Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that I would never say that all of the programs of CIDA are failures, having been involved as deeply as I was in the CIDA project. It would be condemning what I have done. I may be foolish, but not that foolish.
I am also glad to hear that the hon. member had such a great feeling of being a proud Canadian when he walked by a project financed by us. The question that is being raised by my constituents, by people around the country and that the Auditor's report reflects is in this period of financial difficulty can we afford to pay money so that this gentleman can feel good about walking past a garden that was financed by our money? That is the question.
I also would like the hon. member to notice that I was very statesman-like in this report of mine. I did not do what the media loves to do and pick on individual bad projects. That is cheap. I did not do that. We ought to approach this in an objective way. It was approached by the Auditor General in an objective way. He did a tremendous amount of research to evaluate these projects.
The fact is that we spent $3 billion and he is getting again and again from those people who ask objective questions that they do not believe they are getting their money's worth, that there is too much bureaucracy and making sure that bureaucrats do not get caught doing anything wrong rather than looking to see if they are achieving the right thing.
I did not say all are doing it. The auditor said that this is characteristic of the program. I believe and go along with the auditor, as the Reform Party does, that one way to improve the quality of what CIDA does, one way to raise the quality, which is undoubtedly quite high, is for the people running CIDA from the minister downward to be more responsive to this House.