Mr. Speaker, I am obviously very pleased to rise today to speak on the subject of Bill C-2, the federal accountability act, because as my colleague, the member for Repentigny, said earlier, we are going to ask the government to change the actual title of the bill to “Loi sur la responsabilisation” in order to reflect the spirit and rules of the French language.
To start with, I want to say again that the Bloc Québécois supports the bill in principle. We believe that the bill is a necessary first step to restoring public confidence in federal institutions and also to instituting greater transparency in the management of public funds.
The reason we are discussing this bill today is that the previous Liberal Party government was covered in mud from the many cases of corruption, and in particular the sponsorship scandal. That scandal exposed the full scale of the contempt in which the former Liberal government held the nation of Quebec and its democratic institutions.
The people of Quebec decided to chase a corrupt government from power. We saw this in the recent election. Let us hope that the new Conservative minority government does not try to do the same things.
As a number of my colleagues have already said, I am pleased to see that several Bloc Québécois proposals were incorporated when Bill C-2 was drafted. One of those proposals relates to federal political party financing.
Since it was founded, the Bloc Québécois has always advocated that Ottawa's political party financing legislation be amended and modeled on the political party financing act enacted in Quebec in 1977 under the aegis of the Parti Québécois and Premier René Lévesque.
When the Parti Québécois government enacted the political party financing act, the new legislation was based on two principles: fairness and transparency. “Fairness” meant that the government wanted to promote equality of opportunity among the parties by giving them public funding, while the principle of transparency required that political parties and candidates account for their election financing and spending activities.
The Gomery commission and the sponsorship scandal returned the importance of processes for overseeing political party financing to centre stage in public opinion in Quebec and Canada. We are pleased to see that the new federal government is adopting the measures that the Bloc Québécois has long been proposing and we will support initiatives of that nature. We will nevertheless be making some recommendations in committee, of course.
There is another aspect I would like to mention. That is the whole process for appointing returning officers. For many years the Bloc Québécois has criticized the fact that the system made returning officers more accountable to the political party in power, to which they owed their appointment, than to the chief electoral officer. In Quebec, the majority of our returning officers were very often of Liberal allegiance, since the Liberals were in power.
That is why, in the 38th Parliament, my colleague from Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord introduced Bill C-312 to have returning officers appointed on merit and to have those appointments supervised by Elections Canada.
Unfortunately, the accountability bill does not provide for open competitions to choose returning officers. We hope to correct this by proposing an amendment, for we believe that returning officers must be appointed through an open and transparent process, so that anyone who believes he or she has the necessary skills can apply for the job.
That being said, we have to question certain measures advanced in this bill, measures which in our view contain major shortcomings which will need to be corrected. For example, the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act should not provide for $1,000 rewards for whistleblowers.
This could encourage an unhealthy culture of whistleblowing by proposing financial rewards for those who disclose wrongdoing, in addition to creating very unhealthy work atmospheres within the various operations. The Bloc Québécois has always maintained that the best way to support public servants who want to disclose wrongdoing in the public sector is to ensure that they are better protected by the government and by the management of their department or agency, so that they are not transferred, dismissed or harassed.
In this bill, I am also worried by everything to do with appointments of senior officials and heads of crown corporations. Certainly, this bill proposes a public appointments commission, but it would be controlled by the Prime Minister’s Office. It would be responsible in particular for overseeing the selection process for appointments. In my opinion, this process is inconsistent and lacks transparency, especially when we know that most appointments come from the Privy Council Office and the Prime Minister’s Office. We feel that a formal appointment review process should be established, that the parliamentary committees must be central to that process, and above all that no appointment should be made against the advice of the committees.
We have similar concerns about the appointment of the new parliamentary budget officer. This officer will be responsible for forecasting the federal government’s budgetary revenues and expenditures. Here too, the mechanism lacks transparency and thoroughness because, under Bill C-2, the position will be within the Library of Parliament. The act even provides for exceptions that could prevent the budget officer from accessing certain information.
We know that the Liberals presented us in the past with budgetary estimates that were often far-fetched and contained considerable forecasting errors. As my colleague, the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot already said, it would be better to have an independent agency attached to the Standing Committee on Finance which could provide the committee members with realistic, complete financial estimates that, most importantly, are periodically revised. The people of Quebec and Canada have a right to know how the taxes they pay to the government are managed.
I could elaborate on other aspects of the bill which, in my view, raise questions and are cause for concern. I am thinking, among other things, of the fact that certain foundations will continue to escape public scrutiny, that lobbyists will still have certain loopholes—because, after a year, they will be able to work for lobbying firms and brief lobbyists—or that the government has decided to delay the reforms to the Access to Information Act.
While on this subject, the Conservative Party promised to reform the Access to Information Act on many occasions during the last election campaign. In their platform, they made it clear that a Conservative government would implement the recommendations of the Information Commissioner on reforming the Access to Information Act. In reality, and like the Liberals, now that the Conservative Party is in power, it is much less interested in reforming the act and providing greater transparency. Like the previous governments, it prefers to limit or even escape the surveillance of the Information Commissioner.
In view of the complexity of this bill, the range and importance of the matters dealt with, and the shortcomings that must be corrected, our party believes that it is important to study the bill properly and thoroughly. There is no reason to rush. Let us take all the time we need in committee to make the amendments that are necessary to correct the shortcomings in this bill. In this way, we will get legislation that reduces the risk of abuse and corruption within the government and that restores the people’s confidence in our institutions and politicians. Politicians have a responsibility to defend the interests of all the citizens and respond to their needs.