Debates of May 24th, 2013

Fighting Foreign Corruption Act

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

moved that Bill S-14, An Act to amend the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today to begin debate at second reading of Bill S-14, the fighting foreign corruption act.

On February 5, our government announced further steps to combat corruption and bribery by tabling amendments to the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, or the CFPOA.

Canada has long played a prominent role on the international stage in combatting corruption. Bill S-14 signals our commitment to further deter and prevent Canadian companies from bribing foreign public officials.

The amendments proposed in Bill S-14 are intended to ensure that Canadian companies continue to act in good faith in the pursuit of freer markets and expanded global trade. They also signal our commitment and our expectation that other countries do the same.

The CFPOA has been in force since 1999 and was first introduced to implement our international obligations under the OECD anti-bribery convention and two more anti-corruption conventions through the OAS and the UN.

In essence, the CFPOA makes it a crime in Canada to bribe a foreign public official to gain a business advantage abroad. It also makes it possible to prosecute a conspiracy to commit or an attempt to commit such a bribery. It covers aiding and abetting the commission of bribery, an intention in common to commit bribery and counselling others to commit bribery.

Laundering property and the proceeds of crime, including the proceeds of bribery offences, as well as the possession of property and proceeds, are already offences under the Criminal Code. The new offences being created in the CFPOA would also be captured by these Criminal Code provisions once they were in force.

The six proposed amendments included in Bill S-14 are intended to answer the call for enhanced vigilance. They demonstrate a comprehensive approach to fighting bribery and signal our government's strong and unwavering commitment to that fight. I will explain each of these in turn.

The first amendment, the introduction of nationality jurisdiction, would allow us to prosecute Canadians or Canadian companies on the basis of their nationality, regardless of where the bribery takes place in the world. Currently, we can only do so after providing a substantial link between the offence and Canadian territory.

The second amendment would provide exclusive authority to the RCMP to lay charges under the act. This would ensure that a uniform approach is taken across Canada and would raise awareness of Canadian businesses regarding the RCMP's primary role in the CFPOA investigations.

The third amendment, the elimination of the words “for profit” from the definition of “business”, would ensure that bribery applies to all, not just those paid by businesses that make a profit.

The fourth amendment would increase the maximum jail term to 14 years. It is currently punishable by a maximum of five years' imprisonment and unlimited fines. The possibility of unlimited fines will remain as it is.

The fifth amendment creates a new books and records offence specific to foreign bribery. International anti-corruption treaties to which Canada is a party require that measures be put in place to ensure that individuals and companies do not “cook the books”. The penalties for the new offence would mirror those of the foreign bribery offence; that is, a maximum of 14 years of imprisonment and unlimited fines.

The sixth and final amendment would eliminate the facilitation payments exception. Currently, the act states that payments made “to expedite or secure the performance by a foreign public official of any act of a routine nature” do not constitute bribes for the purposes of the CFPOA. The CFPOA also provides for an inclusive list of acts of a routine nature.

For the benefit of all members, a facilitation payment is a payment made to a foreign public official to do something that he or she is already obligated to do, such as deliver the mail on time. Conversely, payments that are made to receive a business advantage constitute bribes, which are already illegal under the CFPOA. As a result of the elimination of the facilitation payments defence, this would not create a competitive disadvantage for Canadian companies in international markets. Bribes are illegal under the legislation of every OECD country.

In order to ensure a level playing field for all businesses, Bill S-14 provides for the delay of the coming into force of the elimination of the facilitation payments exception to allow Canadian companies to adjust their own practices and internal policies, if they have not already done so, to ban the use of facilitation payments in their day-to-day operations. This time to adjust is all the more important given that some other countries continue to allow facilitation payments.

With Bill S-14, our government has taken a proactive role in raising awareness of its zero-tolerance position, and we are taking a proactive role in raising awareness of the risks of engaging in corruption abroad.

It is incumbent upon us to appreciate this bill for what it is: that being a clear message that Canada means business and that our government's top priority is securing jobs, growth and long-term prosperity.

Corruption does the opposite. Corruption erodes economic growth and long-term prosperity. Corruption fosters an environment conducive to allowing other crimes to flourish.

Foreign bribery undermines economic prosperity by corroding the rule of law that is the basis of market freedom. The global fight against foreign bribery is intended to create a level playing field for all international businesses. The bill provides us with a strong tool for creating the conditions for Canadian businesses to play by the rules and for Canadian businesses to succeed. Canadian companies can compete with the best and win fairly. Recent cases right here in Canada demonstrate the need for continued vigilance and the importance of effective enforcement.

Our government remains committed to combatting foreign corruption and has already developed and implemented an array of regulatory and legislative tools with which to do so. A number of federal departments, agencies and crown corporations play key roles in Canada's fight against foreign bribery. They work in close co-operation in Canada's two-pronged approach to foreign bribery: enforcement and prevention.

In January 2008, the RCMP established its international anti-corruption unit, which is dedicated to enforcing and raising awareness about the CFPOA. Comprising two teams, strategically located in Ottawa, Canada's capital, and Calgary, a major nucleus for industry, trade and finance and a hub for Canada's extractive industries, it has complemented enforcement efforts with substantial awareness-raising and training.

In addition, the legal framework that established the Public Prosecution Service of Canada in 2006 further enhances prosecutorial discretion in Canada. Since its establishment, the PPSC has also created a position in Ottawa for the purpose of advising the two RCMP teams on ongoing investigations.

To date, under the CFPOA, there have been three convictions, and two cases are pending. There are 35 ongoing investigations. The penalties are increasing substantially with each new conviction. This is good news for Canada. With the adoption of these new amendments, we can expect to hear even better news.

In early 2012, during the development phase to identify new ways for Canada to enhance its fight against foreign bribery, the government hosted the “Canadian Workshop: New Ideas for Canada's Fight against Foreign Bribery”. This was a means to consult with experts from Canadian businesses, law firms, academic institutions and non-governmental organizations on the issue of foreign bribery.

The workshop was held in Ottawa and provided an opportunity for discussions between government officials and key stakeholders on concrete steps that could be taken to improve the enforcement of the CFPOA, and to further encourage Canadian companies to prevent bribery before it happens and to detect it when it occurs.

Over 30 participants engaged in discussions on a number of foreign bribery related themes, including possibly amending the CFPOA, recognizing and resisting bribery solicitations, discouraging facilitation payments, voluntary disclosure, books and records offences, awareness raising, messaging to small and medium-sized enterprises, sectorial initiatives and education and training.

The Government of Canada continues to consider the views and ideas that were presented at the workshop, which was intended to be the first step toward increasing engagement and co-operation with key stakeholders on foreign bribery and corruption in the months and years to come. The results of that consultation are reflected in the bill.

These consultations complement the awareness-raising endeavours undertaken by the RCMP, which I mentioned earlier. Additional examples of the RCMP's participation in anti-corruption awareness programs and training include expanding its training of RCMP liaison officers before they depart for overseas assignments to include the issues of foreign bribery and the CFPOA.

The international anti-corruption unit has also established contacts for the Department of Justice's international systems group to ensure that priority is given to requests for mutual legal assistance in corruption matters. The RCMP has also made a number of presentations to external stakeholders, including presentations to local universities, non-governmental organizations, banks, trade commissioners, law firms, government partners, the Canadian Institute of Mining and numerous Canadian and international associations, experts and professionals.

As we can see from an enforcement perspective, we are on solid ground. As mentioned earlier, a number of federal departments, agencies and crown corporations play key roles in Canada's fight against foreign bribery. They work in close co-operation in Canada's two-pronged approach to foreign bribery: in enforcement and in prevention.

Another of these key departments is Public Works and Government Services Canada. Members will recall that effective July 11, 2012, PWGSC extended the list of offences that render companies and individuals ineligible to bid on contracts to include the bribing of a foreign public official under the CFPOA. This further demonstrates the government's zero tolerance position and is evidence of the variety of legislative, regulatory and policy instruments used in Canada's whole of government approach to combatting corruption.

From a prevention perspective, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade also engages in training and outreach. Information and training on the act and on Canada's international obligations to prevent and combat corruption are provided to heads of mission, trade commissioners and political officers.

In March 2010, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade adopted the policy and procedure for reporting allegations of bribery abroad by Canadians or Canadian companies. These provide guidance to Canadian missions on the steps that must be taken when allegations arise that a Canadian company or individual has bribed a Canadian public official, or other bribery related offences.

Canada is a trading nation. Our economy and future prosperity depend upon expanding our trade ties with the world. As the Minister of Foreign Affairs said on February 5, Canada is committed to the implementation of our international obligations on anti corruption.

These amendments will help ensure that Canadian companies continue to act in good faith in the pursuit of freer markets and expanded global trade.

It is now up to the House to demonstrate our commitment to combatting corruption. Canada is committed to strengthening its fight against corruption, and this bill is a reflection of that commitment. Bribery is not the Canadian way of doing business. We need to make this crystal clear today.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we on this side support the principle of the legislation. We want to see it go to committee to be studied.

However, I want to start off my question by noting the irony of this. It is coming from the Senate. If we look at who is in the Senate and the list of people who serve on international corporations and so on, there are some who right now are having some challenges with respect to tax havens. It is a little rich that the government is depending on the Senate to bring this bill forward. I will leave the irony to everyone who is looking at it.

Canada is a laggard when it comes to transparency. In fact, Transparency International ranked Canada the worst of all G7 nations in 2011. I know that one of the Conservative members is shaking his head. He should, because Canada is the worst in terms of transparency, not according to the NDP but according to Transparency International.

My question is to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Will the government go further than this? The G8 is coming up and we need to strengthen the EITI, which Prime Minister Cameron is pushing.

Will we actually sign on to go further than this, which is basically what happens when people get caught, and have full disclosure of Canadian extractives when they are doing business abroad?

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, of course, I understand that the NDP has a long-standing distrust and dislike of the Canadian extractive industry, which employs hundreds and thousands of Canadians and generates billions of dollars for the Canadian economy. It is a shame, because it is one of the great industries of Canada and makes Canada a global player in the world.

He mentioned transparency, so I would like to tell him about what Transparency International Canada has said about the bill we are here to discuss today. It said that Transparency International Canada is delighted that the federal government is moving to strengthen the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act in accordance with Canada’s international obligations, and it encourages the government to ensure that “the RCMP has the necessary resources necessary to enforce the CFPOA” effectively.

The Hon. John Manley, a former deputy Prime Minister of Canada, said that good corporate citizenship at home and abroad is essential to Canada’s economic success and that these latest measures aimed at eliminating corruption and bribery will strengthen Canada’s already strong reputation for good governance and ethical business practices.

Ian Pearce, the Chief Executive Officer of Xstrata Nickel, one of those great Canadian companies the NDP does not want to support and does not think Canadians should be employed by, said that as a Canadian-based company with operations and projects around the world, it applauds the government’s efforts to combat corruption and bribery. It said that as part of the Xstrata Group, it is committed to the highest standards of personal and professional ethical behaviour and has a policy of zero tolerance towards any form of bribery or fraud.

These are some of the quotes people are making about this very important piece of legislation. I hope that my hon. colleague takes the time to read the legislation, and I look forward to debating it with him at committee.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, unlike the representative of the NDP, we basically agree with the bill and think it is a good idea. It is a welcomed initiative, and we hope that it sees its way into committee sooner rather than later and does not die the death of prorogation.

I am a little concerned. As The Globe and Mail has rightly said, Canada has ranked the worst in the G7 nations in fighting bribery. In fact, over the last period of time the Americans have had 227 prosecutions, the Germans have had 135 and we have had two. I would hope that this legislation would enhance the enthusiasm of the government for prosecutions. As the parliamentary secretary has rightly said, Canadians are fed up with reading about Canadian companies in their national media.

It is curious to me that while this legislation is welcomed legislation and will be supported by, it looks like, all the parties in the House, later on today my Bill C-474, the sunshine bill, which is a bill that would supply evidence for a prosecution, will be spoken against by the Government of Canada.

Why would the government on the one hand enhance its legislative ability and yet simultaneously make it more difficult for prosecutions to succeed?

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I appreciate the support of the member's party and other parties to move this bill as quickly as possible to the foreign affairs committee. As a member of that committee, I give my commitment that we will do everything in our power to move it through as quickly as possible. I agree with the member that this is important legislation.

It is interesting that the member points out that there have been three or four convictions so far under the current legislation. This was legislation that was introduced by his government. To the extent that there were things missing from that legislation, he perhaps may want to talk to some of his colleagues about that. However, his former colleague, the Hon. John Manley, has praised this bill. He said it is the right thing to do and has praised this government for moving quickly.

The OECD pointed out some of these issues to the Canadian government just two years ago. This bill was brought forward immediately to address those issues.

I think we will see more prosecutions, but I also believe that Canadian companies are very ethical. Generally speaking, Canadian companies are of the highest ethical standards in the world, and that is probably why we do not see more of these kinds of prosecutions.

With respect to the member's bill, we will be debating it later today. I will be speaking on it and look forward to talking about it at that time.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the issue of global corruption is receiving significant attention both at home and abroad. I agree that the amendments before us today send a strong message that Canadian companies can compete fairly and that we expect other countries to do the same.

Can the hon. member tell us how recent uprisings in the Middle East and north Africa have made these measures so timely?

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Mississauga South for her question. I think everyone should know what a hard-working member of Parliament she is. She is always bringing issues of importance to her constituents before the House.

The member is right. There have been incidents with the Arab Spring where corrupt regimes have been overthrown by democratic forces, which have brought to light several cases of foreign companies involved in bribery in those countries. Canada is no exception. Several of those cases are now before the courts. I will not comment on them specifically, but the legislation we are here to discuss today would make that whole regime tighter and result in better prosecutions and better prevention of these things happening in the future.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to object to the way the member refers to the bill with “our government”. I would remind him that the bill is from the other chamber, and the other chamber should be non-partisan. We see how much trouble it is in already because it is so partisan.

If it is a priority of the government that is sitting here and not the other place, how come it took five years to bring the bill forward?

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure the member was here prior to the last election, but perhaps she does not know that the reason that bill died on the order paper was because there was an election. Her party voted against the government, which forced the election. That is the easy answer.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bernard Trottier]

I would remind members to try to keep their questions and their answers to a reasonable length so that we can move forward.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill S-14. As I do with all of the bills that come from the Senate, I have to start by talking a bit about parliamentary democracy, particularly with respect to this legislation.

We are seeing this disturbing trend where bills come to his place that originate in the Senate. I do not know what those members over there were thinking when they were first elected, particularly those who started with the Reform Party, but we have never seen so many pieces of legislation. Was that Preston Manning's vision of what the Senate would become? Over 58 senators have been appointed by the present Prime Minister and they were not appointed on the basis of merit but rather on who they knew. We see what is unravelling there now.

The originators of this piece of legislation are in that place. This legislation is about corruption with companies that some of the people over there have some problems with. There is a conflict of interest here. If members across the way cannot see this, then they should open their eyes. How could they not have caught this? They could not even see the fact that a bill that deals with corruption with companies should not start in the Senate where people are still sitting on boards of corporations. It is called a conflict of interest, and that whole place is a conflict of interest it seems these days.

This does need to be pointed out to Canadians as they watch the crisis in Parliament and in the Senate. Senators who have been appointed to that place sit with elected members from this place in caucus every Wednesday, and they share all their information and wisdom. They are seen as legitimate players in terms of what happens in our parliamentary democracy. That is a shame, and it obviously should be changed. This legislation should be dealt with through sober eyes and with clean hands. I am sorry, but there is a problem when people who sit on the boards of corporations are the originators of this legislation. I cannot believe the Conservatives could not see that; although these days there is a bit of a fog over there as to principles and ethics. Everyone knows about that.

Bill S-14 is overdue. Canada ranks dead last when it comes to transparency. The government talked a good game in 2006. I just heard the parliamentary secretary's rationale of “could not get it done”. That reminded me of the previous government that was going to do all sorts of things on climate change and so on, but it just could not get it done. The Conservative government has been in power since 2006, and Canada is ranked dead last in the G7 when it comes to transparency.

However, now it comes forward at the last minute. We will be embarrassed at the G8 if we do not get in line with what other G7 countries want to do, and that is to have full disclosure with Canadian companies, particularly the extractive companies, when it comes to doing business abroad. The bill would not deal with that. The bill is the bare minimum when it comes to looking at corruption and how Canadian companies do business abroad, which is basically after they are caught.

We need to go much further than this. We need to look at the initiatives taken south of the border. We need to think about what we are going to see when the G7 comes up. British Prime Minister Cameron is going to talk about taxes, transparency and trade. Under transparency, he is going to put on the table the EITI principles, which Canada has been called out on. Right now, Russia and Canada are the two countries in the G8 that are being called out for not doing enough. We have to change that because it involves our good name.

I will not bite on the parliamentary secretary's notion that the NDP is against all mining, gas and oil. Many of us have worked in those sectors. We represent constituents who work in those sectors. I am not sure if he has been there, but the parliamentary secretary should go to northern Ontario and he would understand that. Alas, I will not bite on that. It has no credibility, as is often the case with the parliamentary secretary.

We need to understand that if we do not do more, if this is all the government has to offer in terms of Canada crawling out from last place in transparency, then we have failed. Not only will we have failed in terms of our reputation abroad, but we will have failed Canadian companies. Let me spend a couple of minutes speaking on that.

Right now the mining sector is ready to fully embrace the principles of disclosure. It is stunning that the government has not actually met the industry's wish to have that happen. Why is it doing that? It is because the world has changed and these guys are living in the past. The Conservatives think they can go with the old rules and everything will be fine, that people sit around the table and say, “We have to catch up with this because if we don't it's going to catch up to us”.

The world is passing us by. Industry is passing us by. Industry actually wants to embrace full disclosure of all transactions with foreign countries and companies that they are doing business with overseas. It is really bizarre for me to see that the government is so far in the past and that we have every other country in the G7 passing us by. Canada used to be the leader in the area of international law transparency. We are dead last right now.

Bill S-14 would create new offences for those who are concealing records. Fine. It would make sure the notion of the exception for so-called facilitation payments would be dealt with. SNC-Lavalin could tell us a lot about that; obviously, that is something it got caught in. Should we have dealt with that a long time ago? Absolutely. Is it going far enough? Absolutely not. It is a question of whether the government actually believes in corporate social responsibility. That is what it is about.

What the government fails to do, sadly, is to understand that the rest of the world is moving ahead. If it is going to be stuck in the past, it is at the cost of Canada's reputation, and actually at the cost of Canadian businesses, because no country will want to have a company coming in that is not up to the highest standard. Those are the old days, where they could say they were going to open up an operation in a country and they would have to do certain things because it is a cultural thing there, the way they do business, and just pretend it is okay. Those days are gone, and the government had better wake up to that because the future is about full transparency. It is about full daylight. It is not just about bringing in provisions like this bill, which was something that should have been done decades ago; it is about actually going much further.

When we look at Canada's footprint in the world, we should be leaders. Canada's footprint, particularly in the extractive industry, in mining, and gas and oil to some extent as well, is massive. As members probably know, we have the largest footprint when it comes to concentration of investment, and just look at the Toronto Stock Exchange. That is something we have to pay particular attention to. If we are not careful and we are not bringing in full transparency and requirements for industry when doing business abroad, it could affect investment, in the short and the long run, frankly.

We will see other countries passing us by. Also, if countries that are wanting to get into this field see Canada as living in the past and not being brought up to the standards that many in the international community have embraced, then that will affect investment and jobs. It will mean that instead of being seen as a leader in this area, Canada will continue to be seen as a laggard.

It is interesting that the government did not add more teeth to this legislation earlier. I say that because we had some very fulsome debates on the idea of corporate social responsibility. I know my colleague from the Liberal Party will recall that. At the time, the government was so consumed with shutting down any further requirements for industry when doing their business abroad that it forgot to look at what was happening around the world. At the time it was just about “kill that bill”, and it was successful in doing so. What it forgot to do was to look around and notice the world was changing. Even countries that are often criticized, like China, is doing a lot to change the way it is doing business abroad.

