Hon. John M. Reid (Kenora-Rainy River) moved

that Bill C-252, an Act to grant access to records of the Special committee on the Defence of Canada Regulations, be read the second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole.

Mr. Deputy Speaker:

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Agreed.

Mr. David Berger (Laurier) moved

that Bill S-16, an Act to revive Stadacona Mines (1944) Limited and to provide for its continuance under the Canada Business Corporations Act, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Private Bills and Standing Orders.

He said: Mr. Speaker, I have engaged in consultations with representatives of the other two Parties. I believe if you would seek the consent of the House, we would have agreement to pass this Bill today through all stages.

Mr. Forrestall:

Mr. Speaker, the consultations referred to by the Hon. Member for Laurier (Mr. Berger) have indeed

June 28, 1984

Political Rights

taken place. We are more than pleased to accommodate the passage of Bill S-16.

Mr. Deputy Speaker:

The Elouse has heard the proposal which was made by the Hon. Member for Laurier (Mr. Berger). Is it agreed?

Agreed.

Mr. Deputy Speaker:

Therefore, the motion should read: "Mr. Berger, seconded by Mr. Gimaiel, moves that Bill S-16, An Act to revive Stadacona Mines (1944) Limited and to provide for its continuance under the Canada Business Corporations Act, be now read a second time and, by unanimous consent, referred to a Committee of the Whole House".

Mr. Deputy Speaker:

Shall all orders and items preceding Item No. 50 stand, by unanimous consent?

Agreed.

Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina West) moved

that Bill C-248, an Act to amend the Public Service Employment Act and the Public Service Staff Relations Act (political rights), be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Estimates.

He said: Mr. Speaker, this is the umpteenth time that a Bill of this nature has been presented in Parliament since the 1950s. However, the last time this occurred was on April 30, 1982, at which time Members from all sides of the House agreed with the Bill, but there was no agreement for it to be passed. At this time I called as my witness the late lamented and departed Hon. Member for Nepean-Carleton who spoke in favour of this Bill and urged that it be passed. I want to remind Hon. Members, Mr. Speaker, that a gentleman by the name of Guy D'Avignon was Chairman of the special committee appointed by the Government to review personnel management, conditions of employment, the merit principle and other aspects of the Public Service. I would like to read to the House the first paragraph of his report, which reads as follows:

Citizens of a democracy have a right to take an active part in the political process; by their actions they assure a healthy, responsive democratic system of government. Today, no one would lightly propose the extinction of this right with regard to any individual or group.

But the Government chose to ingore that part of the report having to do with political rights. The report was made, by the way, in the spring of 1979. The Chairman of the committee recommended that public servants be put in three categories when it came to political rights. The third category would cover probably 85 per cent or 90 per cent of the federal Government and Crown corporation employees.

Just two or three weeks ago, Mr. Speaker, we witnessed a situation where rank and file federal public civil servants elected as delegates to a national convention of a Canadian political Party were threatened with dismissal, or will be dismissed, because on their own time they took part, as can any other citizen, in the political process. One of those delegates comes from the City of Winnipeg. The Minister of Transport (Mr. Axworthy) said it was a little bit of a denial of their rights but that it is the Public Service which makes the rules. The Public Service Commission makes rules, Mr. Speaker, based upon the legislation, and until we change the legislation, the Public Service Commission cannot change the rules.

I want to remind Hon. Members that in the experience of the United Kingdom, which has, one has to concede, a professional public service, that public service has had full political rights for many years. Whether or not it chooses to exercise those rights is entirely its own decision. Many public servants do, some do not.

My Bill, Sir, would exclude those who are in what one could call the "Order in Council category". They could still exercise their political rights because they have a contractual arrangement with the Government, with the Cabinet, whether it be a Deputy Minister or the head of a board or whatever. They can still choose to be politically active and would know ahead of time that they were taking their chances as to their reappointment. However, Sir, that does not apply to the tens of thousands of clerks and stenographers, people in many categories of employment in the Public Service.

