Madam Speaker, it is with a great deal of respect that I approach the debate this morning.
The Canada Information Office has a very interesting title. The word “Information” has some very interesting connotations because information is separate from facts. Facts are indisputable observations, the things that everyone would agree upon. Information is not necessarily agreed upon. Information is often the taking of facts, interpreting them and applying them in certain ways to create a particular result that may influence other people to make decisions, to feel a certain way or to develop certain attitudes.
It is to that extent that I would like to read from the department's statement, the departmental overview, the mandate, the rules and responsibilities of the Canada Information Office.
I would like to ask the people who are watching this particular debate to pay particular attention to the words in the statement and compare them, if they have read the novel by George Orwell, to 1984 . The statement reads:
The Canada Information Office's (CIO) mandate is to improve communications between the Government of Canada and citizens. While individual departments and agencies communicate about activities within their areas of responsibility, the CIO is increasingly focused on communicating with citizens from a corporate perspective, representing the Government of Canada as a whole....Information on the government's overall direction, key priorities and the broad range of programs and services.
Based on public opinion and communications research, the CIO developed national and regionally responsive citizen-focused communications initiatives. It also provides advice and support, in collaboration with the Privy Council Office, to the ad hoc Committee of Cabinet on Government Communications which was created in 1998 to improve the effectiveness of government communications.
The CIO's role and mandate has gradually evolved to the above. When it was created on July 9, 1996 through Order-in-Council 1996-1066, its mandate reflected the Government's commitment to inform Canadians about their country, about each other, about the renewal of the federation and about the role of the Government of Canada. This evolution from a largely unity focused mandate to one more focused on corporate communications was brought about in response to the Government's commitment to better communicate with citizens.
As I went through those three paragraphs, how many of those who have read George Orwell's 1984 would say, that is like the information office that George Orwell imagined a long time ago, which was actually to create a particular impression or direction as to what should happen.
The hon. minister just indicated, and it is reflected in a phrase in one of the above paragraphs, that it was primarily to bring about the unity of Canada. I could not agree more with the minister. I think we do need to have this country together. One of the saddest experiences I have had in the House was to witness the operation of the members of the Bloc whose sole purpose is to destroy the unity of the country.
Nothing hurts me more than to think of breaking up the country that my grandfather chose as being the place where he wanted to live and where he wanted his children to get married and his grandchildren to live. I am proud of this country. I am so thankful that he chose to move out of Russia, come to Canada and set up his operation here.
I want to keep the country united. I love our uniqueness and our various cultural differences. We are not all the same and I am happy about those differences. However this does not make one group better than another. It does not mean that we should separate from one another. We can learn from one another and live together.
Not only does that require information, it also requires an attitude, an attitude of patriotism, of transparency and of working together, and to be democratic about it. We must also be accountable to one another. We do not need nor do we want a propaganda machine that will do only one thing: promote a particular political party.
The mandate does not say that it is the Liberal Party that is being promoted. It says that the government's operations are to be communicated with the citizens. To that degree it is good, but is it doing that? That becomes the key question.
The minister has given us some assurances this morning, but I want to ask whether in fact those assurances are being observed.
I now want to get into another part of the department's own statement about the operation of the CIO.
I will read what it says on page 7 of the document that I am referring to. It says:
The CIO's activities are greatly influenced by the opinions and attitudes of the Canadian public. What Canadians tell us in our surveys help shape our initiatives and the communications advice we provide to the government. For instance, our research indicates that many Canadians believe the government is not providing them with enough information and a large majority believe that the government should place a high priority on providing information on how to access programs and services. Our research also tells us that Canadians possess relatively low levels of familiarity with government actions.
I cannot help but think about what has happened in the House in the last three months. The Minister of HRDC has been singularly secretive about certain things. It was not until a request was made by our critic, my colleague for Calgary—Nose Hill, that this be made public that in fact it became public. We have seen a number of things. We have had to dig and dig and push and pull to get the information.
We still do not have all the information. If that is the issue, if this group found out that Canadians want more information, why is it not forthcoming? I really question whether in fact the CIO is doing what it was supposed to be doing.
