Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak to the motion today, which is a Bloc motion to talk about the Canada Information Office.
The fact is that Bloc members have been hostile toward this exercise since its inception in 1998. They saw it as a rather clumsy or transparent tool of the federal government to intervene in the debate about Quebec sovereignty, separation, whatever we want to call it. They have attacked this office since day one for that reason. They have seen it as an extension of the government using its spending power in Quebec to skew or influence the results of any future referendum. That is the Bloc's concern in a nutshell.
I suppose we could get into that debate. The government contends that it has every right and responsibility to intervene in these debates and to get information out. In one report a government member said that the purpose of the information office would be to correct what he called separatist lies spread in the provincial election. Of course the separatists responded and called this a propaganda exercise for federalism. The federal government retorted “We will defend the country. We will defend the record of the government. It is not participating in the provincial campaign; it is telling the truth”. We have this big war about the good guys and the bad guys. It depends upon one's point of view who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.
I will not get into that. Many speakers have done that in this debate. They have their point of view and Canadians should listen.
I would like to approach the debate from a little different angle, which is to have Canadians ask themselves whether an information ministry, so to speak, of the federal government is in our best interests.
The Liberal member who just spoke talked about the fact that many people do not have the skills or ability to get information about issues or are not able to understand issues, and that it is up to government to help citizens get a better handle on issues, et cetera. That is really the argument of “Does the end justify the means?” In other words, almost anything government does can be justified. Goodness knows, the Liberals are masters at putting a pretty face on some very disturbing exercises of government.
The question is a very important one. Do we want to have a ministry of the federal government which is devoted to information?
Other countries, of course, have a ministry of information. Some people would say a ministry of government propaganda. The point I am making is that there is the very clear potential for abuse in government having such a tool at its disposal.
We have seen abuse by these government ministries of information, these propaganda producing departments, in other countries. I think many of us in the House from all parties would be very concerned and would decry the ability and the exercise of some governments having this control and proactivity in shaping the message that goes out to citizens.
This is a very important principle in a democracy, because democracy means that the people rule. However, people's decisions are only as good as the information they have. I think we would all agree on that. Therefore, the question becomes, how do we make sure that people have good information so they can make good decisions in a democracy? The question then becomes, who has the best and most proper role in providing that information to citizens?
I will give an example using members of parliament. Members of parliament can send out a mailing to every household in their riding four times a year. These are called householders. Many members send out these householders to every household in their riding several times a year, up to four if they wish. I have read many of these householders, as I am sure, Mr. Speaker, you have done.
I have seen householders from members of parliament which are extremely objective, which give very objective and balanced information to constituents, saying “This is what is happening in parliament. These are some of the pros and cons of some of the issues we are dealing with. Opponents of the measure say this; proponents say that. I invite you to take this information as citizens to be more informed about what is happening and about what debate is looking like in the House of Commons”.
Other householders are, shall we say, much less objective in presenting information to constituents. I am not being partisan. I think that is true of householders from members of parliament from all parties. Some are much more objective than others.
However, in every case the constituents who receive this information have to place some reliance on it. Some are more objective than others. That is just the way life is. That is a very critical issue in a democracy: the ability of citizens to get balanced, objective views and perspectives on important issues of the day.
The Canada Information Office was quite roundly criticized at its inception. One headline read: “An office where spin is in”. I do not think that very many Canadians want to be the victims of spin doctors. All of us know that when information is provided there is generally some kind of bias or agenda or perspective behind it, but there is some desire to not be fed a line, to not be propagandised, and this office was not necessarily seen as being very objective.
Here is another headline: “Putting new shine on government line”. Even the pundits had concerns as they watched the Canada Information Office being set up about just how objective the information would be and just what agenda would be pursued by the office.
The government, of course, had some positive reasons for putting this into place. We have many departments of government. Most of those departments have their own communications department, secretariat or whatever it is called. The human resources development department, for example, which I follow as a shadow critic, employs 150 to 180 communication specialists.
