Debates of April 27th, 2007

Canadian Heritage

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. that sounds more like a supplementary question than a point of order, but nice try.

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to be careful not to bump up against that last point of order, but in a situation where somebody uses a point of order to cause question and doubt on the good work of—

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

It is not a point of order to call other points of order into question.

At this time, we have a point of privilege from the hon. member for Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington.

Parliamentary Precinct

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising today on a matter of privilege and contempt that I had raised on March 29 and again on April 17.

I do so today because—

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

I am sorry to interrupt, but I want to remind the hon. member that I believe this is the third time he has intervened on this question of privilege. Therefore, the Chair will not be anxious to hear a long question of privilege. If he has some new information or something, then we look forward to hearing it.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when you stood up, I was about to say that I do so today because new information has become available today, further confirming my assertion that the office of the Leader of the Opposition and also the hon. member for Ajax—Pickering were acting in contempt of Parliament when they retained and selectively leaked correspondence to the media, claiming it was new information proving that in 2000 illegal inducements had been provided to cause a Reform MP to resign his seat.

On March 22, the member for Ajax—Pickering issued a press release announcing that he had handed the documents over to the RCMP and that these documents constituted new evidence of illegal acts. He said:

The atrocious activity brought to light by these documents represents possible Criminal Code violations, but also a gross betrayal of the public trust. [The Minister of Public Safety] must step aside while the matter is being investigated.

An article in today's Ottawa Citizen confirms that the RCMP has had possession of copies of these documents for six years, that they do not represent new evidence of anything and that this was never a case of unlawful activity or breach of the public trust.

Thus, a false allegation, which was made a double wrong by the fact that the hon. member's press release falsely stated that the documents “came anonymously into his possession” when in fact they had been handed to him by staff at the opposition leader's office, has been allowed to stand for a month. It is worth noting that the untrue allegation was made at a moment when an election seemed to be in the offing and that it has taken 35 days, or about the length of a writ period, for the truth to be finally reported, correcting these allegations.

The fact that this has been allowed to stand for a month and the fact that the press release containing the false allegations remains on the hon. member's website, as we speak, demonstrates that if allowed to stand unchallenged, his manner of behaviour would place extraordinary novel constraints on the ability of all members to carry out their business, by the need to take extraordinary security measures to ensure that no documents could ever, even when presented to the public under false pretenses, be used in such a manner.

This represents a novel impediment to the ability of the House to do its business and therefore is a contempt of Parliament.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

The Chair will take the member's new information and most recent intervention into account and at some point the Speaker will give a ruling on the member's question of privilege.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In the debate before question period, when the member for Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington was speaking, he suggested I had information or had been privy to information that should not have been disclosed because the committee discussions had been in camera.

I want an apology from the member. He was the one to broach the topic and did not mention the fact that it was in camera. In fact, what I was referring to was not an in camera discussion. It was a discussion that I had with the previous member for Ottawa Centre, Mr. Broadbent, about how the whole arrangement of going to the people to talk about democratic reform had happened. I had heard from the member for Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington previously that he had been in the way of it. Paraphrasing the previous member for Ottawa Centre, he had told me—

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. I am sure the member for Ottawa Centre is eager to give his account of things and his account of how things transpired this morning. I really do not think this is the sort of thing that can be sorted out in the context of a point of order or on the floor of the House in this way. The member has gotten what he has gotten on the record. We will leave it at that.

We will now proceed to the daily routine of business.

Procedure and House Affairs

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the 46th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding the membership of committees of the House, and I should like to move concurrence at this time.

(Motion agreed to)

Criminal Code

[Albina Guarnieri, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-433, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (consecutive sentences).

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce Bill C-433, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.

Eight years ago the House passed the bill I am introducing today by an overwhelming margin because members then saw the need to give judges the discretion to set fair and proportional sentences for multiple murderers and rapists, finally putting an end to Canada's automatic bulk rate for murder and sexual assault.

However, the bill was not passed by the Senate before the general election 16 months later. A Pollara poll at that time found that 90% of Canadians supported consecutive sentencing for murder and rape.

I urge members of the House to also support this bill because justice has to be measured and because every victim deserves a measure of justice.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Criminal Code--Bill C-376

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, there have been consultations and I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That, notwithstanding the Standing Orders or usual practices of the House, on Tuesday, May 1, 2007, private members' business shall be suspended and Bill C-376, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (impaired driving) and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, shall be dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence; and at the time for the beginning of private members' business the House proceeds to the adjournment proceedings pursuant to Standing Order 38(1).

