Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise for the last time on the subject of Bill C-10 As I have said a number of times, the Liberal party will vote in favour of this bill, despite its significant weaknesses, for the simple reason that the economy is in a full blown crisis. Despite its weaknesses in a number of areas, we have made it clear that the top priority for the Canadian economy and for Canadians is to support the economy during this crisis. This is why we decided to vote in favour, and we have not changed our mind. I think we have probably spent enough time on this bill, and it is not my intention to repeat all of its weaknesses, all the bad things it should not contain and all the good things it should contain.
I do not want to be repeating myself and, in this speech, I would like to address two issues. First, the fact that the government is on probation and, second, the issue of this blank cheque for $3 billion the government wants us to support.
Both the fact that the government is on probation and is subject to a number of reports, and the matter of the $3 billion fund go to the heart of the question of accountability, especially since the Prime Minister rode to office under a banner of accountability. The government ought to pay attention both to a serious approach to its quarterly reports and to resolving in a satisfactory way this matter of the $3 billion so-called slush fund.
On the question of probation, the Liberal Party is voting for the budget, but the Liberal Party, as members know, has put forward a detailed amendment that requires the government to make regular reports. I would like to indicate in the next few minutes how we propose that the government do this in a way that is accountable and transparent.
There are four items in our amendment, which was accepted by the government.
First, the government is to provide ongoing economic and fiscal updates.
Since the time of the budget, with the terrible economic news that we have had, it should be abundantly clear to all in this chamber that we have a need for fiscal and economic updates. We have had a terrible drop in GDP of 3.4% in the last quarter of 2008, the worst since 1991. We have had big job losses. We have had record bankruptcies in the personal sector. We have had big drops in housing starts.
For all those reasons, the first point, which requires ongoing economic and fiscal updates, will clearly be necessary for the reports that the government has undertaken to provide to this House.
The second point is to detail the actual implementation of the budget. That is to say, is the money actually flowing the way that the government has said it will flow? Is it flowing fast enough? Are there delays?
I would emphasize the infrastructure funding, which has been talked about frequently, but also the funding from the Business Development Bank of Canada and EDC. The government has committed some $8 billion in small business lending. We know that credit is at the core of our problems and we had a very unsatisfactory meeting in the finance committee this morning with the president of BDC, who was entirely unable or unwilling to give us any idea of the speed with which these billions of dollars in credit would get out the door.
Just as infrastructure funding is of no value if it sits under a mattress in Ottawa, neither is credit to small business of any value if it stays in the vault of a bank rather than getting out the door to the business customers who are desperately in need of credit.
Therefore, to detail the actual implementation of the budget is the second point. In this regard, the Parliamentary Budget Officer will be playing an important role. He has provided what I thought was a good report as to how he plans to proceed to help parliamentarians, to provide these economic and fiscal updates, and to detail the implementation of the budget.
The Liberal Party certainly expects the government to co-operate fully with the requests of the Parliamentary Budget Officer for information in order to permit him to do his job for Parliament, which is to provide these economic and fiscal updates, as well as to detail the implementation of the budget.
The third item is that we expect the government, and indeed the government has agreed, to itemize the actual effects of the budget with respect to the five criteria, which our leader has set out: to protect the vulnerable, to protect the jobs of today, to protect the jobs of tomorrow, to ensure regional fairness, and to avoid permanent deficits.
In each of these categories, we expect the government, as it has committed to do, to set out the ways in which its actions and its future actions will impact Canadians in these five areas.
Finally, the fourth point is to provide details on any adjustments or new measures as may be required to benefit the Canadian economy.
As our party has said a number of times, as the finance minister has said, if the situation becomes distinctly worse, then it may be necessary for the government to take further action.
This would seem to be a matter of common sense in a crisis the likes of which none of us have seen in our lifetimes and nobody knows where the bottom is. It is impossible to say whether or not further government action will be needed. If we were to base our assessment on recent events, we certainly could not rule that out.
The only one who seems to be out of step on this is the Prime Minister himself, who has spoken ambiguously, on CNN yesterday and in previous times, where it becomes apparent that he does not really believe in fiscal stimulus in the first place, which was clearly reflected in his MA thesis.
I am not sure that he, unlike his finance minister, unlike the Liberal Party, subscribes to the notion that even if the Canadian economy gets substantially worse that he will or will not be willing to provide additional support. That is a question for the Prime Minister.
In the amendment to which the government agreed, the government agreed that it would provide details on new adjustments or new measures that may be required.
This is what we mean by the role of a government on probation. The government has agreed to it and we will hold it to account for co-operating fully and in a transparent manner on all of these four points of the amendment which was accepted by this Parliament.
I turn to my second and final subject, which is the matter of this $3 billion so-called blank cheque, as we tend to call, or slush fund as others tend to call it. It is a $3 billion fund which the Treasury Board seeks to appropriate and to spend in some fashion, as it sees fit.
If there is any doubt in the minds of anybody in this House as to the position of the Liberal Party, I will just read a headline from a Canadian Press story that came out about one hour ago. The headline is, “[Liberal leader] won't bend on $3-billion 'slush fund' despite election threat”. That is a verbatim statement of the headline, except that it uses his name which I cannot say here rather than “Liberal leader”.
He has said, as the headline says, clearly that our party will not bend on this $3 billion slush fund despite election threats. Let me just make it very clear, what is involved here. This has nothing to do with the vote on the budget. There has been some confusion on this issue. It is entirely a matter of the vote on the estimates. That vote will not take place for two to three weeks, which means that there is plenty of time to make some adjustments to what the government is proposing in order to restore at least a modicum of accountability to the government proposal which, so far, is entirely lacking in accountability.
It is possible to walk and chew gum at the same time. That is to say, we can get the money out the door with zero delay, with zero impact on the speed with which that money is out there to support the Canadian economy, and at the same time we can make some changes to what the government is proposing, so that it is not presented with a blank cheque that is absolutely and utterly blank.
The problem is that we have heard from Treasury Board officials that, contrary to statements by the Treasury Board President, this $3 billion would be limited to expenditures on budget measures. The Treasury Board officials have told us in writing that in fact the $3 billion could be spent on anything under the sun, including measures that the government has not even thought of yet.
Especially for a government and a Prime Minister that tells us, ad nauseam, about accountability and how much they subscribe to that, surely it is unacceptable to provide totally unrestricted rules for a government to spend taxpayers' hard-earned money with no accountability to Parliament, with no scrutiny, and with no barriers around the areas in which it is able to spend.
That is why, for the Liberal Party, it is a non-negotiable issue to come to some agreement on this which will maybe not establish maximum accountability but at least a modicum of accountability, whereas as matters stand today, none exists.
We have come almost to the end of our debate on this bill. All of us must be seized with the gravity of the situation facing our economy. All of us must be seized with the importance of providing support to the economy and that is why we in the Liberal Party, notwithstanding all the errors of omission and commission contained in this budget, will nevertheless support it at third reading.
However, we are not giving a blank cheque to the government in two respects. First, we are not giving it a blank cheque because we have put it on probation. We are requiring reports and demanding that the government behave in a transparent and co-operative way in providing the required information on these reports. Second, we are demanding that it display at least a substantial element of accountability in terms of the management of this $3 billion fund.
In conclusion, I move:
That this question be now put.