House of Commons Hansard #44 of the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was amendments.

Topics

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

The hon. President of the Treasury Board on a point of order.

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

Conservative

John Baird Conservative Ottawa West—Nepean, ON

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent for Motion No. 5, which had been ruled as inadmissible, to be included in the first batch.

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

Does the hon. minister have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

No.

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

There is no agreement.

The hon. member for Mississauga South on the same point?

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether I heard the minister clearly, but Motion No. 5 was ruled out of order by the Speaker. The minister wants to reinstate it in Group No. 1. Are there any amendments? I doubt that it is in order to overrule the Speaker's decision. Perhaps the Table could advise.

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

Conservative

John Baird Conservative Ottawa West—Nepean, ON

We did it for the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

No, that is not true. The Chair could advise whether or not we can overrule the Speaker's decision on the admissibility of Motion No. 5 by unanimous consent. I wonder if we could get that advice.

I would also ask that, in conjunction with the response, there be some explanation given as to the reasons why Motion No. 5 in fact was excluded and ruled out of order by the Speaker. There may be a possibility of repairing Motion No. 5, which would take an amendment to Motion No. 5, if the House agreed.

This is something that there is interest in pursuing, provided that there is a full understanding by the House that the Speaker's ruling is being summarily overturned by the member's request.

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

Motion No. 5 was not selected by the Speaker because it could have been moved in committee.

However, there are precedents where the House can select a motion that was not selected by the Speaker and include it in a group of amendments. Therefore, it is in order for the President of the Treasury Board to seek the unanimous consent.

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

Ottawa West—Nepean Ontario

Conservative

John Baird ConservativePresident of the Treasury Board

Mr. Speaker, I move:

That proposed Motion No. 5 be included in Group No. 1.

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

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

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

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

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

(Motion agreed to)

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It is somewhat unusual that a matter is added on to a group of motions after all of the principal speakers have already spoken to it. Under the rules they cannot speak again, but I wonder if there would be consent to allow each of the parties to put up one speaker to address any matters with regard to this reinstated Motion No. 5.

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

Does the House give its consent?

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

No.

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

Bloc

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak at this stage, to address the first group of amendments, which takes certain powers away from certain committees.

I have had the pleasure of sitting on both the legislative committee on Bill C-2 and the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. I say that I have had the pleasure, but I should rather say that I have had the experience of working on them, because I will admit that it was not always pleasant.

Yesterday, as well, we had the pleasure of meeting with the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada at the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. He came with some reservations about the Information Commissioner’s proposed open government act, and he asked us to bring forward a bill. Obviously, that was not our intention, because that is the job of the government. On occasion, some of us have brought forward private member’s bills, which is proper, but we may not bring forward bills that involve an expenditure of money. It would seem that a bill on transparency would cost this government a good deal of money.

The minister told us then to continue our studies and our reports, to modernize and strengthen the act that was passed in 1987. When I asked him whether he had a timetable for this bill, he did not answer. We know what that means: he had no timetable.

And why he has not set a timetable? Because he has no political will. What would he have done if he had had the political will to bring forward a real transparency bill, a real bill on access to public information, one that really modernized and strengthened the act? He would have done exactly as was done for Bill C-2; he would have done it himself and he would have submitted it to a legislative committee. In fact, for Bill C-2, he stretched it to its limit, if I may say so. Not only did he have the political will, but it rose to the level of arrogance. We have seen and felt it; each one of us has complained about it among ourselves. The timetable was much too tight. The witnesses were zipping past at a great rate and we had no time to think about what they were saying. We had no time to read the invaluable documents being given to us. We had no time to do research, to compare, and to seek out more information. None at all. The committee sat as many as 45 hours in a single week. And then, we told them what I will say again now: Watch out! We are going so fast that we are putting together a flawed bill full of holes. The proof of this is that once again the minister has just brought forward a last-minute amendment to fix it. So we know that this bill will be flawed.

This bill also includes some amendments, not a lot, to the Access to Information Act. That is why the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada is not going to do anything more.

Indeed the real changes he wanted to make to the Access to Information Act are contained in Bill C-2. We should not expect anything else of this government or of this minister. In my humble opinion, this government will not table another bill on access to information. We also know that Bill C-2 contains a few partisan elements, such as the one that might throw a wrench into the works of the Liberal Party leadership race. Also, as we can see now, it even takes away certain powers from certain committees, as witnessed by this group of amendments.

There should be a little more balance in this government. In fact there is no schedule proposed for the Access to Information Act.

The minister told us to take our time, to make reports and do analyses, to make sure it was perfect. We have done enough studies and reports. I could pile them up here at least a foot or two high.