The government has argued that instead of 35 different ministries all trying to get their message out, that it would be better to have a central information department whereby government could speak with one voice. It has said that this office would not be where policies are created but about how information about policies would be shaped and communicated; in other words, communication specialists. That does make some sense. We all know that co-ordination is important. We all know that singing from the same song sheet is important for any organization.
The question really is whether government is inclined to go past that sort of objective, efficient, effective co-ordination of message and into a deliberate attempt to use government muscle, government resources, government money and government clout to actually shape the thinking of the public in a way that is not appropriate. It is very difficult to bring the right balance about.
I think it is fair to say that I have seen the present government become less careful about giving objective information to the public and more concerned about spin doctoring, about managing the message. Again I point to my experiences with the HRDC department where it used to be that the department responded promptly and fully to all access requests. However, after the boondoggle audit, that all changed. Memos starting going out saying “Do not send anything out until it has been vetted at the top and our message has been shaped, the communications have been written, the storyline has been decided and then we will put that information out once we have decided how to manage that message”.
I think Canadians have a right to be very concerned about that approach to government communications. There is a line between efficiency and effectiveness and a genuine desire to provide clear and accessible information about key issues to all Canadians and a desire of government to spin the message, to propagandize, to shape, shade and bend Canadians' thinking along lines which suit government purposes.
This debate is important because it gives us an opportunity to explore the lines we want to draw in the government's ability to inform the public in an open, honest, helpful and public spirited way and the government's tendency, unfortunately, to want to use that ability to plant its own message and its own way of thinking into the public consciousness.
We have to remember that this whole question is important because the resources of government are enormous. If government decides to cross the line beyond good information and helping people know the facts, and giving people necessary facts in important matters to actually try to shape people's thinking and to spin doctor them—and some people use the word brainwash, which I think is a little strong—and move over to what we might call the dark side, it has a pile of resources available to do that.
We, as citizens, must think very long and carefully before we allow the resources of government to be used to shape our way of thinking in a way that we would think is inappropriate, dishonest, self-serving or politically tainted.
I think what the Bloc is saying in its motion is that it has a real fear that the Canada Information Office has been, and certainly could be, used for that purpose. We might argue whether the Bloc comes to that argument with clean hands. We might argue whether the public good that the federal government is trying to achieve with the Canada Information Office in the case of the sovereignty debate would outweigh the disadvantage of not having that kind information out. We can get into all that but I think we need to be careful. Once we set the juggernaut in motion, once we start down the slippery slope for all the good reasons, such as pride, national unity, patriotism and caring about our country, we will have created a tool that can easily be abused.
My own conclusion, from being in the House now for over six year, is that there is a regrettable tendency on the part of the government to abuse that kind of power and abuse its opportunity to use its resources. I do not say that gleefully. I do not say that to be unkind to the government. I am saying that honestly. That is my honest conclusion. I do not believe that is always the case. At times I think the government honestly does try to reach the objectives that Liberal members have talked about by giving good, efficient and effective information that Canadians need and desire. However, I do think there is a tendency to stray over the line.
I commend the Bloc for giving us an opportunity to be very vigilant on that issue. I would say that the role of government in gathering information and disseminating that information to Canadians should be very carefully monitored and even limited because it is the nature of power to corrupt and information is power. People who control information have tremendous power and influence. I do not think I need to give a lot of examples, but the information flow and the control and shaping of it places enormous power and potential for misuse into the hands of whoever has the resources to control it.
On this motion, we have to recognize that government has a legitimate role in providing information. In fact, we have argued strenuously in the House that government is not meeting its obligation to provide information to citizens, particularly because it has now begun, in many cases, to flout the legal requirements of providing information through the Access to Information Act. It is a different thing from providing documents and facts to moving in the direction of packaging that information and shaping it in a way that is very influential on the thinking of citizens and doing that without any checks and balances.
I believe we need to be very strong about open, honest, transparent and full disclosure in government. We also need to be very aware and vigilant. We need to put proper and appropriate limits and checks and balances to curb the potential for abuse in the kind of government activities like the Canada Information Office.
I hope these remarks will be helpful to Canadians in judging this issue and helpful to members of the House. I thank the Bloc Quebecois for the opportunity to consider this important principle.