I find it rather simplistic, at best, that the government decided it would only bring forward this legislation after being in power since 2006, that it would come from the Senate, which is the definition of irony, I guess, and that it would not understand that we have to do more in this area.

When some of us travel abroad, we talk to people in government and on the ground and ask, “What are your feelings about what is happening in terms of Canada's participation in your country?” The one thing many people say is that they would like more enforcement in terms of transparency. They say that because they actually want us there, there is no question about it. By and large, Canadian companies have a good reputation; the parliamentary secretary and I agree on this. However, people want us to go further and embrace the norms and standards that the rest of the world has now embraced.

I think of places I have been to like the Congo. There was a recent study by Kofi Annan, in which he identified the problem now in the continent of Africa, where there is massive investment. The problem is that the people who are responsible for, so to speak, stewardship of the land and people who live on the land, are not seeing the benefits. Essentially, it is because money is being sucked out of the continent. It is going elsewhere and they are not seeing the benefits. That social contract that is absolutely critical when investing anywhere in Canada, but especially overseas, is being disrupted. People are not seeing the benefits of having an enterprise in their communities and many now are fighting against it. Clearly, we have to get our house in order. Clearly, we have to do more than what is being offered in this bill. As I said at the beginning, New Democrats will support this bill in principle and study it in committee.

One has to ask oneself if the government actually understands what is happening in the world today. I would argue it does not. There are, as I said before, umbrella groups that represent mining saying they are ready and absolutely on board with full transparency and strengthening the EITI principles. They tell government to get on board and get going and they get silence, at best, from government. One has to wonder what world it is living in.

If we look at what is happening around the world, the world has changed significantly. We see developing emerging economies with more capacity to develop their own resources. We see that the BRIC countries are obviously playing a more significant role than even five or six years ago. Instead of trying to do the minimum, Canada should be doing a lot more because what it means for both our reputation and ability to do business are absolutely connected.

I will give the example of China. Many people have talked over the years about how much China is involved in the development of oil and gas and mining overseas. In fact, there was an issue on the west coast of Canada with a Chinese mining company. It understands now that it cannot go in and do whatever it wants. It has to substantively change its business model, ensure there is no corruption and that it adheres to some basic norms. That is a big change because it knows that at some point the host country will no longer welcome it if there is seen to be, and there is, a lack of transparency.

Internationally, Canada has the responsibility to engage in responsible commerce. I will tell the government to look at what it has done to date. It decided that it would fight to the end on strengthening corporate social responsibility and it brought in a counsellor on the issue. Everyone who has studied the operations of that office will note that it is like the integrity commissioner. There is a person at that office, but there is not a lot going on. The lights are on, yes, but I am wondering if anyone is home.

The question for the government is if this is all it has and this is its vision. Canadians want more, that is clear, that is within our values, but on the business side they want to see that there are clear rules. Two things businesses want are consistent rules and fair rules. Right now they are looking at government and there is a fog. I say that because there is this line that the Conservatives use over and over again, that they are for trade and New Democrats are against trade, they are for business and New Democrats are against business.

[An hon. member]

It is black and white.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

It is black and white. As if anyone believes that. I hope Conservatives do not believe it themselves because it is such a simplistic analysis of the world that it really defies credibility.

It is kind of like someone saying, “This simple world you live in is based on only two things: you are for investment and you are for jobs, and that is it. There is nothing else.” The fact is if they are for jobs, they have to be for corporate social responsibility. If they are for investment, they have to have clear and transparent rules. That is where we come in.

That is our job, to provide the sound framework for business to do its work, here and overseas, and for investment to make sure that we are providing the clear rules that everyone can get behind, so there is fairness for investment. Investors do not like instability, and when the rules are changing on a regular basis, as we have seen with the government on temporary foreign workers, they do not like that. Right now, business is very angry with the government, because it went from opening everything up for temporary foreign workers to throwing all this red tape at it. I am sure the Conservatives are hearing from business in their ridings, because they have swung from one end to the other, seemingly for business, and it does not make sense.

When I look at the approach that the government is taking on this bill, it reminds me of someone trying to clean up a mess afterwards, and not looking at preventing a crisis. The fact is that everyone was aware of what was going on in places like Libya. We had Canadian companies doing business abroad in Burma; I remember one of the first files I dealt with when was I elected had to do with what was going on in Burma. We pushed hard for the government to bring in the special economic action rules against Burma. The government finally did, but it did not go back to deal with the present investment in Burma. Companies were still operating in Burma after the government brought in the special economic action measures. It is indicative of the government that it is constantly behind; it is like it is constantly living in the past and not dealing with the future.

In reading the actual bill, no one can argue that the people who are behind this are trying to plug loopholes by eliminating the exceptions previously available, and adding national jurisdiction, which will remove the uncertainty that business is concerned about.

I think we will hear about the offences at committee. We have to start with something, and we can look at that. There is a question that charities have about delivering humanitarian aid, and that is a question we will have to deal with at committee.

If we look at the approach that the government started off with, it was, “How do we deal with our reputation abroad? How do we deal with the fact that there are these loopholes?” That was a fair place to start. I do agree with the parliamentary secretary on the need to give the RCMP the tools they need to enforce legislation. That was not the case before, and I see some positive movement with that.

However, we also have to look at the other side. If we only do this and do not do anything else, have we actually dealt with the core issue? The core issue, as I said at the beginning of my speech, is about transparency and looking to the future, not living in the past.

This bill simply recognizes something that has been around for far too long, but the government will not have actually brought us into the present-day environment of business and international relations unless it goes further, embracing full transparency and, when we go to the G8, ensuring that we get behind the initiatives of full transparency in the extractive industries. If we do not do that, we will continue to live in the past.

The NDP will push for future legislation that will actually make this something seen as a minimum, and for us to actually get on, like the rest of the world has, with full disclosure, full sunlight as my colleague from the Liberal Party has suggested, and see that Canada can be proud of its record on the international stage. That will be good for Canadians, it will be good for investment and will be good all around.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech and for the commitment of his party to support this legislation and get it to committee. It is important to Canada and to our government. I know that he will help move it through committee as quickly as possible.

I hate to burst his bubble, though. He mentioned transparency. I have to remind hon. members of the quote from the chair and president of Transparency International. I think that is exactly what he is talking about. She said that Transparency International is delighted that the federal government is moving to strengthen the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act in accordance with Canada's international obligations and encourages the government to ensure that the RCMP have the resources necessary to enforce the CFPOA effectively.

He also mentioned Canada's reputation with respect to corruption and other things, and transparency. I wonder if he is aware that yesterday GlobeScan released its report showing that Canada is actually the second most favourably reviewed country in the world by citizens of the world, up quite significantly from a number of years ago when the Liberal Party, for example, was in power. Canada's status in the world, people's view of Canada in the world, is actually going up, not down. Perhaps he could comment on that.

Also, I should just point out he said that Canada was behind. The amendments that are being discussed today are not in place in the United States, Australia and New Zealand, the world's largest economies.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in its 2001 report, which is not that long ago, Transparency International ranked Canada as the worst of all G7 countries--I know that hurts the parliamentary secretary's image of his government, but there it is--with respect to international bribery. In fact, quoting from the report, there is little or no enforcement and there is a problem in terms of legislation.

We are glad that the government is finally getting on board with what everyone else has been doing; providing better legislation, but also enforcement. We can have all the rules in the world but if we do not enforce them, we are going to find ourselves having a bit of a problem, in terms of legitimacy.

Finally, I find it interesting. The government talks about dealing with these issues. When it comes to the Canada Revenue Agency, what does it do? It cuts capacity. It does the same with the RCMP. It defies credibility for the government to say that it is serious about these issues when it is cutting the enforcement side. It still is living in the past when it comes to consensus in improving our disclosure of Canadian companies doing all of their work abroad.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we might title this day “corruption day on the Hill”. After all, for the first hour or so, we are going to be talking about Bill S-14, a bill on bribery and corruption. I dare say question period will have something to do with the other place, which might have something to do with bribery and corruption. Then we will go back to debating this bill, which is clearly about bribery and corruption. Then we will be on to debating my sunshine bill, which is also about bribery and corruption. I would say that this is corruption day on the Hill.

I take note of the irony, as has my colleague, but there is also a double irony going on here. The government's position is that it wants us to support Bill S-14, which we both agree is a good idea. However, when it comes to actually generating evidence that would support prosecutions under Bill S-14 the government does not want Bill C-474 to pass or to see the light of day.

It is great to say that we have all this great law, but it is utterly useless if in fact we cannot generate the evidence.

I am quoting from what the parliamentary secretary seems to be fond of quoting from:

Transparency International, a group that monitors global corruption, put Canada in the lowest category of countries with “little or no enforcement” when it comes to applying bribery standards.

And also:

By contrast, the United States has prosecuted more than 200 companies and individuals, many of them “a veritable who’s who of the corporate world”.

My question is very simple. What is the use of Bill S-14 if in fact Bill C-474 does not pass and if in fact there are no resources available to the RCMP?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the government is having a real problem keeping up with current trends, and that is not new to anyone who has watched what has happened in the Senate. As a footnote to that, the member mentioned the irony of this bill coming from the Senate when it has had allegations of bribery and corruption. For the Conservatives to come here with a bill to deal with corruption, maybe they should have started at home. I do not mean in Canada; I mean in their party.

The member is talking about something that is very important. He is right that we will be debating later this afternoon the Cardin-Lugar elements of the Dodd-Frank's legislation in the United States, which has been challenging all of us to do more when it comes to transparency for, in the case, Canadian companies doing business abroad. No longer is it acceptable for any country to allow its companies to operate overseas and not abide by the same rules they abide by in their own country. It is very simple. It is called consistency and ethics.

I think every country in the G7 has stood behind it. It will be interesting to see what happens in the G8 meetings and whether Canada is going to embrace this or not. This afternoon we will find out what the point of view of the government is on this sunshine bill. To date, it sounds like it will be against it.

Industry wants to see this happen. Why is the government being a laggard on this?

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about corruption and bribery. It looks like this will be a discussion that we will have all day. We will have this discussion before question period, during question period, after question period and, I dare say, this is not a conversation that will go to go away any time soon.

As I said in my previous interventions, we generally support this bill. The various aspects of the legislation are actually pretty good ideas. We hope the bill will go to committee sooner rather than later, that it will not suffer the fates of a potential prorogation and that we will have an amendment to the Criminal Code, which would enable better prosecution of companies that find themselves in difficult situations with respect to allegations of corruption and bribery.

Canadians are thoroughly fed up with reading about their companies being involved in allegations and convictions of bribery.

I bring to the attention of my colleagues several recent instances. Regrettably we have about one of Canada's premier companies, SNC-Lavalin, which has been banned from bidding on contracts with the World Bank for the next 10 years because of convictions regarding bribery and corruption. Not only has it lost its reputation, it has had to fire a number of its senior executives. It has had to undergo the humiliation of being investigated by the RCMP and other international police forces. Its stock has been hammered, which always gets the attention of shareholders. Niko Resources was fined $9.5 million for bribing a former energy minister also in Bangladesh. Griffiths Energy International was fined $10.3 million for bribing the wife of Chad's former ambassador to Canada.

I do not care to carry on with this laundry list, but these are very difficult times for some of Canada's premier industries and they know they have a problem. As the member for Ottawa Centre indicated, they are actually asking for enforceable transparency initiatives and those transparency initiatives hopefully would go to help this.

Not only is the reputation of the individual company hammered, not only is its stock hammered, but the industry itself is hammered. The vast majority of companies that wish to operate by internationally recognized standards of corporate social responsibility are also getting hammered and they have difficulties getting out their message that they operate ethically, transparently and in a corporately social responsible fashion. Therefore, the company is being hammered, the stock is being hammered, the industry is being hammered and, in addition, we have our national reputation being hammered.

The parliamentary secretary pulled out some quote and talked about how our nation still had a good reputation and things of that nature. That is not due to anything that the Conservatives have done, but I think he is living in a bit of a la-la land because we actually have had a reputational decline and that is very difficult to recover. Those who conduct these surveys have noted that the loss of reputation is very difficult to reverse. The government has made some efforts. This is one of the efforts.

The government has tried to repair the reputation in the extractive sector with the corporate social responsibility counsellor. After four years, and I do not know how many millions of dollars, two cases or three cases gives the appearance of doing something without actually having done anything at all. I do not know if the government has actually taken our decline in reputation seriously. This damage to our reputation is a serious issue.

The Globe and Mail published an article stating that Canada was at the lowest category of countries with little or no enforcement when it came to not initiating new measures, but applying the bribery standards set out in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The issue is not the absence of legislation but the application of the legislation.

I am perfectly prepared to admit that this is complicated law to apply. It requires a lot of resources and we all know these resources are being stretched. Nevertheless, it seems that other nations take it far more seriously than we do.

By contrast, the U.S. has prosecuted more than 200 companies and individuals, many of them “a veritable who’s who of the corporate world”, according to Peter Dent, a partner at Deloitte Touche who sits on the board of Transparency International Canada. Then it goes on to list a number of cases, including Backfire Exploration Ltd. in Mexico, Niko Resources in Bangladesh, Nazir Karigar in India.

The numbers tell the tale. There have been 227 cases prosecuted in the United States, 135 in Germany, 35 in Switzerland, 24 in France and in Italy and the United Kingdom 18 and 17 respectively. We have two, yet we are the nation with the greatest number of companies operating in the world in the extractive sector. We have the greatest number of companies and the best stock exchange in the world. This is where the world comes to do mining right. We have the best geologist, lawyers, financing and accounting. We have it all here and yet apparently we have no corruption whatsoever. There have been two cases prosecuted in the last number of years.

I would like the government to accompany its initiative, which is a good initiative, with real resources and the support of the sunshine bill, Bill C-474. It would provide the evidence base for the prosecutions under this initiative by the government. Bill C-474 would require each company, 180 days after its fiscal year ends, to file with the government statement with respect to each project and what payments were made to facilitate that project. Therefore, within 180 days, the governments, shareholders and NGOs would know. Obviously, management would already know because that information would be readily available to it. Then a light would be shed on that.

If I am a police officer contemplating a prosecution against a company that has “allegations” against it, the first thing I would do is look at the record of filings for company X, Y or Z to determine if it filed the previous year or the year before and what it had listed.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member will have a full 10 minutes after question period to conclude his remarks.

Love Mountain

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday, May 15, I had the opportunity to represent the Minister of the Environment as we paid tribute to the Love family.

Ann and David Love of King Township donated an easement across some of their land, which is called the Love Mountain. This is an important part of the Happy Valley Forest.

With a contribution of $165,000 from the Government of Canada and through our partnership with the Nature Conservancy of Canada, we were able to protect this very important part of the natural heritage within our riding.

It goes without saying that I have the most beautiful riding in the entire country, but in addition to having the most beautiful riding in the entire country, I also have some of the most beautiful people in the country. This is an incredible family, and it gave me such pleasure and pride to go there as they made this donation to protect such an important part of our natural heritage.

When we combine that with the extraordinary work that the Minister of the Environment and all the members of the Conservative caucus in the GTA are doing to bring about Canada's first urban park, the Rouge Park, there are lots of good things happening with the environment in my riding, and I am very proud of those achievements.

Asian Heritage Month

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am among the 20% of Canadians who were born outside of this country. I am proud to be Canadian, and also deeply proud of my Asian heritage, so it brings me great joy to rise today in celebration of Asian Heritage Month.

Each May we recognize those of Asian origin who have made Canada their home and the valuable contributions they make to our country's political, social and economic culture.

Let us acknowledge that the landscape of this country is richer because of its diversity, because of Canadians who hail from every continent.

Two weeks ago, the Conservative government announced it will now take longer and cost more for Canadians born abroad to reunite with beloved family members—children with grandparents, adult children with their own parents—in direct contradiction to what New Democrats believe makes a strong Canada: families, communities, loved ones nearby.

In honour of Asian Heritage Month, I pledge my commitment to fight these changes and to fight for families, communities and our strong, beautiful Canada.

Jumpstart Day

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to recognize Jumpstart Day, which is held on May 25.

Canadian Tire Jumpstart Charities is a community-based program that helps financially disadvantaged youth participate in organized sport and recreation by covering costs of registration, equipment and transportation.

Jumpstart reinvests 100% of donations received from customers into the local community.

Under the leadership of the Minister of State for Sport, our government has been a major supporter of Canadian Tire Jumpstart. Since the program's inception in 2005, it has helped more than 582,000 children.

Jumpstart works with its network of local chapters and community partners to identify kids with the greatest need in their community.

I ask members to join me in recognizing the great work that Jumpstart does for families across our great country.

Ray Guy and Gordon Seabright

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Speaker, Newfoundland and Labrador have lost two prominent citizens. Although very different in character and nature, these two individuals were very proud of their native province and made a significant contribution to our society.

Ray Guy, a native of Arnold's Cove, was a well-known journalist, humorist, writer and actor and a colourful critic of all governments. He studied journalism and then returned to Newfoundland to write for The Telegram.

His career saw him as a local commentator on CBC, director of a stage play and an actor alongside Gordon Pinsent and Mary Walsh. Mr. Guy received national awards for his writings, the Steven Leacock Award for Humour and an honorary degree from Memorial University.

Mr. Guy passed away at the age of 74. Condolences are extended to his wife Kathie Housser and daughters Rachel and Anne.

Also last week, former provincial court judge Gordon Seabright passed away at the age of 79. Mr. Seabright was called to the bar in 1961 and appointed magistrate in 1964.

Until his retirement in 1989, he was recognized for his demeanour, his sense of humour inside and outside the courtroom and his booming voice.

He will be forever remembered as a colourful and spirited public servant who made a huge contribution to the delivery of justice throughout Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Seabright was also a tremendous volunteer who worked hard for his community of Mount Pearl and also volunteered with provincial organizations, including VOCM.

Our deepest condolences go to his wife Madge, their son Glenn and their family.

Youth Employment

[Eve Adams, Conservative, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as summer approaches, many high school and university students will begin their summer employment.

Canada summer jobs is an important part of the Government of Canada's youth employment strategy. With an annual budget of more than $300 million, the youth employment strategy helps young Canadians obtain career information, develop employment skills, find jobs and stay employed. Getting youth started with early job experience is extremely important in helping them develop successful careers.

Economic action plan 2013 proposes an additional investment of $70 million over three years in youth employment programs. This is further to the $50 million that was invested through economic action plan 2012.

I would like the opposition members who go to the United States to talk down Canadian jobs to know that Conservatives will continue to prioritize jobs and the economy and will keep helping youth.

Bertha Tenasco Commanda

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in the House to pay tribute to an exceptional woman from my riding, an elder from the Algonquin community of Kitigan Zibi, Bertha Tenasco Commanda. Her funeral service was held on May 20.

She was the co-chair of the national Elders Council of the Assembly of First Nations.

She was responsible for opening ceremonies with prayers and traditional offerings. Ms. Commanda was particularly interested in education and the status of aboriginal languages. She served as an intermediary between people and helped foster a better understanding of Algonquin culture, philosophy and traditional medicine.

She was a guardian of traditions, values, language and history, and her words were filled with wisdom and kindness. In January 2013, she offered her support at the meeting between first nations and the Prime Minister.

Ms. Commanda had the qualities of a spiritual leader. Her passing represents a great loss for the people in my riding, as well as a loss of knowledge of the culture and traditions of Kitigan Zibi.

On behalf of all my NDP colleagues, I offer my deepest condolences to the members of her family and community.

Migwech.

