector and want me to speak out on this. I am concerned that Bill C-2 does not go far enough in protecting us from lobbyists and I thank my hon. colleague for raising this issue again and reminding us about how we need to keep working in this area.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my colleague a question about some of the things that did not get addressed in the accountability act. I know she talked briefly about that. She talked about the work of our former colleague, Ed Broadbent, in the area of accountability.

One of the places where I think Canadians think that we are not being held accountable to their wishes when they vote in elections is around the whole question of representation in the House, the whole question of proportional representation.

I know that in British Columbia we have had in recent years a lengthy process looking at the question of how we might change our electoral system to be more accountable to the wishes of voters. I know that it did not make it on the agenda of the last Parliament. It has not made it on the agenda of this Parliament. Many people in my constituency still feel that we need to make those kinds of changes to bring real accountability to this place, real accountability to the people who elect us and send us here to represent them.

Would the member comment on the whole question of proportional representation and some of the things that are not in the legislation that we are debating today?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, 90% of the world's democracies use a system of proportional representation, even those which formerly used a first past the post system. They do this because it is more respectful of the wishes of the electorate. It gives a truer picture of the desire of the people for their political representation. I thank my hon. colleague for raising this issue.

I want to give a couple of brief examples of how our current system skews the political process. In the last two general elections, the Liberals had 50% fewer seats in western Canada than they would have had under a proportional representation system. However, there are situations such as that of the previous Reform Alliance Conservatives, who were consistently underrepresented in Ontario even though they did get a number of seats. When Preston Manning was leader, he got 20% of the vote in Ontario, but how many seats? Zero. That does not seem to represent the wishes of the electorate.

Today in the House of Commons, the Bloc Québécois has 16 more seats than it should have under a proportional representation system. Certainly the NDP should have 48 seats in the House of Commons, not 19.

I say to my hon. colleagues that if we are truly talking about democracy and the wishes of the people of Canada to have a Parliament that represents their views and interests, then something very basic is that every vote should count. For every vote truly to count, we should have a system that includes proportional representation.

Commissions have recommended this. The Canadian law commission has recommended it. A quarter of a century ago, the Pépin-Robarts task force recommended that this system needed to be changed because it does a great disservice to Canadian people and to Canadian unity in that it skews regional representation in Canada.

Bill C-2 has failed to address this issue. That is very unfortunate, because we do not often get to deal with new bills around the issues of accountability and democracy. This is truly a missed opportunity, but I would call on my hon. colleagues to keep this in mind and keep this issue on the front burner. It is an issue that we desperately need to address.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that my colleague from Parkdale--High Park has spoken about some of the successes reflected in Bill C-2 before us and also has highlighted some of the omissions.

It seems particularly appropriate this week that we acknowledge the tremendous contribution of the former member from Ottawa Centre, Ed Broadbent, in the work that he did around both electoral reform and the cleaning up of patronage politics in this country. It is especially appropriate this week that we acknowledge the portions of Bill C-2 that are very much attributable to some of his earlier work in the House, but also that we underscore the importance of proportional representation, because Ed Broadbent is about to be honoured very publicly on Thursday for his significant contribution to electoral reform.

That work by the former member for Ottawa Centre will be well recognized by members of the House who had the thrill, as many of us did, to sit with him in the House over that period of a year and a half prior to the last election, when he did not re-offer.

What is probably less understood and known by many members of the House is that much of the early anti-patronage work and the work to clean up electoral party financing was accomplished in a previous minority government, a minority government in which the New Democratic Party leader, David Lewis, pushed very hard and in fact got a concession from the then Liberal government to introduce election financing legislation that for the first time required full disclosure of both sources and amounts of political party contributions.

I think it is not surprising that many of the improvements in this government bill have been brought about by very good work in that same David Lewis-Ed Broadbent tradition by my colleague from Winnipeg Centre, ably supported by the current member for Ottawa Centre.

In the few remaining moments, I want to ask the member about the issue of trust funds. It is clear that the member for Winnipeg Centre was very instrumental in pushing for much tougher regulations and provisions in the law governing the use of trust funds. To this day in Nova Scotia, unbelievably, the Liberal Party still finances its election campaigns with ill-begotten trust funds from the biggest electoral party financing scandal in the history of the province.

With respect to trust funds, is it the member's view that this is an important achievement in the bill before us, notwithstanding the omission of a number of other issues, which she has already noted?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, first I want to join with my colleague in recognizing the work of Mr. Broadbent and in saying that all of his colleagues in the House and, I believe, the people of Canada recognize his decency and the great respect he had for the trust the people put in him in being a representative in this House.

