Mr. speaker, it is a pleasure today to debate Bill C-214, the program cost declaration act tabled by the hon. member for Durham.
Let me take a few minutes to outline the purpose of the act and what is behind it. The act, which is a votable item, would require departments of the government to provide a financial or cost analysis of each piece of legislation on its introduction to the House of Commons or at the time the minister or governor in council issues regulations or other instruments.
The auditor general would certify that the method used to arrive at this analysis was fair and reasonable under the circumstance. The cost would be disclosed in total as well as based on the per capita cost for each Canadian citizen.
This legislation would cause legislators and their departments to be more conscious of the financial impact their legislation would have. The PCDA, as it is called, would provide for a greater degree of disclosure and accountability for government programs and lead toward a more integrated expenditure system. It would give members of Parliament and the public more knowledge and to that extent more control and scrutiny over how government spends.
If this type of legislation had been in place years ago, I believe it is true that would not have so easily created the massive deficits and debt which the federal government is now forced to deal with.
That really is the purpose of the legislation, as stated by the member for Durham. I think it is transparent that the legislation is worthy of support. It has been supported in statements from the auditor general and the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation. The retiring president, Mr. Jason Kenney, has said that he supports the legislation. James Forrest, the executive director of the Alberta Taxpayers' Federation, has indicated that they support it. During the first hour of debate it received fairly favourable reviews from MPs representing all the recognized parties in the House.
I could also note that professional accounting organizations have also indicated their support. Marcel Latouche, president of the Charted Association of Certified Accountants has indicated support; the Certified General Accountants Association of Ontario; the Society of Management Accountants of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. They endorse the principles behind the bill, and I could go on.
I guess the real question is why anybody would do it any other way. When we think about it, it is quite extraordinary that in this day and age governments would think of tabling and publicly adopting legislation without providing assessed cost information as part of the process.
I do not believe there is any chief executive officer in this country who would go to his board or his shareholders and not be prepared to give a definitive cost assessment on a project that the company had undertaken. Nor would any intelligent head of a household enter into a major purchase, any purchase other than out of pocket, without making an assessment of the real costs over time.
If anything, I think the bill probably does not go far enough. This is absolute bare bones, as some of my colleagues have pointed out. There are other things that could be done with the bill but which have not been done. There are no sunset clauses on any of these expenditures. There is actually no provision for making the targets that are assessed by the auditor general mandatory or for any amendment if the costs are out of range from the original estimate. There is no assessment required of benefits or of the present value of the cost stream. There is no requirement to indicate what the source of the income would be to cover the cost or how precisely these sources are related to the benefits and the beneficiaries of any of the projects.
This is a very small step, one that is worth pursuing and I believe ultimately worth adopting. However, it is not putting any kind of undue restrain on government, nor is it even challenging some of the basic Liberal philosophy that I think is ultimately the problem here. I may get into this later if I have time.
This is what the member himself is ultimately up against because $600 billion in debt was not run up in this country by accident. It may have been run up through incompetence but it really came down to the heart of the Liberal Party philosophy and the philosophy of modern liberalism which is that government exists to spend, to transfer money from some people to other people for the benefit of politicians and bureaucrats, and ultimately it is a political and not an economic question on how resources are allocated. That is the philosophy of modern liberalism, not just to serve a dependency but to create it, to nurture it and to build big government around it.
That is why we have the problems we do in this country. That is ultimately what the hon. member is up against in trying to move this bill forward not just with the philosophy of liberalism but, frankly, with a political party and a leadership that have to justify the last 30 years, justify the way things have been run. They surround themselves with the representatives of the old way of doing things. That is a problem when getting the House to look at this kind of measure.
I would point out in the few moments I have left that this is not by any means the only measure that parliamentarians of various parties have tabled in this Parliament to attempt to bring modern cost evaluation and cost control to the federal government.
I will mention a few of the private members' bills that are on the Order Paper right now, all of which relate to this kind of matter: Bill C-213 put forward by the hon. member for Capilano-Howe Sound to amend the Constitution Act to require balanced budgeting and spending limitations; Bill C-294 by the hon. member for St. Albert which would require the periodic evaluation of statutory programs, two-thirds of federal spending not subject to a regular review process; Bill C-342 by the hon. member for North Vancouver would require stated principles of fiscal management from the Minister of Finance consistent with generally accepted accounting principles and would require public periodic reports that deal with approaches to debt reduction, to balanced budgeting, contingency for risk and stable tax rules; Bill C-349 by the hon. member for Medicine Hat to require public disclosure and parliamentary scrutiny of federal user fees; Bill C-361 by the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville, the people's tax form act, which would give
voters and taxpayers a say on their tax forms in terms of what kind of federal government programs are supported and with what kind of tax dollars.
There are various other propositions. I think all the ones I mentioned are reform propositions but there are others from Liberal members which deal with not just reforming spending directly but making government more accountable, whether it is through giving people more say on their tax form or through referendums or through reforms of the House of Commons. There are endless numbers of propositions. None of these has been addressed so far in this Parliament or seriously entertained.
I would like to review some of the objections that have been raised to this type of legislation if I have time. Let me say before I get to that in summary that what all of these objections have in common, and I am sure we will hear this from the parliamentary secretary later, is somehow the theme that we are doing it right now. Everything is just fine the way it is. Cost control is really terrific. We now have only a $30 billion deficit this year. Therefore what are we really worried about when it comes to taxpayer dollars? The other objection is how can we afford to spend this money to control federal spending and to control the federal budget.
These people never have any problem with spending money at the front end. They always find it very expensive to monitor. They can always afford to spend the money. They can never afford to have the accountant to keep the records. That is an amazing philosophy but it will come out in all the objections.
As I say, there is really no valid reason for opposing this type of bill. It is standard practice in every other institution. The auditor general knows this is consistent with modern accounting practices and would like to see his office handle this sort of role.
I commend this bill to the House. I know that many Liberal members support it. They reject the old philosophy. I ask them to vote in favour of this legislation.