Bill Casey

[Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act, November 22nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's intervention. He has been a long standing supporter of access to information. I am sure he would support my amendment, if he had the chance to do so, to have an accounting once a year on who claimed diplomatic immunity under the new regulations.

To address his question, I do not see the connection between the violence in Canada at international meetings and protests that are out of control. I do not know how that affects the participants in the meeting unless they are involved in the violence, in which case, I do not think they should have immunity. If they come to Canada to protest for some reason and they do not obey our laws, then I do not think they should have immunity.

He mentioned the fact that they were here for a short term and it was short term immunity. If there is an accident or a crime that involves a death or an injury, it is still a death or an injury whether it is short term or long term.

[Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act, November 22nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I rise again to talk about Bill C-35, which we spoke about last night. I appreciate your indulgence.

The fact of the matter is that I find it rather strange that we have this contradictory situation. The Minister of Transport has just introduced a bill increasing security and is spending a great deal of attention on focusing on enhancing security in the transport system, and as well we have Bill C-36 which increases police powers and creates new arrest powers for police, and here we are talking about Bill C-35 which expands immunity from our laws. It seems we are going one way with the two bills we are discussing today, and with Bill C-35 we are going in a completely different direction.

Bill C-35 is an act to amend the Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act. Essentially it expands immunity far beyond anything we have ever done. Most Canadians think of diplomatic immunity as applying only to diplomats. The bill expands it much more broadly so that it is not just for diplomats. The bill expands it in a whole new definition of people who would quality for immunity under our new laws.

I will quote from one newspaper, in which Greg Weston states about the bill that:

Under it, anyone showing up at international...[conferences]...that's delegates, officials, staff, families, bag-carriers, mistresses--would have diplomatic immunity to rape, steal, drive drunk and otherwise break Canadian laws with impunity, compliments of our national government.

The bill includes delegates, officials, staff, family, bag carriers, everyone, along with the diplomats, so it is no longer diplomatic immunity; it is immunity that covers everyone who attends an international conference in Canada. We think it is unnecessary and goes far beyond anything that is required.

The newspaper article continues with respect to how immunity would be determined. One foreign affairs official quoted in the newspaper states:

If we give (diplomatic) privileges and immunities for a meeting, then all of the participants we let in for that meeting will get it.

This direction is completely different from the one we have taken before with respect to diplomatic immunity. Diplomatic immunity was always provided in order to avoid harassment of diplomats and to ensure that the senior diplomats were protected from harassment by foreign governments, and in any case this does not happen in Canada, but now we have expanded it to a wide range of officials, assistants and staff so that they can come to Canada, break our civil and criminal laws and completely disregard the laws because they can claim immunity, even though it is far more than diplomatic immunity now.

It is so ironic that Bill C-36 is imposing new penalties on Canadians, giving police new powers and even creating new laws against Canadians at the very same time that we are debating Bill C-35 in the House, which is giving diplomatic immunity to a whole new range of people who attend meetings in Canada. It is completely contradictory and makes no sense.

Yesterday one of the government members suggested that we needed this very desperately so we could allow conferences like the upcoming G-8 conference in Alberta to be held. I disagree. We do not need this for that purpose. I do not think we have ever had a complaint. No one has ever said “I am not coming to Canada because I do not have diplomatic immunity. I am not coming to Canada because I cannot break civil laws and criminal laws and get away with it”. We do not need this expansion of diplomatic immunity and we should not be doing it.

There is absolutely no transparency in the bill. It removes the accountability to parliament about who claims diplomatic immunity. There is no obligation for the Department of Foreign Affairs to tell Canadians or parliament or the foreign affairs committee who claims diplomatic immunity. There should be a clause in the bill which states that every year or twice a year or four times a year the government must come to the foreign affairs committee or to parliament and present a report on who claimed diplomatic immunity and why.

Furthermore, it puts Canadians at further risk. Instead of tightening up security, the bill reduces security and increases the risk to Canadians. Not having an annual report creates an enhanced opportunity for repeat actions, such as the awful accident that took place on January 27 last year and to which we refer quite often.

