Marlene Jennings

[Federal Accountability Act, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak at report stage of Bill C-2 and to discuss the second group of motions.

There are several amendments which have been withdrawn, but there are a number of amendments of which we are in favour, including my motion, Motion No. 13, and Motion No. 20 which was tabled by a member of the Liberal caucus, the member for Malpeque. I am not going to speak to the motion that the member for Malpeque tabled. He will do that himself.

I will briefly state that my amendment, for which I believe I have the consent of the four parties which are represented in this House, would ensure that clarity is brought to the issue of which subsidiaries are to come under access to information with the amendments that have been brought forth. It was clearly the will of members of the committee, and I believe it will prove to be the will of the House, that it should only be wholly owned subsidiaries of an institution or an agency that are deemed to be government institutions that should come under the various access to information provisions.

Athough it may seem to some members to be a little off topic, but I do not believe it is, I would like to talk about the actual objectives of Bill C-2 as claimed by the government, as compared to the legislation that we actually see before us.

There are a whole series of clauses in Bill C-2 that the government brought forth. In some cases the committee members in their wisdom successfully amended them or removed them entirely to ensure that the objective of true accountability, transparency and independent oversight was in fact achieved through the bill .

Unfortunately, we did not always succeed, neither the four Liberal members, nor the two Bloc members, and in some cases, surprise, surprise, the one NDP member.

We were successful in one area which is terribly important to our parliamentary and constitutional democracy. That is the principle that has existed for some 400 or 500 years, if not a little longer, on constitutional autonomy of the House or of Parliament and of its members.

Unfortunately, Bill C-2 in its original form would have subjugated the constitutional autonomy of the House and of its members to the judiciary. We have a clear parliamentary democracy and a Constitution that states there is such a thing as constitutional autonomy of the House and that the courts are not the proper place to determine the conduct of the House. It is up to the House and its internal mechanisms and internal rules to deal with how the House proceeds to deal with matters of importance and how it will regulate the conduct and behaviour of members of Parliament.

We, the Liberal members, brought forth a whole series of amendments in order to ensure that the constitutional autonomy of the House and its members was not impeded or diminished. Happily, we were able to see those amendments go through. I am quite pleased about that. I hope that 307 other members in this House are also pleased. If they are not pleased, I would suggest they might want to do a bit of reading on the history of constitutional autonomy, what it actually means and the implications if legislation actually diminishes that.

Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have?

[Points of Order, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, if I am not mistaken, the member for Winnipeg Centre rose on a point of order before addressing his apology, which I accept, for the vulgar and distasteful gesture. I would like, however, to address the point of order that the member for Winnipeg Centre raised about my reference to him in the question that I asked of the Prime Minister.

In the question that I asked of the Prime Minister, I did state that the member for Winnipeg Centre had shown himself to be an excellent busboy. I do not believe that to be insulting for the Conservatives.

[Government of Canada, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think a $12 million surplus is anything to sneeze at.

Thousands of Canadians wanted to attend game six of the Stanley Cup in Edmonton on the weekend, but could not afford the tickets being sold outside, nor the airfare. It was interesting to see the Prime Minister, four PMO staffers and a group of Conservative MPs cram aboard a Challenger, jet off to Edmonton like they had won a sports fantasy contest.

What I do not understand is, given what is happening in the House, why did the Prime Minister not invite the NDP member for Winnipeg Centre to go along? He could have been the busboy.

[Federal Accountability Act, June 20th, 2006]

moved:

Motion No. 13

That Bill C-2, in Clause 143, be amended by replacing line 1 on page 117 with the following:

“(b) any parent Crown corporation, and any wholly-owned”

[Federal Accountability Act, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to inform you that if you seek unanimous consent, I believe you will receive it for the following amendment. I move:

That Motion No. 9 amending Clause 99 in Bill C-2 be replaced with the following:

That Bill C-2 in Clause 99 be amended by deleting lines 19 to 28 and lines 39 to 44 on page 89 and lines 1 to 5 on page 90.

[Federal Accountability Act, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that the correct wording to amend Motion No. 9 would be: That Motion No. 9 be amended by deleting lines 19 to 28 on page 89 and lines 39 to 5 on page 90. That would delete the two paragraphs, which are proposed subsections 41.4(3) and 41.4(4) and 41.5(3) and 41.5(4). The rest of those two clauses would remain intact.

[Federal Accountability Act, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I want to address some of the issues that the parliamentary secretary underlined. He mentioned the reason the government came forward with Motion No. 9, which would delete a series of clauses in Bill C-2, clauses which were adopted subsequent to amendments that were brought forward by me, based on the recommendations of our Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, Mr. Walsh. They dealt with ensuring that the constitutional autonomy of the House and its members was not impeded upon or in any way infringed or subjugated to the provisions of Bill C-2.

It is quite interesting. The amendments which were adopted at committee dealt precisely with criminal prosecutions, allegations and accusations, charges that a member of Parliament had committed an offence and would require that a committee actually deal with it and issue an opinion. It could not go forward until a committee had dealt with it, and that once a public criminal prosecution went forward, the prosecutor was legally obliged to provide the committee's opinion to the judge, and the judge had to--could, not had to--could take into consideration said opinion of the committee.

The point that was made by Mr. Walsh when he appeared before the committee, the point that I made when I raised it in committee and the point which was accepted by committee because it was adopted unanimously in committee, was that such a procedure and requirement already existed in the Parliament of Canada Act. I believe it is section 56, but I could be wrong. The requirement was that the prosecution not go forward until the appropriate committee of the House gave its opinion, in that case it is the Board of Internal Economy for allegations of misuse or fraud of a member's operating budget. A criminal prosecutor had to provide the opinion to the judge and the judge could take the opinion into consideration in rendering a conclusion, decision, sentencing, et cetera.

That already exists in terms of criminal offences that could flow out of allegations of misuse of a member's operating budget. It already exists. Therefore, the government's argument that it wishes to remove those sections from Bill C-2 because it would infringe on a criminal proceeding does not hold water.

[Saint Stephen Church, June 16th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, on Sunday, June 11, I had the honour of attending a very special event in Lachine in my riding.

The parish of Saint Stephen celebrated a mass to commemorate the 175th anniversary of the Saint Stephen Church building and the 184th anniversary of the parish.

Saint Stephen is the oldest Anglican church on the island of Montreal. For so many years now, Saint Stephen has been a pillar of our community, a place of reflection and of spirituality. Saint Stephen's hymn proudly affirms:

God bless thee, dear Saint Stephen's!
Long may thine influence stand,
To light us on our pathway
Unto the promised land.

I, along with many other Montrealers, very much share this wish.

[Marriage, June 15th, 2006]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like the Prime Minister to go on record.

Now that it is clear that this Conservative government is satisfied with the status quo regarding the marriage of same-sex couples, can we assume that it condemns discrimination against gay couples and that he no longer intends to reopen this contentious issue in the House of Commons?

[Marriage, June 15th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, we all know that the government gives the directive of where to go to the independent commissions.

I would like the Prime Minister—