Debates of June 9th, 2006

Extension of Sitting Hours

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am not averse to this idea. I think the NDP has made it very clear that we are willing to roll up our sleeves and do whatever it takes to work for something that we are committed to. I want to be seen to be on the side of the people who are willing to work hard to get an important job done rather than run away and get to the barbecue circuit. I am perfectly happy to be associated with those who are willing to work.

I wonder, though, in the ordinary calendar of things and in the ordinary agenda scheduling, why the government feels it is necessary to go to these extraordinary lengths of working to midnight. What barriers or obstacles seem to be in the way of us simply conducting ourselves in the normal calendar?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I take it in the flow of--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Winnipeg Centre is rising on a point of order.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, in the interests of fairness, I thought I was asking a question of the House leader of the Conservative Party. I am not quite as interested in the opinions of the member from Regina, but I have a feeling that the member from Regina has the answer to the question I put to the House leader for the Conservative Party. What on earth is the barrier and the obstacle to progress on this bill? Why does the government feel it is necessary to take these extraordinary measures? Could it be that the obstacle and the barrier is sitting across from him?

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Wascana may reply to the reworded question.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I would simply point out that members of the Liberal Party have been very diligent in attending the legislative committee on Bill C-2, in dealing with all of the work before that committee in a very serious manner, in asking questions that are appropriate to the subject matter, and in advancing a number of critical amendments to try to improve that legislation.

I am told that in the course of the committee's work a series of questions has been asked about items that appear in the first number of clauses in the bill and that could have serious implications for issues that might arise when one proceeds clause by clause to the later clauses of the bill. It is important to have in mind all of those consequences to make sure that we get a piece of coherent legislation that is not internally conflicting or potentially unconstitutional.

I can assure the House that the work being done by Liberal members with respect to Bill C-2 is very conscientious work. It is focused on the issues. It is not dilatory. To answer the hon. gentleman's question, if there is a fault to be laid, it is not with the official opposition.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member for Wascana, who talked about the willingness of the official opposition to stay and work to get important things done, but I have to say that I would like to hear a little more reassurance. I was at the defence committee yesterday and the Liberals were not interested in working that day, because they were not in their seats when the government moved to shut down hearing from CARE Canada, the Polaris Institute and the Canadian Council for International Co-operation.

So while I appreciate hearing from the official opposition that those members want to work hard, my experience yesterday at the defence committee was exactly the opposite. I would like to hear a little more emphatically that the official opposition in this place is indeed actually interested in working.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Oh, Mr. Speaker, I am delighted he asked that question.

The fact of the matter is that members of this House are assigned to various committees and they work very hard on those committees.

I would be interested to know, in dealing with the NDP, how come those members said last November that they were in favour of $5.1 billion for aboriginal Canadians in the Kelowna accord and then conducted themselves in such a way as to trigger an election, which has resulted in the evisceration of the Kelowna accord?

How come the NDP members said they were for student aid and for workplace training and in fact have conducted themselves in such a way that they have caused the cancellation of $2.7 billion in student aid and $3.5 billion for workplace training?

Those members say they are for the environment, but because of their conduct last fall in triggering an election, they cost environmental programs $2 billion, cancelled by the government, and they did nothing to defend those programs.

That is the record of the NDP. I would be happy to stack up the record of any Liberal in working for the best interests of Canadians against any New Democrat any time.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will take a few minutes of my time to explain our party's position.

We support the government's motion, because we feel that the debates must take place. We see that there are a number of bills before the House, and we also believe in members' democratic right to voice their opinions. We therefore need time to do that. Extended hours will enable many members to speak on bills that are very important to the House of Commons, such as Bill C-2, which we are currently looking at in committee.

We must also consider that the House began sitting much later than usual. It is only natural, then, that we should need a little more time to do the work of the House and finish what we started.

As I mentioned earlier, the Bloc Québécois supports this motion. I hope that all the parties will understand. Bill C-2 still requires an enormous amount of work in committee. We will not likely complete that work before the end of next week. The bill will then return to this House for further debate.

We are in favour of the government motion.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

I recognize the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre on questions and comments.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to expand a little on the rationale behind why we may have to sit until midnight and I would like to know if my colleague shares my views.