Forest Products Association of Canada

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this week the Forest Products Association of Canada celebrated its 100th anniversary. Its members have guided the health and well-being of Canada's forest industry through a very challenging period in its life, and they have come out on top through hard work, incredible perseverance and a bold vision to continue to be world leaders through the use of next-generation forest technology. This vision has resulted in a huge leap in the effective use of wood fibre, and the industry has become a star in forest environmental friendliness.

I want to thank our government for its continued funding support for science and technology research. Much of this research has been used to dramatically increase the use of wood fibre and help the forest industry become environment-friendly leaders.

This week the Minister of State (Science and Technology) announced yet another $413 million for discovery researchers. I know that our forest industry will continue to benefit from research such as this.

Korean War Veterans

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this Saturday the Oshawa Legion is holding a ceremony in honour of Korean Veterans Appreciation Day.

Korean War veterans deserve our respect and admiration. July 27 will mark the 60th anniversary of the Korean War.

The Korean War is often called the “forgotten war”. It is up to us to ensure that this war, the Canadian veterans who fought and those who paid the ultimate price are never forgotten.

Recent events have shown us why the sacrifices of our Korean War veterans were so important. Were it not for them, the entire Korean peninsula would be living under the oppression and tyranny of the North Korean regime. The south is free and prosperous because of the sacrifices of our veterans. We must never forget them.

Oshawa has many Korean War veterans, including Doug Finney of the Oshawa Legion, who is the national vice-president of the Koreans Veterans Association.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the Korean War veterans in Oshawa and Canada for the sacrifices they made to ensure the freedom and dignity of South Koreans.

Quebec Tourism Awards Gala

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, last week I joined a delegation from my riding to attend the gala of the Grands Prix du tourisme québécois. I was extremely honoured by the success of the Jacques Robidas equestrian centre in North Hatley, a finalist, Camp Val-Estrie in Waterville, a bronze medal winner, and the Parc national du Mont-Mégantic, the winner in its class. I am very proud of these outstanding representatives of tourism expertise in the Eastern Townships.

There is no question that in the regions, so often neglected by the Conservatives, the hundreds of businesses in the tourism industry provide clear direct and indirect benefits.This remarkable contribution effectively translates into thousands of jobs in Quebec and hundreds of thousands more across the country.

Whether they work at the Mines de Capelton in North Hatley, the Beaulne museum or Coaticook Gorge, the Louis S. St. Laurent museum in Compton or the Eaton Corner museum, the gold mine interpretation centre in Chartierville, the granite exhibit in Stanstead or its model train museum—the only one of its kind in Canada—the people in the tourism industry sustain an economy that is vital for the regions of Quebec and everywhere else in Canada.

Thank you to all who believe in our tourism industry.

Komagata Maru

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this week marks the 99th anniversary of the arrival of the S.S. Komagata Maru in Vancouver, one of the darkest chapters in Canadian history.

The 376 South Asian passengers who sought to build new lives in Canada were victims of discriminatory policies and denied entry. The ship was forced back to India, where many passengers were shot or imprisoned. This government is determined to never forget what happened. The community historical recognition project earmarked $2.5 million to the Indo-Canadian community for commemoration projects, including the first monument close to where the ship anchored.

In August 2008, our Prime Minister made a historic apology on behalf of the Government of Canada. One year ago, the hon. Minister of State for Democratic Reform tabled the apology here in the House of Commons and read it into the official record.

I ask that my colleagues in the House join me in remembrance.

Ray Guy

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay homage to the greatest of Newfoundland and Labrador journalists, columnists and satirists, the fearless Ray Guy.

Joey Smallwood, the province's first premier, ruled like an emperor for more than two decades. Using weapons like political intimidation, Smallwood's influence extended to every nook and cranny and went largely unchecked until Ray Guy.

Ray Guy had a “Mark Twain meets outport Newfoundland and Labrador” genius to his writing. He decided early on that the only course was to perhaps "giggle the bastards to death”. Ray Guy was a fierce Newfoundlander and a bayman in the very best sense of the word. He probably could not put an arse in a cat, but the boy could write.

In the words of Eric Norman, Ray Guy “strips the blinkers from our eyes and says—see, there is something strong and noble and valuable in the Newfoundlander as he was and as he is and in his Country.”

Ray once wrote that the Rock never cries and it does not, but the Rock is drenched with the tears shed over the loss of such greatness as Ray Guy.

New Democratic Party of Canada

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, taxpayers in my riding of Don Valley East believe that all Canadian taxpayers are expected to follow the rules and pay their fair share. The NDP's own revenue critic said, “Hard-working Canadians who are filing their taxes right now deserve a government that stands up against tax evaders”. My constituents would fully support this statement if the NDP was serious about it.

My question to the NDP is if it wants to stand up for law-abiding Canadian taxpayers, will the NDP start by standing up against tax evaders in its own caucus?

Iran

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, next week, we will be holding Iran Accountability Week to sound the alarm on the Iranian threat to international peace and security and, in particular, the massive domestic oppression that is intensifying in the run up to the Iranian presidential elections in June.

Indeed, Iran Accountability Week can not have come at a more propitious time, coinciding with the 5th anniversary of the imprisonment of the Bahá'i leadership; the 25th anniversary of the 1988 massacre of Iranian political dissidents; and the recent report of 2,600 political prisoners in Iran, including imprisoned women, ethnic and religious leaders, journalists, bloggers, artists, students and trade union leaders. Simply put, they are the leaders of Iranian civil society, many under threat of execution.

Accordingly, we will launch Iran Accountability Week on Monday May 27, with the announcement of the Iranian political prisoner global advocacy project. Canadian parliamentarians will be paired with Iranian political prisoners to let them know that they are not alone, we stand in solidarity with them, the whole world is watching and we will be relentless in our advocacy of their case and cause.

I ask all parliamentarians to join us in the pursuit of justice on behalf of the Iranian people.

Leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary for Status of Women]

Mr. Speaker, the leader of the NDP has some serious explaining to do as details about his 17-year secret are coming to light.

Since 1994, the leader of the NDP has been hiding the secret that the former mayor of Laval allegedly offered him help by offering him an envelope full of cash. In 2010, the leader of the NDP even denied the fact that the bribe was even made. It is shameful that the leader of the NDP denied any involvement in 2010 and has only now decided to come clean about the bribe. It is shameful that the leader of the NDP has kept a secret for 17 years. It is shameful that the leader of the NDP is trying to protect the former mayor of Laval, a man who faces numerous criminal charges.

The leader of the NDP needs to come clean with Canadians and offer to appear before the Charbonneau commission to explain what he knows.

Conservative Party of Canada

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we need to keep talking about the Conservative Party's moral bankruptcy. The Conservatives lost track of $3 billion. The Prime Minister's Office is covering up the Senate scandal. The Conservative party is breaking the rules and accepting money from defeated candidates who are then rewarded with patronage appointments. The courts have found that this party did everything it could to slow down the investigation into election fraud, and the party used its lists to commit fraud. The Conservatives have become the very kind of politicians they used to rail against.

What is worse, they seem to have taken up the Liberal approach to ethics.

At first, they said that everything was above board. Then, they said that those involved in the scandal did the right thing. After all, no one was really in the know about what had happened. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that he did not know about any of it, but that he was very upset. Tomorrow they will likely promise to change.

Canadians deserve better than the Liberal and Conservative scandals. In 2015, they will have a choice. The NDP is that choice.

Leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, every day, Canadians are shocked anew by disturbing allegations emerging from the Charbonneau commission.

Recently, we learned that the leader of the NDP waited 17 long years before disclosing the fact that the former mayor of Laval offered him a bribe.

When asked about the matter in 2010, the leader of the NDP flatly denied that he had been offered an envelope. Then he changed his tune when police questioned him.

To top it off, the leader of the NDP now says that he is proud to have helped the police. He has no reason to be proud of what he did or did not do.

His failure to take action sets a bad example when it comes to fighting corruption. The leader of the NDP must offer to appear before the Charbonneau commission.

Canadians deserve better.

Ethics

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, senior Conservative senator David Tkachuk made it clear the PMO was directly involved in the Senate report whitewash. According to the senator, Nigel Wright would “want to know things, like ‘When is it going to be done? When is this thing over with?'”

The PMO had a hand in rewriting the report. Conservatives only owned up to the whitewash after it hit the front pages.

Senators cannot be trusted to investigate themselves, so why do the Conservatives continue to call this committee independent?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, the member's premise is once again false. The committee consulted widely in the authorship of its report, including with members of the opposition. The committee chair made that clear.

As to the examination of events that happened, that will occur under the auspices of the House of Commons independent Ethics Commissioner and the Senate's independent Ethics Officer. We look forward to the findings.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, let us continue with the story. The senator told The Globe, “...we had a political problem.” He then goes on to confess he consulted Nigel Wright on the rewriting of the report into Senator Duffy's expense claims.

Will the Conservatives now tell us what documents they have given to the RCMP or the ethics officers regarding this arrangement involving Mr. Wright, Mr. Duffy and Mr. Tkachuk?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, the difference in the report is the result of the reimbursement of Mr. Duffy's expense claims. That is what the chair has said and that is what we have said all along.

Now the question is, “How do we toughen the rules on Senate expense claims to avoid future expense abuses?” We have proposed 11 tough new changes that would eliminate the honour system and require senators to have full documentation for every claim they make.

The only problem is that the leader of the Liberal Party in the Senate has said that he is blocking those tough new changes.

41st General Election

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians want the Conservatives to come clean on this whole sordid affair.

We now have another federal judge slamming the behaviour of the Conservatives. In his judgment on electoral fraud, Justice Mosley writes:

Despite the obvious public interest in getting to the bottom of the allegations, the [Conservatives] made little effort to assist with the investigation at the outset despite early requests.

Will the Conservatives continue to claim they fully co-operated when the court has now said the exact opposite is true?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, the case was brought by a hyper-partisan organization, called the Council of Canadians, which failed to produce a single solitary person who was prevented from voting because of a robocall.

That case by this partisan group was dismissed yesterday by the judge.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in the court decision in relation to the fraudulent calls made during the last election, Justice Mosley said that the Conservative database was quite possibly the source of those calls. He also pointed out that the Conservatives all but refused to co-operate with the Elections Canada investigation.

Why did the Conservatives refuse to co-operate fully with an election fraud investigation?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member misquoted the ruling in question.

I have in front of me words from that ruling that the judge said there was:

....no finding that the Conservative Party of Canada or any CPC candidates...were directly involved in any campaign to mislead voters.

That is why this partisan attempt to overturn the democratic results in those six ridings was rejected by the judge.

Ethics

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, he said “quite possibly”. Let us not leave anything out when quoting the ruling.

Let us get back to the Senate expense scandal. According to Senator Tkachuk, Nigel Wright would “want to know things, like ‘When is [the report] going to be done?’”

Mr. Tkachuk said he spoke to Mr. Wright about the political problem surrounding Mr. Duffy's expenses.

Do the Conservatives think that the chair of the Senate Board of Internal Economy conducted or can still conduct an independent investigation into a scandal that he himself is mixed up in?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, the chair of the committee said that the committee had consulted many people, including opposition members, in determining the results of this study.

The discrepancies in the report reflect the repayment of Mr. Duffy's expenses.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that the Prime Minister and his cabinet plan to support the report on Mike Duffy even though everyone knows it has been whitewashed.

Asking Senators Tkachuk and Stewart Olsen to go over the report is a joke. The Prime Minister has an ethical choice to make here and now: carry on with a corrupt process or support the open, transparent and legitimate disclosure of the facts.

What choice is he going to make for Canadians?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, we are choosing to toughen the Senate rules relating to senators' expense accounts.

We have proposed 11 new rules, one of which would require senators to provide proof for every one of their expenses.

The problem is that the Liberal leader in the Senate has already publicly stated that he will block those changes. I encourage the hon. member to ask his leader in the Senate to support these changes.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Senate reports are supposed to be independent. The executive is not allowed, by law, to interfere, but both Senators Tkachuk and Stewart Olsen confirmed that they discussed the whole Duffy audit both with Nigel Wright and the Prime Minister directly.

When did those discussions take place? Who in the Prime Minister's Office saw a copy of the draft Senate report? Has all of this information been provided to the RCMP, and when are we going to get an open, transparent, legitimate airing of the facts?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, the legitimate, open airing of the facts will come from the reviews of the House of Commons independent Ethics Commissioner and the Senate's independent Ethics Officer, both of whom are free to do their work and are separate from the government.

The question for the Liberal Party is this: Why will the Liberals not tell their leader in the Senate to support the 11 tough new changes that we propose in order to ensure that abuses of Senate expense accounts are not repeated?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the $90,000 payment to Mike Duffy, when did the Prime Minister find out about the cheque? To whom was it made payable? On which account was the cheque drawn? What was the date of the cheque, and will the government produce a copy of it?

I ask all of this because the Prime Minister stated that Nigel Wright was acting in “his capacity of chief of staff”, and that cheque therefore belongs to the Government of Canada, and Canadians have a right to see it. Will the Conservatives step up and produce it?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, that is an explicit falsehood. The former chief of staff has indicated that he paid out of his personal resources the cost of Mr. Duffy's expenses and that it was a decision that he took sole responsibility for making.

41st General Election

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, a Federal Court judge confirmed that widespread voter fraud occurred in 2011 and linked the fraudulent calls all over Canada to the Conservative Party.

Justice Mosley said, “I find that electoral fraud occurred during the 41st general election”. Then he went on to say, “[t]he most likely source of the information used to make the misleading calls was the CIMS database controlled by the [Conservative Party]”.

Why are the members of the Conservative government actually celebrating a court judgment that implicates them in widespread voter fraud?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, the question is that a false and ultra-partisan organization brought forward a case without any evidence. In fact, it was not able to produce a single solitary person in all of Canada who was prevented from voting because of a robocall. As a result of the absence of evidence, the judge dismissed this case.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives acted shamefully before the court to avoid talking about their role in voter fraud. Justice Mosley said Conservatives tried to “block these proceedings by any means”, made “transparent attempts to derail the case” and “engaged in trench warfare” before the court.

It also has been over a year since the government promised amendments to the Canada Elections Act. Are all these delay tactics part of its larger campaign to put fraud and partisanship ahead of fair elections?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, the reforms we have already introduced were in the accountability act, which banned corporate and union money from the democratic process. The NDP, in accepting $340,000 in illegal union money, broke that law and was forced, after being caught, to give that money back to the illegal donors.

That is the kind of violation that we need to avoid in the future, and I ask the member to stand up and commit that his party will never do that again.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP has received thank you letters from Elections Canada. The Conservatives have received a visit from the RCMP. That is the difference.

They repeated over and over their famous line that they would fully co-operate with Elections Canada on the robocall file. However, Justice Mosley saw things differently. In his ruling he said that the Conservative lawyers made “little effort to assist with the investigation”.

What is worse, their party's director of communications is thrilled by the ruling. This is serious. By dragging their feet on electoral reform, the Conservatives are opening the door to more fraud.

When will they give Elections Canada the powers it needs to clean house?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I believe the letter that NDP got from Elections Canada was not a thank you letter. It was a please pay back the illegal money letter. He seems to be confusing it with the thank you letter he got from the separatist Québec solidaire for all his generous donations.

While we thank him for asking the question, on this side of the House, we are working to improve the economy and create jobs, and we encourage him to support us in doing that.

Ethics

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is the Conservatives' vision: when the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons found out about the Mike Duffy scandal, he said that Nigel Wright had shown leadership by writing a $90,000 cheque. That is the Conservative Party.

Let us come back to the Senate. Yesterday, we heard a good one about Senator Irving Gerstein, a key fundraiser for the Conservative Party. In addition to his senator's salary, he collected $290,000 for sitting on various boards of directors. He is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by different companies while continuing to collect his salary, compliments of Canadian taxpayers.

Do the Conservatives think this is right, and do they condone this type of conduct by their senators?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, as you know, there are rules in place that strictly apply to what individuals are able to do who are parliamentarians, and that includes senators. It also includes the member for Davenport, from the NDP, who is collecting money from a Canadian crown corporation for his work. He is doing that at the same time as he is sitting as a member of Parliament, where he is reviewing the policies that relate to that.

I say to the hon. member opposite, perhaps he should think a little bit more about cleaning up his own house before he starts worrying about the perfectly appropriate activities of others.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, as he was surrounded by reporters, Senator Duffy was asked whether he was planning to resign.

His smug reply was simply, “I'm a senator”. This is a perfect example of the Conservatives' attitude when it comes to their senators. Canadians are disgusted by the corruption in the Senate and the arrogance of the Conservatives.

When will the Conservatives admit to helping orchestrate this cover-up, and when will they submit all the relevant documents?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member asked about the Senate problem in general.

This is precisely why we are working to tighten the rules in the Senate and prevent these kinds of spending abuses in the future. This is why our government introduced seven bills in Parliament providing for elected senators who would serve shorter terms.

The problem is that the opposition does not support these changes. We urge the opposition to work with us to change the Senate.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the government only came forward after this scandal was on the front pages. It could have come forward earlier, but it chose a cover-up.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister admitted that he perhaps did not act quickly enough in firing his chief of staff, as if it takes two days to consider whether cutting a cheque to a sitting senator for $90,000 is unethical. If the Prime Minister were serious, he would call an independent investigation.

My question is simple. Will they call an independent investigation now?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, there are two independent examinations under way right now by the House of Commons independent Ethics Commissioner and the Senate independent Ethics Officer.

On the broader question of the problem with the Senate, this government is proposing 11 tough new changes to prevent abuses of Senate expense accounts in the future. We have introduced seven different laws to shorten the term of Senate mandates and to make the body elected. The Prime Minister has appointed four senators who were democratically elected in the province of Alberta, and he has indicated to every single premier in this country that if elections are held, he will appoint the winner.

We are trying to change the Senate. Why do they not join with us?

Employment

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, workers in my riding in Hamilton have been struggling with de-industrialization for years. Now they are confronted with EI changes that could potentially put them on welfare, but Senator Duffy, who got caught stealing from taxpayers, had the Prime Minister's chief of staff underwrite his malfeasance to the tune of $90,000.

My question is simple. When will the government show some of the same generosity to Canadian workers as it has to this double-dipping Conservative senator?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour]

Mr. Speaker, this government is beyond generous. This government is the one focused on making sure Canadians have jobs. Unlike the opposition, we are focused on making sure we create jobs, in fact 900,000 net new jobs since the downturn of the recession. I encourage the opposition to get on board and create jobs for Canadians. That is the most generous thing we can do.

Ethics

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will again ask a question that the Conservatives keep avoiding.

Now that we know that the senator in charge of auditing Senator Duffy was in regular contact with the Prime Minister's chief of staff, can the government tell us what documents exist? I am talking about any and every document: emails, memos, reports and all of the legal and perhaps even illegal documents related to Senategate.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member spoke about the differences between the reports, but those differences are the result of Mr. Duffy's expenses being paid back. We said that a long time ago.

The question is whether or not the Liberals will work with us in the Senate to tighten up the rules governing senators' expenses.

We believe that senators should provide proof of all of their expenses. That is one of the changes we are proposing. They need to support that change.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are increasingly fed up with these non-answers from these great defenders of their Senate cronies. Splitting hairs rather than full disclosure will not make this scandal go away. The Prime Minister's story has more holes in it than a block of Swiss cheese. Leadership is about showing up, not ducking out when it gets too hot. I do not remember looking more forward to the Prime Minister's return to Canada than I do right now, to answer some questions. He once said—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. The hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I can recall the Prime Minister once saying that if members bend the rules, they will be punished. If they break the law, they will be charged. If they abuse the public trust, they will go to prison. How quickly they have abandoned those principles in pursuit of power. What ever happened to you guys?

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley knows to address his comments to the Chair.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, what is happening is that we have proposed seven different bills to change the Senate. They include an effort to lower the Senate mandate from a lifetime to eight years and to make senators elected by the people they represent. The Prime Minister of Canada is the first in history to appoint four democratically elected senators and to tell every single premier in this country that if they hold elections, regardless of which party wins, he will appoint the people's choice to the upper chamber.

