38^th Parliament, 1^st Session

Edited Hansard • Number 008

Thursday, October 14, 2004

Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act

    Bill C-11. On the Order: Government Orders

    October 8, 2004--The President of the Treasury Board--Second reading and reference to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, of Bill C-11, an act to establish a procedure for the disclosure of wrongdoings in the public sector, including the protection of persons who disclose the wrongdoings.

[Hansard – Page 364]

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-11, which is going to committee before second reading.

    I have listened very carefully to the government's defence of this whistleblower legislation. Except for the last member, I have been very disappointed with the Liberals' defence of this legislation which will really do nothing to improve the culture of corruption that we have been facing for years. The last member has given me hope that the Liberals are going to hear some of the suggestions that we are putting forward. He talked about an independent commissioner. That is what we need. That is one of the serious flaws in this legislation.

    Let me talk about why it is needed. The phrase “culture of corruption” is often used. This is a plague on taxpayers. It is a plague on Canada. It is a plague on democracy. We need something to address this. That is why this bill could become a very important piece of legislation if it is amended to ensure that it truly becomes whistleblower legislation and protects those people in the public service, in crown corporations, in the RCMP who may see or suspect that there are problems and something that has been going on behind the scenes that should be corrected.

    The words I have just used may seem a bit harsh, but I want to talk about my experience here in Parliament over the last 11 years. It will make it abundantly clear why we need something like this.

    I was first elected to the House of Commons in 1993. I thought when I came here we would get the information that we need to do our job. I have become disillusioned. I was wrong. The government has done its best, or in this case its worst, to keep me and every member of this opposition Conservative Party in the dark.

    Here is a fact. In the past 11 years, I have filed 496 access to information requests, nearly 500 access to information requests. If I randomly selected one of those, for example the one that I just received last week, and I showed it to the House, but I am not allowed to do that because we cannot use props, members would be shocked to see how much of it was whited out. In this last case it has been blacked out. There are huge black sections where information has been hidden from me and by extension all Canadians because the government is covering up some of the serious problems that exist behind the scenes.

    In my experience we need more openness and transparency in government. We need to have bureaucrats who are working behind the scenes able to come forward and disclose things. Why do I get these access to information requests that are blacked out? That is the case with many of my replies; they come back and there are more blanks than there is information.

    I believe it is because public servants are afraid to give me the documents I am requesting. They are afraid they might be fired, demoted, red circled, or punished in some other way if they release documents that are an embarrassment to their minister. That is not right.

    We need to do the opposite. We need to encourage public servants to share the truth with members of Parliament. A good bill to protect whistleblowers would go a long way in alleviating the fears of public servants.

    Let me also answer another question. Why should Canadians care about whether we have effective whistleblower protection? It is obvious from my introductory remarks that it is a key element in making democracy work. Let me explain.

    Democracy cannot function effectively if there is not a free flow of information. We need to know what is happening behind the scenes in government. That is very important in our system of government here, that there be transparency, that government be open and accountable and that we know what is happening in all of the different divisions of government.

    How, by extension, can Canadians make an intelligent and informed decision at election time if they do not have information? I submit that this information has been hidden from Canadians because we have not had effective whistleblower legislation and because access to information and all of the other mechanisms that should provide information to us are not working.

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    For democracy to work, we must have that free flow of information so that when Canadians go to the polls, talk to their members of Parliament or observe what is happening here, they will know actually what is happening.

    Whistleblowing legislation can be an important part of a free flow of information. I would even go so far as to say that it should be the duty of public servants to disclose things that are not honourable or not honest going on behind the scenes. I think we should go way beyond this legislation and provide an incentive, a reward for those who are honest and honourable and want to do the right thing.

    We as Conservatives have been pushing for this for a long time. In speeches that I made back in 1994 I was already saying that we needed effective whistleblowing legislation. My colleague from Newton—North Delta has been submitting legislation for years but the government has completely ignored it. Through private members' business he has tried to get whistleblowing legislation debated and passed in the House. The government has finally brought something forward. I just wish it would be more effective.

    One of the problems that whistleblowers could address, which is one with which I am very familiar, is the gun registry. I have tracked this issue for a long time. The government hides information about what is going on behind the scenes. Problems are not reported.

    I feel that one of the key problems with the legislation is that the reporting that the whistleblower does goes first of all to the people above him or her and to the minister. It does not encourage disclosure to some independent commissioner. That has to be foundational in any legislation for it to work.

    The way the bill is set up now it would have the exact opposite effect. It would allow the minister or senior bureaucrats to put the thumbs on these people and deal with them in a way behind the scenes that we will not even know about. In fact, I believe this would have the opposite effect, which I will explain more in a minute.

    We have been offering ideas to the government for years on effective legislation but it did not even consult us when it came to drafting the proposed legislation. I thought in a minority Parliament this would happen but it has not happened yet. My hope is that it will.

    I believe that the proposed legislation is the government playing politics, at least what I see so far. By that I mean that the government is creating an impression that it is doing something effective just to get votes. It is actually pulling the wool over the eyes of the public by giving the bill a name, such as whistleblower legislation or public servants disclosure protection act.

    I think we have to go beyond that. We have to find a mechanism for potential whistleblowers that would reward them rather than punish them. I think it will have the opposite effect.

    In the bill's present form it should not be called the public servants disclosure protection act. It should be the public servants disclosure prosecution act. The way it is structured it would allow the people in positions of authority to actually put down potential people who would like to come forward.

    I have a news release by the public servants that was put out on March 22 of this year which actually supports what I have just said. Because the integrity commissioner reports to the minister and not to Parliament and because whistleblowers must go to supervisors first instead of the commissioner, this cannot work. They would be punished rather than rewarded for doing something honourable.

    In conclusion, I would like to say that the bill should include all public servants. The government should not be able to cherry-pick who it applies to. It should include the RCMP and crown corporations.

    The key thing that has to happen, which the Conservatives have supported, is that we must create a truly independent body to receive and investigate the disclosures of wrongdoing by all public servants, either publicly or through formal channels. The bill falls short of that and we need to fix it so it will be effective. It is a good idea but, in its present form, unacceptable.

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