I know this is dealing with ACOA and some of the significant challenges that have been going on there. One of our concerns is that the thing that needs to be done with ACOA is to increase the accountability. I know it was maybe the practice of previous governments to treat some of these regional economic development agencies as patronage dumping grounds. Unfortunately the government learned that lesson too well and too closely. Our concern is that there's even less accountability now being offered in these provisions. There is the eliminating of the president of ACOA to table a report to Parliament every five years. There have obviously been negative impacts on some very controversial decisions. Through ECBC this is the attempt to wash it all clean and bury the bodies.
Putting ECBC into ACOA is the attempt to do that but it's not going to fix the problem. There are other ways. The budget of ACOA itself has been cut by nearly one-third since 2006 under the government. So it's dealing with less money and less accountability. I'm not exactly sure how this is going to work out for people in maritime provinces, particularly Cape Breton. So I'm very much opposed to the changes. It has just been a mess and a continual mess. We see the firings, and the dismissals and then hiring friends of the justice minister is not a way to run anything, certainly not something so important as the ECBC or ACOA itself.
Here was an opportunity for the government to do something, even if it's in an omnibus bill, and they chose to run in the other direction. The accountability act seems like so long ago and so far away when you start to look at what the government's been doing since that time. So we'll be opposing, Chair.