Mr. Speaker, I am mystified by the member's challenge about the simple premise that charities be more accountable. There is a major revenue issue here in the sense that there is $86 billion in revenue going through charities without proper monitoring or decent monitoring by Revenue Canada. Therefore if we have only 10 per cent abuse in that sector we have $8.6 billion that has been lost to the economy.
As to the issue of special interest groups, many of the special interest groups funded by government are charities, which is precisely the problem. I do not believe they should be charities. I do not believe they should have charitable status, particularly if they are advocacy groups.
This is an area in which I am merely calling for legislation to bring a greater degree of accountability to public organizations. The member does surprise me by finding this unacceptable.