Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my friend and colleague who represents the good people of Guelph for the question.
Before we get into how Bill C-65 addresses this, the member makes a good point that we all need to look inward. It is awfully difficult for the public to accept that they should behave differently under the laws we pass if we do not model that kind of behaviour ourselves in this place and on Parliament Hill.
On the issue of the dynamic between elected officials and staff, which I touched on in my speech, it is something that the public is not aware of. One of the problems with the rules that we have today, as I mentioned, is that here on Parliament Hill the recourse for episodes of violence, if one works in the public service, or episodes of sexual harassment, if one works in federally regulated private sectors, just do not exist. Young people are actually rewarded for essentially keeping their mouths shut because they do not want to be viewed as a problem.
This is not okay. By creating a single, integrated system that allows us to be subjected to the same rules that other aspects of the public world are subjected to, we can ensure that the power imbalance that exists between an elected official, for example, and a staff person will not cause that staff person to see that there is no possibility for recourse if they come forward with a complaint against someone who may be in a position that makes that difficult for them.