Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to participate in the debate on the motion put forward by my party. Hopefully it will bring the unresolved issues of the Auditor General's report to light.
I would like to start by quoting from the report: "Today it is clear to both public servants and parliamentarians that Canadians expect them to demonstrate sound and prudent management rather than finding new ways to spend borrowed money". I believe the Auditor General is saying that Canadian taxpayers are demanding greater accountability.
It seems odd that eight corporations are exempt from the Auditor General's scrutiny. Under section 85(1) of the Financial Administration Act, the Bank of Canada, the Canada Council, the Canadian Film Development Corporation, the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security, the Canadian Wheat Board, the International Development Research Centre and the National Arts Centre have been exempted from the sections of the Financial Administration Act that provide for good management and accountability. The CBC is also exempt although it has since incorporated provisions of the Financial Administration Act in its own legislation.
The Auditor General has raised this issue several times over the past five years and it still remains unresolved.
Let us examine why these corporations are exempt from the Financial Administration Act. Apparently they need to be at arm's length from government. Then we must pose the question, who is the government? The easy answer is, they are the members opposite in the House. If you go deeper than that, the answer is the people of this country. It is saying these eight crown corporations have to be an arm's length from the people of Canada, the people who pay the bills for these corporations.
What does it all mean? According to the Auditor General their exempt status means there are not explicit requirements for these corporations to table corporate plan summaries in Parliament to inform Parliament of their objectives. They are not required to fulfill certain management responsibilities. They are not required to give assurances that the assets of these crown corporations are safeguarded. They are not required to undertake an internal audit or even establish audit committees on their own board of directors. There are no explicit requirements for them to be subject to an explicit legislative requirement to undergo special examinations of value for money audits by the Auditor General, which are an important part of the annual audit and accountability provisions of the Financial Administration Act.
This is not to say these crown corporations are not fulfilling these requirements. Rather the problem is they are not required to submit to this process of accountability as all other crown corporations are required.
I commend some of these crown corporations which have undergone value for money audits. Even if they do undergo these audits they do not have to make them public. They are at arm's length. They do not have to be accountable to the people of Canada. The Auditor General, millions of Canadians and I are concerned that this lack of mandatory accountability leads to three specific problems.
First, Parliament may not not have sufficient information to fill its role in scrutinizing and authorizing the use of public funds.
Second, the crown corporation's management has the responsibility for economic, effective and efficient use of resources but this is not clearly defined.
Third, these corporations are not subject to an audit regime that is sufficiently broad to address all issues of concern to the members of the House.
What is most important about the Auditor General's comments is that we as parliamentarians are not able to gain enough information about how the taxpayers' money is being used by these exempt corporations. It affects our abilities to make good and responsible decisions. This is especially important since Parliament appropriates hundreds of millions of dollars each year for these corporations.
I would like to give this House one specific example that I think captures the need for these crown corporations to be more accountable.
Late last month the Auditor General undertook a special examination of the National Arts Centre Corporation and found that serious deficiencies exist in the way the National Arts Centre Corporation handles its finances. The NAC operates on a budget of $40 million a year and has a staff of about 300. Since the NAC is exempt from special examination by the Auditor General it was a very tedious and long process for Canadian taxpayers to discover how their money was being spent.
Let us look at the process. It dates back to 1990 when the standing committee of this House on communications and culture recommended that the Auditor General do an examination of the NAC. Its board members had to approve that request and they did. The Auditor General then started his investigation which covered the period between September 1991 and March 1992.
The report was not presented to the NAC board until May of 1993 partly because of a dispute between the Auditor General and the NAC over the public release of this information. Finally in January 1994, almost four years after the initial recommendation was made, the report was made public.
In its response to the Auditor General's report the NAC board recognized that improvements were needed in its financial management. Quoted in the Ottawa Citizen , the National Arts Centre Corporation also made what I consider to be a very revealing comment: ``Given the limited resources which the centre's management had at its disposal, tackling the institutional mentality rooted in two decades of lack of accountability has been a monumental task''.
This raises two questions. For how long have Canadian taxpayers' dollars been spent inefficiently while the National Arts Centre Corporation developed an institutional mentality rooted in the lack of accountability? Why did it take almost four years for the Auditor General's report to reveal this situation to the Canadian public?
As the Auditor General has stated and as the House committee on communications and culture stated in 1991, these exempt crown corporations must be moved into part X of the Financial Administration Act so that the Auditor General can undertake special investigations of these corporations. The Minister of Finance said this week that he does not agree with these recommendations. However, I think the NAC example shows the necessity for these changes.
Canadian taxpayers are now demanding that governments spend their tax dollars efficiently and effectively. I do not believe that we or the Canadian taxpayers have the luxury of exempting crown corporations from these special examinations. Everyone must be held to a standard of financial accountability.
The cynicism people have about government can be partly attributed to the waste and mismanagement that can be found in government. We should take every step possible to address this issue and promote the effective use of tax dollars.
I urge all members of this House to support this motion. I urge the government to introduce legislation to act upon these recommendations of the Auditor General and to make these crown corporations more accountable for their financial practices by moving them into part X of the Financial Administration Act.
Members of this House not only campaigned on accountability, but each and every day we all use those words. We must be accountable. If we are going to talk the talk, we must walk the walk. This is an opportunity to show the Canadian public that this government will be truly different from previous governments.