moved:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should introduce amendments to the Financial Administration Act requiring all departments and agencies to table in the House of Commons a specific response to the auditor general's report on their activities, including time frames within which corrective action will be taken regarding any shortcomings or failures of administration identified by the auditor general; and such reports should be referred to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and any other relevant standing committees.
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak on another motion the Reform Party has put forward on the issue of good government. Good government because I think it is more than time that Parliament started to exercise its due and rightful authority to ensure that the government, this government or any other government for that matter, be held accountable.
The public accounts committee is the committee of opposition which is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that the government is held accountable for the work it does. The deficiencies in the government are investigated and the government is held accountable for them. It is impossible for us to do all the work ourselves. That is why the Auditor General of Canada does a great deal of important work on behalf of all Canadians, on behalf of Parliament, to ensure that the workings of government are investigated and reported upon.
I cannot overemphasize the need for Parliament to have confidence in the Auditor General of Canada. I am pleased to say that this country and this Parliament are extremely well served by today's incumbent and his staff. This country owes a great deal of gratitude to the work that is done by that office and the reports that are filed and tabled in the House for the benefit of the public accounts, for the benefit of parliamentarians and in essence for the benefit of all Canadians.
The reason for my motion today is that the public accounts committee cannot deal with every point raised by the auditor general. The auditor general is an officer appointed by Parliament. He is not a civil servant. He does not work for the government. He tables his reports in the House. He tells us as parliamentarians what he has found as he has investigated the workings of the government.
Let us take a look at some of his responsibilities. Section 7(2) of the Auditor General Act states that each report of the auditor general shall call attention to anything that he considers to be of significance and of a nature that should be brought to the attention of the House of Commons. It sounds fairly important to me.
It further states that he has to report on accounts that have not been faithfully and properly maintained or public money that has not been fully accounted for or paid where so required by law.
It continues that where essential records have not been maintained or rules and procedures applied have been insufficient to safeguard and control public property it is his duty to advise us. He is to report on money that has been expended for other than purposes for which it was appropriated by Parliament. He is to advise us on money that has been expended without due regard to economy or efficiency.
Each and every point is a very significant point that Canadians and Parliament would want to know if the Auditor General of Canada finds these types of things going on when he investigates various departments of government.
As we know, he tables his report in the House three times a year. The report is automatically referred to the public accounts committee and from there we take a look at the more serious issues in public accounts. We investigate them. We call in witnesses. We call in senior officials from various departments. We ask for accountability. We ask for an explanation. We want to find out why these things happen. We want to find out why there has been loss of management control. We want to know the reasons.
The public accounts committee makes serious and definitive recommendations to government to ensure that government gets the message that things must change because the auditor general has said things must change.
The public accounts committee tables a report after its investigation and the House requires the government to respond to that report so we know the government has heard the report of the public accounts committee and we know the position of the government and what it intends to do.
As I said, we cannot look at everything the auditor general tables. That is the intent of my motion. My motion would require that the government respond anyway to the House and tell parliamentarians and tell Canadians what it will do about the deficiencies, the mismanagement, the errors, the defalcations and the other irregularities the auditor general has found and reports to parliamentarians in his report.
I do not think that is much of an issue. It is what I call completing the circle of accountability. The auditor general investigates, he advises us of his findings. The public accounts committee looks at some issues and asks the government for a report. This motion asks the government to table a report on the issues not investigated by the public accounts committee.
Therefore we as parliamentarians, the various standings committees of the House of Commons, may take these reports and if they find them wanting may on their own continue an investigation and ask for an accounting by the various civil servants involved.
That is what the motion calls for. The role of the auditor general is paramount to maintaining integrity and confidence in the management of the Government of Canada.
As members know, 45,000 civil servants have been laid off or are in the process of being laid off. We also have a very severe debt problem. We have a deficit that we in the Reform Party would like to see eliminated at a much greater speed than the Minister of Finance is prepared to do. Because he is not doing very much, in our opinion, to reduce the deficit, the debt continues to mount and our credit is being eroded.
These are dangerous subjects and dangerous issues at this point. We need to have integrity in government. That is why we are really fortunate to have the office of the auditor general whose reports are credible, lucid and concise but at the same time they are specific in pointing out serious deficiencies in the management of the affairs of the country by the government.
We need this motion because we want to close the loop of accountability and have the government table in the House a response to an officer of the House that it has heard what he has to say, that it has looked at the deficiencies he has brought to its attention and that it is prepared to table in the House its response: what it will do and when, and how can we be assured it will not happen again. That is the simple test of accountability.
Take for example what we have missed in the past in public accounts. In "Information and Technology: Managing the Risks", chapter eight of his report, the main recommendation was that information technology was risky, that the government must take concerted action and have the vision and the authority to successfully manage these risks.
