Mr. Speaker, I thought we were going to hear real explanations for the problems I raised in this bill.
He started off by asking what I would do as the treasury board critic. The first thing I would not do is introduce closure on the bill the day after it was introduced. These issues need to be debated. That is what we are here for. That is what the government is stopping.
He tells us about this great and wonderful negotiated thing called NavCan. Yesterday afternoon in the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, the Auditor General of Canada, an officer of this House, expressed grave and serious reservations about the accountability of NavCan. It has been hived off into some kind of not for profit institution. It is not a crown corporation. It is some new hybrid and we do not know exactly what it is. The Auditor General of Canada, our watchdog on the finances of the country, has been shut out. He does not have the authority to look at NavCan. Neither has anybody else been given the authority to look at NavCan from an accountability point of view. If the auditor general, who is an officer of the House, is concerned, the House should be concerned.
That is the type of thing which the government is pushing through without any debate. That is why I am concerned.
NavCan is a disgrace of management. I am not talking about the employees. Unfortunately they are pawns. They were not even given a say. The government stood up one day and made an announcement that it was going to hive NavCan off and make it a not for profit agency. It is a billion dollar not for profit agency. The government turned around and told NavCan: "Go out to the open market, borrow $3 billion and give the government $1.5 billion to buy these assets". Then the Minister of Finance can say: "Look
how the deficit is coming down. I have another $1.5 billion in cash from NavCan".
Accountability is the word. There is no accountability in what the government is doing. It is time it realized that Canadians will not put up with it.