In that case, a foreign diplomat had repeat offences but no one knew about it except the department. No one knew about it because there was no requirement for annual reporting. Had there been a requirement for annual reporting, this diplomat who had a series of offences would have been well known to the public, to the parliamentarians and to the foreign affairs committee. I am absolutely convinced that if this knowledge had been available he would not have had the opportunity to offend one more time. However, it was not available and he did offend one more time.

The bill does nothing to address that. The same thing could happen again without an amendment which requires an annual reporting. It just seems like such a common sense amendment and it is very disappointing that the government has refused this amendment. Many other amendments have been proposed and turned down. In fact, to the best of my knowledge all amendments were turned down even though many of them were sensible and were not intended to distort the bill or change the direction of it in any way, shape or form. They were common sense, thoughtful amendments but they were just turned down on principle.

The whole purpose of the bill is to avoid inappropriate harassment and we do not have any examples of that in Canada. We do not have any claims about inappropriate harassment against diplomats so I do not know why we are expanding this to cover more people. Even the people who are now covered have never complained, to the best of our knowledge. Staff members, assistants or officials have never said they would not come to Canada because Canada does not have immunity for them, and so what if they did say they were not coming to Canada if they did not have immunity? If they need immunity to avoid our laws and our criminal and civil actions we do not want them anyway. I do not know why we are expanding this immunity to cover all these new officials. Broadening the scope of coverage for diplomatic immunity really distorts it and creates more security risks for Canadians. It does not deal with it in an appropriate way.

Again, at the very least there should be an annual report about who claims diplomatic immunity in the country. There is not one, so in effect there could be diplomats who have a series of offences and claim diplomatic immunity time and time again. No one would ever know and the action that could be taken if parliament and public knew would not be. Again, let me say one more time that there should be an amendment for including annual reporting.

It is not all negative. We support some aspects of the bill. Certainly one is that the bill provides greater clarity for the role of the RCMP. In the international conferences I have been involved with there was a lot of confusion about who was in charge, about whether it was the local police, the provincial police, the RCMP or whatever. The bill makes it very clear that the RCMP is in charge of security at international conferences and that is a good thing. However, that was generated perhaps to some extent by the Hughes report on the APEC conference in Vancouver, which was such a fiasco. That report also suggested that there should be regulations to prevent politicians from interfering with the RCMP and there is no condition or clause in the bill that requires politicians to not interfere with the RCMP in the course of its duties. That was a recommendation by the Hughes report which was not addressed, so although the RCMP clearly is now in charge there is no restriction on politicians interfering with the RCMP while it is doing its job.

Another aspect of the bill our party does not like is that it further centralizes within the bureaucracy the power to allocate immunity from the law. For instance, special visitors now have to apply to the immigration minister's office to come to Canada if there is some concern about whether they qualify to come here. If there is some concern about whether or not they qualify for a visa they can apply to the minister of immigration. That will go with the enactment of this bill. They would apply through officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs, whose job is probably to encourage the international meeting to take place in the first place. They may not be objective or they may be overwhelmed with applications from people who are coming to these conventions. As the newspaper article says, if we give immunity to one we have to give immunity to all, as a Department of Foreign Affairs official was quoted as saying.

Again, instead of having the department of immigration, which has expertise in this field, examine these visas and applications, it will be locked in with the Department of Foreign Affairs, which is most anxious to see these conventions occur and be well attended. Perhaps its officials will not analyze these applications. The foreign affairs official said that if we give immunity to one we must give it to all. It does not bode well. It does not give us any level of comfort that these immunity conditions will be granted with the proper authority and the proper consideration. We think they may be given too broadly. Even though the bill is broad, they may be expanded under the licence provided by the bill.

Again, the amendment our party proposed would have required annual reporting. Had that been in place there is a really good chance that the accident on January 27 of this year would never have happened. The diplomat had a track record of offences but no one knew about it. No one knew about it because he claimed diplomatic immunity, so there was no record. The public and parliament did not know that the man was a repeat offender. Had there been a public accounting annually, quarterly or even twice a year, parliament would have known. The embassy certainly would have been uncomfortable knowing that one of their diplomats was publicly named over and over again for offences. I believe that if the embassy involved would not have sent the diplomat home we would have insisted that he go home. However, we did not know about it because there was no requirement to report to parliament. This condition is still the same. The same thing could happen again. There could be a diplomat who is a repeat offender out there right now who we do not know about and never will know about. There is no requirement in the bill for an annual reporting on who applies for diplomatic immunity.