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

(Motion agreed to)

Public Accounts

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure today to move a motion for concurrence in the 13th report of Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

The committee's report contains a protocol that lays the ground rules for the appearance of deputy ministers and agency heads before the public accounts committee to defend the management of public money and their departments and agencies.

This is a complicated issue, so let me give the House some background on how this protocol came to play and why it is so important that we get concurrence in this report.

Deputy ministers and agency heads are now considered accounting officers under the government's new legislation. Accounting officers are accountable in their own right before Parliament for the financial administration of their departments.

At the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts we are responsible for holding the government to account for the way it spends taxpayers' dollars. For members of the public accounts committee the accounting officer provision is very useful because it clarifies the question of just who is accountable when there is misspending found within a department or an agency. However, the accounting officer provision is only as good as the way it is implemented.

Unfortunately, Canadians are faced with a minority Conservative government that is quite happy to trumpet the rhetoric of accountability, but when the time comes to take real action, the Conservatives have shown themselves to be completely opposed to implementing the principles that would allow for a transparent and accountable government. That is why we are here today seeking concurrence in this report.

After the passage of the accounting officer provision last year, the committee undertook to study the provision and how it would work in reality when public servants are called before Parliament to account for their actions.

With the assistance of a widely respected academic, Dr. Franks of Queen's University, the public accounts committee drafted a protocol that sets the ground rules for the appearance of accounting officers before the committee to account for the financial administration of their departments, a very important role.

Throughout the process of writing this protocol, we have repeatedly reached out to the government to work with us to develop a document that would work for both Parliament and the government. The Treasury Board Secretariat was also invited to participate in the writing of a joint protocol.

However, the Treasury Board Secretariat was unwilling to cooperate with the committee. In fact, the government went as far as to bypass Parliament in an attempt to tell the committee how the accounting officer provision would work, not ask but tell the committee.

Shortly before the protocol was to be debated by the committee, the Privy Council Office released a separate document outlining its interpretation of the responsibilities of accounting officers appearing before parliamentary committees.

Mr. Speaker, as you well know, it is absolutely inappropriate for the government to dictate to Parliament the terms on which it will hold the government to account.

Moreover, the Privy Council Office document interprets the roles and responsibilities of accounting officers in such a narrow way that the legislation might well not even exist. For example, the public accounts committee protocol insists that accounting officers are personally and permanently accountable for the decisions made while in office, whereas the Privy Council Office document suggests that only the current accounting officer can be called before Parliament.

In the current environment of public administration in which deputy ministers are shuffled on a regular basis, it is the opinion of the opposition members of the committee that this is a wholly unsatisfactory framework in which to exact accountability from anyone. In short, the Privy Council Office document is intended to shield the government from increased accountability.

This debate is occurring in the context of an ongoing struggle between the executive and Parliament. Parliament is ultimately responsible for approving government spending and holding the government to account for the way it spends. When it comes to accountability, it is ultimately for Parliament, not the executive of government, to decide how it will hold the government to account for its spending of taxpayers dollars.

Given the discord between these two interpretations, the opposition members of the committee wish to debate and pass a motion for concurrence with its protocol in the House of Commons. This would give the protocol the weight of a Standing Order of the House and would empower the committee to compel the government to conform to Parliament's interpretation of the terms of accountability.

It is quite unacceptable that the government is not more willing to cooperate with the committee on this extremely important issue, but I believe that we owe it to Canadians to make sure that we as parliamentarians are able to work on their behalf to ensure that their government remains open, transparent and accountable.

In conclusion, I believe that it is extremely important that the House of Commons vote to concur with this protocol of the public accounts committee. Doing so will send a strong message to the government that the Parliament of Canada is a strong, effective body that is working hard to hold it to account by the way it spends taxpayers' dollars.

I would ask all members of Parliament to support this concurrence motion in favour of real accountability.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, as the member for York West pointed out, this is a tremendously important issue and it really goes to the fundamental role of Parliament: why we are here and why we were elected.

The member gave a brief history of this issue and it has been before us for about 30 years. It was raised first by the Lambert Commission 30 year ago and then by the McGrath Commission about 20 years ago. The Auditor General brought it out in some of her reports, indicating that Parliament ought to look at this issue.

The public accounts committee recommended the accounting officer provision. The Gomery Commission, in recommendation five, stated that and it was codified in article 16 of the Federal Accountability Act, which was enacted in December last year.

