One of my colleagues asks what I have against children. I have absolutely nothing against children. In fact, that is one of the reasons I am here. The children of this country are not going to fare very well with a $40 billion deficit this year. They have to pay that debt. It is going to be on their backs. What have I got against children?-nothing. We are here to protect their future, not like this government.
Once the report is issued, if it were issued on a monthly basis or a semi-monthly basis or whatever, what do we do with the information? Do we fire a bureaucrat? That is unlikely, the way we are looking at things here. We cannot even get at the jumble of fish and find out, as they say, who done it. Do we question the House on the merits of these expenditures in Question Period in the House of Commons?
If anybody has been watching Question Period in the House of Commons since it has opened, we have yet to get decent answers from this government when we ask the ministers questions. How do we get at these kinds of issues?
Perhaps we take it to a committee of the House of Commons. Maybe we should take it to the public accounts committee. We are back to the vicious circle where I started. Actually I had asked the question time and time again in public accounts and I get the answer: "Wait until the public accounts report comes out from the Auditor General or the Comptroller General". That comes out once a year. Here we are retroactively dealing with it.
If contracts are going to be let, let us give the people in this country the ability to look at the repercussions, the patronage, the unwise spending of this government. It is truly unfortunate we Reformers are here to be the watchdog on this Liberal government to protect the public's interest, but it is a necessity.
Let us hope we make a difference because certainly this government will not.