We hope that the minister will see the sense in this. It is interesting that Bill C-36 was amended by the attorney general to allow exactly what we are asking for in Bill C-35. The attorney general said that because of the opposition motions and the attention the opposition has put on this the government will have included in Bill C-36 a requirement for an annual report. This only happened two days ago, when she announced that the bill would be amended to include an annual report. Bill C-35 will still not have an annual report requirement, even though the same criteria and the same reasoning apply to Bill C-35. The government is going one way on one bill and another way on the other bill. There is no reason not to have annual reporting.

Another disconcerting part is the fact that the permission to come to Canada is transferred from the minister of immigration through special permits to the department. It is lumped in with many other aspects of the applications for the meetings.

These are our main concerns about the bill. Our party will not support the bill because of these very clear shortcomings. If the amendments were accepted we would probably support the bill, but instead of increasing security for Canadians it reduces it when everything else we are doing in the House is trying to increase security.

This morning the Minister of Transport tabled a bill to increase security regarding transport. The Minister of Finance said upcoming budget will focus totally on security. Bill C-36 is the anti-terrorism bill and is totally focused on security. Yet we have Bill C-35 in the middle, which expands immunity and allows people to avoid being held accountable under our civil and criminal laws. It is a complete contradiction to everything else the government is doing. Our party believes the bill should be sent back, as the amendment we are speaking to today refers to. The amendment asks that the bill be sent back to committee for reconsideration. Our party supports the amendment. If the bill goes back for reconsideration to the committee and is amended, then perhaps our party will change its position. If it does not, our party will not be supporting the bill.

[Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act, November 21st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I wish I could have asked government members some questions when they spoke, but under the rules I cannot do so. I was quite surprised at some of the things that both parliamentary secretaries said. Had I had the opportunity to ask them questions I would have done so. Perhaps I will pose those questions now, not that I will get any answers because seldom do we get answers here.

One of the parliamentary secretaries raised the accident involving Catherine MacLean and the tragedy of her death. She said the government did all that it could. I take exception to that. The government did not do all that it could. In fact amendments proposed in committee would have done more to help and those amendments were refused.

The amendment I proposed was to have a public list every year of what foreigners had applied for immunity under these new expanded immunity laws. I believe the Russian diplomat involved in the accident with Ms. MacLean would not have been here had that rule been in place. He would have been on the record at least once or twice before and would not have even been here had there been an annual reporting of people who claimed immunity.

The government could have implemented an annual report where it would list which foreigners had applied for immunity. It cannot say that it did all that it could do.

Another comment indicated that the government would request a waiver of immunity if there were a criminal or civil act where a foreigner claimed immunity. That does not make sense. Why would the government ask for a waiver of immunity when it is bringing forth legislation to create the immunity?

Why not just forget the whole thing? Why not drop the bill or send it back to committee as has been proposed by the amendment we are debating now? Why not reassess the bill and find ways to avoid a situation where our government would apply for a waiver of immunity when it just gave immunity?

These are some of the questions that I would have asked. Why are we creating immunity if we are planning to apply for waivers of immunity? Why would the government not agree to provide parliament with an annual report of who applied for immunity under these new expanded rules as proposed in Bill C-35?

[Anti-terrorism Legislation, November 21st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, a few minutes ago the Prime Minister said that the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Industry are sitting together so they can communicate well. I wonder if he could say the same thing for the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the attorney general who also sit together.

Last night the attorney general amended Bill C-36 to include annual reports. Would she lean over and explain to the Minister of Foreign Affairs why annual reports are good and why he should apply the same amendment to Bill C-35?

[Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act, November 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly pleased to speak to the bill today. Like so many bills, they sneak up on us and catch us by surprise. I thought this was fairly innocuous when I first heard about it. However, the more I learn about it, the more I realize that it is not innocuous. It is quite profound and should be reconsidered totally.

I moved amendments in committee and I tried to move amendments in the House, but even those amendments are short of what they should have been.