I also want to briefly say that the importance of a minority Parliament in being able to make the changes that we have been able to achieve in this bill is very significant.

I want to echo what my colleague has addressed on the issue of trust funds. Whatever we call it, money that is squirreled away, money that sloshes through the system to bankroll campaigns or various undertakings, or any kinds of things that are shrouded and hidden from the public, it is in these areas where we need to shine the light.

While I do not believe the light shines strongly enough in Bill C-2, I believe we are making progress and that some of these dark corners are little less dark because of the work we have done here over the past few months.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to emphasize that the Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-2 in principle and in much of its practice.

There is no denying that nothing is more important than ethics and accountability in the work of an MP. The way we practice politics and the way people have access to public office holders clearly reveals the strength of democracy, which is the beauty of our democratic system, even if it is not perfect.

Earlier, I heard my friends, the neo-Bolsheviks, talk about electoral reform, suggesting that the current system, the first past the post system, had given Bloc Québécois members over-representation in this House.

No matter how hard I rack my brain, I do not see how this House could possibly do without a single member of the Bloc. In fact, the Bloc Québécois caucus is a formidable democratic tool, and each and every Bloc member makes an invaluable contribution to the work of this House. Naturally, I am bound by the confidentiality of our caucus meetings, but I can assure you that every Bloc member does an outstanding job. With every voting opportunity, our constituents have the opportunity to assess the relevance of the Bloc's role, and every time, in the end, we are supported in our conviction that it is important to have a political party dedicated exclusively to defending the interests of Quebec, a party that will not compromise its principles, and one that has the ability to accurately discern what Quebeckers want.

That said, of course we are not completely opposed to the idea of holding a debate on the issue of better representation. When Quebec becomes a sovereign nation, it is not certain that we will maintain the current voting system. In fact, sovereignists have thought long and hard about this issue. I am thinking of the former member for Borduas, Jean-Pierre Charbonneau, as well as André Larocque, who was deputy minister to Robert Burns, the member for Maisonneuve, in the 1970s. Robert Burns was the minister responsible for one of the most important laws enacted by René Lévesque's government, the democratic financing legislation, which is based on the concept of knowing on whose behalf we speak.

I remember certain discussions with American senators. In the United States, it is virtually impossible to get elected if one does not have millions of dollars. Yet, in many cases, having such a fortune means that individuals become spokespeople for special interest groups. In contrast, our democratic system makes it possible to secure financing thanks to strong popular support.

For example, during the last election campaign in Hochelaga, I spent $25,000. Obviously, that is not very much given the number of voters in my riding. That money did not come from businesses, interest groups or lobbies. Members of the Bloc Québécois executive in my riding, Hochelaga, raised the money during meetings with grassroots activists. That is what we do every year.

Let me say a few words about Bill C-2, which was introduced by the President of the Treasury Board. The Bloc Québécois supports the underlying principles of the bill. However, much like its creator, the President of the Treasury Board, the bill is clearly not perfect. That does not prevent him from being a respectable parliamentarian, of course. The Bloc Québécois supports this bill because it provides for a ministerial code of ethics to be entrenched in the law.

The Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-2 because it will put an end to the tradition that enabled political staff to gain privileged entry to the public service. Of course, that is not to say that the people who work in the offices of ministers or members cannot be useful in the public service, or that they are not competent people, but we have said and we still say that they should not gain entry by a somewhat privileged mechanism but rather by means of properly conducted competitions.

The Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-2 because it gives greater power to the Auditor General, Ms. Fraser, and it gives more power to the Ethics Commissioner. It should be remembered—and obviously I say this very seriously—that for many weeks, and indeed for several months, the Bloc Québécois has led the battle to extend the Auditor General’s powers of audit and control. My former colleague, the member for Repentigny, had tabled a bill to extend the control of the Auditor General to include a certain number of foundations. The principle of the bill had been agreed to by the previous government, and it has also been accepted by the Conservative government. That is good news because these foundations hold and manage millions of dollars that come from the public treasury.

The Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-2 because it will lead to the disclosure of compulsory reports in the case of leadership races. It will restrain the potential for uncontrolled spending in the great public relations exercises that leadership races have become.

The Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-2 because it contains many of the traditional demands of the Bloc Québécois. I am happy to remind the House of the battle that several members of the Bloc Québécois fought to ensure that returning officers are chosen through a more democratic process. I see my friend, the parliamentary secretary, who is the youngest member of this House. Obviously, as everyone knows, being young is a failing from which one suffers a little less each day. However, I know that my colleague, who is the youngest member of this House, and who is also the parliamentary secretary to the minister, has worked very hard in committee.

For a long time now the Bloc Québécois has tried to justify a more democratic process for returning officers. It cannot be possible, on one hand, for a person at the riding level to be responsible for making the system work, ensuring there are no irregularities, that all rules are being followed and that all the candidates have equal chances, and, on the other, for these same returning officers to be appointed by the government. In my riding there was a returning officer who was very well respected as an individual, but who certainly was not neutral politically. Mr. Léger, a notary, served as returning officer in Hochelaga—Maisonneuve. He is a very respectable person, but he was my opponent in 1993.

In 1993, I had to show him a thing or two about elections and I won a majority by several thousand votes. It was at the time when Lucien Bouchard, one of the great sovereignists of the movement, was Premier of Quebec. He ran an absolutely extraordinary election campaign and, if my memory serves me correctly, the Bloc Québécois won 49% of the vote and 55 members were elected. We clearly had a very strong hold. It was a young political party and there were a number of young members such as Pierre Brien and Michel Bellehumeur. At the time, yours truly was in his early thirties. I was 31 when I was elected and I am 44 now, but I feel just as young as I did then.

Obviously, I no longer have the same resources. There was a time when I could work for 15 or 16 hours without sleeping. Today, I could no longer do that.

To get back to the subject, and to Bill C-2, the bill contains very wise provisions to allow returning officers to be selected by competition. This was a Bloc Québécois initiative, which is to some extent reflected in Bill C-2.

The Bloc Québécois would have liked to see more democratic funding. It had also hoped that we could have refocused the provisions relating to whistleblowers. It is important that when improper conduct, bad management or fraud is witnessed by people who have responsibilities, particularly strategic responsibilities within the public service, they be able to report it to their superior and report it publicly without suffering reprisals.

An amendment has come from the other place that expands the concept of reprisal. We must of course ensure that such reprisals do not in any way prevent a public servant from pursuing a worthwhile career plan in the public service.

We support Bill C-2. In fact there are few questions that will call for more of our attention in the years to come than the question of ethics. What is our vision of public governance that meets ethical responsibilities? That is one of the questions that will concern us in the years to come.

A debate is underway in Quebec regarding the place for minorities in society. I am sure that such a debate is also taking place in other provinces. There is also the question of reasonable accommodation. How do we reconcile our broad democratic values with recognizing the place for minorities and preserving a spirit of a common public culture? How do we organize our social contract? This is what we mean by reasonable accommodation. How do we interpret the charters, be it the Quebec Charter, one of the most generous charters when it comes to human rights, and compatibility with individual values, particularly when it comes to religious convictions?

I hope that the parliamentary secretary will give us an explanation of this a little later. We do not understand why the government has not chosen to revise the Access to Information Act, when that act was part of the Conservative Party’s campaign platform. When we talk about democracy, political party financing and voting methods are not the only issues; our ability to make our institutions function in a way that allows us to have access to information within a reasonable time is also an issue.

The Access to Information Act is a major concern. Recently, I had the opportunity to take part in a seminar. Three weeks ago, my party whip asked me to make a speech on a Friday at 6:30 p.m., here in Ottawa. I cannot begin to tell the House how grateful I was that he would give me this opportunity to share the stage with a number of experts on the Access to Information Act. The seminar took place at the government's conference centre. What an archaic piece of legislation.

Here is a very specific example. In June, the Bloc Québécois made about 40 requests under the Access to Information Act. To this end, we relied on our research services and on my friend, Dominic Labrie, a powerful intellectual and an extremely brilliant man who is very familiar with the whole issue of the Access to Information Act. He is a highly educated person with great intellectual finesse, as there are in all political parties.

As we know, there are costs associated with this. A five dollar deposit is required for each request. We must also pay for each page of information that is provided to us.

Believe it or not, we submitted those 40 or so requests for information in June, and only about five of them had been dealt with by the time I made my speech, two or three weeks ago. We have yet to receive the information that we requested back in June and this is now November, just 10 days away from the month of December. Moreover, I was told that there is an increasingly common practice whereby a fee is charged for those access to information requests, based on the number of hours of research required to get the information. I was also told that this change coincided with the arrival of the Conservatives in office. I hope that this trend will be corrected.

