Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-2. In my view, the only reason why Bill C-2 is being considered so speedily is that corruption had to be stopped once and for all and a little honour brought to this House.
The Bloc Québécois members may say that they worked very hard, after the 2004 election, and even before, to bring to light all the corruption that led to the sponsorship scandal.
When the motions on Bill C-2 were considered in committee—I understand that there were a lot of motions that they did not agree with but that was not the case for all the motions—they lined up with the Liberal Party whom they had so often denounced in the House of Commons.
There were at least four or five motions that they should have agreed with. But they did not agree with any of them. The member says that he voted for several of them. Well there were certainly some good motions brought forward by the NDP, particularly given that the member for Repentigny said that they were NDP motions.
I think this is a beginning. The Liberals are complaining about the fact that Bill C-2 has been given speedy consideration.
I recall that during the time of the Liberal government—I am sure that the Bloc member will agree with me—there was no more debate in the House of Commons. That was our colleague Mr. Boudria. It was all the rage: between 2000 and 2004, there was closure on every bill. It was a majority government, and it gagged the House of Commons more than 80 times to close off democratic debate in this House.
In the case of Bill C-2, some people have said that it was because of the Liberals. That is not it. The reason is that in the last few years this was all we ever heard about; we even had an election on this issue. What was happening became so obvious that even the Bloc was asking the Liberals questions. The Liberals wanted to be in power and they wanted to have an election. My colleague from Repentigny says that this is true. It is true that it had got to that point.
Ultimately, what we want is to put things in place to prevent this happening again, not just for the Liberal Party, but for any political party.
For example, we know that on the road from Montreal to Quebec or Rivière-du-Loup, the speed limit is 100 kph. But there still have to be laws to prevent people from speeding. The same thing applies to Bill C-2. They are drifting back into it. They do not seem to have learned their lesson. After everything that has happened, there has been an election, all of it has been swept clean, and now we are still hearing about problems.
Take the member who is standing for the leadership of the Liberal Party, for example. He accepted money from an 11-year-old child for his leadership campaign. Unbelievable. It is as if they had not learned their lesson.
Bill C-2 is not perfect. No bill is ever perfect. I have never seen a bill in the House of Commons that was perfect. If we could create perfect bills, we could close the House of Commons down for a few years.
This is the one constant variable here.
I am pleased to have been able to move the amendment to give the Commissioner of Official Languages the same rights as the Auditor General of Canada has.
I have indeed had good discussions with my Bloc colleague, the member for Repentigny, on that subject. We agreed that I would move the amendment. It is important for the Official Languages Commissioner to be treated in the same way as the Auditor General. The people who file complaints must not become the issue. The commissioner is capable of doing her job. She is an officer of the House of Commons and she does a very good job. I would like to congratulate her on all the years she has held this office.
The Conservatives have not made arrangements to replace her, something I criticize them for. It is already June 20, and the House of Commons will be adjourning for the summer shortly. The fact that she has not been replaced shows once again what little respect the Conservatives have for the official languages.
It will have taken two months for us to get a parliamentary secretary for official languages. Now it seems we will not even have an official languages commissioner before the fall. I can only say that the government’s position is most regrettable. We criticize the government for some of the things it does, and we will continue to do so.
Bill C-2 represented an opportunity to try, finally, to stop the corruption and prevent things like this from happening.
The member for the riding of Malpeque in Prince Edward Island—I think—said that to ban corporate donations was an affront to democracy.
I do not think there is one Canadian in this country who believes that this undermines our democracy. Ordinary people remember very well how many times votes have been bought. Some put pressure on members of Parliament and political parties. It was as if the money arrived through a pipeline connected right to the Alberta oil wells, and was given to certain political parties. That was an injustice. Now the injustice will be rectified. All people will be equal. You will have to work to receive money.
Furthermore, I will propose the following. We should perhaps ensure that the government invests more money in elections so that democracy is even more readily accessible. That would give people the opportunity to run for a seat in this Parliament without being obliged to ask big corporations for money. Parliament and the government could permit this sort of openness. In this way, Canadians could participate in democracy and elections without being compelled to make friends with big corporations or attend dinners at $5,000 a table.
In my riding, where lobster is fished, we serve lobster, and I assure you it makes a fine dish, but none of those dishes sells for $5,000. For example, to participate in the Liberal convention—I will correct myself if I am wrong—the cost is $950. That is expensive. The brochures that will be handed out at the convention will also be expensive, no? There you have another way of outsmarting the system to obtain money destined for the coffers of a political party. Instead, a certain amount should be obtained to cover the costs of the convention.
Here is another example. A man with a lot of money decided to give a political party a chance through his 11-year-old son, who took money from his piggybank to give it to someone who wanted to run for the party leadership. This has become really ridiculous. It is as if the parties had never learned their lesson. And the only way of resolving this problem is to pass a bill to stop them. I am not just talking about the Liberals. Whether it is the Conservative Party, the NDP or the Bloc Québécois, it makes no difference. Now I would like to see this sort of bill passed, because then these abuses would stop. Sometimes we need laws to stop abusers.
Because of all these abuses, we have lost some good programs here in Canada. The sponsorship program was a good program. I recall that during the Canada Day celebrations in Bathurst and Campbellton, we got $500,000 to tell the whole country the Canada Games would be held in Bathurst. Today we have lost that program. It was the same thing with the transitional funds. As I said this morning, we lost those programs because of the abuses of the former government.
I want Bill C-2 to finally put an end to these abuses.