Thank you, Madam Chair.
Distinguished guests, as you know, we are here because of a Bloc québécois' motion that was adopted by the committee. I am pleased that all of my colleagues around this table agree that it is important for us to consider the approximately $1billion in budget cuts that will be taking effect over the next two years.
Mr. Baird, I am surprised, to put it mildly, by some of the things you said in your remarks. As can be seen in a number of documents issued by your government, you talk about openness, transparence and responding to Canadians needs.
Looking at the cuts that have been made, I would say that you have actually affected—in the sense of deeply impacting—the most disadvantaged people and reduced service to the public. That is obvious, since three quarters of the cuts are made to those areas, with only one quarter resulting from reductions in operating expenditures.
So the government could have reduced its operating expenditures, but you chose to cut services to the public. I will give you a few examples: eliminating advisory groups, as well as eliminating funding for groups that assert people's rights and act as a counter weight to government. Those include the Law Commission of Canada, other groups such as the ones mentioned by my colleague just now, and groups involved in women's issues.
As an aside, I want to mention the comments made by your colleague, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Status of Women. Her department indicated that the eligibility criteria for one of its major programs, the Women's Program, had been changed. From now on, research and pooling activities, along with advocacy and efforts to influence the federal, provincial and municipal governments are no longer eligible. So we are not talking about cosmetic changes.
Coming back to some other aspects, you have eliminated so-called unused funding. One example is the whole crisis in the forestry sector caused by the mountain pine beetle. The government decided to eliminate $11 million that had not been used. Millions of dollars have also been removed from food inspection activities. The same thing was done in the textile area and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. One wonders why this funding was not used. Perhaps the conservative government was not interested in having initiatives take up that funding?
The uncommitted money included $40 million for social economy programs. Quebec will be especially hard hit by those cuts, since it will lose $5 million of the $28.5 million set aside for that purpose.
I will conclude with three other examples. The first concerns the cuts to the Museum Assistance Program. I will take a very local example from my region. We have a travelling museum exhibition because not everyone in the Gaspé region and the Lower St. Lawrence can get to Rimouski. So the exhibition is taken from place to place so that people in the region can see it. In Rimouski, we were able to see it, but the others will not. This is terrible, because when people cannot get to culture, culture needs to be brought to them. It is an essential aspect of people's quality of life.
The second example is the Visitor Rebate Program, which was cut in order to save $78 million. That will certainly affect tourists to some extent.
The third is the elimination of $17 million for youth employment programs.
In my view, minister, the government could have reduced its spending. I want to know why, other than some meagre efficiency gains, you did not make your cuts within the government apparatus in order to streamline government instead of directly affecting the public in this way. I believe that you chose to have a serious impact on people. I would like to know why.
Moreover, I would like to know whether the departments received instructions outlining requirements to make «ideological cuts» or whether they were able to determine what approach they wanted to take. You laid out your requirements in those instructions, basically. I would like to know how that was done.
My first question, which is why you did not cut more from government operating expenditures, is for Mr. Baird.
My second question is for Mr. Moloney.