Again, we cannot fulfill our parliamentary duties properly and we cannot have a true democratic system if we do not have access to meaningful and conclusive information. The Bloc Québécois longs for the day when each access to information request, and its reply, will be stored in the Library of Parliament, as is the case with the notices in the order paper. It would definitely be a good thing if all parliamentarians could benefit from that information.

I have even been informed that certain departments now refuse to produce written information for strategic executive meetings, for fear that someone will request access to it.

Once again I do not understand why the government did not make more of this bill, which has much to be said for it and which the Bloc Québécois supports. Indeed our political party believes in ethics and we know that this question will be of great concern in the coming years.

Our fellow citizens will no longer accept authoritarian models, ways of doing things in which members of parliament are not fully involved in the development of public policies.

It is quite unbelievable, I repeat, that the government chose to table 200 clauses in this bill. Would it not have been better to review the Access to Information Act? I recall that the Conservatives made a commitment to modernize it. The Conservative platform even contained this promise:

A Conservative government would:

Implement the Information Commissioner’s recommendations for reform of the Access to Information Act.

The Information Commissioner himself tabled a complete bill. He did the work; he proposed a complete bill in October 2005.

I think this is hard to understand.

I am going to end with the following comment, because time is running out.

The bill, once it came back from the other House, also proposed a number of points which the Bloc Québécois unfortunately could not agree with. I understand that the other House would have liked there to be a commissioner.

I am going to conclude by recalling three major points. For the Bloc Québécois, it is important to be able to say yes to this bill, on the basis of a number of historical battles waged by the Bloc Québécois: the appointment of returning officers by competition; more work and greater authority for the Auditor General respecting trusts and foundations; and the possibility of restricting expenditures in leadership races and making them subject to public disclosure.

We nonetheless would have liked the Access to Information Act to be modernized so that it would work better and members of parliament would have more information, and especially so that requests for access to information might be filed in the Library of Parliament.

We would also have liked to have a broader definition of the budget officer’s role. In spite of all this, the Bloc Québécois will support the proposed amendments in Bill C-2.

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

Mr. Speaker, since yesterday, a number of members have risen and spoken to Bill C-2. Many have criticized the fact that the Senate made a number of amendments, countless amendments in fact, which took several weeks of work.

Many other members also pointed out that the study of Bill C-2 last spring was rushed and done so quickly that many witnesses could not even give proper testimony, nor was there enough time to fully explore their observations.

I would like to know my colleague's opinion concerning the fact that, after the parliamentary committee had studied the bill, it was the non-elected members of the other House who went ahead and proposed a series of amendments. I think this goes against democracy to some degree, since this should normally be done by elected members.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Saint-Maurice—Champlain, who is the Bloc Québécois critic on this issue, if I am not mistaken.

Certainly, the Conservative government is no stranger to contradictions. Here is one contradiction. For years, when the Conservatives were in opposition, they spoke very negatively about the Senate. What was the first thing the Prime Minister did? He went and appointed his election campaign financing head to the Senate. That took some nerve. For years, when they formed the opposition, the Conservatives spoke out against the Senate, and the first thing they did, like Pharisees, was to appoint Michael Fortier to the Senate. He has refused to run for election in Repentigny, and he heads one of the largest departments in the government, the Department of Public Works and Government Services. Yet the Conservatives find nothing wrong with this.

In public life, if you want to maintain your credibility, you cannot change your tune when you move from opposition to government. Many parliamentarians have demanded that Michael Fortier stand for election, and it is sad that he has resisted this democratic challenge.

Let us talk about the Senate. Certainly, there are excellent people in the Senate, people who are working extremely hard. I am thinking of Marcel Prud'homme and Serge Joyal. I also know that Gérald Beaudoin worked very hard when he was in the Senate. But the calibre of the individuals does not alter the fact that when laws are passed in a representative democracy, there must be democratic legitimacy. The Senate will never have such legitimacy. Of course, senators can analyze legislation and make appropriate amendments, but the Canadian Senate will never have democratic legitimacy. That is why the Bloc Québécois believes that the Senate is an institution that should be abolished.

In the event a second house should be created, perhaps, in a sovereign Quebec, there will be a house of the regions in the National Assembly. Perhaps there will be a bicameral parliament. However, when it comes to passing legislation and participating in the legislative process, there must be democratic legitimacy, which is conferred only by a general election.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Is the House ready for the question?