The overview goes on to say:
Demographics also play an important role in determining our activities. The CIO's communications strategies reflect Canada's increasingly diverse and pluralistic population and take into consideration factors such as regional differences, the aging population and varying levels of literacy.
That is indeed true. Just a moment ago the minister referred to the increasing sophistication of technology; that people want more information and they want it faster. With the complexity of the various issues, we need to recognize that complexity itself can be an impediment to clear communication. It therefore has to be simplified so that people can understand it directly and accurately. The key factor here is accuracy.
The final sentence reads:
Technological advances and new media are also having significant effects on how the Government of Canada communicates—
That is the case. There are rumours now that the government is considering a secure channel. There is a lot controversy around that particular channel. How will the contract be awarded for that particular channel? What are the specifications that will have to be met? These things are not clear at this point. There are a lot of complications with that, and I am sure the hon. minister would be only too pleased to recognize this and take some action.
I really encourage the minister to ensure that the kind of things he does in that particular connection do not fall into the kind of criticism that we are offering to the CIO, in the way it is operating and particularly the advice it has given to the HRDC, if indeed it gave it some. I think it probably did.
Let us look at the department's communications activities. It says:
In 2000-2001, the CIO will place much of its effort on the design and delivery of innovative, citizen-oriented, corporate communications products and initiatives.
If it is going to be citizen-oriented, we will have to see the evidence that it is citizen-oriented, that the primary purpose is to get the people and the government to talk together rather than the government talking to the people and telling them that this is what they had better believe and this is what they had better do.
We want to have it the other way as well which says “We, the people, would like you, the government, to do this”. I ask myself, I ask the hon. minister and I ask the Prime Minister, if this is the case, if they have been listening so carefully, if they want to be citizen-oriented, why is it then that we have not had a tax cut? Why is it that we do not have a plan to pay down the debt?
Over and over again I hear people asking when the government will start paying down the debt. When is it going to have a plan to pay down the debt? There is no plan. The only plan it has is that if it has a little surplus, it will put it toward the debt. That is fine but that is not what we want.
We want a systematic and planned contribution that will say how much the debt is going to be reduced each year. Unless we do that, the interest charges and the service charges for that debt will continue and we will get nothing.
The health care budget alone would be covered by half of the service charges on the debt at the present time, and I am speaking about the federal contribution. If we are going to be citizen-oriented, we must pay attention to that.
The paper goes on to say:
These corporate communications initiatives will be designed to reflect citizens' needs and interests for information—
The citizens want action. They want information, that is true, but they want to know what we are doing.
What is the Minister of Health going to do to fix the health care problem? We do not know. He is not telling us. When he goes to a meeting he says all kinds of beautiful things. Not too long ago he was in Kelowna in my constituency and made a beautiful speech. He said that we are going to enter into a partnership with a program with the Kelowna General Hospital. The doctors in the audience asked, “Where is the money?” It is easy to talk, but where is the action? Very noble activities are being proposed here, but what are they really going to do?
“They will be based on the CIO's research and what it has learned from its practical experience to date”. That has given us a whole lot of information. Are they really going to do that? It is going to be a major change.
The addition of regional communications co-ordinators will further enhance co-ordination and collaboration of government-wide communications at the regional and local level. The CIO will also continue to play an important role in a variety of government-wide communications initiatives led by other departments and agencies. For example, it is working closely with the Treasury Board Secretariat, the Privy Council Office, and Public Works and Government Services Canada on a revised government communications policy. It is also collaborating with the Privy Council Office on the development and renewal of the government communications community.
That is wonderful and it sounds so good. I want to ask the minister whether he will have those kinds of statements that this is what they are going to do. Will he present to parliament a report saying that these are the things the Canada Information Office actually achieved, that it did what was said it would do?
There are a lot of things we need to do, but I want to move on to another section which has to do with sole source contracts. The hon. minister a moment ago said that as of April 1, 1999 there have been no contracts awarded above $25,000 that were not tendered.
I have here the auditor's report dated November 1999. This particular report is a rather strong indictment on the whole business of sole source contracting. In fact, using advance contract award notices, the auditor general goes so far as to say that this has become a fifth way of granting contracts by the Government of Canada. He makes some rather strong statements. In his introductory paragraph he says:
The principles of accessibility, competition, fairness to suppliers, transparency and best value lie at the core of government contracting policy.
