Mr. Speaker, last week the auditor general released his latest report on the government's financial statements and the finance minister and this government received a failing grade from the auditor general for the third year in a row.
Why? Because for the last three years the finance minister has cooked the books by retroactively allocating funds from the previous fiscal year to pay for upcoming spending programs. First came the HST buyout, then the innovation foundation and now the millennium scholarship foundation.
What is the reason for this shoddy bookkeeping? To keep Canadians from seeing a surplus.
The fact is the finance minister is afraid to show Canadians a surplus and afraid to show his own government members a surplus. He is conveniently delaying this debate of what to do with the surplus when he should be giving Canadians what they deserve now, fair compensation for all hepatitis C victims and a millennium tax break now, in 1998.