Bill C-2 being about accountability, transparency and, I suppose, making manifest some ethical standards which in and of themselves may not be legislative issues, the principles can be realized within legislation. I know that my colleague shares my view that this is a noble pursuit and an admirable thing to be doing, but will she agree with me that the enemies of open government and accountability are in fact legion?

They are sprinkled throughout the senior bureaucracy. They are sprinkled throughout the permanent government in the Ottawa system. They transcend opposition from political parties. The opposition is ingrained in that very few senior bureaucrats, really, are big fans of open government and transparency. In fact, I challenge members to find one who really believes.

I remember watching the TV show Yes, Minister. It is a British comedy. Sir Humphrey says to the prime minister, “Mr. Prime Minister, you can have good government and you can have open government, but, sir, you cannot have both”. This is the worrisome sentiment that I sense percolating throughout much of Ottawa.

What worries me, and what I would like my colleague's views on, is that I do not think all the political parties understand how fragile an initiative like this really is, how easily it can be knocked off the rails, and how certain actions from certain parties, no matter how well intentioned, can in fact jeopardize and undermine the success of such an ambitious project.

I hear my colleague saying that naturally we are all willing to roll up our sleeves and work hard because we believe in the principles of accountability and transparency. I am sure my colleague wants to be able to tell the people of Quebec that the federal government is now in fact honest. I know my colleague believes that it is important to assure Quebeckers that federalism is in fact the face of honesty, transparency and accountability, not the face of corruption, maladministration and the misuse of funds. This particular bill gives her the opportunity to go home and be a champion of the federal state of Canada as an honest state with integrity.

She made her speech today about extra hours and how we are all willing to make sure this is the best bill it can possibly be, but perhaps the secondary benefit to Bill C-2, secondary to the restoration of the confidence of the main body politic of Canada, is the unity of Canada. The bill should have been subtitled “the unity bill”, because the biggest threat to Canadian unity is the legacy of corruption that the Liberal Party left us. I was losing confidence in federalism under the Liberal Party, so I can imagine how the people in Quebec felt, being the victims of the sponsorship scandal.

Will she agree with me that if we can convince Quebeckers that the new federal government will in fact be honest and will be stipulated to a set of ethical standards, standards we can be proud of instead of ashamed of, we will all be better off and the nation-state of Canada will move into the next century confident that we are on the right track?

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from the NDP gave such a speech that I would have almost believed he had switched to the Conservative Party. I am very surprised that he paid such a special tribute to the party in power.

Nevertheless, since we have such a motion before us, it is important to examine it very carefully. The hon. member knows this, since he and I sit on the same committee, which is examining Bill C-2. We must come up with a good bill that will be effective and that contains all of the necessary elements to properly administer Parliament. By adopting this bill, we will be able to ensure clarity, while preventing any new mischief or sponsorship scandals. That is the intent of this bill.

The Elections Act must also be very clear, but it needs work. We must review over 200 amendments. This will therefore be a long process and our work must be meaningful. The committee has extended its sitting hours.

Furthermore, I know that here in the House of Commons, we also have considerable work to do on various bills. For four days, June 19 to 22, we may have to extend our hours of work, as the government has requested.

That is entirely reasonable, especially since we arrived in Ottawa later than usual. In fact, since Parliament began much later, it is only logical that our sitting hours may be extended.

As for Canadian unity, I assure you that we in the Bloc Québécois are very united and stand firmly behind Quebec.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, it is abundantly clear that the sovereignists need corrupt Liberals to justify achieving sovereignty. Such is the extremely useful relationship they have with corrupt Liberals who, in turn, use the separatists as an excuse for their corruption, as we have seen in connection with the sponsorship scandal.

The hon. member may try to deny this relationship between the Bloc and the Liberals. She may not want to admit that the sovereignists need the corrupt Liberals to justify separation. Otherwise, is she prepared to say loud and clear that she supports our extending sitting hours in order to pass the accountability bill, which will thoroughly clean up politics in this country, and that she will work to have this bill passed by the Senate before the summer recess?

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

How wonderful it is to be young, Mr. Speaker. It is obvious from listening to the member that he completely missed the point. He did not even listen to what I said. I wish he had listened, though.

What I said was that we do support the possibility of extended hours. His deputy House leader understood me clearly. Now the Bloc is being accused of not wanting that.

