Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to speak today to the Speech from the Throne. To begin my comments I would like to pay my high regard to the government for this Speech from the Throne because of the beautiful way it was delivered. In fact, this may be the ultimate triumph of form over substance because it was blessedly short but I think short in some substantive ways that need to be addressed.
A major theme of the government's Speech from the Throne and, indeed, the accountability act which will be tabled next week, is the question of accountability. I would like to spend a few minutes addressing those issues.
The first point of issue I would raise is the pledge in the Speech from the Throne to ensure that people in positions of public trust do not move on to areas of private lobbying. I think we agree that it is something that should be done. The current lobbyist legislation has grown, improved and evolved over the last 10 years. It needs to go further and I commend the government for proposing further amendments and expansions to it. However I think it leaves two gaping holes that I hope the government will consider adding to the accountability act.
The first is that while it prevents people in senior positions, whether they be ministers, ministerial staff or senior public servants, from leaving that public office holder position and going directly into a lobbyist position, what it does not deal with is the people who are in positions of very considerable trust and influence in the opposition who then become part of government. Those people then going straight into lobbying. Frankly, we have seen in the last very few short weeks of the Conservative government dozens of people going from senior positions in the former opposition now government into lobbyist positions, including the former deputy leader of the opposition.
This is a gap that has to be filled and I hope the government will consider ensuring that alternative is not available. Ironically, the people who have the least potential for improper influence on their former department are the former ministers who are now in opposition or out of politics all together.
We have the emphasis wrong and we have to plug that hole. I hope we can work with the government to ensure that it is a balanced situation.
The other gap that is glaring, which relates to this, is where former lobbyists then become ministers and in fact ministers of the very portfolio to which they were previously lobbying. We have three ministers now who were lobbyists previously for their very portfolios. I fail to see how one could ever suggest that an ex-minister, now lobbyist when his former government has lost power, could have more potential for improper influence than a former lobbyist now minister in the very portfolio where he was previously lobbying.
That is another gap that I think all of us, in seriously trying to evolve the Lobbyist Registration Act further and ensuring the greatest possible protection, need to pay some attention to.
Another issue of accountability is respect or disrespect for individuals in high office and, in particular, the independent officers of Parliament. The Speech from the Throne mentions that the capacity and the independence of independent officers of Parliament should be enhanced. We have seen, unfortunately, in far too recent months examples of disrespect by the government when it was in opposition and now in government to those independent officers and, in particular, the Ethics Commissioner.
I do not know how the current Prime Minister can express in a Speech from the Throne the desire to raise respect, capacity and independence of an independent officer when four months, when he was Leader of the Opposition, he refused to make time to meet with the Ethics Commissioner, an independent officer of Parliament, to answer questions about the Grewal case. What possibly could be a greater disrespect?
Another area of disrespect, of course, was after the election of the present government when the Ethics Commissioner identified explicitly that the action of crossing the floor and the enticement of a member was disrespect for the voters. We all have problems with the crossing of the floor and I think we all understand that we need some limits around it. However, as I have learned, never has such an incident of floor crossing been so extreme where, within two weeks of being voted into Parliament, a member is enticed to the government party that received 18% of the vote from the voters of that constituency. As the Ethics Commissioner properly pointed out, that shows at the very least disrespect for the voters.
Another issue on accountability, in my mind, was the very honourable and important move of the government to move toward the election of senators. The problem is how to do it and how to do it piecemeal rather than looking at a full reform and, through constitutional amendment, a re-ordering of that very important House. We all respect the very fine work that so much of the Senate and its committees produce, but not being elected is a problem and I am glad the government is addressing it.
The difficulty, which again goes to respect, consistency and perhaps seriousness around this area of reform, was the appointment of a party functionary, who decided not to seek election, to the Senate and then went on to become Minister of Public Works. He is not available in the House to take responsibility and be accountable for the actions of that important ministry. That is an area where I think we have to question the level of respect that is really being shown to the concept of a reformed-by-becoming-elected Senate.
It is not as if regional and, in this case, city representation is the key issue. We have seen no enthusiasm or action toward, for instance, the appointment of a non-elected member of cabinet from the Toronto area where the government holds no representation either. I might note in passing that the province of Prince Edward Island has both a vacant Senate seat and no representation in cabinet. There is inconsistency there and accountability certainly demands consistency.
Let me very briefly touch on a few of the other five areas of the throne speech concentration. Of course, the first one is child care, which is immensely important. Everyone is declaring it and speaking about providing some relief for parents who need child care and wish to put their children in child care. I must say that the very minimal cash payment to parents with children under six will not handle the need and I think we all know that. It is of least, if any, benefit whatsoever to the parent or the parents who must work either because they are a single parent or because they need two incomes. It is taxable income and therefore they will receive much less than the $100 a month.
The people who will benefit most will be the parents who already stay at home with their children. It will not give them the opportunity to put their children in child care but it will be of benefit to the parents who already stay at home and look after their children.
Let me speak very briefly to the GST and the tax policy in general. There are few times in the ordering of public affairs when all of the economists in the country agree on anything. Economists, as we know, are famous for having many different points of view. They are unanimous on this, and I mean practising economists, not simply people who got an economics degree 30 years ago.
We would all like to see the proposed GST cut if we can because it is a sensible thing to do, but this is a very progressive tax benefit but the progression is that it gets progressively more valuable the richer one is and the more one spends. That is the opposite--