The public accounts committee, which I am honoured to chair, developed a protocol and we spent a considerable amount of time, energy and effort in developing this protocol. We tried to get some cooperation from the Treasury Board Secretariat. Unfortunately, we did not get that. A day or two before the final matter was to come to the public accounts committee, the Privy Council Office published its own protocol on its website.

The issue becomes, which leads to my question, is it Parliament's job to determine the roles, procedures and duties of parliamentary committees, or does that job fall on the officials across the street at the Privy Council Office? This is just a continuation of the battle between Parliament, the people and the executive that has been going on for centuries now.

My question to the hon. member is this. Whose job is it to determine the roles, procedures and duties of parliamentary committees?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me thank my colleague who does a fine job of chairing the public accounts committee and has actually put an enormous amount of time and effort into working with all of the committee members, frankly. It is not just the opposition that has worked on this whole issue of establishing a protocol.

We are the ones who get elected, not the people in the executive across the street, in the PMO in the Langevin Building or anywhere else. Parliamentarians such as yourself, Mr. Speaker, with your past history and knowledge could probably write a protocol on this very important issue. We are elected parliamentarians and we are the ones who are ultimately responsible.

That is the reason we worked so hard as a committee on this very protocol. We were very disappointed when Treasury Board refused to work with us on the issue. In fact, it produced its own protocol just before ours was issued. That is totally contrary to how the government is supposed to be working, especially given the fact that the Conservatives had campaigned on good government, accountability, transparency and so on.

It is nothing short of a farce that they are now not supporting us as we move forward as a committee to ensure that we have good transparency, accountability and honesty in government.

We need to know who is accountable. That is one of the frustrating things for all of us who sit on the committee, but even as parliamentarians. Who is accountable? That is the issue. We are currently dealing with additional issues. Who is accountable at the end of the day?

Parliamentarians are accountable to the taxpayers and to the general public. We have to ensure that we are doing our job. That is the reason why a good strong protocol is required.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, the background of this whole discussion is that there has been a fundamental misunderstanding over the last number of years here in Canada with regard to the responsibility of ministers and deputy ministers to and before Parliament for financial administration.

Let me state initially that I accept fully the constitutional convention and practice of ministerial responsibility individually for ministers in the administration of a minister's particular department and collectively for their operations of departments.

Ministers are accountable to Parliament for the authority assigned to them by Parliament. Ministers are supported by deputy ministers. Deputy ministers have always had, or have had for quite some time now, certain statutory responsibilities delegated to them. Certain legislative statutes passed by Parliament delegate certain jobs, duties and functions to deputy ministers. These are included in the Financial Administration Act, in the Public Service Employment Act and in the Official Languages Act.

I should point out that these authorities were not delegated to them by ministers. They were delegated to them by Parliament. As such, ministers cannot give specific direction to deputy ministers on issues of financial management, pursuant to the Financial Administration Act, or staffing, pursuant to the Public Service Employment Act. Those roles belongs to the deputy ministers.

However, it has been the position of successive governments that a deputy minister, in appearing before the public accounts committee, does so on behalf of a minister, which is a very confusing anomaly. This anomaly was described accurately by C.E.S. Franks, Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, when he concluded that the current approach creates an absurd position in which a deputy minister before the public accounts committee responds to questions solely on belief of his or her minister, while if the minister were there, the minister would only be able to respond on behalf of the deputy, the actual holder of the statutory powers.

This has led to what I consider to be a considerable amount of confusion over the last 30 years and has been challenged by a number of commissions, bodies and others during that period of time.

The first major challenge occurred approximately 30 years ago in the Lambert commission. That commission recommended that deputy ministers become accounting officers similar to the system used in Great Britain and which has been used for approximately 130 years. The document states:

It is essential that the authority of deputies with respect to administration be clearly prescribed, and that they be held accountable for that administration.

That particular recommendation was not followed by the government of the day.

This recommendation was again repeated in the McGrath commission report that was tabled in this House in 1985. It called for deputy ministers to be accountable before parliamentary committees for the administration of their particular departments.

That has come before the different issues arising before the public accounts committee. The Auditor General has raised this in at least two of her reports. She has indicated that this issue ought to be explored by Parliament. She correctly concluded that parliamentarians have an essential role to play in the process of clarifying roles and responsibilities.

In May 2005 the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts, of which at that time I was a member, filed a comprehensive report on this issue. I should point out that there was a considerable amount of time, effort and energy put into the report and it was a unanimous report. The committee recommended:

That deputy ministers be designated as accounting officers with responsibilities similar to those held by accounting officers in the United Kingdom.