Let me offer an elementary lesson to the hon. member: before rising and putting a question to another member in the House, one must first listen to what the other member has to say, in order to then ask a sensible question.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was very pleased to hear my colleague speak, the hon. member for Rivière-du-Nord and deputy leader of the Bloc. I was sorry to hear what the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board just said. It is perfectly absurd in many ways. I would like know what my colleague has to say about this.

It seems to me that yesterday, during the clause by clause deliberations in the legislative committee dealing with Bill C-2, a committee that my colleague and I are members of, if it had not been for the excellent work done by the four Liberal members and the two Bloc members, the government would have been in trouble three different times. Three times the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board tried to push, pull and force the rhythm of the work instead of sitting down and thinking things through. If we had used his work method, we probably would have quickly passed amendments and provisions that would have impacted on other provisions or clauses of the bill down the road.

It was government experts, following questions that I asked and you and your critic asked—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine should address her comments to the Chair. Furthermore, the time for this period of questions has expired. However, I will give the hon. member for Rivière-du-Nord a moment to respond.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will respond quickly. I had said that I would not take too much time.

Serious work has to be done in committee. It is true that we tend to get hurried along. Some amendments have significant consequences to certain sections of the legislation. We absolutely must take this work seriously.

I totally agree with my colleague. We will continue to work in a serious fashion. We will take the time we need to do so.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the NDP caucus, I am pleased to join the debate on the motion by the government House leader to extend the hours of Parliament's sitting so, within the current calendar, we have enough working time to do justice to Bill C-2, the federal accountability act.

At the outset, the NDP is pleased to roll up its sleeves and be here as long as it takes to ensure the bill gets dealt with as a top priority because Canadians are watching.

The bar has been set pretty high. The government made it its centrepiece when it was first elected. It was a campaign promise first and then part of the legislative package. It was the first bill introduced in Parliament, a bill that would clean up government and clean up accountability and transparency. It was done in the hopes that it would have an effect on the confidence of Canadians in their institutions, not just the federal government itself, but the institutions created such as crown corporations, agencies, et cetera.

Let us face it, what we are left with is a pretty tarnished package. I fear we have done such great damage to the confidence Canadians have in their government that they are less likely to vote. That lack of confidence in their institutions undermines the whole democratic process. People are jaded and circumspect. Because of that, they may not exercise their democratic right to vote and send people to Ottawa. This does lasting harm that takes generations to heal.

When we started in this 39th Parliament, quite rightly the number one priority was a comprehensive act, and some say almost too big a project, to try to restore the faith that Canadians should have in their system.

We are pleased to work extra hours to get this project through the House before we break for the summer recess. We are afraid, if this process is delayed and put over into the fall, or God help us put over into the spring, that it will lose momentum. It will lose the drive, the attention and the focus of not only members, but of the media and the general public. If we fail, if we let the public down on this initiative, I do not think we will ever get their confidence back. If we fail now, we will have done irreparable harm to the confidence that Canadians should have in their government.

There is a saying that villainy wears many masks and none so dangerous as the mask of virtue. What we have seen are the enemies of accountability, those who would seek to preserve the status quo. They lined up against this bill. We have to come together. We have to muster our resources to do combat with those enemies of transparency and accountability, those champions of the status quo who nearly undermined the national unity of Canada.

That is our project. We cannot overstate the importance of trying to restore integrity to federal politics. The survival of the country itself may depend on it. I am not saying that to overstate things or to be romantic. I am not kidding. The bill could be the death rattle of the separatist movement in Canada. Those who were so disgusted with Canada that they sought to leave it would now be confident that federalism not only worked as an administrative institution, but worked as an honest institution with integrity. That is how important this is. Everything else pales in comparison.

One of the conditions we have put forward, in our conditional support of this motion, is that we do not want a bunch of other lesser things to be snuck in under the carpet, in the same rubric with these extended hours.

Because I do not want there to be any doubt whatsoever, I want to make it abundantly clear that our party is willing to do whatever it takes to pass this bill, not only as it stands but to put our amendments and ideas forward so we can participate in making it the best bill it can possibly be. Again, not to overstate things, this might be the last chance we get.

Canadians are abandoning the federal electoral process in droves. It grieves me that in the last federal election, the voter turnout was terribly low. Sixty per cent of registered voters is in the acceptable range for a western democratic country, but it is only 50% of all those eligible to vote. That is not very good and it does not bode very well.

