moved:
Motion No. 8
That Bill C-52, in Clause 20, be amended: a ) by replacing line 38, on page 6, with the following:
"20. (1) Subject to any regulations that; and"; and b ) by adding after line 4, on page 7, the following:
"(2) Within the first five days of every month or, if the House of Commons is not then sitting, within the first three days next thereafter that the House is sitting, the Minister shall cause to be laid before the House copies of all contracts entered into under subsection (1) since copies of contracts entered into under subsection (1) were last laid before the House.
(3) The copies of contracts laid before the House of Commons pursuant to subsection (2) shall stand permanently referred to the committee established to consider matters relating to government operations."
Motion No. 9
That Bill C-52, in Clause 20, be amended: a ) by replacing line 38, on page 6, with the following:
"20. (1) Subject to any regulations that; and"; and b ) by adding after line 4, on page 7, the following:
"(2) Within the first five days of every month, the Minister shall cause to be sent to every member of the House of Commons a list of the contracts entered into under subsection (1) in the preceding month that relate to a corporation or a firm a ) having a place of business in the member's constitutency; or b ) providing products or services pursuant to the contract in the member's constituency.''
Mr. Speaker, this amendment to clause 20 is once again an attempt by the official opposition to provide greater transparency in the activities of the Department of Public Works and Government Services.
We certainly understand that the Department of Public Works and Government Services has an important mandate, which is to award contracts. However, we also know that there is a lot of patronage related to that process, and that is something that can be very costly. As you know, the federal government contracts out almost $10 billion worth of services every year. The committee which reviewed this bill was told at one point by Treasury Board that these contracts amounted to only $5 billion. Then we learned that it might closer to $7 billion. Now we know that, for all intents and purposes, these contracts amount to some $10 billion, and not all of them are necessarily justified.
Again, we were told by Treasury Board officials that, while the government is in favour of relying more on the contracting out process, as confirmed from year to year, particularly since the Liberals took office, and while that practice has indeed increased, Treasury Board has not set up any written assessment system to effectively show that this process was good for the government, in terms of money saved and increased efficiency.
Just recently, the committee heard some Treasury Board officials who showed us, through their studies, that the total value of non-competitive contracts was greater than that of competitive contracts. Just think. Contracts under $30,000 awarded by the government are not subject to a bidding process, nor is any assessment done by any independent agency or department.
In other words, all contracts worth less than $30,000 can be awarded to anyone, without any bidding. These are non-competi-
tive contracts and, as I said, their total value is greater than that of all the contracts which are subject to the competitive bidding process.
I think this is outrageous, because we know perfectly well that the present government has monstrous debts. It seems to me that a responsible government would want to use every means at its disposal to ensure that these contracts with agencies that do business with the government are honest and efficient.
However, there seems to be no desire to take any initiative in this respect. The motion on clause 20 is quite straightforward. Its purpose is to ensure that all contracts entered into by the government with outside firms are published. It is certainly not too much to ask the government to publish contracts, if only to inform members of contracts entered into in their ridings. This is elementary.
It is not a matter of cost either, although the government keeps saying it would be extremely costly for the Department of Public Works and Government Services to table in the House copies of contracts entered into with outside firms. It is certainly not too costly, since the Quebec government already does this.
This mechanism already exists. Clearly, if contracts awarded by the government were published, this would be one more way to monitor the system, so there would be less patronage involved in awarding these contracts. Members of Parliament and others with access to this information would be able to draw attention to the many cases of abuse that would be easy to detect.
However, the government will not budge, it continues its policy of concealment and shows no desire to be transparent. As far as we are concerned, the kind of information we want is elementary. We want to know. This is nothing out of the ordinary. We would have this information if the government had the political will to inform the general public, but we are not even asking that. We just want members of Parliament to be informed, as is the case in Quebec. The government has rejected our request. In fact, in the past two years we have filed several requests with the Minister of Public Works and Government Services for access to this information, and we were turned down many times.
In my opinion, this refusal on the part of government to make contracts entered into with outside firms public seems to be a desire to conceal information. It seems to me that it is not a desire for transparency, and the fact that waste and patronage may be at a very high level in this government perhaps explains why access to this information is being refused. Not only does this denote a denial of transparency and information, but it is also an obvious reflection of the desire, or lack of concern, on the part of the Government to try to really reduce waste and misspending when it comes to contracts with companies outside the government.
Where subcontracting is concerned, in connection with contracts of under $30,000 with no tendering process, I can personally tell you that I have met a number of people who are familiar with all the tricks used within the public service, all those readily implemented tricks that can be used to get impressive amounts out of the government, under the pretext that they are non-tendered, non-competitive contracts. Shockingly high amounts have been wasted once again by these departments.
All that we in the official opposition want is to be responsible, to set up an initiative which will ensure greater transparency by enabling us to obtain the necessary information to denounce abuses and waste. This, I feel, is elementary. These are things to which one ought to be entitled.
It seems to me that the government itself, if it were really concerned about transparency and reducing waste, would have brought in modifications to ensure that those involved were better informed. It seems to me that the government is refusing things which are self-evident.
To my eyes, this is an extremely worrisome action. We can understand why the government is not reducing its deficit. We can understand that the debt is going to continue to increase. The economists are even predicting that the debt will exceed $800 billion by the year 2000. This situation is cause for alarm.
With this, the government would have the opportunity to implement measures to limit these abuses. It could even go so far as to adopt an act, as my colleague from Portneuf has said, to protect public servants reporting waste within government, or to propose bills to protect private businesses who have dealings with the government, so that they too may report wastage, rigged contracts, abuses and so on. But the government does not do so.
In closing, I would like to express my wish that the government adopt this motion so as to guarantee greater transparency in contracts outside government, thus reducing waste in Department of Public Works and Government Services contracts.