That recommendation, unfortunately, was not adopted by the previous government.

In the Gomery commission report tabled on February 1, 2006, Mr. Justice Gomery dealt squarely with this issue in the fourth recommendation which states:

In order to clear up the confusion over the respective responsibilities and accountabilities of Ministers and public servants, the Government should modify its policies and publications to explicitly acknowledge and declare that Deputy Ministers and senior public servants who have statutory responsibility are accountable in their own right for their statutory and delegated responsibilities before the Public Accounts Committee.

It can be seen that a number of recommendations have been made over the years. The present government, to its great credit, accepted these recommendations and included them in the Federal Accountability Act, section 16 of which states:

Within the framework of the appropriate minister's responsibilities and his or her accountability to Parliament, and subject to the appropriate minister's management and direction of his or her department, the accounting officer of the department...is accountable before the appropriate committee of Parliament for--

And there are four points:

(a) the measures taken to organize the resources of the department to deliver departmental programs in compliance with government policies and procedures;

(b) the measures taken to maintain effective systems of internal control in the department;

(c) the signing of the accounts--

--I will repeat that, the signing of the accounts--

--that are required to be kept for the preparation of the Public Accounts pursuant to section 64; and

(d) the performance of other specific duties assigned to him or her by or under this or any other Act in relation to the administration of the department.

The obligation of the accounting officer under this section is to appear before the appropriate committee of Parliament and answer questions put to him or her by members of the committee in respect of the carrying out of the responsibilities and performance of duties.

Upon enactment of this legislation, which was in December last year, the public accounts committee, as has already been indicated by the previous speaker, commenced work on the development of a protocol for the appearance of accounting officers as witnesses before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

I should point out that I spoke on the Federal Accountability Act on many occasions, and on every occasion I was given that opportunity, I certainly stated that this was the most important provision in the Federal Accountability Act as far as I was concerned.

To assist us in the development of this protocol we did seek outside assistance. We sought and received assistance from Dr. Franks. He of course engaged others. The committee, to its credit, spent a lot of time and effort on this particular issue. It appeared that the protocol would certainly receive the approval of all members of the committee.

I should point out also that we very much wanted to make it a joint protocol, as between ourselves and Treasury Board Secretariat because we do have similar duties and responsibilities. The public accounts committee is that committee of Parliament responsible for financial administration and Treasury Board Secretariat is that particular department representing the executive that is responsible for prudent , proper and compliant financial administration.

For reasons unbeknown to me, Treasury Board Secretariat opted not to cooperate. Unfortunately, as the previous speaker has pointed out, after four or five months had elapsed and a day or two before the protocol was to come before the committee for a final discussion, it decided to post on the Privy Council website its own protocol.

Let us think about this for a second. Government receives its authority from Parliament and is accountable to Parliament. Privy Council and Treasury Board Secretariat have taken the position, the erroneous constitutional position I submit, that it is their job, their duty to determine the roles and procedures of parliamentary committees.

I believe that everyone in this House has an obligation to think about that particular statement, because if we are going to accept that for one second, we will be abdicating our role as parliamentarians and we will not be serving the people who sent us here to represent them.

I am troubled and disturbed by this behaviour. This is a classic fight between the executive, the government, and the people represented by the members of the House of Commons. This fight started close to 800 years ago and it is continuing in this chamber today.

There are a few other points on the protocol. It is clarifying the roles; it is not a wholesale change. It certainly does not, nor does it intend to in any way alter the fundamental and essential importance of ministerial responsibility. Accounting officers are accountable before the public accounts committee. It does not give deputy heads or agency heads new powers and authority. Everything in the protocol is in compliance with the provisions of the Federal Accountability Act. It is, I submit, a balanced approach after a lot of discussion and deliberation on our part.

If we accepted the government protocol, nothing would change. In fact, it has been argued quite correctly, I would submit, that accountability is worse off before the accountability act if we accepted this. We went forward with these particular provisions of the accountability act based upon the understanding that what the act stated was going to be the actual way it was interpreted, but that is not the way the government wants to do it.

Despite what I just read from the act, the government does not want to give the accounting officers any sphere of accountability that is independent of ministers. It is stating that the accountability belongs to the office, not the person, although the act states that the accounting officer signs the accounts. The Conservatives are asserting that the accounting officer is not accountable for his or her performance and they are stating that the signing of the accounts simply means the accounting officer is expected to answer questions, nothing more than that.