It must be understood that there is no political will behind the Access to Information Act. This is so true that yesterday, in our committee, when we were discussing our fall action plan and were getting ready to vote on a measure that would have enabled us to ask the Minister of Labour and the Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec Act to come back, when the House resumes in September, with a government bill on access to information this time, what happened? The Conservative members on the committee monopolized the floor.

The member for Dufferin—Caledon, among others, talked for the rest of the meeting. There were 10 or 15 minutes remaining. He talked the whole time. He said things and contradicted them. He said the opposite of what he thinks. The members were contradictory, talking non-stop, stating figures. They said any old thing to use up all the time so that we could not discuss a bill that would come from the department.

It was too bad for democracy and too bad for transparency. Some transparency! If this government does not intend to rewrite the Access to Information Act, let it say so quite simply instead of beating around the bush and avoiding real debates. One of the Conservative members even said yesterday in committee—this is a laugh—that a minister was also a member, and that a member was also a minister. I did not know I was a minister. I learned this from a colleague in the Conservative Party, who said so in committee.

How can we expect this government to offer us a real transparency act? In committee, I asked this government to propose an access to information act. That motion was rejected by the Conservative members. The same request was made last November, and the motion was adopted unanimously. The same motion that was rejected by the Conservatives in committee on May 15 had been adopted unanimously last November. Remember that there was even a Conservative Party opposition day, last November 15, regarding a new access to information act. What has changed between last November and now? Simply that this party got itself elected and is forgetting its election promises one after the other.

The Conservative government promised to reform the Access to Information Act many times during the last election campaign. It was in their last election platform. Yesterday we saw that this was not true. There will be no new access to information act.

The pity of it is that an accountability act is a fine and proper idea, even though this act is very imperfect and even though the Bloc Québécois has many reservations. This government can expect the Bloc to vote in favour of this bill. But an accountability act without a transparency act is not going to work. It would not prevent a new sponsorship scandal, or other scandals. It is in fact the intention of this government to avoid transparency. It does not want to be transparent. The unfortunate result of this is that Bill C-2 is not going to achieve the goals we thought it would.

The Gomery report recommended many things, including new transparency legislation. One can see that few of those recommendations have been adopted in Bill C-2.

From now on, when people talk about an election promise that is forgotten as soon as the party is elected, they will use the term “Conservative promise”. That is what this is. We thought that a transparency act and a modernized and strengthened Access to Information Act would be forthcoming from this government. Alas, no, it was a “Conservative promise”. There will be no new access to information act.

This government is not seeking to avoid a new scandal. That is not what it wants to avoid. Its initiative is partisan, opportunistic and superficial. All that it wants to tell its electors the next time it goes on the campaign trail is “mission accomplished: we created an accountability act”. That is all it did, but it did it. That is all.

When we look at what is in this bill, we see that it is a very timid step in the right direction and does not include transparency. As I was saying earlier, accountability without transparency will not go far.

This Bill C-2 is a small step forward, but a very small step, a feeble, tottering step. However it is better than a step backward, and therefore the Bloc Québécois will be supporting this bill.

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

1:10 p.m.

Bloc

Guy André Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague's speech on Bill C-2. As she stated, it is a small step forward.

Following the sponsorship scandal in recent years, the Conservatives attacked the Liberals repeatedly in this House, together with the Bloc Québécois and the NDP. We would have thought that the Conservative party would have included and even given more prominence to the Access to Information Act, but it did not do so.

I would like the member to explain why the Conservative Party is so hesitant about having greater transparency in this House with regard to the work, policies and programs of this government. And why this resistance with regard to the Access to Information Act?

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

1:10 p.m.

Bloc

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his excellent question. This is in fact a member whose questions are always excellent because, I should point out, he always cuts to the chase.

I would like to bring up an element of the Conservative election platform which said—and please listen to this and try not to die laughing:

A Conservative government will... Implement the Information Commissioner's recommendations for reform of the Access to Information Act.

Some of us do find it hard not to laugh when hearing such a statement because that is not really what the government is doing right now. This is absurd. I think that in fact what the people of Quebec and Canada really feel like doing is to cry, especially since that was an election promise. There is nothing worse than a broken promise to cause the public to lose confidence in a person or an organization. The fact is that people lose confidence in any organization, group or political party that breaks commitments. It is written in black and white:

A Conservative government will... Implement the Information Commissioner's recommendations for reform of the Access to Information Act.

That commitment was made in November. A mere six months later, here is the deal, as we found out at committee yesterday: this government has no intention of reforming the Access to Information Act. The Minister of Justice nonchalantly told the committee about some existential angst, some concern of his about the Information Commissioner's transparency legislation, thus asking that we think it over and submit a few more reports to him.

