Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-11. I will be speaking in support of the bill. I would not say that I do so grudgingly, but let me say that I will be supporting the bill because I agree with and support the spirit of the bill. There are elements of the bill which still need some cleaning up. I think a change of government would go a long way toward effecting those positive changes that need to be made to the bill to make it a better bill than it is now, but generally speaking, the spirit of the bill is something I certainly can support.
I want to talk about that spirit and give a couple of examples. If this bill had been in effect years ago, some of the things we have experienced over the last decade or so might not have surfaced. We might have had a better government. We might have protected the taxpayer more. We might have seen the kind of Parliament that worked in the way most Canadians wish it to work.
The spirit of the bill is to effect two things, that is, to protect the identity of those individuals within the public service who wish to come forward to inform someone of wrongdoing, of criminal wrongdoing, perhaps, of illegal activities that are occurring within their particular sphere of influence, within their government department or within their agency, and not only protect them when coming forward, but protect their identity from ever being disclosed.
They need to be protected, obviously, because if any public servants felt that by coming forward they would be punished, the amount of information coming forward would be greatly lessened. If any members of the public service feel they have a true and legitimate fear of reprisal, retribution or punishment, obviously they will be very reluctant, to say the least, to come forward with any information that might point the finger at one of their superiors.
I think we have no better example to look at than what has been commonly referred to as the biggest political scandal in Canadian history, the sponsorship scandal, and what happened over the course of the last decade and what might have happened had this bill been in effect.
I think most Canadians now are familiar with the elements of the sponsorship scandal, but I want to dwell on them again just for a moment, because I think the information bears repeating. Generally speaking, what happened was the following. Over the course of three consecutive federal elections, there seemed to be, there was, an orchestrated plan perpetrated by members of the Liberal Party of Canada to take taxpayers' dollars that were part of the sponsorship program and funnel that money illegally back to the Liberal Party of Canada in Quebec, to the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party of Canada, to assist the Liberal Party of Canada in Quebec with election activities. Clearly this is of great concern to all Canadians, because not only it is highly illegal, it is reprehensible on a moral basis as well.
Let us just think for a moment about what might have happened if we had had Bill C-11 in place a decade ago. During the Gomery commission investigation into allegations of misuse of taxpayers' dollars in the sponsorship scandal, one of the things we learned was that two directors general of the Quebec Liberal Party testified that they in fact took money from the sponsorship program and delivered that money to organizers, to individuals within the Quebec Liberal Party, to assist these people to perform election related duties during federal elections. In other words, they laundered money back to the Liberal Party of Canada to allow the Liberals to try to increase their political profile and to increase their election readiness, preparedness and that type of thing.
I can assure the House that if legislation like this were in place, that might not have occurred. Just for clarification purposes, in provinces outside Quebec the term “director general” refers to a position mostly commonly known as executive director. I have some knowledge of the role of an executive director of a political party since in a former life that is the position I held with two political parties in my home province of Saskatchewan. I was the executive director of the Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan. I was also the general manager of the Saskatchewan Party. “General manager” was a term that we equated with executive director.
I can assure members that had anyone in our party in Saskatchewan at any time suggested that we concoct some sort of money laundering scheme similar to that of the sponsorship scandal and asked me in my role as an executive director to help implement this scheme by funnelling money to one of my political operatives, I would not have done that without at least a very serious, honest and frank discussion with other members of my party.
I can assure members that, at least in my opinion, the directors general who testified before the Gomery commission would not have carried on this activity without getting approval from someone else, someone higher up the political food chain. There is no director general and no executive director in Canada, in my opinion, who would carry on illegal activities such as this on his or her own accord. In my opinion, someone higher in authority than the directors general of the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party of Canada authorized this type of illegal activity. They were told to do these types of things.
My point is that someone, or perhaps many other people, knew of this activity. They knew of this plan. They knew of this scheme. Why did no one come forward? Was it that every member of the Liberal Party in Quebec was corrupt and every single member who was privy to this information and privy to this illegal scheme agreed with it? Was it that they said, “Let us flaunt the law, let us money launder and steal money from Canadian taxpayers. It is okay. We are Liberals”. Perhaps they did. Perhaps every single person who was aware of this activity agreed with it, condoned the activity, and thought that it was perfectly normal and legitimate to do because of course as Liberals they were above the law.
Although I have spoken of this type of activity before, perhaps, and have made suggestions that all of these members who were complicit in this activity were on the same page, I honestly do not think that would be the case. I think there would be some people who were aware of these activities and who did not agree with them, and who thought this would be absolutely unconscionable and reprehensible, not to say highly illegal, but they did not come forward.
Until the Auditor General started seriously investigating the activities surrounding the sponsorship program, no one came forward internally from the Liberal Party of Canada to say, “I think something is amiss here. I think there are some problems”. Why did they not come forward? I can only guess about this. Perhaps they did not because there was no protection for them to come forward.
Certainly, a scandal of the size and scope of the sponsorship scandal, as we have seen, would have prevented individuals from coming forward. If they felt that their jobs were in jeopardy, that their future livelihoods and incomes were in jeopardy, they would not have come forward.
This bill goes a long way toward preventing that type of attitude from employees. Now, hopefully, with Bill C-11 in place, they would feel assured that they could come forward with information which would be both informative and salient, and they would not be punished and their names would not be released. They would feel that the information they provide to someone, and in this case hopefully it will be the independent commissioner, would result in preventing this type of illegal activity from occurring again, and those individuals involved with these types of schemes would be punished but the individual who came forward with that information would not be punished.
