I think one of the things for which I have an important responsibility as President of the Treasury Board is to stand up for the public service as an institution, for individual members of the public service. I think there has been a concern that governments have made political decisions, not public administration decisions, in the past.
Under Mr. Mulroney, my tax return was processed in Ottawa, my federal and Ontario income tax return was processed in Ottawa. Other Ontarians have their tax processed in the riding of Sudbury. There was a decision taken by Mr. Chrétien to move that to Shawinigan. Now, I'm not sure of the public policyand public administration rationale for moving one of the Ontario tax processing centres from Ontario to Shawinigan, but with no disrespect to Shawinigan, I think that was a political decision.
One candidate in the last election said that he had got the minister to approve moving jobs from Ottawa to Gander. I just find it strange that after a judge issues a major report calling the government corrupt, after the members of the House of Commons have voted non-confidence in the government, after the government has fallen, the Prime Minister resigns, and Parliament is dissolved, the government is making decisions about public servants' lives based on politics.
So I think what I've said is that if there's a public administratio and public policy rationale, that should be fairly considered, but it's not appropriate to play political games with the lives of public servants.
I'll just continue. Bill Casey has brought up the issue that under the previous regime--which had to make some difficult decisions to balance the budget, and I don't discount that at all--on a percentage basis, there were more cuts in the regions than there were here in Ottawa. When the government was then upsized, when there was a surplus, they upsized it in Ottawa and not in the regions. I think it's a fair concern that we should treat people in the regions and centrally here in Ottawa fairly.