That does not work. It is clear that this government lacks political will. It is also clear that the Conservatives do not want any transparency in their government. I would just ask that they make perhaps a bit of an effort to “transparently” admit it. Let them come out and say that they do not want the Access to Information Act to be upgraded. They should just say so. It would make life much easier. No one would waste their time and everyone would then be able to start off in a new direction.

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

1:15 p.m.

Bloc

Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to congratulate my colleague from Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert on her excellent work and her excellent presentation.

I will also take this opportunity to commend the excellent work done in committee by our colleague from Repentigny. He took the time and had the patience to try, for hours and hours, to make the government understand that it had to take all the time needed to do the job right. He had no shortage of either time or patience. He was even prepared to give of his time for the entire summer so that he could talk to the government members about how this accountability act has evolved.

The Bloc Québécois’ position has never varied: the ethics of this Parliament have to be changed, and the job has to be done right. That has always been the message delivered by the Bloc Québécois.

Our colleague from Repentigny has consistently delivered the same message and invited his colleagues to take the time that was needed to genuinely change the ethics of this administration, of this Parliament, and the way that the government of Canada operates, a government that, over the years, has set about evading virtually every law there is and making off with taxpayers’ assets as if they were its own.

That is rather like what was done in the case of this Bill C-2, which has been presented to this House. But the men and women listening to us, Mr. Speaker, have to try to understand how Parliament works.

Introducing a bill is all very well, but when a government is in a minority position, a bill that it brings forward has to be studied in committee and have the benefit of the improvements suggested by the opposition parties, who, you will have noticed, hold a majority of the seats in committees. In a minority government, it is the opposition parties that are in the majority in committees. The government must therefore take all parties’ positions into consideration, and not just enter into misalliances of convenience, as the New Democratic Party did, to try to push the bill through and get a few minor improvements, so the NDPers will be happy and, once again, a bill will be passed that will not solve the entire problem.

When we analyze a bill that is presented in Parliament, we have to know where it comes from. Where does this accountability act come from? It is the direct descendant of the sponsorship scandal. For everyone in this House, including the new members, the sponsorship scandal is the biggest scandal to have hit the federal government in its entire history. Those are the facts.

Today, the bill they are trying to ram through is the very foundation of the entire operation of the government of Canada. The scandal that struck the people of Quebec, and others, deserves the time it takes for us to be able to pass a bill that will guarantee to Quebeckers that no one will ever again try to buy their social conscience with their own money. That is what they tried to do. That is the tragedy of the sponsorship scandal: taking the public’s money and giving it to advertising agencies that handed it over to political parties. We want to do the right thing.

I encourage my colleagues in the Conservative Party, especially the new members, to take another look at the Gomery report, to re-read what the judge said and even the questions asked before the Gomery commission. The reality, ultimately, is that there was a culture of silence. The bill before us today will do nothing to stop that. The proof lies in what the Information Commissioner said.

During the last Parliament, I sat on the committee responsible for studying access to information and the duties of the other commissioners. The Information Commissioner said that there was, in fact, a culture of secrecy. There was no paper trail, no documents. That is why some of the guilty parties have not been punished: there was no documentation. People talked. Paul’s office talked with Pierre’s office. Somewhere, everyone talked with each other in Jean’s office. So Pierre, Jean and Jacques were all there. The problem is that there was no paper trail.

The Information Commissioner told us in regard to the accountability bill that we should watch out because it did not get to the heart of the problem at the Gomery commission and in the sponsorship scandal. Everything was done without documentation.

The accountability bill does not deal with this problem at all. The Bloc’s concerns are therefore very understandable.

In its election campaign, the Conservative Party said that when it arrived it would clean everything up and introduce a bill to prevent what had happened in the past from happening again.

I encourage my Conservative colleagues to read the recommendations in the Gomery report, which also said that this bill did not go far enough. The Conservative Party’s cure for the disease of corruption does not remedy anything because it does not prevent the culture of secrecy. The government will not keep any trail and public servants will be able to continue to communicate by telephone without having to put anything in writing. That is what happened in the sponsorship scandal: everything was done on the phone and nothing was in writing.

When the Information Commissioner received requests, whether from Mr. Justice Gomery or all the various departments, he could not find the documents that were requested. That is what Commissioner Reid still says today when he maintains that this bill does not change what is important, namely the fact that everything is based on access to information but only to the extent that the information is available.

So you will understand why our colleague from Repentigny went to such lengths to try to make the other parties, especially the Conservatives and the NDP, understand that they should not go so fast. Some very important things were criticized, and this bill does not change them.

The most important of these things is to require that the administration keep written records and keep all the documents about every issue, every program. This bill does not do that, as the Information Commissioner and others said. Access to information is not amended, so no information is available, and there is no requirement to keep any information.