We found out in a subsequent report that these risks were not well managed and they reappeared a year later in the auditor general's 1995 report in a chapter on systems development.
Just because the public accounts committee was not able to table the report and call witnesses and say this must change now, the government carried on in the same old way and ignored the recommendations of the auditor general. The $50 million budget that we as Canadians paid to have the auditor general report on these things was money wasted because the report was not heard.
What about the federal management and the food safety system? From chapter 13: "The members of the interdepartmental committee on food regulations are collectively responsible for ensuring that federal food safety programs are evaluated periodically".
Money had been wasted and Health Canada could not ensure that health and safety standards were applied in all cases. What happened? We now have the Minister of Finance announcing in the budget that we are to privatize and consolidate all the food inspection programs in the country. What are the implications to all that? We do not know. Honestly, as parliamentarians we do not know.
The auditor general said Health Canada could not ensure that health and safety standards were applied and now we find that the government is to slough the whole thing off into some crown corporation managed by the provinces and the federal government. We have lost control and we do not know what has happened with the previous problem. No doubt it will get rolled into the new crown corporation envisaged by the Minister of Finance. What about the health and safety of Canadians?
The government has not spoken. It has not said the auditor general has raised a concern on behalf of all Canadians. Mum is the word from that side; not one word.
Health and food safety is vitally important. Listen to the news today about cattle in the United Kingdom and the problems it has with health and safety. We have health and safety concerns here that the auditor general has raised and there has not been one word from that side.
What is going on? We do not know. What do those members intend to do about the concerns of the auditor general? We do not know. Have they done anything so far? We do not know. Will it cost money to fix up the problems so Canadians can be assured the food and health programs are safe? We do not know.
There has not been a word from that side of the House since the auditor general tabled a report in the House saying: "I have a concern. What will you do about it?" That is why I tabled my motion.
With respect to foreign affairs and assistance to the former Soviet Union, central and eastern Europe, in chapter 21 the auditor general said: "The result of all the moneys that were being spent was unclear. There was an immediate injection into the economy but we may not realize the full potential of trade and investment opportunities we thought we could have". That is what he said last year. What did we do this year? We spent $114 million on the program.
Last year the auditor general said the benefits of the program were unclear. We have not heard a word from the government as to whether it is prepared to tell Canadians it will tighten up accountability and provide value for money. There was not a word.
In the budget there was another $114 million of hard earned taxpayer dollars shovelled down the drain. The deficit continues to mount, the debt increases and taxes increase and the government shovels $114 million down the drain with no clear accountability as to whether it is doing any good for anybody. That is the way the government has been managing its affairs for the last two and a half years.
The auditor general has tabled reports in the House which have said it has to stop, it should be changed and it should be cleaned up, but nothing has been done. It seems fairly simple to me that as parliamentarians we can expect a response from the government when the auditor general, an officer of the House, tells us in plain,
simple language that this is not good enough and it must change. What will the government do about it? We hear nothing.
Those are three instances. I could go on at great length citing chapter after chapter from the report the auditor general tabled in the House. I think of the ones the public accounts committee did investigate. There seemed to be a fairly lackadaisical attitude on behalf of the government in dealing with these things.
I remember one of the first items we investigated as the public accounts committee after the election. There was a $1 billion loss experienced by Revenue Canada. Without going into details, it dragged on through the courts. Do not worry, the government will win. Twelve years later it finally got to the Supreme Court which said: "We do not want to hear about this. The case is lost. The taxpayer wins". Revenue Canada said: "How much money is on the line, by the way?"
Twelve years after the case went to court somebody said: "How much is on the line, by the way?" They were staggered to find out that $1 billion went down the drain and they had to write a cheque. The Minister of Finance had to readjust the previous year's deficit to account for a loss of that magnitude.
We heard testimony in front of the public accounts committee. We heard from the assistant deputy minister of the Department of Finance. I said to him: "What happened here? Who is at fault when we lose $1 billion?" He said nobody is at fault, the system failed. I am concerned that attitude is endemic right through government. It must be changed. It seems fairly simple to me.
In closing, I asked the government what it thought. Is this a good idea? The response I got was: "We do not want to create another bureaucracy. This is going to cost too much to investigate. We do not even want to hear about it. We are going to vote this motion down". That is hypocrisy at its worst. It is the most lame duck excuse I have ever heard for government getting itself out of an embarrassing situation.
This government should be ashamed to even think it is going to use that type of simple lame duck excuse to wriggle its way out of responding to Canadians whose hard earned tax money has continued to go down through the holes in the floor. That money continues to go down the drain because this government is not interested in being accountable and tabling in this House a simple response to the auditor general who is an officer of this House as to what it is going to do to fix the problems that exist all through the government.
I could go on at length. I hope that when we hear from the government side, it will have changed its mind. I hope it will have realized that Canadians are entitled to a response, that Canadians expect a response and that they will get a response.