Therefore, there are secondary objectives to the bill, one of which is the very integrity and the very health and well-being of the democratic process for which our parents fought and died to create.

I rise today as a fiercely proud Canadian nationalist who sees more to the bill than just the administrative details of dotting the t's and crossing the i's and ensuring that nobody has their hand in the cookie jar. That stuff is really incidental compared to the big picture. We cannot lose sight of that picture, analyzing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

This is what I mean when I say villainy wears many masks. The enemies of the bill would have us study it until next spring, under the disguise, under the fraud, that it is so important that we need to study it more and more, or that we need to have 10,000 witnesses, or that we have to debate every motion and amendment day after day.

We all know what needs to be done. God help us if we cannot tell the difference between right and wrong. That should be what guides us in this activity. Navel gazing day after day and week after week will not work.

I will share with members the fact that the leader of one of the opposition parties told our leader that we should be hearing witnesses on Bill C-2 until next spring. Can anyone believe that? That would give members some idea of what we are up against. It would be death by committee. We would be analyzing, analyzing, analyzing.

We all know what needs to be done. However, some opposition parties cannot function without the status quo they have built up of unethical practices, of shadowy behind the scenes. They cannot operate in the light of day. Sunlight is a powerful disinfectant. When we turn the light on something, it has a miraculous healing effect on it.

I am fond of saying that freedom of information is the oxygen that democracy breathes. The public's right to know is perhaps the most important tenet of our democratic system.

The bill is about that. Members who use the excuse that they will not support the bill because it does not have one of their pet projects involved and it does not have everything, puts in jeopardy the many good things that it does have.

Our advice to any of those who would oppose rolling up our sleeves and getting busy on this bill is, “Give your head a shake”. This is about more than just administrative process, et cetera. This is about the health and well-being of a system that we believe is the best system in the world, the Canadian democratic system, the Parliament that we enjoy and the freedom.

I do not think it is a stretch to connect Canadian nationalism, pride of Canada and Canadian unity to Bill C-2. I think it is exactly appropriate. They are one and the same, part and parcel. That is why I am proud to be associated with it and to do all we can.

The bill opens a window of opportunity that we did not anticipate on April 11 when it was introduced. There are amendments that we think would be important.

The three pillars of strength in the bill are access to information, whistleblowing protection and a public appointments commission. They form the substance of the legs on a three-legged stool. I suggest we add a fourth pillar to the bill, which would be election financing and reform. This is so timely and so appropriate, and we should do it today. A recent event made this abundantly apparent how necessary it is. We have Liberal leadership candidates shaking down school kids for their lunch money under the guise of fundraising. It is entirely inappropriate. Fortunately, we have within our means the ability to change that and put a stop to this atrocity.

[An hon. member]

It is a whole new word for “leave no child behind”.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, that is right. I thought it was clever that when someone criticized the $1,200 child care money the Conservatives said that at least they were not trying to shake down $5,400 from kids, that they were giving money to kids.

The other aspect to election financing reform that we have an opportunity to do something about is an amendment that we put forward dealing with these huge Liberal leadership loans. These leadership loans are tantamount to a corporate donation. If one does not repay these loans after 18 months they are treated as a donation. If one is only allowed to donate $5,400 a year but one loans somebody $100,000 and, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, one does not repay it, it is then treated as a donation. That is corporate sponsorship. It is deliberately circumventing the donation limits of the Canada Election Act and it is wrong. It means that some people are getting disproportionate influence through their donations than others. We want that curbed.

We have one classic example of a member, who actually crossed the floor from the Conservatives to the Liberals, having a loan that after 18 months would have rolled into being considered a donation. She would then have found herself in violation of the law and would simply have taken out another loan to pay off the first loan and rolled it over. I do not want to use the word useless but that is how flawed our election financing laws are. They are easy to circumvent. People are taking steps to circumvent them.

On these corporate leadership loans, one was given to the member for Kings--Hants from the head of a fishing company who in fact was the leading advocate and champion for the income trusts situation. We do not have to be a rocket scientist to connect those kinds of situations.

We have a unique opportunity to deal with the stated priorities of Bill C-2, which includes the access to information reform, a new public appointments commission and to do away with the patronage. I will stop for a second and restate how passionately I feel about this. The governor in council appointments used to be done from a single desk in the PMO. The main qualification was the colour of the membership card that one had in one's pocket. Everybody knows that. Let us not kid ourselves.

