Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to address Bill C-34, an act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act (Ethics Commissioner and Senate Ethics Officer) and other acts in consequence.
At the outset of my speech, I would like to explain the purpose of the bill as stated.
It has a twofold purpose. The first is to provide for the appointment of an ethics commissioner whose duties and functions would be assigned by the House of Commons regarding the conduct of its members and to administer any ethical principles, rules or obligations established by the prime minister for public officer holders.
The second purpose is to provide for the appointment of a Senate ethics officer whose duties and functions would be assigned by the Senate regarding the conduct of its members.
Of course I do not have to tell members this but I always like to remind the House that we on this side of the House would prefer to have a Senate which is fully elected and fully accountable to the people of Canada. We think it is time for the upper chamber to be elected, to be a fully democratic body, so both of our legislatures within our bicameral system are fully elected. Free elections should take place and I think we all realize and recognize that.
In terms of the ethics commissioner for the House of Commons, I want to make some substantive comments, particularly with regard to the consultation process that is apparently supposed to take place between the prime minister, after the prime minister designates such an individual, and the other opposition parties.
We should recognize that if we did have a genuine independent ethics commissioner, this could do a lot toward revitalizing the public support for such institutions as noble as the House of Commons. However we have to ensure then that the manner in which they are appointed, the manner in which they are selected, is above reproach and is unquestioned. Unfortunately, this bill fails to do so.
The bill does call for consultation between the prime minister and the various leaders of parties represented in the House, but the decision as to who shall be appointed is ultimately the prime minister's alone. This single-handedly bestows control onto the prime minister.
It was interesting to hear the government House leader this morning say that this was a process that an opposition member within the Canadian Alliance had suggested. Apparently that is not true.
What happened, and he should know this better than anyone, was there was no process set up for the government appointing people, and one such example was the Commissioner of Official Language. Our government House leader at the time, the member for Langley—Abbotsford, suggested a process such as this take place. That was not a legislative guidance. It was guidance for a committee and for Parliament as to how it should appoint people.
However the government House leader still failed to answer my direct question which was this. If the prime minister selects an individual and if the Leader of the Opposition disagrees with that selection, it does not matter because the prime minister in the situation now holds a majority. It does not matter if the Leader of the Opposition, or the leader of the NDP or the Bloc or the Conservative agrees because the prime minister ultimately controls the majority of the House of Commons, controls the majority of the members and can therefore, at his or her selection, deem who is the ethics commissioner.
This is a fundamental problem. We do need genuine consultation.
It is interesting that with the present ethics counsellor, members of the government side will insist that there was consultation. We heard this at the industry committee, when Howard Wilson was before our committee because the ethics commissioner reports to the industry committee, that Howard Wilson was appointed after consultations with the opposition leaders. I then asked Preston Manning, who was the opposition leader when Howard Wilson was appointed, if the Prime Minister ever called him and asked whether this was a good appointment. He said that the only call he got was a notification that Howard Wilson would be the ethics counsellor. Now if this is consultation, it is just not appropriate and it is not acceptable.
If there is to be genuine consultation, one possible suggestion I will make is we follow the B.C. model. A parliamentary committee would put forward names, the committee would then discuss these names and make a unanimous recommendation to Parliament as to who should be the ethics commissioner. That certainly seems to be a much better system than to have the prime minister designate who shall be the ethics commissioner.
A lot of people talk about clouds of scandals and corruption. I know members opposite will ask for examples to substantiate our claims. I do not want to go through a whole laundry list but I want to go through what happened at the industry committee with the current ethics counsellor because I think it really describes very well how the ethics counsellor's hands are tied right now. I do not know him that well personally. I do not know what kind of a person he is. I assume he is an honourable gentleman. The fact is his hands are tied. He is not an independent ethics commissioner.
It was very interesting when he appeared before the industry committee. Three essential points were made from our side of the committee. This was when he was bringing in his new rules and regulations, arguing with some of what the government is doing in this bill today. I think it explains to people why there is this legislation before us today. The member for Macleod summarized the position to the ethics counsellor.