I think that if we had had had Bill C-11 in place a decade ago, there is a reasonable chance that the sponsorship scandal would not have occurred, or at least it would not have gone down the road as far as it did. After all, and I will just repeat myself, the sponsorship scandal occurred over three consecutive federal elections.
This program was not an isolated incident. This scandal occurred successively over three federal elections. Most Canadians I have spoken with have asked, “How in the world could they get away with this?” How in the world could anyone perpetrate a scheme this large without someone knowing, without someone coming forward and saying, “This is wrong, stop it, this is absolutely reprehensible”. Perhaps the reason no one came forward is that they were afraid. They were afraid of what might happen to their careers if they came forward.
Bill C-11 is an extremely important piece of legislation in that regard. It allows individuals who see wrongdoing, who see activities that should not be condoned, to come forward without fear of reprisal or retribution or punishment. That is the spirit of the bill and it is certainly something that I totally agree with. It is something that should have happened a long, long time ago, but as the saying goes, better late than never.
Not only do I agree with the spirit of the bill, but I agree with one of the other comments that my colleague from Mississauga South mentioned earlier. He was giving credit to committee members who worked on the amendments to the original bill to get it to the state that it is in now. I want to make a comment for all my colleagues here. I think that as parliamentarians we should all be concerned with only one thing, and that is the fact that collectively we need to bring forward legislation, regardless of subject material, in a cooperative manner that brings forward the best possible legislation for Canadians.
Quite frankly, as an individual I do not care if it is a Liberal initiative, a Conservative initiative, or a Bloc Québécois or NDP initiative, as long as the end result is something that provides good government and good legislation. With that fact, I totally agree with my colleague from Mississauga South that the committee should be applauded for the fine work it did.
I also have to give a bit of a partisan plug here. It was the Conservative members of that committee who drove many of the amendments from the original bill that are now contained in the current Bill C-11. Some of those amendments were not only extremely important but extremely timely.
The member for Mississauga South spoke of the intent of clause 55 and why it was put in. This is one clause that the Conservative members on the committee were very much opposed to, because it states that information disclosed from a whistleblower can be withheld from the public purview for a period of five years.
Here is where we Conservative members differ in opinion from the member for Mississauga South. He suggested that this is a good clause because the primary function of the bill is to protect the identity of the whistleblowers. He said in regard to any head of any department that if he or she legitimately believes the information being released could possibly lead to the identification of the whistleblower, this gives the head of that department the right to withhold information for up to five years.
I would humbly suggest to the member for Mississauga South that any department heads of any crown corporations or agencies or line departments in government could make the argument that they could not release the information because they believe that the information, once it is public, could perhaps lead to the identification of the person who provided that information. Therefore, they would say, that would be a legitimate reason to withhold it for up to five years. That destroys the intent and the spirit of the bill.
Yes, we must protect the identification of the whistleblower, but even more important is the fact that the information the person wants to release to prevent illegal activities from occurring should be provided and should be made available to the public, to the Auditor General, to Parliament in whole, without anyone arbitrarily determining and choosing to withhold it for five years because it might lead to the identification of the person who provided that information, or the whistleblower.
I and most Conservative members believe that clause should be eliminated and when a Conservative government is elected that clause will be eliminated from the bill. The current information officer, another officer of Parliament, agrees with our take on that clause, which is that it should be removed, as should any reference to special exemptions for crown corporations. If we really want to make this truly effective, this legislation should apply equally to all arms of government, whether they be crown corporations, line departments or agencies.
The spirit of the bill is to ensure that Canadians and Canadian taxpayers are protected, that individuals with information about wrongdoing by superiors in government can come forward without fear of reprisal, without punishment and that their identities would be protected. While I agree with that wholeheartedly, should that not apply equally to all arms of government? Why should there be exceptions? In my humble opinion there should not.
I also want to speak briefly to the new position that we hope the bill will result in and that is an independent information officer who will report directly to Parliament as opposed to directly to a minister. I heartily approve of this portion of the legislation. The original bill, as I am sure the House is aware and most Canadians are aware, according to the legislation drafted and presented by the government, was that individuals would report to a superior or to someone perhaps in their own department and, ultimately, it would go to a minister of the crown and then perhaps that information would be made public. I think there are too many ifs in that. There are too many variables to really suggest that the information would protect the identity of the whistleblower and protect the whistleblower from political reprisal.
Allowing the office of an independent commissioner to be established to deal with these issues is absolutely a right step and a correct step.
I would suggest, however, that if we want to go one step further we should give more powers to that independent commissioner. We would like to see the power to grant more generous compensation to whistleblowers who have been reprised against. Frankly, something that is still a concern of mine is that, regardless of this legislation, I am somewhat fearful that in the future any government, whether it be a Liberal government, a Conservative government or any other government, might still choose to take actions against those individuals who came forward to give information that might be considered politically damaging or, at the least, embarrassing.
I would like to make sure that in the future we take whatever steps that might be necessary to provide even more protection and perhaps even compensation for those whistleblowers.
This is a long overdue piece of legislation. Once again, I applaud all members of the committee who came to some agreement on amendments to the bill. It is something that I hope in future will prevent the type of actions that we have seen, like the sponsorship scandal and the Dingwall case, from ever occurring again.