I shall be brief, Mr. Speaker, because I believe we are allotted only five minutes.
One of the remarks that caught my attention in the speech of my hon. Liberal colleague is the one to the effect that perhaps civil servants are too well paid, unless I misheard because I was listening to the interpreters. I find this is shifting the blame onto someone else than oneself.
They are the ones, the Liberals, in charge of administering government finance. They are the ones in charge of giving instructions to civil servants. As far as I know, civil servants listen and do as they are told. Personally, I always asked my boss for pay increases when I was in the private sector, but I would assure him at the same time that he would get his money's worth.
The problem-and it is easy for the Liberals to put the blame on the civil service-is that employees are not given clear orders. They are not given a mission. They are not instructed to listen to what the public has to say. The message they get is: "Do as you are told and when you get on my nerves, I will beat you over the head". As I said, I think that using civil servants as scapegoats is cheap. They should instead be given clear instructions and mandates so that they can make savings. But you cannot put the blame on they if you did not listen to what they had to say earlier. This baffles me.