John Baird

[Federal Accountability Act, November 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest as I always do when my friend from Mississauga South rises to speak. I found one part of his intervention most interesting. He said he wished the access to information parts of Bill C-2, the federal accountability act, were stronger and went further. We are increasing by 30, I think, the number of agencies, organizations and corporations that are covered by the bill.

I have two questions for the member. Why would his party put forward an amendment to bring darkness where there is light at the Canadian Wheat Board? Why last November did every member of the Liberal Party vote against including a wide range of organizations and issues under access to information when Commissioner Reid came forward with his recommendation?

[Federal Accountability Act, November 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I move:

That:

The amendment to clause 98, in the French version, be replaced with the following amendment:

Article 108, page 94: Remplacer les lignes 1 à 2 par ce qui suit:

(4) Les articles 41 à 43, le paragraphe 44(3) et (4) et les articles 45 à 55, 57 et 60 à 64 entrent en vigueur ou sont réputés être entrés en vigueur le 1^er janvier 2007.

(4.1) Les articles 73 à 74 entrent en vigueur ou sont réputés être entrés en vigueur le 1^er janvier 2007, mais ils

[Federal Accountability Act, November 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been discussions among all four parties and I believe you would find unanimous consent for me to put the following motion about a small French language translation issue.

[Federal Accountability Act, November 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Quebec for giving a good speech.

I too am very unhappy with the current provisions of the act dealing with the appointment of those in charge of elections in the 308 ridings. The Bloc has been talking about such practice for a long time. Our caucus also talked about it: the member for Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington has been doing so for a long time.

Benoît Sauvageau, the former member for Repentigny, also brought it up. In fact, I remember Mr. Sauvageau once questioning me on that, asking whether we would do the right thing and include this provision in the bill. I told him we would. Following oral question period that day, he came to me and said that, in his 13 years in the House as an MP, that was the first time that a minister had given him a real answer, which I found very funny.

For the first time, the government will be cancelling 308 political appointments, patronage appointments if you will, and do things over properly. I am very pleased that the member raised this good aspect of Bill C-2.

The members on this side of the House agree with him and the Bloc on this very important issue.

[Federal Accountability Act, November 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by saying to the people watching this broadcast on television that the member for Malpeque will probably be making a speech. I therefore recommend that they postpone their suppers, because if they stay tuned, I am sure they will hear a good speech.

I would like to thank my colleague, the member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, for her speech. I am comfortable supporting the subamendment our colleagues from Quebec introduced. In light of the sponsorship scandal, it is very important for us, for all members of Parliament, to clean up the regulations and to clean up Canada's laws, and I am pleased with the member's positive intervention during this debate.

[Federal Accountability Act, November 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the speech by my colleague from Nova Scotia. If the amendments presented by the Liberal Party are not adopted, does he plan to go on record as opposing the bill?

[Federal Accountability Act, November 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the interventions from the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine. I know she cares deeply about integrity in politics in the governmental process. She mentioned a number of issues.

One of the things I dislike about this Parliament is if there is any difference of opinion on facts, the accusation of liar, liar goes back and forth. In fairness, it probably exists on both sides of the House. No party in the House, least of which me, can claim innocence on that. However, people can have different opinions. No presentation of the facts are indisputable. Two different people might reasonably come to two different solutions.

The member opposite has said that many of the Senate amendments are excellent. I take no fault with the Senate wanting to take a reasonable period of time. There was some suggestion it should pass this immediately in July. In fact, we said that if it wanted to take three months to review the bill, in addition to the 72 days the House took in addition to the 58 day election campaign, by all means take it.

I was scheduled to be the last witness with the Attorney General at the end of September, but then things changed. They thought they had an agreement and that fell apart, and that is unfortunate.

I do not take issue with wanting to sit 120 hours. What I did take issue with was the amount of time it cumulatively took. The Senate took one week in the end of June. It took off for seven seeks. Then it came back for a week. Then it took off. We expected it would have looked at the amount of time all members of Parliament in the House took to deal with the bill. The bill is not perfect. It was not perfect coming out of the House and it is not perfect coming out of the Senate, but it is important.

Another issue the member raised was Bill C-11. The Liberal government was the first to bring in a whistleblower bill. I will concede that Bill C-11 was better than nothing. There are those of us who represent ridings in the national capital.

Like many of my colleagues, including the members for Gatineau, Ottawa Centre, Nepean—Carleton and Ottawa—Orléans, as well as official opposition members, I know that a lot of public servants say they are still afraid to blow the whistle.

Many public servants still remain concerned and worried that if they stand up and speak out, they will be hurt. We wanted a system that was tougher and stronger. I think all parties contributed to that and this is what is before us today.

I noticed, though, when the Liberal senators on the committee put forward a press release talking about the amendments they were presenting, they left off a lot of them. They left off the fact that they were doubling the amount of money people could donate to political parties. They left off the fact that they were going to allow political staffers to go into the non-partisan public service. They left off many of the amendments which would be considered as gutting the bill.

Could the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine enlighten us as as to why they would not have been proud of those amendments?

[Federal Accountability Act, November 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that, unlike the unelected Liberal Senate, I believe that the House of Commons has acted responsibly in considering the federal accountability act. I believe that the member for Vancouver Quadra, the Bloc member for Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean and the NDP member for Winnipeg Centre have all acted responsibly in giving expeditious consideration to this important piece of legislation.

I will tell members why we are not accepting the unelected Liberal Senate's amendments. We do not believe in doubling the donation limit from $1,000 to $2,000. We do not believe in increasing secrecy by not including the Canadian Wheat Board. We do not believe that Liberal political staffers should have unequal access to the public service over--

[Federal Accountability Act, November 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I will say very clearly that, as far as I am concerned, all political parties in Canada follow the rules. Once in a while, political parties are given bad information. We have heard another party, which is neither the Liberal Party nor the Conservative Party, comment before a committee of this House that it got bad advice.

It is very clear that there is a party which wants to use public money to finance its political conventions. But our caucus, this government, does not think it would be a good idea for—

[Federal Accountability Act, November 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think it will come as any surprise to the member opposite that I do not share her diatribe on her version of the facts. However, the Liberal Party never lets the facts get in the way of a good argument.

On the subject of apologies, we are waiting for an apology to Canadian taxpayers from someone named Gagliano. We are waiting for an apology to taxpayers from someone named Ouellet. We are waiting for an apology from someone named Dingwall. Have we received one?