Madam Speaker, the opposition leader's contention is wrong. Hon. members must not forget just who established the Gomery commission, which is sitting at the moment.
I am a member of cabinet, and the first decision cabinet made on the morning of Saturday, December 13, the day after the swearing in, was to cancel the sponsorship program. Then, within minutes of the tabling of the Auditor General's report—on February 10, if I am not mistaken—the Prime Minister announced the government's intention to act on the report and establish a commission of inquiry. That was done, and it is now sitting.
From the discussions many of us in this House have had with voters and according to many polls and editorials, it is clear that the public wants to await the commission's findings before an election is called. The Prime Minister has in fact promised to call a general election within 30 days of the tabling of the Gomery commission's final report.
We have a situation here where the opposition is trying to bring the government down at any cost on the basis of unproven allegations not yet verified by Justice Gomery. I think the common sense of Canadians should prevail here. They want to know what happened, as we all do. However, in addition to launching this inquiry, the government has initiated an astounding number of reforms to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.
For example, anything to do with the governance of crown corporations is in the process of being revised. Some revisions are already complete including the way we appoint members to boards of directors. Other changes are currently underway and will soon be concluded.
We have reinstated the comptroller general position, now part of the Treasury Board, as essentially a deputy minister who will be responsible for assigning in each Government of Canada agency and department a representative who will ensure that every expense is authorized by this comptroller general. This position existed in the past, but the previous government eliminated it.
If we made any mistake, it was in not reinstating this position sooner. However, we have done so now and we will certainly see the benefits.
Other measures have been mentioned in the House on various occasions. For example, we have initiated legal proceedings to recover the money. A series of police investigations have resulted in charges being laid. Another series of police investigations is underway. All that to say that initiatives have been taken to get to the bottom of things, to find out what happened and to make sure it never happens again.
Nonetheless, Canadians have an incredible sense of fair-play. They know there is a process to be followed and that we cannot simply declare people guilty. If, at the end of a legitimate process, the allegations lead to charges, then people will be charged. However, we cannot charge people on allegations alone. That is not how justice works in this country.
What the opposition is proposing, in other words, to draw conclusions and declare people guilty without due process, should raise some concern in every Canadian.
The other point is that the government is being accused of spending as if there were no tomorrow. That is not the case. In 1997, after a collective effort on the part of Canadians, we succeeded in eliminating our budget deficit. We had been accumulating deficits for at least 30 years. That was happening at such a pace that we had accumulated a debt in excess of $600 billion, which was putting us in an almost impossible situation.
Through our efforts, we managed to curb and eliminate the deficit. If I am not mistaken, that was in 1997. Since then, we have succeeded in accumulating some surpluses and in reducing our debt by $60 billion. This means that, each year, we save between $3 billion and $4 billion in interests on the debt. Still, our debt continues to be around $500 billion, which is a lot of amount of money.
It must be realized that this government has absolutely no intention of going back to a deficit situation. Even after the agreement that we reached with the New Democratic Party, which will soon be presented to the House in the form of a bill accompanying the budget, we want to stick to this basic position. It is absolutely clear that we should not go back to a deficit situation.
All this to say that the debate that the opposition just started with this amendment to the motion to adopt a report does not reflect the reality. If the amendment proposed by the leader of the official opposition in the House is deemed in order, I will have to propose a subamendment, because that would be essential. Therefore, Madam Speaker, if, based on your good judgment, the amendment is deemed in order, I will propose the following subamendment:
That the amendment be amended by deleting all of the words commencing with the phrase “with instruction”.
Still on this issue, the scenario presented by the official opposition—