A paragraph from a precis on Bill C-35 states:

The current Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act fails to recognize those organizations which are not created out of an international treaty, such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum (AEPC), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), or the G-8. As such, these organizations are not entitled to the benefits given to organizations established by treaty.

In other words, they are not subject to immunity. Why would they be? Why do people who come to Canada for these meetings have to be subject to immunity? Why are we granting people immunity from our laws?

The amazing thing is that while we are considering Bill C-35, we are also considering Bill C-36, which restricts the rights of Canadians. We are restricting the rights of Canadians, reducing their civil liberties and increasing the policing powers on Canadians. At the very same time, we are granting immunity to a whole new group of people from foreign lands. It seems to be totally ironic, inconsistent and contradictory that we would nail Canadians but release foreigners from any obligations to obey Canadian laws.

The more I read this, the more I realize the impact of the bill. I have come to conclusion that we had better put the brakes on this and stop and think about this some more.

There are so many issues in the bill that go against Canadians and restrict them, yet at the same time free up people who come to Canada for meetings. While here, they are not required obey our laws. It makes no sense. Why are we holding Canadians responsible but saying people can come to Canada and there is no obligation for them to respect our laws?

It is disrespectful to Canadians, especially since we are considering at the same time Bill C-35 and Bill C-36; one that restricts Canadians and the other that allows more freedoms for foreigners.

I proposed a simple amendment in committee and in here. It was turned down in committee and for some reason it was turned down in the House as being an allowable amendment. The amendment would have required the minister to report to parliament once or twice a year on those foreigners who had claimed immunity from civil or criminal actions in Canada.

What a simple and sensible request. If people claim immunity to get out of obeying our laws, all we ask is that this be reported every year. I do not understand why it has been turned down. The minister effectively acknowledged that it was necessary when he said that he would personally commit to report regularly on his website.

The report would include who used immunity or the number of immunity claims made in a period of time. The minister acknowledged the need was there, but he did not allow it into the legislation. Why? The only thing I can think of is he and his department want the flexibility to back out of this commitment. Probably when we will really want it, the commitment will be taken away because it is not in legislation. It is a commitment by the minister, not by the government. It is not a commitment to parliament, it is just an agreement.

If he agrees that it is necessary enough for him to say that he will produce this report, why is it not necessary enough to put the amendment in the bill that would require the government to report every year, or twice a year, listing those who claimed immunity under these laws? It makes no sense that the minister would say on one hand that it was necessary but on the other hand not allow it to be put into legislation.

This minister will not be the minister forever. He will probably be in another position in two or three years' time. He may not be in government; he may be in the opposition. There will be another party over there with another foreign affairs minister who has no obligation to produce this list. This is an obligation by this minister and it ends when the minister ends his term as the Minister of Foreign Affairs. It is wrong.

It is disrespectful to say to Canadians that we will restrict their rights but we will give an unnamed, unidentified wide group of foreign visitors to Canada total immunity from our civil and criminal laws. If this amendment had been in place and there had been a report on diplomats who had claimed immunity, the Russian diplomat who was involved in the terrible crash that killed Catherine MacLean would have been in the public record for repeat offences. Chances are that Catherine MacLean would be alive today had this diplomat been publicly named as a repeat offender, which I understand he is.

That is why I am saying the amendment is so important. Although I respect the wisdom of the Chair, I am disappointed that the amendment was not allowed in the House. It was allowed in committee but it was defeated by the Liberals even though many of them supported the amendment in principle.

The amendment I proposed is only asking for transparency. It is asking for common sense. We must know the people who are claiming immunity from both our civil and criminal laws. That is not a lot to ask. The amendment should be considered. Even at this late date the government should reconsider it and put the restriction or the condition back in the bill.

It says that the government, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Foreign Affairs would report to parliament once a year and list the people, not the diplomats, who are claiming diplomatic immunity from our civil and criminal laws. If some individuals came to Canada for one of these meetings, not some officials but some assistants, and they did damage to property, there would be no action or ability to take action against them for compensation or restitution or anything else. There would be no restitution or justice if they harmed a family because they could claim diplomatic immunity.

