Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to draw attention to a Tory legacy of waste and gross excess in government publications.
We are all accumulating dozens of annual reports from crown corporations and government agencies for the 1993 fiscal year. Each attempts to outdo the other in flash, ostentation and wanton waste.
One of many flagrant examples of excess is the 1993 report of the Royal Canadian Mint. At only 26 pages it is over one-quarter inch thick on glossy card stock with four colour pictures of management and partial clear coating on select sections. The cover is richly embossed in gold foil. It is impossible to recycle and literally must have broken the mint to produce.
CMHC whose purpose is to maximize housing assistance for Canadians in need produced an annual report that is outrageous with exotic half-page die cuts, expensive graphics and heavy coloured stock.
We must denounce this type of waste. We must encourage simple economical reports that set the tone of this new government and reflect the frugality and practicality that all Canadians are expecting of us.