Mr. Speaker, that is not a lot of time, but I am pleased to have the opportunity nonetheless to rise and speak for a few moments on this bill.
It is a bill that I am a bit perplexed to find here on the floor. While we certainly support private members' bills coming forward, the government tends to slide its own business through as either government-sponsored bills or through private members' bills, so we never really know what the motivation is behind it.
Let me speak to this. Bill C-520, an act supporting non-partisan agents of Parliament, talks about the people who should staff and represent the agents of Parliament. It does not talk about the fact that many of the agents of Parliament need proper resources to carry out their responsibilities under their particular mandate. They have come to committees and reported to the House that they would be in a better position to properly carry out their responsibilities and mandate if they were allocated greater resources and if they had their mandate properly amended to allow them to carry out their responsibilities.
That would be a very positive and constructive piece of legislation and something that we could probably support. However, I do not quite understand why this is here. It talks about the partisan activities of people who work for parliamentary agents, but we already have legislation and regulations that deal with the partisan activities of public servants. We have Part 7 of the Public Service Employment Act, political activities regulations, and the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service. The only two offices not covered by these pieces of legislation and regulation are the Senate Ethics Officer and the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. They have their own in-house codes.
I do not understand why this is here. I have to tell the House that as somebody who has been in politics as an elected member for over 15 years and who has been involved in partisan activities, I encourage and applaud citizens who get engaged in the political process. It shows a commitment to their communities and their country. That is a good thing, and it is something that we should encourage.
We should not use it as a detriment. Somebody should be hired or appointed based on the skills, credentials, and experience that they bring to the job; it is not based on their partisan activities. Likewise, I would say that their partisan activities should not be a detriment to their ability to qualify for that position.
I see you are indicating that my time has drawn to an end, Mr. Speaker. I will hopefully get an opportunity to rise and continue this, but I encourage members not to support this bill and not to support the attack by the government on public servants.