The bill has been expanded dramatically to cover people and organizations that are not even named. We do not know who they are or who they will be. That would be decided upon application and we would never know in the House who those people are.

Currently they are people and organizations under the Vienna convention but we even go beyond the Vienna convention. The bill goes into unchartered waters and we do not even know what organizations they will be. This is a very serious subject because it deals with potential criminals that now do not have to obey our laws. It is amazing that we are passing a law which says the laws do not have to be honoured. It does not make sense and it has expanded dramatically now to cover people we do not even know.

I do not know where we can go with this. We are opposition members that know it is wrong. The Liberals know a lot of this is wrong and they have even turned down simple amendments. However we will continue to speak against it. We will continue to try to get the government to make changes that are appropriate. Even at this late date we will continue to press the government and do everything we can to demand that it respect the rights of Canadians.

It is amazing that people in Canada say we are prepared to give up some of our civil liberties in the interest of the anti-terrorism effort. We are prepared to make allowances we have never had to make before. Canadians are prepared to do that. We are demanding a lot of Canadians and we are not asking anything of these foreign visitors. Do we not at least owe Canadians the right to know the names of other people who come to Canada who are allowed to circumvent and not obey our laws?

[Canada National Marine Conservation Areas Act, November 19th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I do appreciate what the department has tried to do and what the minister has tried to do. I have always felt it was not appropriate for the Russian diplomat to take advantage of his immunity under the diplomatic rules we have and flee to Russia, and then we had to pay for the Russian police to come to Canada. If the Russians really felt that justice should be done, they should have at least paid for the police to come to Canada.

I have two questions for the parliamentary secretary. She said that they have estimated the cost of this investigation to Canada. What was that cost? Second, did Canada fund the cost of the second trip made recently?

[Canada National Marine Conservation Areas Act, November 19th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to follow up on my question of June 7 directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in which I asked if the Government of Canada was going to ask Moscow to pay for the police investigation resulting from the accident by a Russian diplomat Mr. Knyazev. The minister did not answer my question. He said that the government would make every effort to resolve the issue, but we still do not know whether Canada did ask Russia to pay for this investigation.

Canada paid to bring the Russian police to Canada to do the investigation and that should have been the responsibility of Moscow.

We have learned that charges have been laid, although the defendant has pleaded not guilty. We also have word that the Russians came back again for a further investigation.

Did Canada ask the Russians to pay the first bill? Did Canada pay for the Russians to come back a second time to talk to the relatives of the victims? It is appropriate to ask these questions today because earlier we talked about Bill C-35 which would expand immunity to include foreign diplomats and foreign representatives from other countries who were never subject to immunity before.

Has Moscow paid the Canadian government for the first trip, as I asked back in June? Has the government asked Moscow to pay for the second trip to complete the police investigation?

[Canadian Commercial Corporation Act, November 19th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I compliment the parliamentary secretary for providing us with such valuable information but he did not answer the questions I asked him previously.

I asked him what precipitated the bill and why it was here. In the meantime I had a call from one of my constituents and she is nervous. Nellie wants to know why 73% of the operating costs of the CCC is covered by parliamentary appropriations. Is it the plan to reduce that through changes to the act so that more of the fees and operating costs are recovered from the exporters and the users? Could the hon. parliamentary secretary help with that so that my constituent Nellie might not be so nervous?

[Canadian Commercial Corporation Act, November 19th, 2001]

This is from the auditor general's report. It states:

There is a need for better director training...Appointment decisions are not timely. In one Crown corporation 80 percent of the directors have continued in expired positions for over a year, and the chair position is vacant.

There is a board that continued with expired positions and no chair. Again it is a sign of lack of governance. The report continues as follows:

Chair appointments [are] often made with limited board consultation.

Each crown corporation has an audit committee. The report goes into the effectiveness of the audit committees. It states:

Half of the audit committees we examined were considered ineffective or only marginally effective...only one followed most of the best practices and was performing effectively;—

That was one out of 13 crown corporations. The report states:

The deficiencies in corporate plans undermine Crown corporation accountability...Many Crown corporations receive little or no feedback on their corporate plans from their responsible minister.

