Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d like to speak principally to the elements of the bill dealing with contracting employment of Ministers and Members after they leave office. I’d like to begin by thanking the members of the independent commission and all the staff that have done considerable work towards putting this bill together and my colleagues for discussions we’ve had over it.

I’d like to go back to the public climate that focused attention on these matters. Members will remember particularly the case of two sole-sourced contracts with a total value of $225,000 awarded to two former Ministers providing exactly the same services during exactly the same period, both awarded sole source on the justification that the suppliers were uniquely able to provide the service. These events may have been fresh in the minds of commission members when they wrote the report.

On the subject of the tendered contracts, they wrote: The concerns involved the appearance of patronage, the unfairness of using inside information to obtain government contracts. They also wrote: When a former Minister accepts a contract from his or her former colleagues on Cabinet, it is difficult to avoid allegations of patronage.

On the subject of sole-sourced contracts awarded to former Ministers, the commission’s report noted: To avoid the perception of government corruption in these exceptional circumstances, the commission feels that the government should be prohibited from awarding sole-sourced contracts to former Ministers for a period of two years after the Minister leaves office.

The bill proposes to change the commission’s recommendations. First, while the bill progressively extends the commission recommendation from applying to just Minister’s departments to all government departments, boards and agencies for employment or contracts yet rejects the two-year prohibition and provides a redefined period of prohibition to the duration when a Minister receives a transition allowance after his or her employment, the transition allowance during that period post-employment is equal to a Regular MLAs’ pay of about $8,000 a month.

Currently a transition allowance is earned by Members at the rate of one month per year of service. However, the bill proposes exceptions be made for the Ministers. Ministers no longer have to earn this transition allowance. As soon as they are appointed they are granted a transition allowance of 12 months. Most Ministers have served a good part and sometimes all of this time by the time they become a Minister so this may not be a huge cost, but it is a new cost. However, this approach of an

automatic allowance was clearly, in my mind, not the intent of the commission’s recommendations.

Although the commission recognized these restrictions were not required for Regular Members because Regular Members clearly do not have the same degree of power relationships with other agencies and businesses and so on, or access to confidential information, this bill extends restrictions to include Regular Members for the transition period. In this case for Regular Members, the actual number of transition months earned is on the basis of service.

Again, treating Ministers and Regular MLAs the same for the purposes of prohibited activity hardly recognizes the difference in their respective roles and potential conflict of interest. In essence, by granting transitional allowances to Ministers regardless of years served is equivalent to robbing Peter to pay Paul. I don’t believe the commission would be particularly satisfied on this front.

Although I disagree with these aspects, there are a number of other quite progressive changes proposed in the bill and in particular I want to point to the enhanced role the Conflict of Interest Commissioner will play, which I also heard Mr. Beaulieu mention in his remarks, in avoiding such conflict. I think that’s a good progressive move as are the other changes proposed in this bill. That’s all I have.