Discussion · Government Orders
Garnett Genuis Conservative
“This bill sounds good on the surface, but it actually weakens government accountability. It creates a new commissioner who has no real power, just to take pressure off the minister. This hurts our parliamentary democracy.”
“Mr. Speaker, that is another excellent point from my colleague. This is precisely the issue. Through this bill, which sounds nice on the face of it, “Oh, we are creating this new commissioner,” the structure of the new position is to try to reduce the accountability, the pressure and the demands on the shoulders of the minister, while not really giving the commissioner the power to address the issues that are brought before him or her. It is kind of a diffusion and a weakening of the accountability structures that are supposed to exist within our system. Sometimes with this kind of legislation, when there is a nice-sounding top line, we have to look underneath it and ask, “What is this bill actually doing? What are the effects of it going to be?” As my colleague illustrates, this reflects a kind of preferred corporate governance-oriented model that the Prime Minister wants to apply to this country that in fact weakens the structures of our parliamentary democracy as they are supposed to exist.”
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Mr. Speaker, that is another excellent point from my colleague. This is precisely the issue. Through this bill, which sounds nice on the face of it, “Oh, we are creating this new commissioner,” the structure of the new position is to try to reduce the accountability, the pressure and the demands on the shoulders of the minister, while not really giving the commissioner the power to address the issues that are brought before him or her. It is kind of a diffusion and a weakening of the accountability structures that are supposed to exist within our system. Sometimes with this kind of legislation, when there is a nice-sounding top line, we have to look underneath it and ask, “What is this bill actually doing? What are the effects of it going to be?” As my colleague illustrates, this reflects a kind of preferred corporate governance-oriented model that the Prime Minister wants to apply to this country that in fact weakens the structures of our parliamentary democracy as they are supposed to exist.