41st General Election

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Speaker, another day, and even more Conservative corruption and stonewalling. Yesterday a Federal Court judge found that it was the Conservatives' database that was used to attack voters, in the biggest voter suppression fraud system this country has ever seen, yet the Conservatives are still withholding information from Elections Canada investigations. They are also stonewalling, and it is going right to the PMO.

Why has the government not provided all documentation to the RCMP about Nigel Wright's cheque?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, obviously the member did not read the ruling he just referred to, or he would know that the partisan group that brought forward this effort to overturn the democratically elected results from 2011 failed. The judge dismissed that and said that there was “no finding that the Conservative Party of Canada or any CPC candidates...were directly involved in any campaign to mislead voters”.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Speaker, stop the bus from running over another Conservative. The parliamentary secretary defended the in-out scandal. Found guilty. He defended Conservative voter suppression election fraud. Written up by a judge. He defended Peter Penashue on overspending illegal contributions. Tossed out of government. He defended Nigel Wright and the PMO and Mike Duffy for the $90,000 cheque.

Why does the member stand and back up all the losers?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, the reason we are over here and they are way over there in that corner—it is a corner that is well suited for the kinds of people he just described as, the word starts with an “L”— is that they have failed to honour their promises to Canadians. We on this side have dedicated ourselves to improving the quality of life of the Canadian people through successive economic action plans that have created jobs and improved our prosperity. That is why the Canadian people have entrusted us to do the work that we are now doing.

Ethics

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, on April 16, Senators Tkachuk and Stewart Olsen received damning audit findings on Mike Duffy. That very night, Tkachuk gave Duffy a heads-up, which triggered efforts to paper things over. So Tkachuk and Stewart Olsen were talking to Nigel Wright; they leaked information to Duffy, and they made sure their report went easy on him. They were judge, jury, defence counsel, prosecution, and they fiddled with the evidence. Now these same two are running the review of their own misconduct. That just will not wash. Why not pick former police chief Vern White and maybe Nancy Ruth instead?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, the matter in question will be examined by the House of Commons independent Ethics Commissioner and the Senate's independent Ethics Officer. We look forward to the outcome of their independent investigations.

In the meantime, we hope to toughen the rules in the Senate as they relate to senators' expense accounts by eliminating the honour system and requiring that senators have proof for every single expense that they claim. The Liberal Party's leader in the Senate has publicly stated that he is blocking those changes. I encourage the member for Wascana to change his leader's mind.

Government Appointments

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my, my, what happened to these Conservatives? In 2006, the Prime Minister announced he would create a new culture of accountability, but he has clearly failed. Now it is business as usual, just like the Liberals before them. The new Social Security Tribunal, in existence for less than two months, is already stacked with failed Conservative candidates and insiders. The EI board it replaced had political appointees regularly breaking the rules to donate to the Conservatives.

When did the Conservatives' priorities go from restoring trust in government to rewarding their insider friends?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has a very odd characterization of what has happened. We have replaced the employment insurance tribunals with the new Social Security Tribunal to deal with the issues that are very, very important for Canadians. For that reason, they have to be people who are highly qualified. That is why members of the new Social Security Tribunal are appointed by merit and undergo a rigorous selection process. This rigorous selection process is dramatically different from what happened before we were in government. That is part of the new culture of accountability: ensuring that appointees who do these jobs are highly qualified, capable and experienced in the area they are dealing with, so they make judgments that protect the taxpayers' interests and deal with people's very important rights.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

New name, Mr. Speaker, same old patronage.

Employment insurance tribunals may be a thing of the past, but the scandal involving Conservative appointees who made illegal donations is here to stay. The rules are clear: board chairs are not supposed to engage in political activities.

As many as one in every five Conservative appointees gave money to political parties, riding associations and candidates.

Will the government ask the Conservative Party to pay back those illegal donations?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, there has been no such thing. The hon. member obviously has very little understanding of the law in this matter.

What matters to us is ensuring that the people who make decisions on these matters that are important to people, who are dependent on them for their livelihood in vulnerable times, are people who are capable and qualified. That is why we created the new Social Security Tribunal. That is why that tribunal is being staffed with people who have gone through a rigorous process that allows them to demonstrate they have the necessary experience and satisfy the competency criteria to do a very difficult and challenging job. That is what our government is focused on doing, the best—

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, once again, the government has given us a non-answer answer. It is refusing to be accountable to Canadians. The worst part is that the government has in no way learned its lesson.

Instead of appointing individuals to the Social Security Tribunal based solely on merit, it is appointing failed Conservative candidates and Conservative Party friends and bagmen.

Does the minister understand that merit has everything to do with skills and experience and nothing to do with ties to the Conservative Party?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, let us talk about some of the very qualified people who are being appointed to this tribunal and who that member dismisses in the most contemptuous fashion.

These people are outstanding citizens. They have done great things for Canada and for their communities and are committed to doing more public service. Take, for example, Katherine Wallocha. She passed the test. She went through the process, and she qualified for the criteria. Why? Because she had experience in the area and because she was a demonstrated community leader. She was, for example, the first woman to fly a Canadian Armed Forces helicopter in an actual war mission. She served as a community leader in her own community. This is the kind of person those members criticize as a mere political hack.

These are Canadians who do great things for their country, and we should be proud and pleased that they are willing to serve their country again.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Speaker, the patronage scandals do not end at social security, not by a long shot.

We now know that senior officials with ACOA rigged hiring rules so friends and political staff of the now Minister of National Defence could get work. That in itself is reprehensible, but the fact that the minister is washing her hands of the matter is worse.

Canadians deserve answers. How about an answer to this question. Has the minister investigated why ACOA staff bent the rules for Conservative insiders? Why did they break the rules in the first place?

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians deserve legitimate questions.

The reality is, not that version of reality, but reality—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order. The hon. parliamentary secretary has the floor.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am always amazed that the NDP hate the truth.

The independent investigation by the Public Service Commission did not find evidence of any wrongdoing or influence on the part of the ministers or political staff in this matter. Case closed.

Foreign Affairs

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Speaker, since 1947 Canadians have been proud that the International Civil Aviation Organization has been headquartered in the world-class city of Montreal. It provides immense economic benefits to the greater region, including over 1,000 jobs and more than $1 million each year.

Earlier this month, a last-minute bid was made to move the International Civil Aviation Organization from Montreal. On May 3, our government announced the launch of team Montreal and promised to fight tooth and nail to ensure that the ICAO remains where it is.

Would the fine Minister of State for Small Business and Tourism please update the House on the result of our government's efforts?

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Minister of State (Small Business and Tourism)]

Mr. Speaker, for the past few weeks, our government, led by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, our highest-ranking diplomat, has been campaigning to ensure that the International Civil Aviation Organization's headquarters remains in Montreal. His campaign has paid off: Qatar has decided to drop its bid to move the headquarters from Montreal.

I can now assure Montrealers and Quebeckers that, thanks to this government's hard work, the International Civil Aviation Organization's headquarters will remain in Montreal.

Government Accountability

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when Kevin Page wrote his report on government spending, the Conservatives put obstacles in his way and discredited his work. After showing Mr. Page the door at the end of his term, the Conservatives replaced him with someone of their own choosing, yet now we are hearing that the new Parliamentary Budget Officer is facing the same obstacles.

Why are the Conservatives still refusing to give the Parliamentary Budget Officer the documents she needs to do her job?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board and Minister for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario]

Mr. Speaker, in fact, the opposite is true. Various departments are co-operating with the acting Parliamentary Budget Officer. We are providing many documents, according to her requests, and that process will continue.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Incredible, Mr. Speaker, and this is a government that said it would bring accountability to Ottawa.

The fact is that Canadians have a right to know how their money is being spent and what programs and services are going to be increased or cut.

Kevin Page had to drag the government screaming to Federal Court over this kind of stonewalling. The court confirmed that the PBO has a right to information about how public money is spent.

Will this accountability-challenged government respect the court's ruling, or will it force the PBO to take it back to court?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board and Minister for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario]

Mr. Speaker, I have already answered that question.

I would further direct the hon. member and other members of this House to the new database we have established, which will assist all parliamentarians, and indeed members of the public, to track various spending items by different departments, according to department and year, and other indices as well. I think this is a step in the right direction, and you are welcome.

Government Expenditures

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, really, a database? They have a funny way of defining “co-operation”.

Canadians deserve to know how their tax dollars are spent, how the government lost track of $3.1 billion and why it is forcing the passage of the budget implementation bill, for the third time, through a sham process that will not allow for a serious examination of the many complex provisions.

Will someone on the other side of the House finally show some accountability to Canadians regarding this financial mismanagement?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Minister of State (Finance)]

Mr. Speaker, this is a great opportunity to remind the hon. members opposite that we are working through the budget process.

The budget implementation bill is at committee, and we would encourage those hon. members to listen to the witnesses who are coming forward to talk about the good things in this budget and the fact that we are going to help young people find jobs and the skills they need to get those jobs. I see no reason on earth why the opposition should not be applauding it instead of fighting against it.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we do not need any lessons from the Conservatives about fiscal responsibility.

Instead of spewing such nonsense, perhaps the President of the Treasury Board could try to find the $3.1 billion he lost track of, or perhaps he could explain to us why he is so determined to ram through the budget implementation bill without any debate.

Are the Conservatives afraid to let Parliament do its work? Are they afraid of being held accountable to Canadians?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Minister of State (Finance)]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for that question. It gives me the opportunity to remind all Canadians that this budget implementation bill has gone to several committees so that it can receive more debate and input from Canadians. As I said before, Canadians want to come and talk about what is in this budget.

What is most important to many Canadians, and my constituents, is the fact that we will be fulfilling our promise to get back to balance by 2015.

Aboriginal Affairs

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the government has now been caught deliberately withholding thousands of pages of documents that it was obligated to disclose at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. The government held back the most damaging pages, which proved without a doubt that the government has been underfunding child welfare for first nations children. Now it is trying to shut down the hearing.

It is decision time for these Conservatives: political damage control, or the welfare of aboriginal children?

[Leona Aglukkaq, Conservative, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, the government has already provided 120,000 pages to the tribunal and is abiding by the tribunal's rules to provide more information.

The opposition member should be speaking to Canadians about why those members do not support the matrimonial rights of aboriginal women who need the protection. Why does the member not support aboriginal women having the rights that she takes for granted?

Public Works and Government Services

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Mr. Speaker, the government is in the process of selling the Montague post office building as well as another important government building in Summerside.

The Montague building has served as a focal point for the town for decades. The sale of the building would eliminate the last remaining presence of the federal government from the town and would have resounding effects throughout eastern Prince Edward Island.

I ask the government to immediately halt the sale of these buildings and the march toward eliminating the federal government presence on Prince Edward Island.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue]

Mr. Speaker, the CRA is always looking for ways to improve its efficiency and the services that it delivers to Canadians. The creation of a second T3 processing site is in line with CRA best practices and would allow CRA to maintain a high standard of service for Canadians.

CRA identified Summerside as an ideal location as it provides access to existing expertise and state-of-the-art facilities.

Syria

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the situation in Syria is getting worse by the day. Here in Canada, the Humanitarian Coalition launched an appeal to Canadians, calling on them to join forces to help the people of Syria. Last week alone, they raised $170,000 in donations.

Will the government follow the example set by these generous Canadians and also answer the call? Will it commit to matching their donations?

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Cooperation]

Mr. Speaker, we are gravely concerned about the situation in Syria.

Canadians are compassionate neighbours. We continue to punch above our weight when it comes to lending a hand. Earlier this year, the minister made our commitment to humanitarian assistance in Syria quite clear. Canada is providing food, water, medical care and safety for victims of this crisis. We continue to call for full, safe and unhindered access for humanitarian needs.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, clearly, it is not enough. I remind the government that it was the Minister of Foreign Affairs who said that it was not enough. He thought Canada could, and should, do more. I agree with the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Over 8 million Syrians right now are in need of assistance. Over 1.5 million Syrians are fleeing to other countries, especially countries like Turkey, yet the Conservatives, despite promises to help Turkey, have not fulfilled their promise.

Why have the Conservatives forgotten Turkey and helping with the refugee crisis there?

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, we have been in regular contact with Turkish government and the minister has personally extended an offer of assistance on a number of occasions to the foreign minister and to the Turkish ambassador.

To date, we are proud to have provided more than $48.5 million in humanitarian assistance, including help to Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries, such as Turkey.

Rest assured, Canada will continue to stand by them through this crisis.

Natural Resources

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Mr. Speaker, a west-to-east pipeline will add to Canada's long-term prosperity and economic growth. It will make our country more energy secure and it will provide cheap oil for eastern refineries. Our Atlantic Conservative caucus stands solidly behind this project.

Could the Minister of Natural Resources please update us on our government's position toward the west-east pipeline?

[Joe Oliver, Conservative, Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his strong support of this important initiative.

Our government strongly supports, in principle, a west-east pipeline that would bring lower cost Canadian crude to refineries in Quebec and Atlantic Canada.

I share New Brunswick Premier Alward's concern about the federal Liberal leader's negative comments regarding this highly important job-creating initiative.

The Liberal leader should think twice before he speaks and finally take a stand on a substantive policy issue rather than to take both sides for narrow partisan purposes.

The Environment

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, again the minister just attacked the notion that a west-to-east pipeline needs an environmental assessment and local and aboriginal consultations. The minister said it “isn’t the time to diss a major project”, earlier today and just repeated the same thing here. However, demanding blind support for a pipeline risks losing the social licence needed in the U.S. to secure approval for Keystone XL.

Does Canada really want to say to the world that even voicing the importance of environmental assessment is a “diss”, or will the government clarify to the world right now that it agrees that honest environmental assessment is important?

[Joe Oliver, Conservative, Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, we have constantly and consistently said that we will not proceed with a project unless it is safe for Canadians and safe for the environment.

We have an independent regulator to look at the issue. We do not prejudge it and we do not take shots at policies that are good for economic development that will create jobs right across the country, particularly in Quebec and Atlantic Canada.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, 15 years ago Jose Figueroa came to Canada from war-ravaged El Salvador to start a new life. Now he has a family with three children and a supportive community. However, the government is deporting Mr. Figueroa because he was affiliated with the FMLN in the eighties. The FMLN is the internationally-recognized democratically-elected government of El Salvador, and Conservative ministers attended its inauguration. The contradiction makes no sense.

Will the minister stop separating Mr. Figueroa from his family in Canada?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, we have a fair and just immigration system that the member should, and does on a regular basis, recognize. Typically, failed refugee claimants have as many as seven negative judicial, quasi-judicial and administrative decisions before they face deportation. This means that our independent IRB has found no merit to the claim that has been put forward in terms of seeking asylum in our country.

Agriculture and Agri-Food

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, our government has always stood with our livestock industry, including opposing the United States' discriminatory country of origin labelling . After a successful WTO challenge by our government, the U.S. was forced to review its country of origin labelling to make it fair to Canadian livestock producers.

Today, the U.S. released its latest version of the rule. Unfortunately the USDA dug in its heels and will cause further discrimination against our livestock exports.

Could the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture please provide our government's view of today's developments?

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture]

Mr. Speaker, the ministers of agriculture and international trade have been clear that our government is extremely disappointment with the regulatory changes put forward by the U.S. with respect to the country of origin labelling. These changes will not bring the U.S. into compliance with its WTO obligations.

We will consider all options at our disposal, including, if necessary, the use of retaliatory measures. Our government will continue to aggressively defend the interests of our Canadian livestock producers and we will not stop until we succeed.

Employment

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives have definitely blackballed the Quebec regions. Their cuts to the Service Canada office in Joliette, which is in my riding, the move of the Canada Economic Development offices to another area and their ill-advised reform of employment insurance have hit Lanaudière's economy very hard.

It is not surprising that even the president of the Joliette Conservative Association has decided to leave a party that does not understand anything about Quebec.

What right do the Conservatives have to go after the workers of Lanaudière?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, Quebeckers want a government that focuses on the economy, and that is exactly what we will do.

Since 2009, we have created more than 900,000 jobs across Canada, including 192,000 in Quebec. However, Quebeckers do not want to engage in old constitutional battles, as the NDP would like to do.

We on this side will remain focused on what is most important to Quebeckers: jobs and the economy.

Ethics

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has a mad obsession with wanting to control everything and cover up any scandals. Take, for example, the way he treats the media or the way he treated former minister Guergis.

The illegal spending scandal involves a senator the Prime Minister himself appointed and his closest advisers, who wanted to cover up this matter to the tune of thousands of dollars, yet today, the Prime Minister would have us believe that all this scheming went on behind his back and that he knew nothing about it. Individuals have appeared before the Charbonneau commission for less than that.

How is it that the Prime Minister can manage everything with an iron fist, yet he cannot control his own office?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians should control the Senate.

That is why we have introduced seven bills that seek to have senators elected by Canadians. The Prime Minister told the provinces that he would appoint anyone elected in each province. Right now, four senators have been elected, and the Prime Minister demonstrated that he was sincere by appointing them as senators.

Air Transportation

[Bruce Hyer, Independent, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, our Canadian economy loses $2.3 billion every year and thousands of jobs due to Canada's uncompetitive airline ticket prices. More and more Canadians are crossing the border for lower American airfares. Unlike the U.S.A., the Conservative government profits from exorbitant airport rents and high security fees on top of various other taxes.

When will the Conservatives stop overtaxing airports and killing our Canadian airline and tourism industries?

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Minister of State (Transport)]

Mr. Speaker, Canada works on a user-pay system. The people who use our airports pay for the use of the airports. There is a dividend that the federal government receives from airports each year and that is because the airports lease the land from the federal government.

This is very different than the U.S. model, where U.S. airports are heavily subsidized by the taxpayer. We will not have the taxpayer subsidize air travel. People who use air travel will pay for their trips.

Foreign Affairs

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 32(2) I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the following treaties: Canada-European Space Agency arrangements, done at Paris on November 29, 2012; amendments to Annex 1 of the International Convention Against Doping in Sport, adopted at Paris on November 12, 2012; an agreement between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America on government procurement, done at Mississauga on February 11, 2010 and at Washington on February 12, 2010; and modifications to Canada's Appendix 1 to the Agreement on Government Procurement, done at Marrakesh on April 15, 1994.

An explanatory memorandum is included with each of these treaties.

Foreign Affairs and International Development

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Cooperation]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the tenth report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, entitled “Securing the Human Rights of Coptic Christians in Egypt after the Arab Spring: A View from Canada’s Parliament”.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to the report.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the 6th report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, presented on Wednesday, November 7, 2012 be concurred in.

It is with great interest and importance that we talk today about the report by the foreign affairs committee on the role of the private sector in international development.

We were talking earlier this morning about corruption and the importance of ensuring that when Canadian companies are doing their business abroad, there are tight rules on their operations abroad. Canada is quite involved in international business, and we need to look at how Canada conducts its affairs abroad.

In the report to the House, we were looking at the role of the private sector when it comes to international development. We had a dissenting opinion on the report. I will underline those points in a moment. Essentially, the government wanted to talk about how the private sector can be involved in international development.

On the surface, this is not a controversial issue. The problem is the way the government understands the issue. When it comes to international development and the involvement of the private sector abroad, we have seen some quite strange policy development by the government. This so-called innovation of the government of having NGOs work in tandem with mining companies is somehow seen as progressive. Most of us on this side see it as a throwback. It was done way in the past and is not seen as innovative by most of our partners.

When we talk about the role of the private sector in international development, to most enlightened people, it is about whose private sector it is. On this side, we believe that it is the host government's private sector we should be working with: small businesses, small entrepreneurs, and particularly women.

The U.K., the United States and other partners we have understand that if we are to get things moving, we need to work on the ground with people to ensure that the money we are investing gets to the right people.

