Mr. Speaker, I wish to address the government's first bill introduced in the 39th Parliament, Bill C-2, the federal accountability act. It is in the interests of all Canadians to ensure that the federal government is accountable. As an accountant by trade, the people of Don Valley East elected me as their federal representative because they wanted someone deeply concerned about transparency and accountability.
There are aspects in the proposed legislation that I and my colleagues in the Liberal Party will support because it builds on many of the initiatives launched by the previous federal Liberal governments between 1993 and 2006. For example, everyone knows that it was a Liberal government that first introduced the office of the Ethics Commissioner.
It was a Liberal government that fostered the development of this office to make the Ethics Commissioner independent from the Prime Minister's Office and instead, directly accountable to Parliament.
It was a Liberal government that established a separate Senate ethics commissioner, an office, by the way, that will be eliminated under this proposed legislation.
It was a Liberal government that first established clear guidelines for public office holders and it was a Liberal government that restored the Comptroller General's functions for each department and subsequently instituted an internal audit policy.
Bill C-2 does attempt to build on these very important reforms, but many of the proposals contained in the legislation are just simple extensions of existing legislation.
I will comment on electoral reform, for example. It was a Liberal government that first introduced Bill C-24, the first dramatic reform of political financing in Canadian history. It placed strict limits on the amount of money that private companies and trade unions could contribute to a party or candidate.
Through the same bill, it was a Liberal government that first introduced public funding for political parties, an innovation that made political parties far less reliant on corporate or union financing as a source of revenue.
In many instances, I see many of these extensions as nothing more than a lame attempt to exaggerate a situation that simply no longer exists. In other words, as one prominent academic recently observed, we see here many solutions in search of problems resolved long ago.
To be fair however, let us look at what the Conservatives promised Canadians in their election platform and what the legislation actually delivers. According to the document entitled “Stand up for Canada”, the Conservatives promised on page 12 that they will “allow members of the public, not just politicians, to make complaints to the Ethics Commissioner”. Unfortunately, I see no reference to public access in this proposed legislation which, in effect, denies voters the right to complain about their elected officials. It appears to me that “Stand up for Canada” just fell flat on its face.
Here is another broken promise. On the very same page of the Conservative platform, the plan would “make part time or non-remunerated ministerial advisers subject to the ethics code”. Again, there is absolutely no reference to this promise whatsoever in the legislation that we have before us. Canadians do indeed feel stood up by the Conservatives.
Although the Prime Minister has promised to apply strict new rules to the conduct of lobbyists, one of his first acts was to appoint a lobbyist as the Minister of National Defence. A lobbyist, I might add, who represented the top suppliers of military hardware to the federal government and members on the opposite side of the floor wonder what is wrong. The problem is that the defence minister will be in a conflict of interest on too many files and he will be forced to remove himself from critical discussions.
Furthermore, the Prime Minister says that he will no longer allow political staffers to immediately jump into the lobbying business so they can profit from contacts with their former employers. However, we know of at least three Conservative staffers, who worked for current ministers, who are now suddenly and miraculously in the private sector and lobbying their former bosses.
What about accountability? The Prime Minister has made it clear for years that he believes in an elected Senate. Yet the first thing he did when he arrived in Ottawa was to appoint his campaign manager to the Senate and then made him the Minister of Public Works. Shame. As a senator and a minister of one of the largest departments in the federal government, he does not have to face the House of Commons during question period. What kind of accountability is that?
Let us look again on page nine of the Conservative platform. It says, “A Conservative government will ensure that all officers of Parliament are appointed through consultation with all parties in the House of Commons, not just simply named by the Prime Minister”. What was the first thing the Prime Minister did? He arbitrarily appointed a loyal Reform Party member as head of federal appointments with absolutely no consultation with Parliament. This is a person who has already managed to offend Canadians of Caribbean and Asian descent by referring to them as nothing more than “lawless immigrants”. This is the type of irresponsible, redneck comments which are abhorrent to people who believe in pluralism and civil societies. It is a very offensive comment and the Prime Minister has decided to make this person the head of appointments.
The Prime Minister has made it perfectly clear that he will stand up for his close friends and Conservative campaign workers, but the rest of Canadians no longer matter now that the election is over. It is precisely this kind of behaviour that fuels public mistrust of government institutions. If the Prime Minister is so concerned about accountability and transparency, why will he not disclose who donated to his leadership campaign? What does he have to hide?
In conclusion, my colleagues and I in the Liberal Party will be placing the legislation under close scrutiny in order to salvage genuine reforms. Canadians deserve better accountability and we in the Liberal Party will give it to them.