A full-scale reform of the situation that gave rise to the sponsorship scandal is needed. Yet this is not what the Conservative Party is doing. The Conservative Party is playing politics. It has a minority government, and it had high hopes of quickly winning a majority, but this will not happen. Why? Because too many Conservative members do not realize that by going too fast, they are not fixing anything.

Obviously, no one could be against the principle of the bill, which is a step in the right direction. But this is not what the Conservatives promised during the election campaign. They promised to fix the problem.

Hon. members will no doubt understand why the position of the Bloc Québécois was clear, why our leader explained the Bloc's position. This bill will not fix the real problem that led to the bill: the sponsorship scandal.

As a result, if we pass this bill, there could be another sponsorship scandal or another scandal where public money is misappropriated for strictly partisan purposes, simply because the Access to Information Act has not been amended, because there are no requirements and because the guilty parties will not be penalized, as the Information Commissioner recommended. During the last Parliament, not ten years but just eight months ago, he tabled in our committee, at the committee's request, a bill to amend the Access to Information Act.

At the time, the Conservatives were in agreement; there was unanimity. The Information Commissioner had been asked to put forward legislation precisely to allow him, who has to field requests from all departments whenever a scandal like the sponsorship scandal breaks out, to provide all the information and to ensure that all pertinent documents are available. So, the commissioner put forward a bill himself. This was the first time that a bill prepared with his staff and legal counsel was put forward by a commissioner to tell us what was required.

However, in its accountability bill, this government totally ignores the Information Commissioner's recommendations, which were at the heart of it all.

Obviously, as you can understand, Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois will support this measure. It does not make things right, however, because the Conservatives said they were going to deal with programs like the one involved in the sponsorship scandal. It is obvious that this bill does not do that.

We will support this measure, which is a very small step for a government hoping to become a majority government very soon. Once again, Quebeckers will realize that this attempt at dealing with a problem is nothing but smoke and mirrors and, therefore, will continue to turn to the Bloc Québécois, and the hon. member for Repentigny among others, to defend their interests.

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

1:25 p.m.

NDP

Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-2 prevents large corporations from donating money to a political party. If we look back to the sponsorship scandal, we know that some were tempted to do that. Indeed, as we saw in the Gomery report, funds were transferred to a political party, namely the Liberal Party.

So is this not at least a step in the right direction? A bill can always be improved. This is why Parliament did not close its doors a hundred years ago. It still exists today and will continue to exist. Does this bill not represent at least the beginning of a process to eliminate corruption?

In the sponsorship scandal, the government did not give money to companies for nothing. That money found its way back into the party's coffers. With Bill C-2, at least we know one thing for sure: the temptation will not longer exist, regardless of which party is in power.

My question is simple. Does the member not think that we are moving in the right direction? If people are given a slap on the wrist, they may not want to take money from taxpayers anymore.

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

1:25 p.m.

Bloc

Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am glad that my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst asked me that question because it is a good example of the New Democratic Party's philosophy. The only thing they are interested in is taking money away from the Liberals. It is purely political. The NDP has the same goals as the government. In the short term, it wants to take money away from the Liberals.

We have taken care of this problem in our neck of the woods: in Quebec, Liberals have pretty much disappeared. The NDP could not manage that in the other provinces, but that is its problem. We have no problem waiting three or four months to get a real bill that would stop the entire administration from using the people's money and creating more scandals.

We got rid of the Liberals. I realize the NDP did not. The problem is that for short-term partisan and political reasons, the NDP is shelving what was the seed of a true revolution whose goal was to ensure that we will never again have to resort to a judge like Judge Gomery to resolve disputes between Canadians and bureaucrats.

Motions in amendmentFederal Accountability ActGovernment Orders

1:25 p.m.

NDP

Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB

Mr. Speaker, I do not agree with the hon. member when he says we are politically motivated. We simply want to be reasonable. There is a political party that was not reasonable, like others may not have been either. However, Bill C-2 is a start. It allows us to say it is time for this to stop. The only reason money was given to the companies and the promoters was that it ended up back in the coffers of the political party.

Would someone say we want to put an end to this situation for political reasons? I think we are here to be politically active. We live politics from dawn to dusk. We just want to put an end to the misuse of taxpayers' money.

We had good programs, including the transitional assistance program through which Jean Chrétien gave money to the owner of the Auberge Grand-Mère in Quebec, to whom he had made a loan. Bingo. He recovered his money and said this was normal, “He owed me money and he paid me back”.

Yes, but we lost the program. It was a good program through which our small and medium size businesses could get money.

My colleague talks about Bill C-2 as though it were just a case of politics on the backs of the Liberals. And yet I remember not so long ago that the Bloc Québécois voted in a way that made the Liberal government fall and led to a general election.