The reason we do not need to study some of these things to death is that they are so blatantly obvious. It was just the way Ottawa ran for years and years. This public appointments commission would be a merit based process, an objective transparent process where these 3,500 GIC appointments would be filled based on one's merit or skill and not on one's membership card and the ruling party of the day. That is critically important, as is cleaning up the whistleblowing and lobbyist registration.

It is ambitious. When it was first introduced some said that it is too ambitious. I myself commented that it looked as if it was designed to fail because it was so huge and such an ambitious undertaking. Maybe that is something a newly elected government will do. Once it is two, three or four years into being the government it knows the complexity of these things to a greater degree. It is an ambitious thing but it is a good first project.

Now we are seeing that it is achievable. Yes, it is challenging and, yes, we are burning up a lot of hours in committee. Those who would accuse us of fast-tracking it in committee are not counting the number of hours that we are in session. Yes, it is a small number of days but when we are meeting six, eight and nine hours a day, we are compressing six months worth of committee time into a few weeks.

Normally committees sit two hours a day twice a week, which is four hours week. We are sitting 24 hours a week, which is a six week sitting in one. I will challenge anyone who stands up and says that we have fast-tracked this to the point where we have jeopardized the integrity of the bill because it is simply not true. I would accuse them of having some other motivation in making that accusation.

One of the reasons we need to deal with this before the end of this particular session of Parliament is that we do not need to give the enemies of transparency and accountability time to regroup, time to sabotage and time to undermine our activities because villainy wears many masks and none so dangerous as the mask of virtue.

I do not trust some of those people. I am talking about people not just in other parties who may have ulterior motives. There are people who would rather see the federal government maintain the status quo of corruption, lack of transparency, et cetera, for their own narrow partisan purposes at everyone's expense and, I would argue, at the expense of the nation state itself, not to overstate things.

There are others within the permanent government, within the senior bureaucracy, who are no great friends of transparency and open government. In fact, it is contrary to everything for which they stand. A certain culture evolves. It was the culture of secrecy that allowed corruption to flourish in the Liberal years, was it not? The Liberals could not have operated in the light of day. If sunlight is a powerful disinfectant it would have exposed the rot that was taking place year after year within the sponsorship scandal.

The sponsorship scandal was not limited to Quebec. Winnipeg, Manitoba was cheated by the sponsorship scandal as well. Chuck Guité delivered $2.3 million to the Pan Am Games in 1999. Do members know how much we received? We received $600,000 while $1.7 million was hived off as production costs by a Liberal advertising firm. No one ever found out what those production costs were but I say that was the Liberal Party of Canada's take of that $2.3 million. I accuse them of that. I will say it inside the House and I will say it outside the House. The vice-president of sponsorship for the Pan Am Games, who is now a sitting Liberal Senator, worked directly with Chuck Guité to rob our sponsorship of the Pan Am Games of $1.7 million. I defy them to show me where that money went.

It was not just Quebeckers who were outraged by this and who should celebrate putting a stop to it. Winnipeg, Manitoba fell victim to Chuck Guité and Compass Communications, the Liberal Party of Nova Scotia, the president of the company, the fourth largest beneficiary of sponsorship contracts. It is not as though we do not have Liberal advertising companies in Winnipeg. We have plenty that are plugged right into the Liberal Party, but this contract had to go to this out of town contractor because it would play ball with graft, fraud and corruption.

I am speaking on behalf of Winnipeggers when I stand in the House, and it is an honour to do so. On their behalf I send the very clear message that I am willing to roll up my sleeves and do what I can to ensure this bill is a success and that it does not fall victim to the enemies of transparency and accountability. For those who would seek to carry on with the status quo, they are jeopardizing the very integrity of the nation state of Canada. Do they realize how much harm they did and how critically important it is to now show some contrition? Jimmy Swaggart even showed some contrition when he prostrated himself before his followers and said that he had sinned, that he was wrong. I want to see that from the Liberals, the televangelists' style. They know how to apologize. I want to see a real apology from the Liberal Party of Canada for jeopardizing the nation state of Canada.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre for not only his comments today, but for his good work on the accountability act legislative committee. I also thank the hon. member for agreeing to support the motion, which is actually why we are speaking today. Rather than on accountability, the motion is to extend sitting hours for the week of June 19. I also thank all opposition members who have spoken today in support of the motion.

