Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address this initiative that has been brought to us today by the member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl.
I will put this in context. A wise person once told me that context is very important. If we take something in isolation it can be misinterpreted.
The first part of the context would have to do with where this all came from in terms of things we have put in place as a government over the last few years. I know what it is like to sit on that side of the House as an opposition member. It is a very honourable role being in opposition but I dearly hope I never have to sit on that side of the House again. Of course, that is always left up to the voters to decide and we respect the voters' decision on that. However, I know what it is to sit on that side and to watch the results, not of partisan bickering but of inquiries into the whole area of scandals in government when, at the risk of sounding partisan, the federal Liberals were in government.
We were surprised to see time after time scandal after scandal. We expected that we would see some level of scandal discovered but we were shocked. In all sincerity, I really believe that some Liberal members were also surprised at what was going on. Some of them told me that and I take that at face value.
Therefore, we came through a period where for an extended period of time the public was exposed to official inquiries that showed, beyond lobbying, the discussions, the decisions that would be made in high priced restaurants over $400 bottles of wine and the results being bags of cash being handed out. These were things that were reported not by us but by independent officers doing the research. Quite rightly, I think people were losing some confidence in the system.
We made some commitments to rectify some of that. We brought a number of things into play right away. We brought in whistleblower legislation to protect hard-working public servants who knew things were not right and wanted to report it but they were worried about losing their jobs.
We brought in the Office of the Ethics Commissioner, a separate agent of Parliament, where the broad subject of ethics would go from being something that would be just discussed in kind of a nebulas way to being an actual reality that certain elements and principles of ethics would have to be maintained.
We put an end to secret donations to political parties. That was something that was shocking to people and people did not want to see that go on. I think most people understand that political parties need finances and we should be able to appeal in a voluntary way to the public and people should be able to donate. We put an end to donations by big business and by big labour. We said that if individual Canadians wanted to step forward, that would be fine, but no more donations from big business and big labour. That does not even happen at the municipal level. We have really set the trend in that particular area.
We also brought in new guidelines for access to information and we gave the Access to Information Office more money which, incidentally, was resisted by the Liberals.
The Prime Minister was not entirely happy with the results of the last report from the Access to Information Officer in terms of speed of getting information out there. I am not particularly happy with it, as President of the Treasury Board. The office receives about 40,000 requests a year. A majority of those do get answered within 30 days but there is about 12% of that 40,000 that take over 120 days to get the information out to people who are asking for it. Some of that falls under security clearance issues but we want to see an improvement on that. In a lot of cases that is just too long. We have already sent instructions to ministers and deputy ministers that we want to see that process speeded up.
As to the actual issue being discussed today, lobbying, we have made some very significant changes in that area. A lobby registrar was in place before but that registrar had very little mandate, was not independent and did not even have the resources to do the work in terms of follow-up or possible investigations that should be expected from a lobby registrar. That little office was very much under the thumb of the federal Liberals at the time. Therefore, since the registrar did not have the freedom to move that was necessary, we changed that in a very real way.
The act of lobbying, unfortunately, has kind of a negative taint to it.
I door-knocked when I was in provincial government and have door-knocked for years at the federal level. I door-knock year round and the demand for lobbying registration has never come up at one door in all my years of door-knocking. I am not saying that it is not an important issue. It is important. However, in terms of what is on the minds of Canadians, this has never come up. It is fascinating how these things do evolve. However, I am not diminishing the importance of this.
However, Canadians do want to know that their taxpayer dollars are being well spent and that they are not being ripped off by politicians or anybody in the process.
I do not see lobbying as a negative thing. When my constituents ask me what is being debated in Parliament these days, I say that the lobbying thing is coming up again. I tell my constituents that they are lobbyists because anybody who comes to an elected representative is lobbying. That is an appropriate and right thing to do in a democratic setting. How else do constituents make their views known or bring their interests forward if they do not talk to an elected representative?
However, we were looking at the problem of a weak lobbying registrar that was operated by the federal Liberals so we changed all that. We now have an independent Office of the Lobbying Commissioner. We finally gave that office the resources, $4.6 million this year, to do the work, the mandate to pursue these issues and the ability to investigate. Actually, $1 million of that $4.6 million is just for investigations. The Liberals did not give the independence to that office, a clear mandate to the office nor the resources it needed to do the investigations. We have done all that.
