Mr. Speaker, unfortunately our track record on this file is not as robust as one would like.
In 2011, the Prime Minister was invited to sign a transparency initiative, which was a robust transparency initiative by his colleagues in the G8, and he declined to do so. As a consequence, there was no statement that came out of the G8 which would have, at that point, moved the Cardin-Lugar amendment up everyone else's legislative agenda.
Here we are two years later. It is the same issue. It is even more important now. We have had a series of embarrassing incidents for Canada.
I do not know about other members, but I do not particularly feel good about seeing Canadian companies engaged in bribery and other kinds of scandals.
The government has had two years to kind of catch up to the rest. To this point, it has not done anything except for Bill S-14. I do not want to be entirely negative here. There have been some discretionary educational initiatives that the government has tried to put forward.
Sometimes we just have to bring the hammer down and the government has thus far declined to do that. The United States has brought the hammer down. The U.K. is in the process of bringing the hammer down. The EU has brought the hammer down. Australia is in the process. When we put all that together, what we have is, in effect, 85% of the extractive sector that will have a robust legislative environment if in fact we join in.
It is hypocritical on our part to say that those countries that are subject to a lot of corruption should clean up their act, if in fact we have legislative holes in ours. Right now Canada is the big hole in the fence. We need to rectify that. It can be rectified in this chamber and quite quickly. The only way, in my judgment, that is done is not only in passing Bill S-14, but in passing Bill C-474 as well.