I will read it directly. He said, “Firstly, you and your office have no legislative or sanctioning authority or power”. That is no authority provided by legislation to summon, whether it is a cabinet minister or a member of parliament to compel evidence. This really limits the power of the current ethics counsellor.
He went on to say, “Secondly, the Prime Minister would have broken these new guidelines if he had contacted the BDC today”, under the guideline that were being proposed. I want to touch on that point later in my speech.
Then he said, “Thirdly, these guidelines”, the guidelines that were being proposed, “do not address any of the ethical problems, the morass, that we've been involved in over the last two months or so”. This was last year, so this would obviously be at that time period.
I will then go on to what the ethics counsellor was saying at that time with respect to the fact that the Prime Minister would have broken these guidelines that were being proposed if he had indeed contacted the head of the Business Development Bank, which he did in the Shawinigan case.
I quote a discussion between my colleague, the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke and Mr. Wilson. The question from our member was:
I'd like to clarify this evolution of the guidelines that you're talking about. If the guidelines for the ministry and crown corporations had been in place, would the Prime Minister have violated these rules—the first rule, in fact—by making representations to the president of the Business Development Bank of Canada on behalf of the constituent?
This is obviously what happened in the Grand-Mère case.
The response from Mr. Howard Wilson was:
If they had been in place? They were not. No rules were in place, but there are now rules. Therefore, as the Prime Minister himself said the other day at his press conference, I will not make such a call.
The member, our colleague, pressed it further. She asked:
If the same incident were to occur today that occurred in the past with this crown corporation, would there be a breach of these guidelines?
Mr. Wilson responded:
There would be, yes. That's correct.
It is quite an admission from the ethics counsellor that had these guidelines been in place when he lobbied the head of the Business Development Bank, the Prime Minister himself would have broken the guidelines.
The whole issue points to the fact that the ethics counsellor realized he broke the guidelines. However even when we challenged the ethics counsellor and asked him how he would enforce it, he defended the Westminster system of Parliament and said that it should actually rest with Parliament, the Prime Minister and the whole view of responsible government, that he himself could not intervene in that and therefore he did not want to overrule it.
We asked him further if that ultimately left the whole question of impropriety or ethics within the view of the Prime Minister. He said yes, that was true. It did not leave it within Parliament or within an ethics counsellor such as himself or an ethics commissioner, it left it within the view of Prime Minister.
Then he admitted at the same hearings that in fact the Prime Minister would have broken these guidelines. Therefore, the person who broke these guidelines is now the one who will enforce all these guidelines and who will now appoint a so-called independent ethics commissioner, which in our view will not be independent because the necessary appointment process is not in place.
We see that as a fundamental problem and that is why we have proposed the amendment. We would hope that the government House leader would see the wisdom in returning the bill back to the committee so members, like the member for Elk Island, can further reform the bill to ensure there is an appointment process in place, similar to what happens in B.C., where it is generated from a parliamentary committee by unanimous consent and a name is submitted to parliament.
I suspect that if we could get a parliamentary committee to agree unanimously to a name, Parliament would certainly agree to that name.
That is our hope in putting forward the amendment and it really is incumbent upon all of us because all of us are considered politicians and public figures. Whether Liberal, Alliance or PC, there is a perception of politicians that is frankly not acceptable. If we look at the positions that mothers and fathers want their children to fulfill, politicians almost end up at the bottom of the list. That is not how it should be.
There are many fine men and women in Parliament and there are many fine men and women who should seek to sit in Parliament. It should be, as the Greeks described it many years ago, a place where people who are noble seek to serve. We need to reform our institutions and the perception of our institutions.
We need to do things like appointing an independent ethics commissioner so we can reassure the public that their interests are being looked after, that taxpayer dollars are being respected, and that they as citizens have parliamentarians of which they can be proud. In many cases they do so now, but this would certainly go to address a lot of the cynicism and apathy we currently have in Canada.
I call on government members opposite to seriously consider the amendment of returning the bill to committee so that we can rework it and truly have an independent ethics commissioner here in Canada.
