Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise following the speech made here this afternoon on Bill C-65 by the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Minister responsible for Public Service Renewal. In the context of that legislation, the minister is also acting as President of the Privy Council.
Bill C-65 is a measure to reorganize and dissolve certain federal agencies. The bill amends and reorganizes 15 federal agencies by reducing the number of their members. It also dismantles seven other federal organizations. I say dismantle because, in some cases, the mandate of these agencies is transferred to the sector department or is merged with that of another body.
For several months now, the minister has been making a lot of statements regarding his reorganization of the federal public service.
Let us take a closer look at the effect of these cuts in the context of the public service taken as a whole. In its current form, Bill C-65 seeks to restructure the boards of 15 federal organizations and reduce the number of their members. As the minister said himself, the changes proposed in that legislation would result in the elimination of 150 positions held by governor-in-council appointees, as well as in savings of about one million dollars.
At the same time, the government is about to eliminate 45,000 jobs in the federal public service. If we estimate the average cost of these positions to be $40,000, a figure which includes the salary and the fringe benefits, these cuts could result in savings of $1.8 billion for the government. Compared to these drastic cuts and their impact on the government's budget, the changes proposed in Bill C-65 seem very minor indeed. They look more like a device to attract the public's attention than like a real change in the government's way of managing.
The savings which would result from the minister's piece of legislation represent merely one eighteenth of one per cent of the savings related to the anticipated elimination of the 45,000 jobs mentioned earlier. As you can imagine, the minister's interest in such cuts is great, given their impact on the budget; on the other hand, the savings resulting from the reorganization and elimination of some federal agencies, which amount to a million dollars per year, seem minor.
The fact is that all this publicity about savings of one million dollars is designed to prepare the ground and show that the government is setting an example. The aim is to show that political positions are being cut, before public service positions. Let us not forget that most of these political positions are part-time positions, and the people in them usually have another income. This is not the case for public servants, who work only for the government.
A bill, in proper form, to save one million dollars is far too little, when public service positions are about to be slashed. This is not good enough. In many cases, the savings will not be real. Costs will simply be transferred to the public service. The government wants us to believe the bill will reduce waste in public spending. What we need are fewer political positions, that is appointments by the Privy Council, in other words, by the Prime Minister himself. This bill is simply a smoke screen.
Saturday's Globe and Mail made it very clear that there was no shortage of political appointments under the Liberals. The article is headed: ``It pays to be a Liberal'' and goes on to list 84 Liberals who have been appointed by the government. Certain well-known Liberals were named to important positions. Some of them had supported the Prime Minister at the leadership convention; others had lost out in the October 1993 elections and others were longtime Liberal supporters.
This omnibus bill creates the illusion of government transparency. The red book makes the following promise: "A Liberal government will review the appointment process to ensure that necessary appointments are made on the basis of competence. Persons appointed by a Liberal government will better represent women, visible minorities, Aboriginal peoples, and people with disabilities". Are the 84 appointments listed in last Saturday's Globe and Mail based on the red book's criteria? Or are there double standards? I shall let you judge for yourselves. We heard one speech during the election campaign, but, having been elected, they are singing a different song now. The same Liberal credo as usual.
The elimination in the bill of all legal references to commissions and advisory boards leads us to doubt that the Liberals are seriously committed to transparency in government operations. Will Parliament and elected members have the right to examine appointments to such advisory boards, which in fact will no longer be legally constituted?
These agencies will no longer be required to submit annual reports to Parliament. The expected savings may be quite minimal and government appointments may become even more concentrated in the hands of the executive. Is this the transparency that the Liberals promised us during the last election campaign in October 1993?
They have also been silent on the issue of consultation with the provinces. Is that the flexible federalism promised by the Liberals? At the National Capital Commission, the legal obligation to have a member representing each province has been lifted in favour of local representation, that means representation for the city of Hull and for the city of Ottawa.
And the government is still wondering why Westerners feel alienated? Why do Canadians from the west feel they are getting less than Ontarians and why was the government unable to have a majority of members of Parliament elected in the west of the country?
