Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. friend for splitting his time with me today. I will admit that I might not speak to this issue with the laser-like precision of my hon. colleague, but I will certainly speak to the point.
On the surface, the point of the motion appears to be a reasonable attempt by my NDP colleague to clarify or bring into question a more transparent process. However, at this point we are still assessing the situation. We heard from the previous speaker that there may be some discussion with respect to a potential amendment coming forward.
Why are we dealing with an NDP opposition day motion to make the selection of officers of Parliament a more open, inclusive, and transparent process than clearly has gone on in the recent history of this Parliament? It is because the House of Commons was paralyzed over the course of the last three or four weeks, as was the Senate, with the appointment of Madam Meilleur. That became an important issue because of the government's talk about its open, merit-based, and transparent process for appointments. This one was anything but.
Madam Meilleur had donated thousands of dollars to the Liberal Party in the last election. She was an Ontario Liberal cabinet minister. She donated to the Prime Minister's leadership campaign. We were dealing with the official languages commissioner position, which is a non-partisan independent officer position selected by and in consultation with Parliament. In the case of this appointment, anything but had happened. As a result, because of the attention of the opposition and media to this issue, Madam Meilleur was forced to step away from the appointment process. She did the right thing because her credibility certainly would have been tainted had she been appointed.
However, it speaks to the broader issue of the fact that the government thinks it can do anything it wants around here. I believe the government floated a trial balloon with respect to this appointment process, and I have said that publicly. The reason why those other officers of Parliament positions had not been filled to this point, in spite of the fact that the government has known for months and in some cases even a year that those positions would be vacant, was because it was trying to see if it could put a partisan Liberal person into what was typically a non-partisan independent position of Parliament. Had this been allowed to occur, we would have seen the dominoes fall on these other positions. I believe, as I believe members on this side of the House do, that we would have seen Liberal Party donors and insiders being proposed as appointments to those positions of Parliament.
I will give the hon. member for Calgary Shepard credit for often saying that what the Prime Minister and Liberal government were looking for was not an opposition but an audience. The same would have been true for the officers of Parliament positions. They are the ones who hold the government to account on spending, on ethics, on lobbying, on elections, and so forth. Historically, like the opposition, they have played a very important role in Parliament with respect to consultation on the appointments of these officers of Parliament.
Earlier, the government House leader talked about this open and transparent merit-based process. The Liberals are using these talking points, saying that they have somehow changed the system to make it more open, more transparent, and more merit-based. However, we are seeing, and the Meilleur example is just one example of several, Liberal donors, Liberal insiders and Liberal Party members being appointed to these important positions.
I will give the House a few examples.
Jennifer Stebbing was appointed to the Hamilton Port Authority. She was a former Liberal candidate for Flamborough—Glanbrook. She has already announced she will seek the Liberal Party of Canada nomination in 2019. Johnna Kubik, a federal judge, donated 26 times to the Liberal Party of Canada. Mr. Francis McGuire, who was appointed to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, donated 23 times, totalling $30,000 to the Liberal Party of Canada. This is what we are up against.
For all the talking points, for all of the talk about merit-based and being open and transparent, the Liberals are back to being exactly like the old Liberals. They want people's money and they will think about putting them in a position. That does not work when we talk about independent, non-partisan officers of Parliament. They are independent for a reason.
It is not so much merit-based as it is amount-based. How much does one give to the Liberal Party of Canada for consideration of appointment to one of these positions? We have heard the narrative change. The Liberals are talking now about positive politics, that they are doing things differently. It is anything but that right now.
Why is this important? It is important because it is imperative that those people tasked to watch over the actions of the government have liberty to act freely and to tell the government when it is right and when it is wrong. Oversight is about that.
The officers of Parliament must also be able to tell the Prime Minister and the government when they need to meet, not the other way around. The shroud of secrecy of when the Prime Minister meets with the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner must be torn away and with it the ability of the Prime Minister and his friends in the PMO to set the agenda of not addressing these types of complaints. There has to be a level of independence.
Those who sit in the PMO are so out of touch that they do not hear how the answers sound penned and muted, and how it can be so unbelievable that a simple question cannot be answered simply. We see that all the time in this place.
The motion before us today would do two things.
First, it would give the Prime Minister time to reflect on his ways. This is not about “sunny ways”; it is about a fair way by which officers of Parliament are selected and given the opportunity to serve Canada in a manner suited to the position.
Second, the motion would allow the Prime Minister and his friends in the Langevin Block to be aware that we are the opposition and that other Canadians are watching. They will be watching to see if he, his staff and cabinet understand that Parliament has a job to do and so do the officers of Parliament. Let them do the job they are asked to do.
The year 2019 is much closer than the Prime Minister thinks. If the Liberals continue down the path of this partisanship, of the appointments of Liberal insiders, party donors, donors in cash-for-access schemes, Canadians will remember that. If they are not thinking about it, certainly those of us in the opposition will remind them of the fact that the Liberals are back to their old ways.