It is timely that we are talking about this, because former Secretary General to the United Nations, Kofi Annan, just brought forward an important report on what is happening in the continent of Africa, which every parliamentarian should look at. He underlined that when we have developments in Africa, there is a lot of growth there. There is a lot of economic activity. What is happening, sadly, because of lack of proper governance and oversight, is that companies from other continents, and Canada is part of that, go in, and the money goes out. The money is not staying there. That is what Mr. Annan pointed out.

We have to open the data and look beyond growth numbers. Sadly, countries are stagnant in terms of growth and the basic indicators of human health.

We see economic activity. We see a lot of profits being taken out of the continent, but not benefits to the people there. That is why it is so important, if we are to look at the private sector's involvement in international development, to better understand who the actors are.

When the government puts forward policies to support mining companies and fund NGOs to work side by side with mining companies, we have to understand the role of the private sector. As one witness at our committee said, it is about whose private sector. Is it the private sector of Canada we are trying to help, or is it the private sector of the host governments in those developing countries we are trying to support?

These are the key recommendations.

CIDA should emphasize economic growth in its overall development strategy. That is not controversial.

CIDA should develop a specific policy for including the private sector in its development strategy. On the surface, that is not controversial, as long as we understand the issue I just talked about.

CIDA should pursue loans and partnerships with private companies. We would have to look into that a bit.

Encourage CSR and democratic oversight in countries with significant natural resource sectors. This is the part on which we had a debate with the government. It is not strong enough. The corporate social responsibility provisions of the government are weak. It is being noticed. In fact, it is undermining Canada's credibility in the world.

This morning, when I was talking about the bill from the Senate, ironically, about corruption, I mentioned that it was absolutely critical that Parliament understand that we are falling behind. I referred to the 2011 report of Transparency International that showed that Canada is dead last when it comes to transparency and corruption. We need to move ahead.

The government is living in the past. It is living in the past, because it does not understand that when we are doing our work overseas, we should at least, at a minimum, follow the same laws we have here in Canada. That is not the case for the government. The government thinks we can live in the past such that when we go abroad, we can go by other rules.

There is a basic fairness principle here. When our corporations are doing their business abroad, they should at least follow the same rules we follow here. I know some will say that it is different when we go abroad. There is a different cultural understanding. I would submit that this is old thinking. That is the past. Sadly, the government is stuck in the past.

People now are saying that we have to be totally transparent about what our companies are doing abroad. Guess who is saying this? Just recently, the sherpa for the United Kingdom wanted to see what was happening here in Canada. At the G8, one of the priorities for Prime Minister Cameron is transparency.

Industry right now is saying that we should move forward in ensuring that the EITI is strengthened and that there is full transparency of Canadian businesses abroad. That is the mining sector. They are on board, and they are wondering why the government is not on board. When are we going to have Canadian companies, working on development projects or not, that are actually absolutely transparent? We are laggards on this, and the government knows it.

Why does it not embrace transparency, embrace what is called the sunshine bill we will be talking about later today. At times, we will hear the government talking about being innovative and looking to the future. However, the government is actually looking in the rear-view mirror.

We talked about the role of the private sector in committee and heard from witnesses. Our dissenting report was very clear. It said that economic growth is essential for sustainable poverty reduction but that all economic growth does not necessarily lead to poverty reduction.

Let me open that up a bit. Kofi Annan's report was clear. Investors invest and do business in particular regions. Unless there is investment in people on the ground—helping with training, helping with governance, helping create the conditions for sustainable economic activity—there will not be the growth we want to see.

We will see profits grow, but not per capita income or, most importantly, things like life expectancy and child mortality. If we simply look at the numbers and profits of certain companies or GDP growth, that will indicate economic activity and growth for some, but not necessarily sustainable and resilient growth. We took issue with that. We have to understand economic growth as being sustainable and focused on poverty reduction.

During the study, no CIDA officials testified about existing private sector or sustainable growth policies. Let us put this in context. We had a study. It was the government's idea. It was about the role of the private sector in development. We were quite surprised that no CIDA officials testified that the existing private sector or sustainable growth policies were working. Nor did the report, from the government side, refer to the policies on sustainability.

That is strange, because it is a guiding principle. Even the government's own mandate with CIDA is that we look at sustainable economic growth. Despite that, there was no evidence brought forward at committee to support CIDA's work with the private sector as being sustainable or not. If we are actually going to go down this path, we had better bring along the principles and values that are inherent within CIDA.

The other interesting aspect is Canada's international development. There is legislation that guides us, or that the government should be guided by, that looks foremost at poverty reduction. That is under the ODA Act. It is the legislation that this House passed, and it says that poverty reduction is to be the centrepiece for CIDA's work. If we do not understand that the private sector's role is to help with poverty reduction, if we do not bring forward witnesses to talk about that and if we do not have people within the department who are able to come forward and underline that argument, we have to question the government's understanding of the issue. That is why we had the dissenting report and why we said to go back to the key core principles of the ODA Act when looking at private sector development.

As I said, we have no problem with the private sector being involved in development, but we have to make sure that it is in line with the values, the principles and the law that Parliament passed.

I think there is a resistance when it comes to looking at innovation with regard to private sector involvement in development. It is interesting, because the government's rhetoric would suggest that it actually understands the situation, but when we look at its actions—and that is always what we have to look at when it comes to politicians—we have to understand that if we are going to work with the private sector on the ground, they need a number of things.

The first is help with things like governance. They also need to have help with training. They need help with education, obviously, and with infrastructure, absolutely. Over here on this side of the House, we are very big on the role of women. If we want to see economic change and sustainable change happen, we should focus on women as a starting point. That will actually help in changing people's economic circumstances and with sustainability.

Mr. Speaker, you have travelled quite a bit, and some of us have also seen the good work that is done when investments are made in small projects and small enterprises and small businesses and the investments are focused on women. My goodness, the leverage from that approach is tremendous, yet the government did not understand that. It was looking at big Canadian companies as the ones to invest in when it comes to the private sector and development. There is a lack of understanding and there is a sense of the government living in the past on this issue, and we took a different point of view.

We also said that most of the recommendations contained in the committee's report do not really reflect the evidence we heard in the study.

This was surprising for me. I have been here for a number of years, and usually the government brings forward issues that it wants to get in front of the committee. That is the situation all our committees find themselves in these days: all the studies are started by the government. That is a sad case indeed.

In this case we thought that the government was going to have all of its witnesses lined up so that they would support the government's intent. It was really interesting, because many of the witnesses called by the government either contradicted the government or did not bring their evidence forward in the recommendations.

Let me give the House some examples. Transparency International focused on how critical it is that the Canadian government adopt the transparency initiatives that we are going to see at the G8. That was not in here, and we do not see it from the government. The government is probably going to speak against the private member's bill from my colleague from the Liberal Party today. It will find a reason. The government will just say that it is against it.

That was actually evidence in the testimony that we heard from witnesses, and it is not in here. Most Canadians would ask why we would not want to have absolute transparency for Canadian private sector players when they are working on international development abroad. That is just straight up: why would we not want to do that? It is not in here, yet there was evidence from government witnesses to that effect.

Another one was what we heard from our friends in the United States. They were very clear that investing in the private sector of the host countries is what is important; it is not about supporting Canadian private sector companies in developing countries. Again, the government thought it was going to hear our friends from south of the border say how great the government's program is in supporting Canadian corporations in developing countries. No; Ms. Clinton has been very innovative on this issue and has got things going on changing things in the Unites States, and witnesses said they invest in people on the ground in the private sector in those countries and benefit them. After all, it is international development we are talking about, not corporate welfare.

The fact is that we had testimony from government witnesses that contradicted the wishes of the government, so the report from the government side actually leaves out the recommendations from their witnesses, including their friends south of the border and including transparency. Ours certainly included it.

What we were left with I found very strange. I guess there were some problems in issue management, which was a bit of a surprise. I thought it had nailed this issue down.

I think it is indicative of the government, because we often see that the government does not communicate with professionals in the public service. We have this so-called innovation in policy, the “innovation” of having NGOs working side by side with the private sector and supporting them, but when I asked where it came from, it was not from the department. No one in the country could come up with where this policy came from.

It came from the ideology of the government, I suspect, and that is what is problematic. If professionals work in a department, be it in the Department of Foreign Affairs or CIDA, the government should actually talk to them to find out what they think. Can we imagine that? These are people we pay and rely on, and Canadians would find it shocking that government would not engage with them for policy innovation.

We on this side think that is the role of the public service. Certainly in the case of CIDA, government should talk to them to find out what they think would be good ideas. Maybe then the government would not have this bizarre outcome of a report that does not reflect the evidence that was provided at committee. We certainly made sure that the dissenting report reflected and captured the witnesses' testimony.

On this side we believe absolutely that we should invest in the private sector and ensure that Canadian dollars are going to be invested in innovation. We should make sure the focus is on women and small businesses, that the private sector investment in development is done in a transparent way and that it is aligned with the goals in the Official Development Assistance Accountability Act that Parliament passed. The government did not do that, and that is why New Democrats put this into the dissenting report.

If people are on the ground right now in a country like the DRC—and I was just talking to a group of people setting off to go to east Congo—they will see one of the richest countries in the world, but it is the paradox of the plenty, because when people go there, they will see that the riches of that country are being used against the very people who live there.

Let me explain that. A war has been going on since the late 1990s. Five million people have been killed, and the resources there are being used to fuel the conflict. We need to strengthen corporate social responsibility to ensure, for example, that conflict minerals are not entering the supply chain and being used to fund the conflict there. Our government should do more to focus on transparency and not just say we should support Canadian companies abroad.

Let us support the companies that are actually trying to help the countries where they are located. Let us make sure we help women, let us make sure there is transparency, and let us get this right.

That is why New Democrats had a dissenting report and that is the difference between us and the government. It is living in the past; we want to embrace the future, and that is why we will change things if we are elected.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Cooperation]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the comments, but I do not think he could have sat through the same interventions I did in that committee.

We listened to the Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, from the United Kingdom, who said:

[I]t is wealth creation, jobs and livelihoods above all which will help poor people to lift themselves out of poverty. Aid is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

We also heard from Carlo Dade when he was talking about Haiti. First of all, he talked about remittances that were going back to Haiti and development money that was going in. He said:

So for over a decade now, the private sector has been the largest funder of development activities, broadly defined.

We have a number of partnerships with the mining community in Africa. I have been very privileged to see IAMGOLD in Burkina Faso and the things going on there. In fact, the Burkina Faso High Commissioner said to us in one of our committee interventions that Burkina Faso needs help training workers and building human resources and that Canadian companies can help with that.

Why is the NDP so opposed to free enterprise and helping people in these developing countries get the jobs they need and develop the job skills that are going to help them move forward?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for her point of view. However, I do not think she understands that what we are talking about here is innovation. What she is talking about is an old-school way of development.

The old school was basically this: A company from one's country sets up shop and brings in some ancillary resources to help. It looks good and has signature projects. That is far in the past. Everyone is looking at the new model of transparency. That is why I say the Conservatives are stuck in the past.

Every one of those witnesses, including the ones the member referred to, especially from the U.K., were saying to get on board with the EITI and full transparency of Canadian companies that are doing business abroad. The Conservative are not there yet. Hopefully they will be by the time we have the meetings in England. Right now, in Sydney, Australia, they will be talking about strengthening EITI.

Do members know who has been called out on this by the G8? I recommend that everyone here, specifically the parliamentary secretary, read about what have been described as the two outliers on EITI and strengthening transparency in the G8. They are Russia and Canada. Is that what we want? Do we want to be seen as laggards?

We should be leading in this, which is why, on this one, I am afraid that the parliamentary secretary and the government are out of touch with present circumstances.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what my colleague said is absolutely true. This government is completely out of touch with reality.

My colleague also said that we must work with companies in developing countries. We also know that the Americans are working with companies in every country.

Does the hon. member think that the government's approach is too narrow? Is the government attempting to give the Minister of International Trade access to foreign aid money?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we had a little bit of debate, as much as one can have these days in this Parliament, about the merging of different departments. I say that in sadness, because we had a couple of meetings to talk about the merging of CIDA with DFAIT, which, as we have said, could be a great idea.It is about who does it.

Who is going to influence whom here? Is it going to be CIDA officials, who have expertise in CSR, affecting trade folks with their expertise there? Ideally, there should be some sharing going on.

What our friends south of the border and in the U.K. have noticed is that to be serious about development, it should be aligned with foreign policy, and the foreign policy should be in line with things such as human rights and democratic development. However, the Conservative government has not done that, which is its biggest challenge.

When we see this new merging of these departments, it is about whose voice is going to be heard the most and who will be influencing whom. At the end of the day, it will be about people, I gather. However, structurally, this is something we should be looking at.

[Bruce Hyer, Independent, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Ottawa Centre mentioned the need for leadership, and I agree. I would like to commend him on the leadership he is showing on this motion. Subject to thinking it through carefully, I intend to support it, and I hope that all the members of the House, from all parties, will take a serious look at it. It is very thoughtful and it makes sense to me. I congratulate him for submitting it.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his support of the dissenting opinion we had on this. If we look at best practices in the world, and we look at what we are facing with a multipolar world where the BRIC countries are more and more going to be influencing the world economy, we have to get on with innovation and stop living in the past. As I said with regard to the current government, the Conservatives are living in the past. We have to embrace things like transparency and best practices. That is what we put into this report with the dissenting opinion.

It could have been that we heard things differently, or perhaps it was the analysis we took from the witnesses we heard, but what we heard was that it is clear that everyone is getting on board with innovations and ensuring that when we are talking about development we have goals in mind. It should not be just about the benefit for Canadian companies; it should be about the benefit for the people we are trying to help. It is that simple. The policies of the current government actually undermine that, which is strange because it undermines the legislation we passed here, the ODA Accountability Act.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Cooperation]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from foreign affairs. He talked about speaking with one voice, and realigning our development dollars with our foreign affairs policy would help us speak with one voice from the Government of Canada. We believe this would be beneficial to everyone we speak to, whether it is our foreign policy with our embassies, or our international development dollars.

We are looking at new ways of doing things. We are looking at innovation and at new technologies. We are in a partnership with WUSC, which is World University Service of Canada, and Rio Tinto, in Ghana, for example, to ensure that people in Ghana are getting job skills to take to the marketplace.

I will also speak to the report again. We had new technologies presented to us, and Citigroup was one company that came to talk to us. Its representatives spoke about how the private sector is partnering to allow remittances to get from the diaspora into their countries of origin and how they are using opportunities for these new technologies to be the pay mechanisms for people who are now earning real incomes in real jobs.

Therefore, my question for my colleague is this. Why does he want to keep people in the past and not allow people in these emerging economies to develop the skills that they can take into the broader job market?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I underlined this point. I do not think their policy is actually dealing with the present reality and looking to the future. It is in the past.

I will give an example. As I mentioned at the end of my speech, I was talking to a group that is going to the east of Congo to look at what is happening on the ground. Instead of kids the age of your children, Mr. Speaker, working in mines to extract coltan so we can have it in our cellphones, which is feeding the war there, we want to see a change, to invest in a clean supply chain, just like we did with blood diamonds. That is innovation. That is helping deal with the conflict. That is helping deal with the outcomes for these kids who are becoming child soldiers. They are living under horrific conditions that all of our kids should never even have to contemplate. That is what is happening there.

I am sorry, but Rio Tinto is not going to go there. What is in it for them? If it were a business decision, they would not go there. What happens if a region does not have a Rio Tinto? Are we going to forget about it? Is that what we are talking about here?

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order, please. It is my duty to interrupt the proceedings on the motion at this time. Pursuant to an order made Wednesday, May 22, 2013, the debate is deemed adjourned. Accordingly, the debate on the motion will be rescheduled for another sitting.

The House will now resume the remaining business under routine proceedings.

Sex Selection

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a total of 11 petitions, nine of which call upon members of Parliament to condemn discrimination against females occurring through sex-selective pregnancy termination.

Tariff Elimination

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the next petition calls upon members to request the government to immediately amend the tariff elimination list to include the 13% on bicycles.

Genetically Modified Alfalfa

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the next petition calls upon Parliament to impose a moratorium on the release of genetically modified alfalfa in order to allow proper review of the impact on farmers in Canada.

Public Safety

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition with hundreds of signatures concerning the deportation order issued against Jose Figueroa. Mr. Figueroa was a member of the FMLN, a governing party in El Salvador in the mid-eighties. The FMLN is the current ruling party in El Salvador and recognized internationally and by Canada as a democratically elected government.

CBSA and the Minister of Public Safety have ruled that he was engaged in terrorism or subversion, based solely on Mr. Figueroa's affiliation with the FMLN. The current Minister of the Environment represented Canada at the inauguration of the president of FMLN in 2009. The petitioners call upon the Minister of Public Safety to intervene in this case because the charges against Mr. Figueroa are unfounded and contradict Canada's position on the FMLN. They also call upon the government to recognize that the FMLN is a legitimate and representative political party and has been since its inception in 1980.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Before I carry on, I would remind all hon. members that when they present a petition a brief explanation may be required, but a lengthy reading of the petition itself is not necessary.

Presenting petitions, the hon. member for Mount Royal.

Bullying

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table a petition today, collected by constituent Mena Khan and signed by residents throughout the Mount Royal riding and beyond, calling on the government to undertake a set of comprehensive measures to address the serious problem of bullying. In particular, the petitioners are calling for a royal commission to study bullying and the victimization of students, including examining how the Criminal Code of Canada and the Youth Criminal Justice Act apply in the context of bullying, while co-operating with provincial, territorial and municipal partners to address this issue.

I share the constituents' concern that bullying is a grave and serious issue that must be addressed by this Parliament with all deliberate speed, and I eagerly await the government's response and detailed plan as to how it will address the scourge of bullying that impacts on so many Canadians.

Sex Selection

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to present three petitions, one from the Church of St. Mark in Mississauga South, and the other two from areas in the greater Toronto area, with hundreds of signatures. All three petitions call for the House to condemn discrimination against females occurring through sex-selective pregnancy termination. I am pleased to table these three petitions.

The Environment

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table a petition that asks to restore the Great Lakes water levels. Since 1999, the water levels in Lake Huron have dropped considerably. Given the recent events around Manitoulin Island and Tobermory with the Chi-Cheemaun Ferry, we know how devastating the levels of the Great Lakes have been impacted. Many businesses have lost some money because of this delay. The petitioners request that the Canadian federal Minister of Natural Resources, Minister of the Environment, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and Minister of Transport increase their efforts significantly to halt the reversal of ongoing loss of water in the Great Lakes.

Search and Rescue

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am adding to the thousands of petitions that I have already tabled in the House on the issue of the Kitsilano Coast Guard base. Vancouverites ask for the government to rescind the closure of Kitsilano Coast Guard base because the new base at Sea Island will increase the response time by 30 minutes. Indeed, two persons have died. The petitioners wish to suggest that this will continue to put lives at risk and needs to be rescinded. I am tabling 350 petitions today.

Public Safety

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present today. In the first one the petitioners call upon the House of Commons to encourage mandatory criminal background checks for entertainers working with children, the elderly and the vulnerable.

Sex Selection

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my second petition is from people all across the country, who call on Parliament to support Motion No. 408 and condemn discrimination against females occurring through sex-selective pregnancy termination.

Elections Canada

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table a petition today signed by residents of Winnipeg who have expressed concerns regarding the integrity of our election process. They state that it is at stake and Elections Canada must have the power to properly investigate individuals, political parties and other stakeholders who may have attempted, in particular, to corrupt the last federal election.

The petitioners call upon members of Parliament to immediately enact legislation that would give Elections Canada the ability to restore public confidence in Canada's electoral process.

Experimental Lakes Area

[Bruce Hyer, Independent, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I continue to receive hundreds of petitions from residents of Winnipeg who are still hopeful that the government will reverse its decision and continue to fund the Experimental Lakes Area due to the important scientific function it has done for half a century and should do for another half a century.