In 1945, the Government of Saskatchewan under Tommy Douglas not only provided for the right to organize, the right to bargain collectively, but also the right to take part in political activity. Once and for all we removed the ability of a government of any political strijpe to prohibit or inhibit any public servant or Crown corporation employee in Saskatchewan from taking part in the political process if they chose to do so. Four other provinces have done the same thing. However, this place, which should have been setting the example and leading the way, has not done so.

I can cite my own experience, Mr. Speaker, as an employee of Canadian Pacific Limited. You will agree, Sir, that there was not much love lost between my Party and the CPR in terms of what we considered bad corporate behaviour on its part for a hundred years or more. However I felt then from 8.30 in the morning until 5.30 in the afternoon, at no time did

June 28, 1984

I say or do anything of a political partisan nature when I was on duty and being paid by the company which employed me. I did all I could in as conscientious a manner as I could to earn the salary I was being paid for conducting the company's business. However, after 5.30 in the afternoon, Mr. Speaker, I went to political meetings. I obtained leaves of absence to work as an organizer, to be a candidate, and I returned to my job without any loss of seniority. It ended up, Mr. Speaker, that that corporation and I severed relationship, at my decision. I resigned. But for all the years I worked for that corporation I was able to participate in the political process on my own time, on leave of absence without pay or on holidays with pay.

Surely, Sir, we cannot allow that right for some groups and not for others. We must allow that right for all. Some day, and I am surprised it has not happened yet, some federal public servant is going to take the Government of the day to court and will win. Why should we wait around asking for that kind of trouble?

My Bill provides for deletion of Section 39(2) of the Public Service Staff Relations Act which would mean, Sir, that the organization to which the federal public servants belong could use the dues which were paid to it in any manner it sees fit, including contributions to a political Party or a candidate of a political Party. Again, Sir, other organizations in other parts of our economy are able to do this, whether it is a trade union, business association, or any other kind of organization. The members of the organization themselves decide how much they will pay in the way of dues and how they will spend those dues, and that is perfectly proper. If a chamber of commerce, a business organization, a trade union or a farm organization decides it wants to expend some of its own funds, a decision agreed to by its members, on behalf of or opposed to any political Party or candidate, it can do so and in fact it does so now. It has the right to do so.

That is a minor part of my Bill, Mr. Speaker. If the Public Service employees of the federal Government were to decide by a democratic vote that they wanted to spend their money on behalf of a Conservative, a Liberal or an NDP candidate, or any political Party, or if they wanted to spend some money against that Party, they should be able to do so as well as anyone else. That is only a minor provision of the Bill compared to what I and others before me are trying to accomplish. We have to recognize that employees of the federal Government, including the House of Commons, taking part in the political process while off duty do not harm the Government of the day or Parliament. Experience in several provinces here and in the United Kingdom has shown that any time public employees have participated in a political process, no matter what their success or otherwise, they returned to their duties and carried them out in a conscientious and trustworthy manner. That certainly was our experience in Saskatchewan. We had provincial civil servants who ran as candidates for the Social Credit, Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats. Some of them won, some did not. The ones that did not, returned to their duties. We even had former members of the legislature from different Parties who kept their positions in

Political Rights

the employ of the government long after they were members of the legislature, even when the government changed. To their credit, they all carried out their duties in a conscientious manner.

We are no longer in the days of patronage when federal public servants had no bargaining rights. They were all hired and fired by the government in power. A government in power can no longer do that. These people have their own organization and the right to bargain collectively. Those rights include their political rights.

Since the House has been in such an amenable mood these last few days, and since we just passed two Bills in Private Members' Hour by unanimous consent through all stages, I would like to ask the House to do the same thing in this instance. I have spoken to Members on all sides and I would like to obtain agreement that we pass this Bill through all stages so that it becomes the law of the land before the next federal election. Tens of thousands of federal public servants have been told by Members of all political Parties, publicly and privately, that they should have the same political rights as others. This is an excellent opportunity for all Members in this House to put their actions where their mouths are. I hope my good friends in the Conservative and Liberal Parties will rise in their places for five or ten minutes, if they want to speak on this Bill, but not talk it out. I hope they will support what our former colleague, the Hon. Member for Nepean-Carleton, had to say on this Bill in 1982. We have had two years to think about it. Surely it is time to provide federal public servants with the same political rights that the rest of us enjoy. Democracy is indivisible; you cannot divide our people into groups, one of which can go to a meeting but another which cannot. Surely it is time, particularly given our new Constitution, to put an end to this treatment of federal public servants. I hope that my colleagues on all sides of the House agree that we can put this Bill through in all stages today.