If we accepted the protocol as posted by the government, which was wrong in the first place, the provisions of the Federal Accountability Act would be meaningless and the whole act would be thrown into question. There has been very little of the act proclaimed. All the accounting of these officers of Parliament does not exist. There was a lot of bluster at the time. I certainly supported this provision, but if we adopted this interpretation, the whole thing as far as I am concerned would be a meaningless piece of legislation.

When we talk about accountability and the public accounts act, I want to remind members that inappropriate financial management is extremely rare given the volume of transactions that the government does on a daily basis. Of course when incidents do happen and do come before the committee, it does trouble citizens, but the overwhelming number of public servants continue to display an extremely high degree of integrity and objective professionalism in carrying out the tasks required of them.

I believe I have accurately summarized the background leading up to the adoption of this protocol, which was adopted by the committee. I urge all members of the House to stand up for Parliament and pass this particular motion for concurrence.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Secretary of State and Chief Government Whip]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague from across the way and his intervention on this particular concurrence motion. While I would agree with him that the subject matter is one of great concern, the whole business about accountability as it pertains to the public accounts act, the whole issue of accountability is one that we on this side of the House take very seriously.

My question for my colleague is relatively simple. It seems like every time we start to debate Bill C-43, the legislation that we were debating today dealing with Senate selections, in other words, to reform the other place, that one of the opposition parties, in this case the Liberal Party, takes it upon itself to get us off the agenda. I wonder why it is that those members do not want to discuss the reform of the upper chamber.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I will give a very brief and simple answer.

I chair the public accounts committee and yesterday I heard that this motion would be moved by another member of the committee. I had planned to go back to my riding last night but I postponed that because I thought it was important that I speak to this extremely important concurrence motion, which goes right to the very heart of why we are here.

I really did not know it would be debated this afternoon. I take the hon. member's assertion that it was to be Bill C-43. However, I am not in a position to answer about the agenda of the House or why certain things are debated or why certain things are not debated. However, I do submit this is an extremely important matter for the House.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my well-respected colleague from Charlottetown, who chairs the public accounts committee and who sat on that committee in the last Parliament, certainly holds the respect of all members of the House when it comes to the workings of that committee.

I appreciate the fact that anybody watching this at home would see this as a fairly dry issue but, for all intents and purposes, it is the essence of what we do here in Parliament. We look after the accountability of government.

My colleague from Random—Burin—St. George's, my seatmate, once said, “letting government look after government is like leaving the dogs in charge of the meat”.

As this protocol was being developed by the public accounts committee, and with the PCO coming forward with its own position on it and, as I understand it, the Treasury Board Secretariat also came forward with its position on it, I believe it gives the wrong perception. It looks as if the government is setting the ground rules as opposed to Parliament. Is that the wrong perception or is there a fear of it being perceived as that if this is not an act of Parliament?

I would ask my colleague for his comments on that.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I want to point out that this is a relatively non-partisan issue. I want to clearly say for the record that the public accounts committee made the recommendation back in 2005 and the previous government did not accept it. However, it was included in the Federal Accountability Act, which I certainly support, but now we have a situation, despite what the legislation states, where we have groups in Ottawa that are going to fight this to their dying breath.

To follow up on the member's question, if we agree to allow the Privy Council to determine the roles and procedures of parliamentary committees, we may as well all just go home right now because there will be nothing further for us to do. We have abandoned our accountability role.

It will be interesting to see how this unfolds but I feel confident that every member in the House will support the motion moved by the member for York West.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, earlier I posed the question to the member for Charlottetown, that despite the importance of this particular issue that has been moved by his colleague, whether this is a delaying tactic yet again on the part of the opposition to prevent the House from dealing with and debating Bill C-43, a very important piece of legislation that, I would argue, is long overdue to make some incremental changes to the other place.

Mr. Speaker, through you, with the greatest of respect, if I heard the member for Charlottetown correctly, and I want to give him the opportunity to correct the record if I misheard him, he stated that despite being in the House today and prepared to debate this particular concurrence motion, that he had no idea what the House would be debating today. Did I hear him correctly?

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I can repeat what I said. I was planning to return to my constituency last night but yesterday afternoon I was informed by the member for York West that she would be moving this concurrence motion. I was not prepared to debate Bill C-43. The member is quite right, I did not know that Bill C-43 would be debated today but I certainly wanted to be here when this concurrence motion was debated.

I could spin this all day but I cannot answer the question as to the agenda of the House. I was informed that this concurrence motion would be moved and, as chair of the public accounts committee, I felt that I had to speak to it, which is why I am here to speak today.