In fact there is supposed to be a direct correlation and a direct reporting back and forth. It goes on and on, stating that further improvement is needed in some important areas of crown corporation management, like strategic and corporate planning, that is, the basics, and the measurement and reporting of performance. Boards lack essential skills and capabilities that are required to effectively carry out their role. The government needs to meaningfully involve boards in their own renewal.

The report states that the auditors found “deficiencies” in many government approved corporate plans and “a limited capacity” in government to challenge those plans as a basis for their approval.

I could go on because the report is full of this. I just selected some highlights.

We have some amendments to the bill which we will propose in committee. We will focus on the governance issues as the auditor general did.

The bill proposes to separate the positions of chair of the board of directors and president of the Canadian Commercial Corporation. That makes sense. It should have been done a long time ago. We would like to add some requirements and will be proposing amendments at committee.

First, we would like to see a requirement that a majority of the board members has expertise relevant to the business of the corporation. It makes sense. It probably will not happen because it makes sense. However, it makes sense and we think the board members should know something about what they are talking about. They should have some experience and knowledge of the board of which they are a member. Second, we suggest that we should reduce the number of board members given that the chairperson is an added position. By adding a new chair, we should take one member off the board.

Third, we will ask for the requirement of the appointment of a president and chair to follow up consultations with the board. This will ensure that the board's directions are followed, which is not currently the case, as related in the auditor general's report. Fourth, we think that we should strike the clause that would allow the borrowing capacity of the corporation to be increased by a supply bill. We will be addressing all these issues when the bill gets to committee.

Again, this is an important crown corporation. It works with the EDC and the Business Development Corporation to help our small and medium size companies export and do business with governments in 30 countries around the world. We support the institution, but we want some changes made in the governance of the institution and in the process.

[Canadian Commercial Corporation Act, November 19th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to this bill. Although it seems fairly innocuous there are some questions that will be raised in committee and should be raised here, similar to the questions we recently raised with respect to the bill concerning the Export Development Corporation, again referring to the comments by the hon. member for Burnaby--Douglas about the total lack of environmental standards and the standard for human rights being absent. There are no requirements for these issues that are so important in our country and should be important in other countries as well. We will be raising those questions.

As the hon. member and previous speakers have mentioned, the Canadian Commercial Corporation is almost invisible. Very few people know about it. The fact of the matter is that in the last year it has helped almost 2,000 small and medium sized businesses do business with other countries. It has 90 employees and operates with a fairly small base of capital, about $25 million.

The amendments proposed seem to be very reasonable, but like it is with so many bills I often wonder what precipitated these amendments. Why suddenly are they required after 55 years of having the Canadian Commercial Corporation Act in place? Why do we have these changes?

Perhaps the very distinguished parliamentary secretary could answer these questions for me by explaining whether it was a cash crunch that the corporation recently experienced that caused these changes to the act. Was it that the United States could not, did not or chose not to pay? Were there complaints from the exporters that generated these changes to the act? Or was it Treasury Board? Does it want to divest itself of the responsibility for supplying the capital? Does it want to divest it to the private sector? Or was it the auditor general's report, which was extremely critical of crown corporations and castigated the government for mismanagement and poor governance in every way?

I will in fact refer to the report, if I may, and report some of the comments made by the auditor general with respect to crown corporations. Recently I was involved with the Department of Transport's auditor's report and I thought it was really bad. I thought it was something any government would be ashamed of, but I think this report may be even worse. I will read to members some highlights from the report with respect to the auditor general's criticisms about crown corporations, which is what we are talking about here today, and about changes to the government's outlook on crown corporations. I will read some quotes that I have highlighted.

The report states:

Crown corporations...have more autonomy to manage than most other government entities—

They are more powerful than governments in many cases.

Many chairs and CEOs are not satisfied with the mix of skills and capabilities of their boards. They do not like their boards. Why? Who appoints the boards? The government appoints the boards. The chairs and the presidents do not even like them. They say they are not capable. There are “gaps in skills and capabilities” that “undermine the board's effectiveness”, says the report. Another comment states:

Only 34 percent of Crown corporations have completed profiles outlining their requirements for director skills and capabilities.

Imagine: 34% define the job and the rest take the appointments of the government.