Mr. Speaker, I believe I will have an opportunity during my speech to answer some of the questions asked by my colleague from Kootenay East. I have the feeling that he does not understand very well the point we have been trying to make in this House for the past few days. I will try to answer his comments and questions.
First, I would like to thank my colleague from St. Albert, who sits behind me, for putting this motion to the House. I would say at the outset that the motion he presented today pursues a very laudable objective that we wholly support, and that is putting public finances on a sound footing.
However, I believe the motion is too specific and therefore too restrictive. What I mean by that is that the motion presented by my colleague from St. Albert focuses on a few recommendations, a few items in the last report of the Auditor General. But, as we know, the Auditor General does not have the resources or the mandate to review all aspects of federal government activities.
Consequently, the Auditor General selects for review, every year, a limited number of government activities. The motion of the hon. member for St. Albert does not refer to the previous report of the Auditor General, and I will come back to that later, even though its recommendations might still not have been implemented.
The motion of the hon. member for St. Albert does not mention either any area of government activity not yet reviewed in detail by the Auditor General. What I am trying to say is that the points raised by my colleague are rather restrictive, and this is why the Bloc Quebecois has some reservations.
In our opinion, there are three main categories of causes which account for the present financial problems of the federal government. First, there are extraneous causes, by that I mean the difficult situation we are in, everywhere. That difficult situation results in a lowering of tax revenues and an increase in social spending for the government. What can we do on that front? I believe that we should promote job creation in order to revitalize the economy.
The second category of causes for the financial problems of the federal government are of a more structural nature. We mentioned several times in our speeches the very nature of the Canadian federal system. The sprinkling of federal money from coast to coast in order not to offend sensitivities in the various regions is very inefficient and very costly for the federal government.
There is also the costly and paralysing duplication-in terms of money and economic development-we have mentioned frequently in this House. It is inherent to the present federal system. There is very little we can do in that area until the constitutional make-up of the country is amended.
There is a third category of causes that I would call functional, and they involve the waste and mismanagement of public funds. This is what we are talking about at the present time. Now we have to clean up the government's finances, and that is what has been holding the parliamentarians' attention since the beginning of this session.
We know there are not many recipes for cleaning up government finances. There are basically two recipes, one of which is to increase government revenues. But we know that the middle class, which is already carrying a very heavy tax burden, cannot carry more. So, what we are proposing on this side is to target the tax loopholes that allow our more fortunate fellow citizens to avoid making the contribution that they should to give their fair share.
The other major recipe is to reduce spending. It is that point, I think, that our friends from the Reform Party have trouble with and are getting bogged down because when we talk about reducing spending, we cannot cut everywhere in an anarchic, disorganized way. We must be able to target. Target what? The waste of money, the expensive duplications, the extravagant and superfluous spending. That is where we should be targeting.
I now refer to the comments that were made earlier by my colleague from Kootenay-East. He was saying: Indeed, that is what we are suggesting we cut. But the proposal is to target specific areas, and that is what I was saying earlier. What we are proposing, as my colleague from Kootenay East was saying, is to identify first the tax and budgetary expenditures that should perhaps be cut. We have to identify them first. As a means of doing that, we propose that a special committee of the House be struck, with a mandate to examine all the tax and budgetary expenditures of the federal government, item by item.
This proposal should not surprise the hon. member for Kootenay East since two of his colleagues from the Reform Party, namely the hon. member for Calgary North in response to a question I put to him on January 21 and the hon. member for Lethbridge in response to a question put to him by my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot on February 1, made it known that they would totally agree with the creation of such a committee. I think that we have to go ahead with this proposal and strike a committee that would examine all the tax and budgetary expenditures of the federal government, otherwise we may see, in the next budget and in subsequent budgets, the same mistakes that caused the problems that Canada is facing right now. We must not make the same mistakes. We must target and root out all lavish and excessive public spending as well as costly duplication and waste.
At the beginning of my presentation, I referred to previous reports from the Auditor General which raised interesting points, although no follow-up action has yet been taken. I note the presence in this House of the Secretary of State responsible for International Financial Institutions, which brings me to the 1992 report of the Auditor General. Chapter 12 dealt with Canada's participation in the Bretton Woods Institutions and in the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Of all countries, Canada has one of the highest per capita contribution levels when it comes to funding projects of institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank. Canada's subscription or quota at the IMF is $4.6 billion, while financial commitments in the World Bank Group and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development are $5.6 billion. One troubling fact, as the Auditor General recalled in last year's report, is that these sums of money are not subject to any
controls or cost-effectiveness or impact studies by the House of Commons.
Lamenting this sad state of affairs, the Auditor General recommends that the government undertake a periodic review and assessment of the objectives, extent, costs and results of Canada's participation in these institutions. To date, no follow-up action to speak of has been taken as far as this recommendation is concerned. And this is what we are talking about.
The Bloc Quebecois is determined to see to it that the relevance, efficiency and effectiveness of all federal government spending is evaluated. It is imperative that such an evaluation be conducted in all areas identified by the Auditor General and for all government spending items.
Of course, Canada must continue to make substantial contributions to international financial institutions. The Bloc Quebecois has no quarrel with this. However, Canada's international development assistance objectives need to be clearly stated.
The sizeable amounts of money that Canada contributes to international development assistance should also be closely evaluated to ensure that the contribution process is as cost-effective as possible. This is the thrust of the recommendation that we have been making for several weeks and months now, namely that a committee be struck. A response on the part of the government is urgently needed.