Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Ottawa West—Nepean.
I am very grateful to have the opportunity to make some suggestions with respect to the upcoming budget. Before I do so, I would like to make a couple of comments on the speech by the member for Calgary Southwest, the Leader of the Opposition. He made these remarks yesterday.
After he spoke another Reform member rose in the House on a point of order and complained that only two Liberal members on this side were listening to the speech of the member for Calgary Southwest. I was one of those members.
I have to spring to the defence of my colleagues. I listened throughout the 40 minute speech which dealt with a single point, the proposal to bring forward a child care tax credit in the next budget. I have to say that many of us on this side support that kind of initiative, most especially the member for Mississauga South who has championed the initiative for a very long time.
The problem was that the member for Calgary Southwest in developing this point read at great length letters from constituents. If we look in yesterday's Hansard we will see column after column, four letters actually, of closely packed type which was read by the Leader of the Opposition.
It is very difficult—and I was a captive audience—to watch someone read text. It is very difficult to maintain one's attention level when someone is constantly reading, is not making eye contact and is only developing a single point with a single illustration. Perhaps the other members were justified in their attention wandering, but because I was part of the debate I paid rapt attention.
For something like a prebudget debate, our responsibility as MPs is to bring real suggestions to the table. While the Leader of the Opposition did bring one suggestion, I would like to bring several suggestions in the time that I have.
I have been very concerned over the years with charities and non-profit organizations. There is a tremendous oversight by government of this type of organization which accounts for approximately $100 billion in revenues every year. I am afraid that a lot of the taxpayer money which goes into these organizations either from government or individual donors is not actually reaching people in need. I have commented at some length on this before.
Recently I submitted a second report to the Standing Committee on Finance. I suggested ways in which the government could bring in legislation that would address some of the problems of accountability and transparency in not for profit organizations and charities. I will run very quickly through these suggestions. If anyone wants to read them in depth, copies of the report are available in my office. I will make three points.
It is very important that government move as soon as possible to define what charities are in law. As the situation now exists, we rely on an Elizabethan statute of 1601 to define charities. It would be very helpful if we modernized the definition in law and consulted with Canadians.
Charities include this broad, sweeping collection of organizations that are constantly badgering the public for projects which sometimes have very little to do with human suffering, the problems of the poor and those in need. At the very least, legislation would be written which would narrow the definition of charities to those helping people in need, rather than organizations which may be engaged in the arts, preserving the environment, et cetera. Charities should have a real human component and should deal with human suffering. I would like to see that change.
Right now our concept of a non-profit organization, unlike a charity, is simply an organization which can issue tax receipts, but does not pay taxes. There are about 30,000 of these organizations and the tax deferral is in the many billions of dollars. These organizations encompass a broad range of purposes and are defined as whatever charity is not, as non-profit organizations. This is a tremendous problem because these organizations have no accountability to the community. Revenue Canada does not even keep track of their financial statistics.
The second thing I would propose is that government revisit the Canada Corporations Act and set rules and standards in legislation for non-profit organizations. It is possible to be a federally incorporated non-profit organization and not have to produce a financial statement other than for its members. There could possibly be only two members of a non-profit organization.
Non-profit organizations do not have to send financial statements to Revenue Canada. There are absolutely no checks and balances. The government does not oversee non-profit organizations, which embrace organizations such as the Canadian Automobile Association, the Better Business Bureau and various industry and manufacturer associations. This is deplorable because when there is no oversight by government, there is no oversight by ordinary people. Unfortunately this can lead to all kinds of problems.
To point out one very briefly, in the past year since my first report on charities was released, many people have written to me. One point that has been drawn to my attention is the fact that charities and other types of non-profit organizations do not have to seek tenders to buy goods and services.
When the government buys goods and services from the community it always tries to do it by tender or by some form of open bidding process. When we download responsibilities to charitable or non-profit organizations and they do not have a similar responsibility to contract out or to seek tenders, we run a terrible risk that there will be abuse of the system. It is especially bad with non-profit organizations where there is actually no coherent or meaningful reporting to the public at large.
That is the second point. Revisit the Canada Corporations Act. Write legislation for non-profit organizations that makes them transparent and accountable at least in the same measure as for-profit organizations.
The last change in legislation I would like to see would save a lot of money and bring a lot of discipline to charities and non-profit organizations. That would be to change the Access to Information Act and the Income Tax Act so that when charities and non-profit organizations are audited by Revenue Canada, those audits are public.
Right now when Revenue Canada audits a charity, the audits remain secret. The difficulty is that an organization can be audited and all kinds of things that are very wrong can be found. That organization is slapped on the wrist and if there is no public disclosure, it can carry on doing exactly the same thing as it had been doing hitherto.
One of the greatest disciplines for any organization whether it is government, quasi-government or business, is the exposure to the public view of mismanagement. When an audit comes along, if the audit finds mismanagement and it is exposed, then all those other organizations will step back and think very carefully about their management practices.
It is not a matter of auditing every organization. It is a matter that every organization ought to fear a public audit. If the organizations conduct themselves properly and manage their affairs well, they have nothing to fear.
It would be a major, positive step for the government to consider this as an option when the finance minister examines the budget.
Those are my three suggestions. They are very important because the non-profit and charitable sector accounts for about $100 billion in revenue. It is an enormous sector. A lot of charities are doing very good work but the sad thing is that because there is such little government oversight and there are so few standards written in law, we cannot tell the good charities from the bad charities.
I think the majority are good charities and at this time of year we need to support them. So when we talk accountability and transparency, indeed what we are talking about is helping those charities help the people who are really in need.