We have even put certain elements in place where, if one does not follow those items as a lobbyist, then the lobbyist could wind up not just paying a fine but could wind up going to jail. We have made it a criminal offence not to follow the lobbying rules and regulations. Before that, there was virtually no or a very low level of compliance under the federal Liberals. Now there is a high level of not only compliance but lobbyists must register as lobbyists, they are told the repercussions of not following the act and registered lobbyists must give a monthly report of their activities.
Let us try to strip away some of the partisan nature of the debate and at least agree, whether it is working perfectly or not, that we have put in a far more aggressive lobbying procedure than the Liberals ever had in place. I think, at a minimum, we can agree on that. I think there were federal Liberals who wanted to see this increased, and why their leadership did not do it is another question, but it is passed and I do not even want to get into it. However, our changes are very different and far more aggressive. Let that be a matter of record.
We are open to looking at improvements to it. We are saying that we can look at how that can be improved.
A suggestion came up today and the amendment needs to be addressed. Right now, under the definition the onus is on the lobbyists to register and they must register. We did that and we have made that very clear. However, what is being suggested now is that every time we are approached by a lobbyist, as a minister or a parliamentary secretary, the one being approached needs to do the registering. We have talked about that in the past and have looked at it in terms of some unanticipated consequences.
If that is going to be the approach, we need an answer to this question: What prevents a minister or a parliamentary secretary from being set up? We go to receptions and are out in public all the time.
Not that any opposition member would ever do this, but picture this: Someone who is registered as a lobbyist, and it could be in the hundreds or thousands of people, approaches a minister or parliamentary secretary, if that is the case, and says, “Hi, how are you? How is business? How are things going in the world of environmental improvements? It is great to see you. Bye, now”. A minister or parliamentary secretary has just been approached and spoken to by a registered lobbyist but has no idea of that.
However, the opposition member who talked to the lobbyist beforehand had said, “Go have a little chit-chat at the football game or the concert. Just go have a little chit-chat with that particular minister about the environment. Just say hello and don't mention anything too specific”. Then two weeks later, in a mischievous way, that MP stands up in the House of Commons and says, “This minister spoke to that lobbyist on that day and didn't report it”.
I would ask how we prevent that kind of mischief-making. Far be it from me to say it would ever filter into the mind of an opposition member to do that, but just in case, how do we have the reassurance to deal with that particular problem? It is a fair question to be addressed.
This motion, in its original form, is asking that parliamentary secretaries also be considered in the same light as ministers under the Lobbying Act, so if somebody lobbies them they have to register that. That is an interesting initiative.
The Prime Minister has rightly reflected, and we are asking why that would be limited to parliamentary secretaries. Why not all MPs, including opposition MPs? Why should opposition leaders not be subject to the same provisions? I am not saying this in a pejorative sense, but there was a case when an opposition member came to me representing a business in his or her constituency asking, “Could you adapt this or that” or “Could this be done to make life easier for this particular business?”
Inherently, I do not think there is anything wrong with that. There would be something wrong if that member were getting a fee to do that or being paid by that business. That would be wrong. However, in the cases I can think of, and there are many, where opposition members have come to me with bona fide concerns about things in their constituencies, I take them at face value. I think they are just doing good work. In fact, however, those cases are falling under some of the things they are suggesting should be under a revised Lobbying Act. Therefore, we need to think about these things.
I take them at good face value. I do not think they are receiving anything from a particular business or organization. I think they were just lobbying in good faith. However, these are the types of minefields we can start to wander into.
We are interested in opposition members' response to that. Why would this apply just to ministers and parliamentary secretaries? How about all MPs? How about senators? People in business talk with them all the time. They deal with legislation and things that affect our way of life. They deal with tax codes and everything else. Of course, why not leaders of the opposition? We are in a minority Parliament. These things become very pertinent questions.
This item that the Prime Minister has rightly raised as a sincere question, how about that? We have not seen a rush to the ramparts of excitement about that from opposition members, but what about the act applying to all MPs, senators and leaders of the opposition?
We thank the members opposite for their interest in this. I am taking it as genuine. I would ask everyone to reflect on the fact that the Lobbying Act has changed significantly under this Prime Minister. It has real attributes that it never had before under the Liberals. Taxpayers appreciate that. We look forward to the ongoing discussion.
