Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl again for bringing up an issue in the House of Commons today that is very troubling. As you know, for several weeks now, the scandal surrounding the dismissal of the former status of women minister and the allegations regarding the activities of her husband, Rahim Jaffer, have made many Canadians, and especially the House of Commons, wonder about whether the government was serious in its last election campaign or even the previous 2005-06 campaign, when it claimed to want to strengthen legislation to prevent such ethics violations, and also to make significant improvements to transparency in the lobbying process.
Within the government, the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities is one of the ones who fiercely maintains that the government has always taken measures to strengthen the Lobbying Act. He often talks about the Accountability Act, but he always fails to answer a very simple question my colleague has put to him many times. Several other members, as well as myself, have asked the government that same question. Why did they forget to include parliamentary secretaries in the definition of a public office holder? That is the basis of the motion that is before the House today.
Because it is so important, I am going to remind the members and you, Mr. Speaker, that there is an apparent loophole in the Lobbying Act that excludes parliamentary secretaries from the list of designated public office holders. This loophole likely exists for a very simple reason: because the government wanted to find a way for its friends, the Conservative lobbyists—even unregistered lobbyists like the former Conservative caucus chair, Mr. Jaffer—to have access to the government without coming under the Lobbying Act. So the government deliberately left parliamentary secretaries off the list.
It is a bit strange for a young assistant fresh out of university who is working in a minister's office. I know something about what it is like, because when I finished law school, I had the opportunity to work in the prime minister's office as a political staffer for former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. As a young assistant in the PMO, I had to comply with the Conflict of Interest Act. I had been designated by Mr. Chrétien to comply with the Ethics Act and the Conflict of Interest Act, the same measures that apply now with the Lobbying Act.
Now, suddenly, the government has decided to exclude parliamentary secretaries, who are members of Parliament. As we have seen, they often have authority delegated by their minister to make decisions, evaluate projects and make recommendations to senior departmental officials, who themselves may be subject to the Lobbying Act. We can see how this system has become corrupted. The parliamentary secretary who meets with lobbyists is not on the list of public office holders and therefore is not subject to the Lobbying Act. But the deputy minister to whom the parliamentary secretary will refer requests for grants or contributions, as in Mr. Jaffer's case, is subject to the act.
These people are subject to the code, unlike the parliamentary secretary the Prime Minister appoints by order in council to assist the minister. Moreover, as I said, the minister sometimes formally delegates authority to the parliamentary secretary, which is what happened to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport in the case of the famous green infrastructure fund.
The motion is designed to correct a very deliberate loophole that the Conservatives put in place allowing them to have a very secretive point of access into the government for Conservative lobbyists without being obliged to report as they would be under the Lobbying Act.
Otherwise, it is inexplicable that the government pretends to want to submit itself to greater transparency, pretends to want to strengthen measures like the Lobbying Act, pretends that its Federal Accountability Act was this great moment for accountability in government. There is no other plausible explanation as to why it would exclude people who receive delegated authority from their ministers, who meet on many occasions with lobbyists seeking either contributions from the government, grants from the government, access to government programs, or to change policies, decisions, regulations or statutes.
The member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl is asking this House of Commons to say to the government that this loophole, deliberately designed and allowing such worrisome behaviour as we have seen with Mr. Jaffer, needs to be plugged. The Prime Minister actually has to walk the walk and not simply talk the talk, as he did four years ago with respect to accountability.
Another aspect which is worrisome around this question of secretive lobbying of parliamentary secretaries is the whole defence the government offers, that it is okay because no money changed hands. That argument makes no sense at all.
The member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl comes from the great province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and she will know a lot about the fishing industry. I am sure she will agree with me that unfortunately some people who are issued fishing licenses by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans are unsuccessful in actually catching fish. I know the idea that a professional fisher would go out fishing and not be able to catch fish would appear appalling, but we have seen examples of massive overfishing, for example, in the crab industry and the government's mismanagement of that. Certainly in my part of New Brunswick we have seen the effects of that.
When those people go out fishing, they are required to have a licence. The fact that they were bad fishermen, the fact that they were unsuccessful does not excuse them from the legal obligation of having a licence. The same minister who would issue fishing licences would also prosecute unsuccessful fishermen who were fishing without a licence.
Just because someone is a bad lobbyist and failed does not mean that he or she should not be subject to the lobbying legislation.
The other issue which really disturbs us is the lack of proactive disclosure. The government also says that ministers are not responsible, that all the obligation is in the hands of lobbyists. We need to go further. The government needs to actually respect the commitment it made in its election campaign platform to have those who are being lobbied proactively disclose in a public way those who are lobbying the public office holders. That would have eliminated a lot of Mr. Jaffer's ability to waltz around the government without anybody noticing or feeling an obligation to report.
I support the motion brought forward by my colleague, but I want to propose an amendment. I move:
That the motion be amended by adding the following:
And further calls on the government to immediately implement the 2006 Conservative Platform promise to require ministers and senior government officials, including parliamentary secretaries, to proactively record and report their contacts with lobbyists.