Good.
The contracting regulations require that all contracts be let through a competitive process, with certain very narrowly defined exceptions. When the contract is needed in an emergency, when the value is small, when it is not in the public interest to solicit bids (for example, if national security is involved) or when there is only one supplier who can do the work, the contract can be let without competition on what is called a sole-source basis. Almost 90 percent of the 50 sole-source contracts we examined did not fall under any of the exceptions or did not have adequate evidence of doing so and hence ought to have been competitively tendered. As in last year's audit of sole-source contracts for professional services, we concluded that the process of awarding most of the contracts audited in this year's sample would not pass the test of public scrutiny.
Those are very, very severe indictable statements. This refers not only to the CIO but goes right across a number of departments. I have the list of departments which were involved and they all came in for criticism: the Department of National Defence, the Canadian International Development Agency, Industry Canada, the Department of Human Resources Development, and the Department of Public Works and Government Services. Ninety per cent. That is high.
He goes on to become much more specific. I want to refer specifically to several of these. I am reading from the auditor general's report:
Only 11 percent of the 50 contracts we examined had a justification for sole-sourcing on file that complied with the conditions stipulated in the Government Contracts Regulations. Specifically, none of the contracts in our sample were for under $25,000. None invoked the exceptions for pressing emergency or national interest. The critical decision used to justify sole-sourcing in most of these contracts was the determination that the contractor was “unique”—that is, the only person or firm capable of performing the work. Managers are supposed to make this determination, justify it and document it before deciding to sole-source and before posting an ACAN, the advanced contract award notice. However, in 89 percent of the 50 cases we examined, the uniqueness of the contractor was either not determined at all (that is, management was fully aware that the firm selected was not unique) or was unsupported in fact.
That is pretty serious stuff. I want to go to another paragraph:
Accordingly, many more contracts than could be justified were awarded without competition—a situation that does not reflect the principle of open access to contracting opportunities with the federal government. The awarding of these contracts would not withstand public scrutiny. This situation also imposes significant opportunity costs on the contractor community at large, which is all too often unfairly denied access to potential business that it has a right to compete for.
It goes on. The Bloc made some very interesting observations. The sponsor of today's motion made some interesting statements about the fact that certain people's uniqueness was determined not by their qualifications or competence but rather by their political affiliation. It makes me think back to what the department said in its mandate and its role for the CIO. It says:
Through its media monitoring capacity and regional presence, the CIO will continue to track current and emerging trends, increasingly from a corporate perspective. It will gather information in a timely and targeted manner to enable the government and the CIO to respond to citizens' information needs efficiently and effectively.
That is beautiful. All of Canada is involved. Now watch the next sentence:
It will continue to co-ordinate ministerial visits in Quebec, providing factual background information on the communities they visit as well as logistical and other support. The CIO will also continue to produce a variety of information documents such as calendars of events to help the government in its communications efforts.
Singled out is Quebec. Why? I do not know why. One can surmise; one can speculate. But there is no question about the positive position that has been taken that a region has been clearly identified and it has been carefully articulated that is what we will be concentrating on. One of our focuses will be Quebec.
I am very concerned that this country stay together and there is reason to concentrate on Quebec. We want Quebec to feel welcome in Canada, but the rest of Canada wants to be welcome in Canada also. British Columbia wants to feel as much a part of Canada as Quebec, as Alberta, as Saskatchewan and all the other provinces. We want every citizen in Canada to be proud of being a Canadian.
I do not find I am sympathetic at all. I find little sympathy in my mind and in my heart to identify one particular area and say that is where we will concentrate, and by implication suggest that we will not concentrate in the same way on the other parts of Canada.
I wish the CIO would have stated clearly that we will concentrate on all parts and all regions of Canada and not name one in particular and say that by implication it is special. We are unique and we are different. We are not the same, but we are equal, and that is a significant issue. None of us is better than another.
This is the issue. If the CIO really wants to do its job, let us develop that patriotic attitude among Canadians that we are one and equal before the constitution and the law.