The North Pacific Fisheries Convention Act will be revoked and the International North Pacific Fisheries Commission will be created. Was the Government of British Columbia consulted during this process and on the changes proposed by this act? Again, the minister remains silent.
The Canadian Saltfish Corporation is being dissolved, says the minister, and the Saltfish Act, revoked. There is no more saltfish to sell anyway. The corporation was already inactive. Why has the government sat 15 months in office without acting?
Dissolving this corporation was not the decision of the century, you will agree.
The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency Act is being amended. Have the governments of the four maritime provinces been privy to discussions leading up to this decision? Have they been included? Once again, we are in the dark.
There will no longer be representatives of the armed forces on the National Film Board. The government finally recognizes that the NFB is not a propaganda machine. Does it also recognize that Canadian taxpayers should not be helping to pay for partisan propaganda? Is the government prepared to stop funding the Council for Canadian Unity and let pressure groups from the no side in the next Quebec referendum pick up the slack?
The government says it wants to put an end to political appointments and senseless references to advisers. Seven advisory councils have been abolished. This is all very fine and well, but the directors of agencies can still call on the services of these people for advice of all sorts. The same group of friends of the regime will therefore continue to hover around government agencies, but more informally, less visibly than before.
The government plans to table a second omnibus bill, the minister tells us, after bringing down the budget, while an examination of all federal bodies continues under the responsibility of the minister himself.
All in all, the two bills will affect fewer than 300 positions, the majority of them part time, and will save one million dollars at best.
As we mentioned, the reorganization of these 15 federal bodies and the winding-up of seven others provided for in Bill C-65 will abolish a total of 150 political positions. This initiative should be pursued, although it still strikes us as much too timid.
The government should be directing its attention to the process of appointing people to these organizations. This is the sore point. The existing appointment process leaves the door open to taxpayers' money being used to reward friends of the party in power. There will be fewer of these political appointees, I agree, but they will still be Liberals.
What has changed? Let us look more closely at the nature of this administrative reorganization by the Minister responsible for Public Service Renewal. The number of members of the Canada Council has dropped from 21 to 11. The position of assistant director is no longer mentioned in the bill's provisions. The Council could, however, create such a position without any other approval. Parliament is losing control. The position of secretary of the Canadian Film Development Corporation, Telefilm Canada, is in fact no longer mentioned in the bill. The creation of such a position will therefore be up to the corporation in the future.
The Minister of National Defence is henceforth responsible for emergency preparedness, the organization formerly presided over by the minister, but under the direction of the executive director.
Emergency Preparedness Canada is no longer required to submit an annual report on its operations. Of course, the risk of politicizing emergency preparedness for partisan purposes is still there and we must remain very vigilant in this regard. It is a matter of government openness and parliamentary control.
The established policy of no longer requiring departments to submit annual reports is part of the cheeseparing economies this government is trying to achieve, when its mismanagement in all areas is costing us billions of dollars.
A one-point hike in interest rates increases the deficit by $1.7 billion, which is close to the $1.8 billion to be gained by eliminating the 45,000 public service jobs targeted by the government.
The abolition of the National Advisory Council on Fitness and Amateur Sport was already announced in the 1993 budget of the Conservative government. Are the Liberals taking credit for these savings or are they using the same data a second time?
Any legal reference to the National Archives of Canada Advisory Board and the National Library Advisory Board is eliminated. Management at the National Archives and National Library will thus be free to set up an informal advisory committee that will be beyond control.
The minister said that other changes would be implemented as part of the reorganization through separate legislation, orders-in-council or administrative measures. These additional measures will eliminate 125 governor in council appointments and save $4 million. Did you notice that this government's estimated future savings are always much bigger than the savings generated by these concrete measures?
Bill C-65 and the second omnibus bill that will be introduced after the budget is tabled will eliminate 300 jobs and save $1 million, while future measures will cut 125 jobs and save $4 million. This second series of measures to be implemented in the coming year will thus save four times as much. The jobs that will be cut must pay much better than those already abolished.
