Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I don't think the idea here is for the provinces and territories to report to the federal government, but rather for the federal government to report to Parliament. Parliament gives the government permission to spend money on specific things. In that context, it is reasonable for the federal government to guarantee to the House that money authorized for specific purposes has been spent on what it was allocated for.
As Mr. Ste‑Marie knows very well, the NDP and I support increasing transfers to the provinces, with no strings attached. However, in this case, money was proposed for specific purposes, which is one reason why the NDP and I are supportive. So I think it makes sense for a report to guarantee to us that the money has been used for what is prescribed in the legislation.
I am open to the idea of changing the wording a little bit, if that can help. We could rather say:
“a report setting out how the provinces and territories intend to spend the money”.
I recognize that there are reporting processes at the provincial level and that, until those are completed, it may be difficult for the federal government to report with authority on how the money was spent. Presumably, though, the federal government is going to have a conversation with the provinces before this money flows. Presumably, in that conversation, they're going to say that this money is for the specific purpose of either purchasing COVID tests or whatever the other purpose happens to be under this legislation for the spending authorities. The federal government is going to release those funds, satisfied that it has at least some basic understanding of how that money is going to be used for the purposes for which Parliament authorized it.
That's the tree I'm barking up. I'm happy to modify the language a bit, but it's unthinkable to me that the federal government would release money to the province that is approved for a very specific purpose without any conversation at all about what the province largely intends to do with it. It also flies in the face of some more informal reporting that the government has been doing on its own website about how this money has been flowing, so this is a way of formalizing it. That's something that I believe is important.
It's important for at least two reasons. One is that it recognizes the appropriate role of Parliament and the accountability of the government to Parliament with respect to spending. The second reason is that it also formalizes and adds that reporting to the official record. While it's all well and good for the government to offer additional reporting on its website—that has, from time to time, been invoked by government members for various things having to do with financial reporting over the years that I've been here—the fact of the matter is, what is voluntarily reported can be taken down, and we have seen this in certain cases. It can be taken down overnight.
We saw this on reporting about the wage subsidy, for instance. The government, at one time, provided the names of publicly traded entities that were receiving wage subsidy funds. There was quite a good report on that done by The Globe and Mail. Lo and behold, either in the middle of that investigative process or shortly after the publication of that article, all of that information came down from the Internet.
I really do believe in this reporting and, therefore, believe it shouldn't be voluntary. It's something the government should be required to do and it should be recorded in a place like the official record of the House of Commons so that they are not numbers and that it is not information that can simply disappear at the will of the government.
That's why it's important to record these things. I'm not saying this because I think that any member of this committee feels otherwise; I'm just explaining my own reasons why it's important.
To Monsieur Ste-Marie's point, I don't think this is the place to raise unconditional transfers to the provinces. I think that needs to happen, and I think it needs to happen at the appropriate tables. Here, we're talking about money that is spent for very specific purposes having to do with the pandemic. I think the federal government at the very least should be reporting back to the House of Commons on whether it thinks it has accomplished those objectives or not. That's what's at stake in this amendment.