The reason we introduced the motion today is that it is the last day to introduce the motion according to Standing Order 27(1). If we had not introduced the motion today we would not have been allowed to sit extended hours the week of June 19.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague also sits on the special legislative committee on the federal accountability bill and I have noticed his interest. I have even noticed some sympathetic treatment toward some of the issues that we have raised that we would like to see as amendments to the bill. The NDP has put forward some 20 amendments, most of them not too onerous, most of them minor in nature. I do appreciate the reception most of them have received from not just government members on the committee, but from other members as well.

The public appointments commission is one issue that is particularly interesting to us and one we are committed to, and we would appreciate the government's support on that when the time comes up.

As my colleague has said, this is the last day that a motion can be moved to extend the hours. I would put it to the House that we are also running out of time to introduce meaningful amendments to the Canada Elections Act so that we can stop what I see as the wide scale, wholesale abuse of the Canada Elections Act in the context of the Liberal leadership race as we are seeing it today.

We began by exposing through the media the fact that some people think it is appropriate to launder money through their children's bank accounts in order to exceed the donation limits of the Canada Elections Act. I do not care how this is portrayed or how it is painted and I do not care if somebody gets sued for it, but that is fraud. That is a deliberate attempt to circumvent the donation rules of the act. That was exposed by the hard work of journalists who drew attention to it and by the hard work of members of this House of Commons.

I think everyone is now aware that we do not want undue corporate influence in our elections. We do not want union money influencing or having a disproportionate influence in elections. It should only be a voter, or at least a landed immigrant or a permanent resident of Canada who should be participating in the election process, and even then, with pretty strict guidelines and pretty strict limits.

My colleague, the parliamentary secretary, said that today was the deadline for extending the hours. We should have unanimous consent to do just that so we can introduce these important amendments before it is too late, before we lose the confidence of Canadians and before we lose this window of opportunity to restore integrity to the democratic system here in Canada.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do understand that today is the last day the government can table a motion to extend the hours. I also take note that one of the reasons being given by some members in the House who have spoken is that it is absolutely necessary to ensure Bill C-2 is put through.

I listened to my hon. NDP colleague, the member for Winnipeg Centre. I sit on the legislative committee that is reviewing Bill C-2. I have to say that I have found some of his statements quite astounding in terms of the hidden enemy to ensure that there is no real accountability and transparency. I have been sitting on that committee since its inception and I do not believe there is any conspiracy on the part of any of the members on the committee to impede the adoption and implementation of Bill C-2.

I think a great desire has been clearly exhibited by members of that committee, particularly Liberal and Bloc members and the NDP member himself, the member for Winnipeg Centre, to see that the objectives of the bill are actually achieved and that there are no unintended consequences. I have tabled a whole series of amendments that touch on the constitutional autonomy of the House and its members. The member for Winnipeg Centre tabled identical amendments.

That is one little piece of evidence that there is no hidden agenda on the part of members of the legislative committee. The agenda of each and every member, and I take them all in good faith, is to see that the government bill does in fact achieve what the government says it wants it to achieve, and I believe what all parties want it to achieve, to ensure that there is real accountability and transparency.

I would also like the member to comment on the issue that the committee has in fact been sitting extended hours. He himself made the point that in the space of one week the committee was doing the equivalent of four or six weeks' work of a normal committee. The committee also adopted a motion that it would sit throughout the summer were that required, but I do not believe it will be.

I would like the member for Winnipeg Centre, in the spirit of well balanced, well founded facts, to at least say that this conspiracy he sees is not within the committee members. I do not think the facts would back him up on that if he is basing his statements on committee members. I believe that the government members would also state that there is an honest desire on the part of all of the members to see that Bill C-2 is strong and achieves the objectives. In fact at the pace we are going, the bill will be reported back to the House prior to the last week of the sitting of the House.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I work closely with my colleague on the committee, but I would point out that if we played Bill C-2 backwards on a turntable, a hidden message would come through. It would say to beware the enemies of accountability because they are lurking around every corner and they are deliberately trying to undermine the bill. I am not making this up. There are serious enemies to the bill.