Mr. Maurice Foster (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Treasury Board):

Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin) has certainly put forward an interesting proposition this afternoon. Bill C-248 relates to political activity by public servants and amends the Public Service Employment Act and the Public Service Staff Relations Act concerning political activity. It is my understanding that the present Act provides for limited activity such as party membership, the ability to attend certain Party meetings and so on, but it does not provide for high profile political activity or senior positions in political Parties. The Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections has been studying for the last few days matters relating to the ability of people to become candidates in election campaigns and so on. The Hon. Member has made the argument about how the Bill of Rights grants certain political rights in this country. Obviously he firmly believes that we should change the historical nature of our Public Service from one that is politically neutral to one which is politically active.

June 28, 1984

Political Rights

I think of the Jacksonian democracy in the United States. I believe it was Andrew Jackson in the U.S. election campaign of 1820 who said that to the victors go the spoils. That of course is a very important part of the U.S. democratic system, but it is quite different here in Canada. I think the Public Service generally, certainly at the federal level, has operated very well on a neutral basis. In fact, there are very strict rules about Party activity.

I appreciate the arguments the Hon. Member makes, and if you looked strictly at the Charter of Rights I guess you would agree with his arguments. On the other hand, I think we have to look at it from the public's perception of how the Public Service operates. It is perceived to be neutral? The Hon. Member outlined how he was able to be completely neutral in the daytime and be a Party activist in the hours off work. I am interested in those comments because I noted that when the Government introduced in the House what was to become the 1967 Public Service Staff Relations Act, it had been subjected to further scrutiny and consultation on the part of interested parties. When the matter was before the special joint committee of the Senate and the House of Commons concerning the public service the late David Lewis said that it may perhaps surprise members of the committee to hear that he was in favour of organizations of public servants being prohibited from acting on behalf of a political Party. Whatever the case may be with other employee organizations, Mr. Lewis said that he did not think you could have a public service organization affiliated with or working on behalf of any political Party.

Mr. Benjamin:

That is not the point.

Mr. Foster:

The public perception of the public service is very important in this regard. Senior executives have been prohibited from becoming candidates in election campaigns because it is felt that they have a senior managerial or executive role. Staffing officers have been prohibited under Section 32 of the Public Service Act because it is felt that if they were perceived to be partisan and people got turned down for jobs that would adversely reflect on the public service. Officers enforcing regulations have not been permitted extensive political activity because when they are enforcing regulations and laws it is felt that it is important that they be perceived to be completely neutral and impartial.

Page 36 of the report of the Special Committee on Personnel Management and The Merit Principle reads as follows:

With respect to public servants who perform a regulatory role, many interven-ors stated that these public servants should not be given freedom to participate in Party politics. Otherwise, the public might well perceive that a licence denial had political connotations when, in fact, it stemmed from failure to meet the requirements for granting of a licence. The theme of most intervenors who took this position was that, when public servants are in direct contact with the general public, they must be seen to be politically neutral. The possibility of meeting a public servant during the day as a regulator of Government policy and meeting him again at night as a campaign worker for a political Party could be damaging to the credibility of the public service. Examples of employees in this category were given as: radio inspectors, customs officials, CEIC officers, and fisheries inspectors.

I think it is good that this issue be debated. Times are changing and nothing is cast in stone for all time. People are more active politically and want to be so. The Charter of Rights suggests that these are principles of freedom of expression and association which are important. I think that we have been generally served by a public service which has been able to act impartially and be perceived to be impartial to political partisan association. Before we change that we should make sure that any new directions would be perceived by the general public to be better. 1 think it is good that we debate this issue from time to time. However, I personally would not recommend making the changes which the Hon. Member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin) is proposing to us this afternoon.