Mr. Speaker, I certainly do and essential in any effective whistleblower legislation would be three things: first, an internal mechanism for complaint, concern and discussion, so that things can be handled if there are misunderstandings and they can be fixed quickly. Second, good faith is required and I think we all agree on that. We do not want people being mischievous intentionally or unintentionally, but it has to be in good faith. Third, we must have a commissioner, a tribunal, however it may be composed and we will be talking about what could be most efficient, that is independent of the administration that it is investigating. That is a base rule for independent officers of Parliament.
I would suggest that we will have to discuss very carefully, and I know the member who asked the question has some special expertise and interest in this, the question of offering rewards for whistleblowers. It strikes me as being somewhat antithetical to the idea of raising the ethical standards by paying people to snitch. Rewards are there sufficiently, so I look forward to discussing this and perhaps hearing some expert opinion on where that has been used elsewhere and whether it has been effective or not.
However, in terms of the first issue of further layers of bureaucracy, there are so many new offices. For example, a procurement office, when in fact the Auditor General said that there have been great increases in the improvement of that. She also said with respect to public polling and advertising in her October 2003 report: “For the most part, we found that the federal government was managing public opinion research in a transparent manner and with adequate controls”. So whether we need another office, that is fine, we will want to look at it carefully. There are about five or six new offices, new layers, which may be absolutely essential, but we would want to carefully discuss with the government their utility.