I tracked what happened the last time we tried to introduce transparency when the Liberals were in power. I have done the research and I have found the exact moment when the Liberals bailed out on the access to information reform. Believe me, the enemies of accountability and transparency on that side are powerful, well connected and come right from the top.

We were well along the way to having access to information reform in our hands. We were that close. We had studied it for eight or nine years. I think that should be long enough to even satisfy my colleague who really wants to micro-analyze every t and every i, to her credit. The study was done. We all knew what needed to be done and the minister of justice committed to us, to our committee, to me personally, that he would introduce meaningful ATI reform. It was sabotaged. It was undermined by the leadership of that party. Even though the minister of justice himself, I believe, shared my view that freedom of information is the oxygen democracy breathes, certainly the people who surround him in the back rooms of the Liberal Party do not agree. There are many enemies to accountability.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I did not intend to speak today, but after hearing two speeches, particularly from members on this side of the House, I feel that certain things need to be clarified and I would like to set the record straight.

I will not take all of the time allotted, but I would like to make a few comments. With respect to the speech given by the hon. member for Nepean—Carleton and Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board, I felt he was true to himself and consistent with his usual style, namely, that of petty politics.

I find it very disappointing that someone who speaks on the government's behalf cannot resist making constant allegations and insinuations. This is tantamount to an abuse of privilege. In this House, we all have the privilege to speak freely. Our comments are protected precisely so that we may enjoy this freedom of speech.

However, excessive use of this privilege, which is typical of the hon. member for Nepean—Carleton, as he splatters everyone and accuses all Liberals of corruption, which he does better than anyone and with no subtlety, this really is petty politics. I have already asked him to stop lowering the level of debate in this House. This has proven useless and he continues to do so. He continues to show off like a petty politician and I find his behaviour most distressing.

With regard to the often very creative flights of fancy by the member for Winnipeg Centre, there is one that must be addressed. I believe that in a question to the member for Rivière-du-Nord, he basically stated that all public servants cannot be trusted and have only one objective—that is to hide and camouflage all information and to prevent access to it. The member for Winnipeg Centre is grossly exaggerating in his stereotyping of Canada's public service.

In this country, we have an exemplary public service that, over the years, has helped the executive and Parliament to build a country that is the envy of others, with freedom of expression and action, peace and a kind of social justice that are also the envy of the world. To say that the public servants of this country, whether at a senior or any other level, are part of some conspiracy and plotting to hide information and cover things up is a shameless exaggeration. It was my duty to rise and to set the record straight.

From top to bottom and vice versa, we have an exemplary public service that carries out its work in accordance with the laws of the country. It is unacceptable to insult people in this way.

With regard to the motion, I will support it anyway because it is customary that we do so. Just now, it was said that this was the last day. It may be the last, but I believe that it is also the first. The rules state that it is today, 10 days beforehand, that the government must table its motion. The government has done this as required. We have two hours to debate and then we will decide. I am under the impression that we will decide before the deadline. However, we all have the right to speak about it and I am exercising that right.

The focus seems to be on the consideration of Bill C-2. It is also important to stress that this was the first bill of importance introduced by this government.

Personally, I do not sit on the committee that is working on it. I am sitting on a different committee. I must make sure that those involved have enough time to do their job properly.

For example, with respect to access to information, I have seen a special report that the information commissioner tabled for all members of this House. It does not exactly praise Bill C-2. I do not know if the committee considered or plans to consider the amendments, or what the government's position is. I am going to rely on the teamwork of the members representing all parties on committee to do that and to report. Once the committee has completed its work and reported, we will have an opportunity to debate in the House. I will decide then how I should be voting.

There are, however, other problems with that bill.

This is quite an ambitious bill, which came about pretty quickly.

I have concerns regarding elections, about the Elections Act. For example, the bill would limit personal political contributions to $1,000, while allowing a third party to continue spending more than that amount in each riding. There should not be any contradictions in this bill.

The committee that is asked to work on it has to have enough time to do a good job. In his question to the hon. member for Rivière-du-Nord, the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board asked that she make sure, or give him the assurance, that the bill will be passed, even in the other place, before the summer recess. That goes to show that he does not understand the bicameral nature of this Parliament.

I wanted to make these few comments to correct to some extent those made by the members for Nepean—Carleton and Winnipeg Centre.