Impaired Driving

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I bring forward today petitions from fellow British Columbians.

The petitioners acknowledge the current impaired driving laws are too lenient. In the interest of public safety, the petitioners want to see tougher laws and the implementation of new mandatory minimum sentencing for those persons convicted of impaired driving causing death.

The petitioners also want the Criminal Code of Canada to be changed to redefine the offence of impaired driving causing death as vehicular manslaughter.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Bill C-54--Notice of Time Allocation Motion

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to advise the House that agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to second reading stage of Bill C-54, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the National Defence Act (mental disorder).

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3) I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage of the said bill.

Bill C-49--Notice of Time Allocation Motion

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to advise the House that agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to second reading stage of Bill C-49, An Act to amend the Museums Act in order to establish the Canadian Museum of History and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3) I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage of the said bill.

Bill C-48--Notice of Time Allocation Motion

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to advise the House that agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to third reading stage of Bill C-48, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act, the Excise Tax Act, the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, the First Nations Goods and Services Tax Act and related legislation.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3) I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage of the said bill.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am not 100% clear and would seek the advice from the Chair or the table officers.

The government House leader, through his point of order, is suggesting that we put a number of bills through some sort of time allocation process. I am wondering if that is in order. Can the government in the future bring forward, through a point of order, a list of 10 bills and say we are going to apply time allocation for those entire 10 bills, and then we would have questions and comments, for example, on that? Could I get a better explanation of exactly what it is the government is—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

It is the Chair's understanding that the matter brought forward by the government House leader is in order. If the member for Winnipeg North requires an explanation of the process, I would suggest that possibly someone from the desk in the lobby may be able to provide that to him. That is not the role of the Chair.

Port State Measures Agreement Implementation Act

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

moved that Bill S-13, An Act to amend the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and for the Asia-Pacific Gateway]

Mr. Speaker, I know that my colleague, the parliamentary secretary to the minister of international trade has a keen interest in this bill, so with your consent I would like to share my time with the member for South Shore—St. Margaret's.

I am pleased to support Bill S-13, an act to amend the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act. This bill originated in the other place and the Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans studied the bill between November 8, 2012 and March 5, 2013. During the study, the Senate committee heard testimony from officials of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Oceans and Environmental Law Division of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, the president of the Fisheries Council of Canada, and others as well.

The purpose of Bill S-13 is to enable Canada to ratify the international agreement on port state measures to prevent, deter and eliminate illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

On March 7, after examining the bill and hearing from witnesses, our colleagues in the other place passed the act to amend the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act.

The port state measures agreement negotiations focused on illegal fishing and transshipping on the high seas, what we call IUU fishing or illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. IUU fishing is an issue of grave concern. The agreement deals with the worldwide problem of IUU fishing, which has deep economic and environmental consequences. The committee heard that the estimated economic loss from IUU fishing averages between $10 billion and $23 billion every year.

The international agreement ensures that there is a cohesive and collaborative effort to sustainably manage the resources contained in our oceans. On November 22, 2009, the member countries of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN reached an agreement on it. Canada was one of the countries that played a leadership role in that effort. Canada signed the port state measures agreement in 2010 and now needs to follow through with this commitment by ensuring that our legislation is amended to fulfill our international commitments.

Some of the most important stipulations in the port state measures agreement include: establishing standards for information to be provided by vessels seeking entry to port; continuing to deny port entry and service to vessels that are implicated in pirate fishing or IUU fishing unless entry is for enforcement purposes; and, setting minimum standards for vessel inspections and the training of inspectors.

I can say that Bill S-13 is widely supported by the fishing industry and is necessary in order to fulfill our international commitments. The only criticism from the president of the Fisheries Council of Canada was that it took too long to negotiate and ratify this agreement. Therefore, I sincerely hope that my colleagues on the opposition side will not delay this bill and hold up the implementation of measures that would enable Canada to effectively combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

Fish is a highly traded food commodity and as such illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing rapidly becomes a global problem with significant economic, social and environmental consequences. IUU fishing operators gain economic advantage over legitimate fish harvesters through lower cost of operations by circumventing national laws and regulations. They also undermine conservation and management measures of regional fisheries management organizations and other international standards.

Once IUU fish enter the market, it is very difficult if not impossible to distinguish them from legally caught fish. IUU fishing will remain a lucrative business if the benefits of landing and selling such products continue to outweigh the costs associated with being caught. IUU fish in the market can depress prices for fish products to unprofitable levels for legitimate fish harvesters. Canadian fish harvesters are susceptible to price fluctuations in international markets, as approximately 85% of fish caught in Canadian waters are exported, representing more than $4 billion annually.

Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, often referred to as pirate fishing, puts the livelihoods of legitimate fishermen around the world at risk and has an impact on the conservation and protection of our fisheries.

Pirate fishing is a global problem that undermines responsible fishing and has consequences on food security, safety at sea, marine environmental protection and the stability of prices for fish products in some markets. IUU fishing also poses serious potential threats to marine ecosystems and fish stocks. Therefore, by strengthening the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act we will protect this vital resource and support the international fight against pirate fishing.

Canadian fishermen feel the impacts of pirate fishing, including the depletion of stocks from overfishing, unfair competition with illegal fish products and price fluctuations created by illegal fish products in foreign markets. Therefore, we need to continue to be leaders in the fight against threats to our fishery in order to maintain a fair and stable market environment for our high quality fish and our seafood exports.

The proposed amendments to Canada's Coastal Fisheries Protection Act would help us to do that. The amendments represent the next steps in our effort to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. There are some loopholes now where fish can be caught illegally and then moved to another vessel, which can then legitimately say that it did not catch those fish illegally.

Bill S-13 proposes a new definition of fishing vessel that includes container vessels and any type of transshipment vessels so that transshipment at sea of fish that has not already been landed would be caught under the act. Also, if a country is fishing outside of the authority or the control of a regional fish management organization, if it is just fishing without any compliance with the international norms, then fish caught by that vessel would also be subject to intervention under the act.

The amendments to the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act would expand our capacity to deal with illegally caught fish from other jurisdictions. We would have the ability to deal with illegal fish product imports in the efficient way required by the port state measures agreement to which we are a signatory.

Canadians can be proud of our already strong port access regime for foreign fishing vessels. Among other measures, Canada does not allow entry to vessels on the illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing vessel list of the Northwest Atlantic Fishing Organization, or the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, usually called ICCAT. The IUU vessel lists are a key tool for combating pirate fishing globally. These lists include not only the fishing vessels, but also any vessel that helps fishing vessels engaged in illegal acts. For example, if they provide fuel or transshipping products or packing materials, all of these activities would be covered and included in the list. Arrangements have already been undertaken among several regional fisheries management organizations to share their lists so that members can take the necessary action to deny port entry or services to listed vessels. This makes IUU fishing more and more difficult and expensive.

The proposed changes to the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act set out even tougher prohibitions against the importation of illegally caught fish and other living marine organisms. Contravention of these provisions would be an offence under the amended Coastal Fisheries Protection Act, with penalties specified under the act. Together these measures would help dry up the profits from illegal fishing activities. Fisheries and Oceans Canada, in close collaboration with the Canada Border Services Agency, would carry out monitoring and enforcement with a view to minimizing impacts on legitimate cross-border trade of fish and seafood products.

Canada has a large stake in the fisheries and a lot of the stocks we fish are straddling stocks, stocks of fish that move from one area to another in the ocean. This means that to protect our fisheries we have to protect them inside and outside of our exclusive economic zone. When we combat illegal fishing that takes place elsewhere in the world it has a far-reaching positive effect here in Canada.

Preventing illegally taken fish and seafood products from entering Canadian markets is also a priority for Canada's major trading partners. Stronger controls at the border would help maintain our reputation as a responsible fishing nation and trading partner. The amendments to the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act that are before us would strengthen and clarify Canada's domestic rules and reinforce our leadership role in the global fight against pirate fishing.

I am very happy and proud of our government, which has taken action against this global problem that has an impact on our fisheries here at home. I encourage all members of the House to support the bill.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Before we proceed, when the hon. parliamentary secretary asked to split his time I should have risen at that time and pointed out that in the opening round for a member to share his or her time with another member requires unanimous consent of the House. Therefore, I will seek that at this point.

Does the parliamentary secretary have unanimous consent to share his time?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as the former deputy environment critic and current deputy science and technology critic, I had the honour of serving on the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.

The intrinsic value of our marine ecosystems is huge, and so is their economic value. Many jobs and the economies of coastal communities depend on these ecosystems.

Illegal fishing undermines Canada's efforts to conserve and manage resources to ensure the long-term viability and sustainability of the fisheries and protect marine ecosystems. This government's track record on conservation is poor. For one thing, it is refusing to acknowledge that climate change is undermining our conservation work.

What is the government doing to stop illegal, unregulated, unreported fishing?

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think that was the whole purpose of the 10 minutes or so that I spoke. In fact, we have a fairly robust regime already in place, through the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act.

However, there was a realization among many countries around the world that to combat illegal, unregulated, unreported fishing it is going to take a global effort. That is why there was work done on this port state measures agreement. There is a realization that both the flag states, for example, the ships that are flying the Canadian flag, as well as the port states, those states where those ships might offload their cargo, need to get together and work on this. That is why this agreement is put in place.

As I said, there are good environmental, as well as economic, reasons why this needs to be done.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the fishing industry in the province of Manitoba is actually quite significant. One could take a look at Lake Winnipeg and Churchill.

My question is related to the legislation and whether it would have an impact on, in particular, the fishing industry in the Lake Winnipeg area and if so, perhaps the minister would elaborate on that situation.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there is, as the member said, a very significant inland fishery in Lake Winnipeg. In fact, much of what is caught there is exported and goes into this market. If there are fish that are being caught illegally, changing market prices, the whole dynamics that are going on there, then I think there would be an indirect effect.

However, this is primarily about fish that are caught on the high seas and are caught illegally, unreported. These actions go against the law of perhaps the regional fishing organization to which the flag state is party. That is why there needs to be this agreement to get the countries together to put in place these measures so that we can co-operate better with one another to put an end to this practice.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize my colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and congratulate him and the department for bringing this important legislation forward.

As the parliamentary secretary stated earlier, Canada signed the port state measures in 2010. This is 2013 and it is time to put into legislation ratification of our signature in 2010. We really should not delay that ratification any longer.

The reality is that illegal, unreported, unregulated or IUU fishing is a serious problem around the world. It is one of the main impediments to the achievement of sustainable fisheries worldwide. The estimated economic losses for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing averages between $10 billion and $23 billion per year, most of that in economies that cannot afford it.

Worse yet, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing affects these poorest countries. Their dependency on fisheries for food, livelihood and revenue is high compared to many other jurisdictions in the world.

IUU fishing is not a problem for one country to solve on its own, because it respects neither national or international borders. Where governance is weak and where countries fail to meet their international responsibility, it puts pressure on sustainability of fish stocks, marine wildlife and distorts markets, not just in that specific region but worldwide.

In recent years, the international community has been working to develop global tools to prevent, deter and eliminate illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing activities. Improving the control of foreign fishing vessels, through a global standard for actions that can be taken in ports, is one tool to prevent illegal fishing.

I am proud to say that our government plays a leadership role in this movement. As a nation with a robust fishing industry, Canada has a strong interest in protecting fish stocks and ensuring fishing regulations are respected. That is why we have taken action and have taken an international leadership role.

In 2009, Canada and other countries approved the port state measures agreement that had been negotiated at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Canada signed this agreement in November 2010 to signal the importance of taking strong actions in ports to prevent illegal fishing, and is now working towards ratifying these port state measures.

So far 20 countries have signed the treaty, 5 have ratified. The United States is currently dealing with its ratification legislation and it is expected other countries will soon follow suit.

Before Canada can ratify this new global standard, we must address gaps in our current legislation. These are the amendments we are discussing today in the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act. Once approved, the proposed amendments to the act and the subsequent changes to the regulations will allow us to meet our international obligations, not to mention better protect the integrity of legitimate activities by Canadian fish harvesters.

Within the existing Coastal Fisheries Protection Act and its regulations, Canada already has a robust port state control regime for foreign fishing vessels. These amendments will make our regime even stronger.

The proposed amendments can be grouped into three broad categories.

The first concerns authorities related to fishing vessels. Currently fishing vessels must apply for a licence to enter Canadian fishing waters or to access our ports at least 30 days before they arrive. Under the proposed amendment, the minister can allow a foreign vessel that has been directed by its flag state to enter a Canadian port even if it has not applied for a licence. In this case, Canada will issue a specific permit for the sole purpose of inspection and enforcement.

While the port state measures agreement generally promotes refusal of entry to fishing vessels that have engaged in or supported illegal fishing, there might be situations where the flag state, that is the country responsible for the fishing vessel, may want Canada's assistance to conduct an inspection and to gather evidence of a violation.

These proposed amendments will also give our Canadian protection officers greater authority to enforce the amended Coastal Fisheries Protection Act and the port state measures agreement.

When the vessel is directed to port under the new permit regime, these powers will allow Canadian protection officers, when they have reasonable grounds to suspect a vessel has been engaged in or supported illicit fishing activities, to inspect and search that foreign fishing vessel and seize and dispose of illegal catch. In the absence of the consent of the flag state, however, a Canadian court could still authorize protection officers to dispose of any catch in accordance with international law.

The second set of amendments revolves around information sharing. To meet the requirements of the port state measures agreement, the amendments provide clarity on the authorization to share information. The amendments cover both the type of information and with whom it would be shared.

First, the amendments clearly outline that the minister can share information regarding the inspection of a foreign vessel, the denial of entry to port of a foreign vessel, a change in a decision and enforcement action taken or the outcome of any proceedings related to a decision.

Second, the amendments clarify that the minister can share this information with the flag state of the vessel, relevant coastal states, regional fisheries management organizations, states in whose fisheries the illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing appears to have occurred, the state of nationality of the owner of the vessel, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and other relevant international organizations.

As I have mentioned, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is a global threat to sustainable fisheries and to the management and conservation of fisheries resources and marine biodiversity. The sharing of information is essential for all countries to work collectively to address this global threat.

Third, the proposed amendments to the act clarify that the minister can report actions that Canada has taken with respect to Canadian vessels that have engaged in illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing or fishing-related activities in support of such fishing. This information can be shared with other states party to the port state measures agreement, relevant states, regional fisheries management organizations and the Food and Agriculture Organization.

In addition, the proposed amendments would give certainty to the ability for Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency to share each other's information related to the import of fish and fish products.

The third major category of amendments concerns prohibitions and related authorities.

The proposed amendments will make it an offence to import illegal, unreported and unregulated fish into Canada. The amendments will also give the authorities new tools to enforce these prohibitions. For example, the amendments will expand the powers of protection officers to inspect any place, including containers, warehouses, storage areas and vehicles. Inspections can be conducted in all ports of entry. This is an important amendment since currently such powers are limited to seaports and wharves. They will also expand powers to allow for entry in search of these places with a warrant and, in certain circumstances, without a warrant.

The Conservative government is serious about controlling IUU fishing. The amendments would allow Canadian protection officers to seize illegal, unreported and unregulated caught fish and fishing vessels. Vehicles or any other thing believed to be obtained or used in the commission of an offence under the act could be seized. These foreign vessels would not only be seized if it has shown that they have been engaged in or supported illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, but stiff fines can be imposed. A summary conviction would land a fine of up to $100,000, conviction or indictment would cost vessels up to $500,000 and second convictions would garner up to double of the above fines.

I realize I do not have time to finish all my written text, but I implore my colleagues across the way to support this important legislation. We catch fish on the east coast, the west coast and the High Arctic in Canada and the in-line fishery in Manitoba as well, all important to the local economies in those regions. Those fish simply do not stay in one spot. They swim across international, territorial and provincial boundaries. We have one biomass of fish on the east coast of North America and one biomass on the west coast. They are regularly caught in international or national waters on the Canadian side and it is important that we have a regulatory regime that can address any illegal fishing of this important biomass in this important Canadian industry.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the bill before us is another bill that originated in the Senate. This kind of bill always raises the same question in my mind.

This government may have won a majority, but we have to wonder whether that is truly the case, since it won just 39% of the vote and there was a participation rate of only 50%. I do not know if the government can claim to have the approval of the majority of Canadians.

Why are we seeing yet another Senate bill? We know that most senators are only appointed in return for favours granted to the Conservative Party.

Why does this government insist on introducing bills in the House of Commons that originate in the Senate?

I would like to hear the parliamentary secretary's thoughts on that.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I can certainly tell the member opposite that this is important legislation. It is also, quite frankly, important that it is introduced in the Senate. It makes the Senate more accountable and realistic to all Canadians.

I am always surprised by the opposition members in their preambles to their statements and the lack of any real substance in them. What we have is a specific problem that we are trying to address, and that is unregulated and unreported illegal fishing worldwide. This bill would allow the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, through the minister, to address that very real problem.

If the opposition parties want to take political cheap shots and make it into something it is not, they can go right ahead. It is their time and if that is the way they choose to spend it on the floor of the House, instead of doing something about a very serious international problem, that is up to them.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we recognize that IUU fishing is completely unacceptable. I believe all Canadians have a vested interest in and are concerned about this issue, whether it is the pricing, the amount of harvesting that takes place, or the depletion of fishing stocks by pirates who travel the world with no sense of obligation of management control, or maintaining certain species and so forth. It is deplorable.

It is interesting we have an agreement that was signed in November 2010, I believe. Does the minister have a list of the signatories on that agreement and does he have some thoughts on some countries that he would have liked to see sign on to the agreement?

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech, the U.S. is in its ratification process right now. Certainly, we would expect all major fishing states to sign on to this agreement at some point. This prevents egregious international overharvesting and illegal fishing.

One only has to look at a couple of examples. The Chilean sea bass is a very high value, very tasty and very high-end, white tablecloth restaurant sea food that has been overfished in international waters by a number of countries and pirates around the world. There has been no international measure in place to deal with that. This would allow the capacity for individual countries to deal with problems like that.

Another great example, which the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans mentioned, is the international tuna agreement. We often catch tuna on the east coast of Canada that has been tagged in Portugal, or off the coast of Spain or North Africa.

We have an international fishery and many species here and this is one way of addressing some of the problems with that international catch.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of second reading of Bill S-13, an act to amend the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act, the port state measures agreement implementation act.

Before I get to talking about the substance of what is here, I have to make a couple of comments on the process.

We have a majority government that has a legislative agenda. Obviously the Conservatives are running out of ideas, even though they have asked for and now have debate until midnight from Monday to Thursday until we adjourn the House for the summer.

It seems now that instead of having a legislative agenda of their own to deal with issues that would grow jobs for Canadians, that would address the high unemployment of our youth, that would seriously address the use and abuse of temporary foreign workers, instead of coming forward with legislation that would actually put forward an agenda, they have now been driven to, through lack of imagination, or will to work, to turn to the other House to produce legislation in this House. I am finding that rather interesting.

The other thing I find interesting is that when we look at this particular piece of legislation, it is a bill that is required to be passed so Canada can ratify the UN agreement on port state measures to prevent, deter and eliminate illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

That is great. This will go a long way. We absolutely applaud the government for bringing the bill forward, and no matter how it got here, it is here. I think it should have come from the government. We will be submitting some amendments when the bill gets to the committee stage, because we believe we are here to debate, and together, with all sides of the House, to make the legislation more effective for Canadians. We are absolutely committed, as our previous speaker said, and all Canadians are, to our fisheries.

We talk about our country from coast to coast to coast. We have so much of our national identity, our national economy, our cultural practices tied to the coast itself, whether it is east, west or north. Because of that, we in Canada absolutely value the need to protect our pristine coastlines. We also value and recognize the need to preserve and to fish in a sustainable way so that our fish is there for generations to come, thus not only providing a great delight for the palate, but also a huge economic force in Canada as well.

