I was close. It's in the vicinity.
These cuts undermine a very critical role played by these trusted oversight bodies. I'm not suggesting in any way that there are problems with those particular bodies, but the Auditor General, that office, is intended to offer confidence to the Canadian people.
We had the CSIS inspector general and the National Energy Board, among many others.
The government is silencing institutional checks and balances on the government's ideology. From our perspective, we see that the government has an ideology that's contrary to what it said in 2006 about transparency and accountability.
The cuts call into question Canada's food inspection and public health regime by removing critical oversight powers of the Auditor General in relation to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, all while providing an avenue and paving the way for opportunities to privatize a number of essential inspection functions. We heard from witnesses about their concerns about farming out the inspections. They were quite sincere.
The Auditor General does important work on behalf of all Canadians to ensure that taxpayer money is spent wisely. Why are the Conservatives shutting this down?
The Conservatives' cuts to the Auditor General's office will mean one thing, and that's less accountability. Back in 2006, that was one of the primary reasons the Conservatives were successful in defeating the previous government.
I've said that we have faith in those listed agencies, but from time to time faith gets violated, and from time to time people get caught doing things they're not supposed to do. When it comes to financial accountability, the person who catches them is the Auditor General.
You have to ask yourself how this aligns with the purported accountability and transparency the government says they represent.