Mr. Speaker, it was interesting to listen to the remarks the hon. member made with regard to charities.
It reminds me of the illustration of somebody trying to pick a tiny sliver out of somebody else's eye but cannot do it because of the log in his own eye.
He says charities are not well managed. Before he criticizes charities for not being well managed or having high administration costs, why does he not look at his own government? If he is to correct something and complain about high administration costs, why not first of all look in his own back yard and see the huge bureaucracy which has been created here in Ottawa?
If we are to create another bureaucracy to regulate charities, it will not solve the problem. It will only compound it. On his statement that charities are not well managed, I suspect that a lot of them are a lot better managed than the government is.
He also said charities are allowed to lobby government. The government funds special interest groups that turn around and lobby the government for more money. If he sees a problem with charities' being concerned about some of the moves of government, those charities have values and they would like to see the government translate some of those values.
The problem I have with that approach is how can we complain about charities when we have special interest groups receiving huge sums of money directly from the government to lobby the government? If that is not unconscionable, if that is not a huge problem, I do not know what is. We must look in our own back yards before we start trying to find more ways to collect tax.
A typical Liberal Party move is when it does not have enough money it tries to figure out another way of collecting the money without giving the impression it is actually increasing taxes. It does this all the time and now it will go after charities.
There may be a need to tighten it up but we must first of all fix the big problems in the country. We must reduce government spending. The Liberals should look at the bureaucracy they have created before they start going after charities.
The hon. member is trying to find fault in areas in which I think there may be some small problems. However, let us fix the big things instead of picking away at some of these little things.
How can we get involved in the regulation of charities if we do not share their goals? Government typically gets involved in all of these things and tells others how to do it when it will destroy a lot of the things these charities are aiming to do in society. Charities play an important role in our society. If the government is to start undermining what they do I have grave concerns about that.