Not one of us would support unregulated fishing, because when we get unregulated fishing, it undermines sustainable practices of legitimate fishing operations in Canada and internationally, and it presents an unfair market competition to sustainable seafood.

We can never underestimate the importance of the ocean to our food chain, and how significant that is. I am not just talking about the taste of seafood, and I am sure we all love our west coast salmon, we all love our lobster from the east coast and we just love our seafood, but unless we are here and looking at the long-term impact of overfishing, unregulated plundering of the ocean and we put an end to the illegal activities of fishing, we will have a serious problem.

We know that despite how wonderful and diverse our beautiful planet is, we are dependent on the oceans and seas for our food chain as well. We also know that making changes, especially signing onto the UN agreement, will also help fishermen and their communities in the face of unfair competition.

Let me digress for a moment. When I think of the United Nations, there is a bit of irony in this. Here we are debating signing on to a UN agreement. It is the same government that could not even sustain a seat on the United Nations Security Council, and we now sit in the outer room when it comes to making critical decisions about the security of this world. It is the same government that withdrew from a UN convention looking at the impact of drought. We are looking at a government that time and again has been absolutely unprofessional and has provided uncalled for criticism of the rapporteur who looked at the dire condition of the food supply and living quarters of our first nations. When the Conservatives read the report and did not like it, they just ditched all over the report, made personal attacks on the rapporteur and questioned his integrity and ability to do the job.

Nevertheless, when we on this side of the House see good behaviour, we still want to reward it, so we are going to support this bill to the reading stage because we believe it is a step in the right direction.

Our oceans, our fish and our seafood are not confined by man-made boundaries; when it comes to areas like this, we realize how interdependent we all are, and we are dependent on other countries to sign onto this agreement. I worry, and I wonder if my colleagues across the aisle worry as well, about the way they are going to persuade. Is it going to be moral persuasion, saying that it is good for the planet and it is good for us? How are they going to persuade them when we have abandoned so many of the UN agreements ourselves and have even turned our back on things like fighting drought, which will impact the whole planet and not just some parts of the world?

At the same time, I am hoping that the Conservatives will dig deep and maybe go back to some of our past history, when we had unquestionable standing in the international community. Maybe they can turn to that and say that we used to do all these things, that we may not do them now but we used to be leaders in international development, we used to be leaders on environmental protections, we used to be leaders on world security and we used to play a critical role at the Security Council. We can say that because of that, we really urge all of them to sign this new agreement that is so important for the future of our oceans and our seafood and our beautiful salmon.

On the west coast, we are so proud of our wild Pacific salmon, and it is hard for us when we hear of the dangers to that species at times. In the same way, I know the impact of the depletion of the cod supply on the Atlantic coast, and I know the impact it had on me when I was living in England, because suddenly there was no cod available for fish and chips. That was hard, because I really like fish and chips made with cod.

All jokes and personal preferences aside, what we have here in front of us is a piece of legislation that would protect our seafood. I urge members on all sides to support it and remember that this is not the final step. Ratifying the UN measure is one part, and this bill is only the first step to prevent illegal fishing.

Once Canada ratifies the port state measures agreement, we must then take on a leadership role and encourage other nations to do the same. However, we then have to do something else because it is not enough to just pass bills on paper. We have to take action. We have to put our money where our mouth is. We cannot just be satisfied that we debated something in the House and it is on paper somewhere because without implementation this will just be a piece of paper housed in Parliament, in the hands of lawyers, et cetera.

We are not alone. There are others who support the position that we are taking. The PEW environmental group had this to say:

Illegal fishing is a major threat to the sustainability of the world’s fisheries. Some estimates are that illegal and unregulated fishing causes annual financial losses of up to $23.5 billion worldwide and accounts for up to 20 percent of all of the wild marine fish caught globally. In some parts of the world, the situation is even more dire. For example, fisheries scientists estimate that illegal fishing accounts for up to 40 percent of fish caught in West Africa.

It is time to take action.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

The time for government orders has expired. The hon. member for Newton—North Delta will have eight minutes remaining in her speech when this matter returns before the House.

It being 1:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

Transparency of Payments Made by Mining, Oil and Gas Corporations to Foreign Governments Act

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

moved that Bill C-474, an act respecting the promotion of financial transparency, improved accountability and long-term economic sustainability through the public reporting of payments made by mining, oil and gas corporations to foreign governments, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Winnipeg North for being the seconder to this bill.

It appears we are at the end of a parliamentary week and this has indeed been a week about corruption, I am afraid. I wish it were not so, but it is.

Ironically, today, the government introduced Bill S-14, which is a bill about corruption and we had quite a number of interventions on that bill. Then question period followed and that, too, was, regrettably, about carryings-on about corruption, bribery and things of that nature. Then we were supposed to proceed with Bill S-14 after question period, but the government switched off that bill.

However, my colleague from the NDP raised the issue of the report of the foreign affairs committee where, in fact, it was also a discussion in some manner or other about the use and abuse of aid money in the extractive sectors.

Here we are, at the end of our parliamentary week, talking about bill C-474, which I have suggested be called the “sunshine bill”. The reason we call it the sunshine bill is that sunshine is light on, how shall we say, murky practices. It is light on goings-on that people only suspect.

However, it also has another aspect. Sunshine also has the aspect of killing bacteria. In some respects when we have legislation such as the sunshine bill, I would suggest it would not only shed light on somewhat murky and dubious practices, but it would also kill off some of those murky and dubious practices.

The bill is, as far as I have been able to make it within our legislative framework, a mirror image of the Cardin-Lugar amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill.

Members will recall that in 2008-09 the world went through a pretty significant financial crisis. The major legislative response by the United States was the Dodd-Frank bill. In the Dodd-Frank bill was an amendment made by Senators Cardin and Lugar which said, in effect, that an extractive company operating in a foreign jurisdiction must, within 180 days of its fiscal year end, produce an audited statement to be filed with the Securities Exchange Commission, which discloses all payments it has made in the course of its previous fiscal year, those payments being taxes, royalties, dividends, licence fees, production entitlements, bonuses, provision of infrastructure and other in-kind payments and a variety of other payments that would be appropriate to disclosure.

Insofar as I have been able to make this bill as mirror image as our American friends have done, I have done so.

In the United States, the sanction for failing to file will be delisting from U.S. stock exchanges. Therefore, we can imagine that the Americans are very serious about corruption. Failure to comply means that a company will be delisted from, primarily, the New York Exchange. Its stock will be worth zero. The company will be functus. That is how serious the Americans are about corruption in companies in which it has administrative jurisdiction.

We do not have a national securities regulator. That case was decided about a year ago. I actually applaud the government's efforts to try to create a national securities regulator. Our securities regulation in the country is a joke. There are all kinds of little silos doing various different things. Therefore, I applaud the government's efforts, but those efforts failed. As a consequence, we had to rejig the sanction to be a fine sanction.

Failure to file with the government in a similar fashion as the Cardin-Lugar amendment would, in this instance, attract a fine rather than a delisting from a U.S. stock exchange.

I know the Americans are extremely keen on this legislation. In 2011 or 2012, I am not quite sure in which was the meeting, President Obama raised this matter with his G7 partners. All the partners at the G7 wanted each nation to commit to legislation similar to the Cardin-Lugar amendment. The only nation that resisted was Canada, which is quite regrettable because we are the world centre for the extractive industry. More transactions take place on the TSX than pretty well anywhere else in the world. This is the centre of the world for mine financing, law firms, accounting and geology. We are the best in the world in mining. That is an extremely important industry to us and our nation's well-being. Therefore, we should also be the leaders in an international regulatory environment for the benefit of our nation and the companies that call Canada home. It is good for Canada, for the industry and it is good for our national reputation.

Unfortunately, Canadians are fed up of reading in their national newspapers and other media about various companies that find themselves on the wrong side of bribery allegations, the latest example being SNC-Lavalin, which is by anyone's standard a world-class engineering firm. However, because of bribery convictions in Bangladesh, it has been barred from competing in world bank contracts for the next 10 years. That basically takes SNC-Lavalin, and essentially Canada, out from competing for engineering projects. Officials have been fired and the stock has been hammered.

One can go through quite a number of Canadian and Canadian-based companies such as: the Calgary-based Griffiths engineering company, which recently paid a $10 million fine for an inappropriate financial relationship with the wife of the Chad's former ambassador; Niko Resources another $9 million fine in 2011 for again an inappropriate relationship with a former energy minister in Bangladesh; and Blackfire Exploration Ltd. is having its offices raided by the RCMP.

This is serious stuff. The common pattern is the conviction gets registered, the officials get fired, the stock gets hammered, so there is a bunch of unhappy people and the most unhappy of all are the shareholders. All of us are shareholders in many of these companies because they are all on the TSX and our Canada pension plan has large holdings on many of these companies.

It gets worse than that. Members may or may not have caught an article in The Globe and Mail last year entitled “Canada ranked worst of G7 nations in fighting bribery, corruption”. In the second paragraph it states:

Transparency International, a group that monitors global corruption, put Canada in the lowest category of countries with “little or no enforcement” when it comes to applying bribery standards set out by the [OECD].

Mr. Dent further states that:

—the United States has prosecuted more than 200 companies and individuals, many of them “a veritable who’s who of the corporate world”...

The United States is serious about this kind of corruption and is very serious not only in a legislative fashion but also in a prosecutorial fashion in trying to deal with these allegations and concerns.

The United States, in a comparable period of time, has conducted 227 prosecutions. In a similar period of time, we have conducted two. We are the world centre for mining. Maybe when things go north of the border, we suddenly become a whole lot better than the rest of the world. I suppose we are entitled to believe in our fantasies.

However, the Americans, the British treat and the Europeans treat this very seriously. Unfortunately, the big hole in the legislative fence is right here. This has reputational damage, and it is not only reputation.

I hear my friends chirping over there because they are a little nervous that they have been caught with no legislative response going into the G8 next month.

If Conservatives do not think this is serious to shareholders, if they do not think it is serious to management, if they do not think it is serious to our corporations or our corporate brand, they should think about it in terms of our national reputation.

Positive views of Canada fell most steeply in the United States, Britain and China, according to the BBC World News survey of 20,000 people in 20 countries who were asked if Canada had a mainly positive or negative influence on the world. It is the first time Canada's popularity among its major trading partners has declined since polling from GlobeScan began tracking international sentiment in 2005.

GlobeScan chairman, Doug Miller, said, “the deterioration could hurt Canadian business interests”. He said, “If the conditions persist, it can start to set in more cognitively and become an anchor that weighs down [Canada's] reputation. What countries have found is that it's extremely hard work to regain trust”.

The industry is actually cognizant of this. The industry gets it. Over the last couple of years, I have been meeting quite regularly with industry groups. In many instances they have signed up for EITI, the extractive industries transparency initiative. In many instances they understand that not only is it important that their company have a good reputation, but it is important that their industry have a good reputation and it is important that our nation have a good reputation.

They have conducted on their own, at their own expense, all kinds of seminars, education things and the government has in some respects facilitated some of that discussion with the Vancouver-based organization which is on EITI.

Interestingly, Canada as a nation, unlike other nations like the United States, has not signed on for EITI. We actually cannot hold our own companies to account, even though some of our own companies have voluntarily joined the EITI initiative themselves.

Joe Ringwald, Transparency International Canada representative and an industry representative, said, “It is become important to become a leader in order to gain this reputational advantage”. He also stated that Canada had become a laggard on this industry, that industry in general was taking a favourable tone to this legislation and that there had been a number of industry players who wanted transparency.

The industry, the various other actors, the NGOs and others are stepping up to the plate, but what is really worrisome is that, internationally, we are about to get one more black eye.

At the G8 meeting in June, Prime Minister Cameron wants transparency to be one of the takeaways from that meeting. He wants the rest of the G8 partners to adopt the legislation similar to the Cardin-Lugar amendment. Thus far we are going in with fig leaves.

Bill S-14 is a fig leaf. It is wonderful in so far as getting prosecution, but it is not much good in terms of generating evidence.

I would encourage my colleagues, particularly my colleagues opposite, to support this legislation. This is extremely important to the industry and extremely important for our nation.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the great irony here is the legislation the member is complaining about, the legislation that he says is not robust enough to convict Canadian companies responsible for corrupting foreign public officials, is known as the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act. It was passed in 1999 by the government the member was a minister in. Now he stands here today and says that there have not been enough prosecutions, not enough investigations under that act. It was actually his party, the government he sat at the cabinet table of, that passed that act and then sat on it for several years. That is the legislation the member is now complaining about.

Our government came forward with Bill S-14. The president of Transparency International, whom the member likes to quote, has said that Transparency International is delighted that the Government of Canada is moving to strengthen the corruption of foreign public officials act, the one that his government passed that is not robust enough to do what he says it should do, in accordance with Canada's international obligation and encourages the government to ensure that the RCMP have the resources necessary to enforce the CFPOA effectively--

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order, please. I see that the hon. parliamentary secretary is next on the agenda. He will have the opportunity to conclude his remarks at that point.

The hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a nifty technique to make his speech in a question and then come back and make his speech all over again.

The simple issue is that this legislation has been on the books since 1999. He is perfectly correct about that. If it was not being prosecuted then he has had six, seven or eight years now to have done something about it. It is not as if the world has not been asking for Canada to step up to the plate. Conservatives have had the opportunity but they have not. Then to turn around and say now that we have this new legislation, Bill S-14, good, I am great about that, but we are not going to support 494, which is the evidence base that any prosecutor, any police officer is going to be able to use in order to have successful prosecutions. It is useless having legislation if we do not have evidence and we do not have resources and that is what Motion No. 494 does.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this morning when we were discussing the other bill from the Senate I talked of the need to actually get Canada in the game again. The member talked about some aspects in the bill, about fines versus deregistering on the stock exchange that some have talked about in terms of critique. By and large, I think everyone is on board with this idea. The G8 is coming up and this will be front and centre. The question is will the government be onside with transparency?

I assume my colleague has full support of his own party. Is the government saying it is against this initiative based on merit or is it based on politics? If it is based on politics, how does he see this in light of what is about to happen in the G8, where this is going to be front and centre and something that Prime Minister Cameron is focusing on? I would like to get the member's comments on that.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member asks a perfectly sensible question because we are coming up to the G8. He and I met with the sous-sherpa of Prime Minister Cameron. They are keen to have this kind of legislation. This is the kind of legislation the world needs, the world wants. When the Americans get behind something, that is when we want to be there. We have one foreign policy that frankly is “do not get too far ahead of the Americans and do not get too far behind them”. When they get behind this kind of legislation, they set the world standards and we need to be on that train. This is extremely important for our international reputation.

The final point I would make is these are our main trading partners. Why gratuitously irritate the United States by not accepting legislation such as this, which is largely a mirror image of their own legislation? Why gratuitously irritate the EU while we are negotiating a trade agreement with it when this is something that industry wants, the international community wants and I know Canadians want?

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to participate in the debate on Bill C-474, the transparency of payments made by mining, oil and gas corporations to foreign governments act.

Let me state at the outset that our government believes that responsible resource governance practices should include transparency to ensure that the extractive sector sustains economic growth and reduces poverty. Without sound management, natural resource exploitation can lead to increased corruption, poor development outcomes, and at times, the fueling of armed conflict or illicit trafficking.

Openness, clarity and accountability are not only good for the local community but enhance investor predictability and stability. This type of responsible conduct is valued by governments, communities and corporations. This is why it is important to have a solution that works for Canadians, a solution that promotes transparency and good governance and one that respects our Constitution and creates a stable investment environment in Canada and abroad.

Canada is a major player in the international extractive sector, which includes oil, mining and natural gas. This is an important sector for the Canadian economy, our government's top priority. It accounts for 1.6 million jobs and nearly 20% of Canada's GDP. In 2011, Canadian resource companies exceeded $128 billion in outward foreign direct investment. We know that Canadian companies operate overall in a responsible manner, not only here in Canada but around the world. They are instrumental in improving the lives of people in the communities in which they operate.

Let me be clear that our government is not opposed to the objectives of this bill. Indeed, we value transparency initiatives that work for all Canadians. Our corporate social responsibility strategy for the Canadian international extractive sector, or CSR strategy, works for Canadians. It builds host country capacity, promotes widely recognized voluntary international guidelines, provides an independent dispute resolution system through the Office of the Extractive Sector Corporate Social Responsibility Counsellor, and last, facilitates a multi-stakeholder group comprising business, government and civil society to provide practical tools and information on CSR.

Our government continues to innovate with new ways to responsibly advance natural resource governance that works for Canadians. In 2011, at the commonwealth summit, the Prime Minister announced a $25 million contribution for the creation of the Canadian Centre for Extractive Industries and Development. This institution will be jointly operated by the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University and will advance best practices in extractive sector technology and management to reduce poverty and protect the environment.

In 2007, the Minister of Finance announced Canada's support for the extractive industries transparency initiative, also known as EITI. Today, Canada is the second largest funder of the EITI multi-donor trust fund, as well as the largest funder of the World Bank's Extractive Industries Technical Advisory Facility. We also host the secretariat of the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development, which convenes developing countries, training partners and donors to discuss and advance issues of mutual concern, such as international standards and best practices in extractive sector management and governance.

As well, let us not forget the Prime Minister's announcement in 2012 of $15.3 million in new funding for the African Minerals Development Centre. The AMDC will deliver guidance and policy advice to African countries on how to manage their extractive sectors responsibly and sustainably.

These are examples of Canadian solutions that work. They encourage extractive companies to make responsible investments, advance transparency and increase accountability. They reinforce Canada's brand as a global leader in this regard. This is why our government advances solutions that bring results not only here in Canada but around the world.

When it comes to advancing transparency and accountability, it is important to bear in mind that we are not the only player in town. At the upcoming G8, all countries will be working together to address this important issue. It is important that we work with our international allies to ensure that we have a strong transparency regime while ensuring that we have a comprehensive framework that does not unduly burden industry. Industry and civil society are also bringing new Canadian solutions to the forefront. There is work under way by Canadian mining companies and civil society to develop a framework for transparent financial reporting of payments to foreign governments.

In July 2012, the Mining Association of Canada, the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, Revenue Watch international and Publish What You Pay Canada, signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a framework for the reporting of Canadian extractive companies' revenues to foreign governments on a country-by-country and project-by-project basis. The objective is to create a single reporting framework that would reduce the reporting burden on companies, as well as to simplify the provision of information to all stakeholders.

This is an example of how Canadian industry is stepping up to encourage financial transparency in foreign markets. It demonstrates a constructive consultation for a workable solution. Unfortunately, Bill C-474 is not a workable solution. Bill C-474 tries to impose reporting features taken from other countries, such as the United States and Europe, with little regard to how our system works.

First, Bill C-474 has been presented without, it seems, consideration of how it would actually work under the Canadian Constitution. Our assessment is that the proposed legislation lacks constitutional validity under Canada's criminal law and our federal trade and commerce regulations. Simply put, Bill C-474 does not work under our Constitution. Second, the bill addresses the extraction of natural resources outside of Canada and does not include a domestic reporting regime. Third, Bill C-474 does not recognize the existing consultation in industry trends. Without effective engagement, the bill could result in an undue burden on the extractive sector. Bill C-474 does not work for our industry.

We believe in an approach that works for Canada, for Canadian companies, and an approach that advances transparency and accountability while also increasing economic prosperity and jobs for hard-working Canadians.

While I am standing, I would like to address an issue that I heard from the opposition members earlier today and that I have heard on an ongoing basis, that somehow Canada's international reputation has been going down. They do not cite any data for that. They cite a favoured member of the chattering classes.

I would like to put forward an article from The Toronto Star dated Thursday, May 23. The headline reads: “Canada's international reputation rising” says survey. It continues:

Canada's reputation is improving overseas according to a new public-opinion survey of respondents in 20 countries. Keep that maple leaf patch on your backpack for at least another year. Canada's reputation is improving overseas, according to a new public-opinion survey of respondents in 20 countries. Fifty-six per cent of about 20,000 respondents view Canada favourably, up from 53 per cent last year. The findings are included in a report by the polling firm GlobeScan [which was released yesterday]. Canada's reputation outside its own borders trails only Germany.

Around the world, Canada is the second most favourably viewed country in the world. That is hard data, done by an internationally recognized polling firm that has been doing this on an ongoing basis for 10 years. I understand that the opposition does not want to bring this to the attention of the Canadian people because it does not go along with what they have been trying to tell people for the last couple of years. The facts are that Canada's reputation in the world is going up not down, and that is because we have a responsible and principled foreign policy.

The pollster who did the survey said Canada's reputation has been trending positively since at least 2010, when 51% of the survey respondents had a favourable opinion of Canada. Those are the facts. I hope the opposition will read The Toronto Star. I am pretty sure my hon. friend from Scarborough—Guildwood is a subscriber. He might want to take a look at that article and perhaps respond to it at another time.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to what I think is a valid initiative and something we should get behind. We have talked a bit about this already earlier today, when we were talking about the bill from the Senate on corruption.

What is astounding about the current government is that even when there is a good idea, the Conservatives have to put a partisan political veil on it. I am going to diverge from my notes for a second here and respond a bit to the parliamentary secretary's comments.

He said that the government cannot support this bill. Let us remember that this is a private member's bill, so I encourage every member of the Conservative Party to look at this with an independent lens, to look at what the rest of the world is doing and saying, and to remember that it is a private member's bill and that they can vote, hopefully with their conscience, and represent their constituents on this issue. I know many of their constituents would be in favour of this bill.

In fact, when they look at who is supporting this bill and this initiative, they would be hard pressed to find constituents in any of their ridings who would be against it. What are they against? They would be against transparency, which our friends south of the border would be in favour of, and against the whole focus of the upcoming G8 conference.

If the Conservatives have problems with the bill, they should at least bring forward amendments. However, what the Conservatives are saying is that because it does not come from them but from someone else, they will kill it immediately. That is the philosophy of the current government.

To address the parliamentary secretary's comments, he should discern, and we sure do, the difference between the reputation of Canada as a country versus what is happening to our reputation because of the government. It is what happens when we do things as inane as what we did at the United Nations this past fall, where we hectored and lectored. Even though our Prime Minister was in the very city where people were addressing the General Assembly, we instead sent our Minister of Foreign Affairs, who got to speak to a nearly empty hall and hectored and lectored everyone in the hall. Then the Conservatives wonder why we are not getting along with our allies and others and are not on the Security Council.

However, on the bill, it looks to the future and says that when Canadian companies are doing their affairs abroad, they should be entirely transparent in their transactions. That is exactly what we need to see from Canadian companies, and interestingly, Canadian companies want to do it. My colleague and I, as he mentioned, had a meeting with the representative from the U.K. who is looking at organizing the meeting for the G8, and there were also representatives from the mining industry. They were saying they want to get on board with this approach. The government does not. Why? It is because it did not come from the government.

I am going to bring forward to second reading, hopefully in this next year, a bill on conflict minerals. My bill, like the one from my colleague from the Liberal Party, is based on the Dodd–Frank initiative from south of the border. We think it is smart to get in line with some of these initiatives that our allies are getting in line with because it is good for business and good for our reputation abroad to say that as a country we are going to be responsible actors abroad, nothing more and nothing less.

The Conservatives are so stuck in the past that they cannot even look at a good idea and say, “If we have problems with it, let's work it out.” That attitude is astonishing to constituents when they hear that there is a good idea being put in front of Parliament and that in fact it is a private member's initiative. I had thought that certainly members of the Reform Party thought that it was a really good idea to empower private members' initiatives, that they would actually be able to look at it on the basis of the merit of the idea and have a debate, have a vote and get behind it if they thought it was good for the country and for their constituents. However, what we see here and what was demonstrated by the parliamentary secretary is what we see time and time again. Why could there not be amendments? They could go to committee and do it, but no, we do not even get to go past the first reading point.

I hope the Conservatives remember this, because they will know that someday they will not be in government. One day they will have to take a look at how Parliament is functioning, and people will remind them of how they behaved. I hope they remember that, because right now we are seeing good ideas getting shut down. This is a good idea, and it seems that the government will kill it.

I hope those who are on the backbench actually look at the bill, listen to their constituents and say "based on the merits of the idea, I am going to support it" or "I do not agree with it and here is why" and have a debate about it. Just to get in line and do what they are told is fundamentally undermining their role in Parliament.

That is unfortunate, because most constituents within their ridings want to see transparency. They want to see good ideas put forward. In the case the sunshine bill, it is about Canada's reputation. It is about moving forward, not going backward. We see the government avoiding these ideas.

Do we really want to be seen overseas as laggards on transparency? I think not. Do we want to be seen as fighting even the motivation initiatives of industry? I hope not. That is what people will be doing, in essence, when they say no to this bill.

Finally, I will identify and go through some of the people who are behind this: Transparency International Canada; Probe International; Partnership Africa, which is doing good work on the ground in Africa; Africa Files; and the Corporate Knights. As I said, mining umbrella groups are behind the idea of this as is Publish What You Pay.

Why would anyone be against it? What the parliamentary secretary has pointed out is that somehow we are unable to apply this legislation, which has been adopted in other legislatures and jurisdictions in Canada, because of our Constitution.

We know how legislation is drafted. We know how it has to be in accordance with Canadian law. That is why we have amendments. As they say, that dog will not hunt. If they really do not believe that something can be done, amendments can be made. They cannot reject an idea just based on that.

In summation of why I think this bill is important to adopt, we have to take a look at what is happening in the global economy right now. We have a multi-polar world. We have the BRIC countries, which are major actors in the extractives. We have to get the social license to do business in countries abroad.

If we are not going to get in line with these norms that everyone else is adopting, what does that do to Canada's strategic advantage? If we reject transparency and if we reject the norms that we see others adopting, what does that do?

What it does, interestingly enough, is undermines the very goals that the government claims to be in favour of, which are to expand our investment and trade abroad. If we are seen as laggards on basic transparency, on governance and on the norms that others are following, it is clear what that will do to our reputation, not just as a country, but in terms of investment and how Canadian companies are seen abroad. This is not because of their behaviour, per se, but because of the lack of leadership from the government.

I would encourage all hon. members to take an independent look at this bill, listen to their constituents and ask them what they think of it. What are they here for if not to listen to their constituents, the primary mandate of any member of Parliament? If they hear from the constituents that it is a good idea that should be adopted, then they should break loose, do their jobs, vote independently, seize the day and free themselves from the tyranny of the whip and say "please support transparency".

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address Bill C-474, the transparency of payments made by mining, oil and gas corporations to foreign governments act.

I would first like to commend the sponsor, my colleague representing Scarborough—Guildwood, for his persistence and dedication involved in seeing this legislation through Parliament these past several years.

Bill C-474, the sunshine bill, as my colleague has properly characterized it, would compel Canadian-based extractive companies operating abroad to disclose all payments made to foreign governments after having been reviewed by a qualified independent auditor. The disclosures would be made to the Minister of Natural Resources who would then ensure that they are made available online for public viewing. If it is discovered that a company has failed to disclose a payment, it would be deemed guilty of an offence and face a fine upon summary conviction of up to $5 million.

These provisions will not only help to promote greater transparency and accountability in Canada's extractive sector, the sunshine aspect, as my colleague put it, but they will also discourage the kinds of illicit payments to foreign governments, especially those that routinely violate human rights, the disinfectant aspect, that have long been used to gain access to resource reserves.

To be clear, this legislation is not an indictment of all Canadian extractive companies, nor will this legislation stifle business and trade. As Pierre Gratton, president of the Mining Association of Canada, stated last year with respect to payment disclosures:

I think by and large it's not only seen as the right thing to do, but it's starting to be seen as actually good business to have these payments to government published.

This legislation is about combatting corruption and ensuring corporate social responsibility and accountability. Admittedly, many Canadian companies already have excellent track records in this regard, but as my colleague pointed out, this is now a question for Canada's reputational integrity and to make these countries even more attractive to investors. There is also precedent for this kind of legislation in other jurisdictions, including the U.S. and the EU, as has been pointed out, as well as broad support from civil society organizations in Canada. I am therefore pleased to support this bill and trust that it may enjoy the full support of the House.

Canada has already established itself as a world leader in the extractive industry. This distinction, however, carries significant responsibility in terms of ensuring that our companies conduct business abroad in an ethical manner and with the utmost respect for human rights. Regrettably, this has not always been the case, as my colleague has pointed out, which is largely why this bill is being brought forward.

As well, throughout this parliamentary session, the House Subcommittee on International Human Rights, of which I am vice-chair, has heard from witnesses as to the activities of Canadian extractive companies in countries around the world. Regrettably, much of the testimony has given us cause for concern.

For example, this past October, the subcommittee had the pleasure of receiving Neri Colmenares, a member of the Philippine House of Representatives and an authentic human rights hero in his country. In his testimony, Mr. Colmenares explained how transnational corporations operating in his country, including Canadian mining company Toronto Ventures Incorporated, TVI, have hired paramilitary groups for security, which he dubbed “a recipe for disaster”. These “unwieldy elements”, as he put it, have reportedly carried out routine violations of human rights dating back many years.

In a recent example, Mr. Colmenares described how local media were detained and held hostage by such a paramilitary group hired by TVI. This is but one example Mr. Colmenares shared with our subcommittee and in several meetings that I had with him. Indeed, his testimony and similar witness statements only underscore the need for the kind of legislation at hand.

In addition to the Philippines case, the subcommittee has also been inquiring into the state of human rights in Eritrea, which, as members will know, is the most closed society in Africa, dubbed the North Korea of Africa, and is one of the world's most egregious violators of human rights.

This past November, the subcommittee heard testimony from Cliff Davis, president and CEO of Nevsun Resources, another Canadian-based mining company with operations in Eritrea. Mr. Davis repeatedly insisted that all who work at the company's mine, which it co-owns with the Eritrean government, are there of their own free will and are provided with good working conditions, food and accommodations, in accordance with international standards. Moreover, Mr. Davis claimed that his company fully addressed allegations of human rights violations, particularly the use of conscripted labour by an Eritrean government subcontractor employed by Nevsun.

However, in witness testimony before our committee, we heard Nevsun does not know whether conscripted labour is being used or that the company has been repeatedly denied the right to investigate by the Eritrean government-owned subcontractor and now “appears to feel it has no power” and has responded with “quiet acceptance”.

This is precisely the impression I was left with after hearing Mr. Davis' testimony.

When I asked him if he was aware of human rights violations in Eritrea, generally speaking, notwithstanding the public record, he said no. When I asked him if he was ever advised about human rights violations in Eritrea by anyone, he said no. When I asked him if he was aware of human rights violations at the mine site, he said no. When I asked him if he was advised by anyone of human rights violations at the mine site, he said no. When I asked him whether he had ever conveyed to the Eritrean government any concern of any kind about any human rights violations, he said, and I am paraphrasing for reasons of time, “ I do not acknowledge the premise of the question. That is a premise asserted by people outside of our mine site, and there are no human rights violations at our mine site”. In the end, it was, in my view, akin to hear no evil, speak no evil and see no evil.

Simply put, it is unacceptable for Canadian companies to profit while funding and enabling those who violate human rights. I believe that Bill C-474 can help end that practice. The legislation would also serve to advance the principles of transparency and accountability that have already taken root among Canadian companies, while reinforcing the notion in the minds of investors that corporate social responsibility is good business.

I trust that the House will adopt the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to contribute to the debate on Bill C-474. This proposed legislation focuses on Canadian extractive companies, Canadian mining companies in other words, that are operating internationally. Its main objective, which I do not think anyone could object to, is the improvement of financial transparency, accountability and economic sustainability through public reporting of any payment that Canadian mining companies or Canadian oil and gas companies make to foreign governments.

This is important because Canada is the world's largest investor in extractive industries, at least if we leave oil and hydrocarbons aside. We have investments in roughly 8,000 properties and around 100 countries around the world. Nearly 20% of Canada's foreign investments are in the extractive sector and 60% of the world's publicly listed mining corporations are listed on Canadian stock exchanges.

My own interest in this issue comes from the fact that I am the chair of the human rights subcommittee of the foreign affairs committee. We have done some work into human rights issues that relates to mineral extraction. In some cases, this involves mineral extraction, where Canadian companies either are involved, or potentially could be involved in the future. My colleague, the member for Mount Royal, mentioned the example of looking into the Bisha mine site in Eritrea which is operated by a Canadian company. There are other examples as well.

This is important because it is not always easy for Canada to have an influence on international human rights issues. We are not as influential in the hard power way as some of the other countries in the world: the United States, Britain, France and China. However, when it comes to the power of our investments in the international extractive sector, we are the most significant player.

Having said all of that, there are certain human rights issues that strike me as being particularly important. They have to be taken into account when one is dealing with these kinds of investments. For example, there is the issue of property rights and the land tenure of people who live on the land on which a potential mine might be placed. This can happen even in my own riding. Here in Canada we have had mineral exploration on property where the individuals who have lived for their entire lives do not have the underground rights to their own property and this creates conflict. However, in Canada we have expropriation acts; we have the rule of law. This is not true everywhere. Canadians investing in countries that do not have these rules have to find a way of dealing with the fact that these countries often do not have a proper mechanism for dealing with this kind of thing. In some cases, this includes issues that relate to indigenous rights in those countries. We have an obligation to deal with that.

We have to deal with the fact that in some countries the population is not truly free. There is the danger that we could find ourselves operating in a professional manner, but in an area where the population is enserfed, where there is forced labour. We could find ourselves, if we are not careful, complicit in some kind of human rights abuse. This is of course a major concern to this government, and to any responsible Canadian.

There are these considerations, and some others that are not truly human rights issues, but clearly they are human rights in the broader sense. The destruction of the environment, which can happen from mining, is a real worry. For example, one great tragedy that has occurred, which we could say is a human rights issue, has been the pollution of rivers with arsenic as a result of the gold mining industry. It is for this reason that the world community—and Canada has been a key participant in this—has adopted rules and practices relating to the use and monitoring of arsenic in mineral extraction to make sure this kind of harm does not occur. It can have disastrous implications. These are, in the broad sense, of course, human rights implications.

One issue to be concerned about is how we deal with foreign bribery, kickbacks and so on. The intent of Bill C-474 is to deal with illicit payments to officials in foreign jurisdictions in order to get access to resources or for favouritism.

The way that Bill C-474 aims to do this is by requiring Canadian extractive companies and their subsidiaries that are incorporated under Canadian or provincial law to submit to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Natural Resources an independently audited annual transparency report. This is all quite reasonable, but there are some problems that need to be addressed with regard to this bill.

First of all, Bill C-474 pre-empts the work currently under way involving Canada's international partners in the G8 in preparation for the G8 leaders summit, which is occurring this summer. The issue of transparency in the world's extractive industries is expected to be a key item at the G8 summit.

Second, Bill C-474 also pre-empts the collaborative work currently under way involving industry representatives and NGOs, work that is scheduled to be completed this summer as well. The revenue transparency working group is putting together a framework for mandatory reporting of payments that will ensure that we are in line with our international partners' regimes to ensure, again, that we have strong transparency that does not burden Canadian businesses disproportionately, as compared to our trading partners and competitors, with unnecessary red tape.

Third, there are many international or multilateral initiatives that already exist. For example, there is the extractive industries transparency index, which the government supports. In fact, just last October, Prime Minister Harper announced $20 million over a four-year period in support—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order. The hon. member cannot refer to colleagues, including the Prime Minister, by their given names but rather simply by their titles.

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

Mr. Speaker, my comments refer to the current Prime Minister. I think we all know which prime minister we are talking about. I will leave those who are watching to figure out which prime minister the reference is being made to.

The Prime Minister announced $20 million over a four-year period in support of the EITI and the extractive industries technical advisory facility. This support was announced at the francophonie session in Kinshasa, which oddly enough, or ironically enough, happens to be in the capital of a country that has been kicked out of EITI, or is currently suspended, because it is not compliant with EITI.

Canada is trying to support this initiative. I invite members to go to the EITI website. What they will see is that this is an initiative that essentially involves the countries in which the extraction will take place getting involved and demonstrating that they are living up to certain standards.

A map reveals those countries that are candidate countries, those that are full members and those that have become members and then have failed to comply and have been kicked out. They essentially cover a swath across Central Africa and Central Asia. They are the countries that are rich in resources but have a history of very problematic resource extraction, bribery, corruption, unsafe practices, human rights violations, and so on, and in which an effort is being made to correct this situation, sometimes not with full success.

By participating in this kind of process, and indeed, in helping to fund it and make sure it is on a sound financial footing, Canada is having a real impact and a better impact than we could have with any other method.

I want to mention a few other things we are doing here. There is the Canadian International Institute for Extractive Industries and Development, which the parliamentary secretary mentioned earlier. Canada is the largest founding donor of the African Minerals Development Centre, which promotes best practices and mining policy and management throughout Africa.

Canada is a major player. We are a responsible player. Our companies are the players that are most desired, for our skills, our expertise, and our substantial capitalization, by all of the countries in which resource extraction is going on. That means that we have, to a certain extent, the capacity to impose reasonable standards on those countries, and we should take care to do that responsibly.

We should not be shy about the responsibility that entails for us. We should do that in a way that ensures that we move forward on a level playing field, where all other competitors are also working towards those higher standards, and not cause ourselves to be in a situation where we are unfairly hobbled in the competition with those countries. That would not accomplish anything at all.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the arguments made by our colleagues opposite bring back memories. They are telling us that they are doing or are going to do all sorts of things. They are making excuses for not doing the right thing, which would be to agree with referring the bill to committee for further study.

This is a very important bill, especially in the current context. The government is putting more emphasis on natural resource development in developing countries, as part of its international co-operation strategy.

The development of natural resources can certainly be part of the equation, but it has to be done properly to benefit Canadians, particularly the poorest people in the country.

The problem is that the government thinks of itself as a sort of magic wand. I am seeing a growing tendency toward this type of magical thinking. The government says it will develop natural resources and that—just like that, by waving a magic wand—everything will automatically be better and everyone will be happy. I do not think that the Conservatives realize how complex this issue is.

One of the first questions that needs to be asked when we talk about natural resource development is whom does it benefit and what control do the people of a resource-rich country have over the way their government manages the benefits of that development. We know that far too often the elite of those countries has easy access to non-tax revenue, which allows them to eschew accountability and even oppress their own people.

To avoid that, greater transparency is key. That is why, for years now, so many agencies and countries have been working to improve transparency.

In Canada we have the Resource Revenue Transparency Working Group, which includes the Mining Association of Canada, the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, and Publish What You Pay Canada. Publish What You Pay is a global network of organizations around the world. Together with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, PWYP is one of the most active organizations when it comes to transparency.

The hon. member was saying that we want to be on a level playing field with the other countries because, otherwise, it would not be fair for Canadian businesses. We know that the other countries have made a great deal more progress than Canada has to date. For example, in 2010, the United States passed the Dodd-Frank Act, which contains measures that are fairly similar to the ones proposed in the private member's bill before us today.

The European Union, Australia and the United Kingdom are also planning to implement similar standards. The G8 also wants to make this a priority at its next meeting, which is scheduled to take place in June.

Canada, the country with the most registered mining companies, is lagging behind. That is why we appreciate the idea behind this bill. The bill seeks to require Canadian mining, oil and gas companies to submit annual reports that disclose all payments provided by them or their subsidiaries to a foreign government for the purpose of furthering mining, oil or gas activities.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

The time provided for the consideration of private members' business has now expired, and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the order paper. The hon. member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie will have six minutes remaining.

It being 2:30 p.m., the House stands adjourned until next Monday at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 2:30 p.m.)