Mr. Speaker, I express appreciation to some of the speakers who have entered into the debate. I am somewhat disappointed in some of the views that have been expressed because some of them left a lot of imagination between what was said and what the actual truth of the situation really was.
One thing ought to be made very clear. The reason behind the motion is to eliminate inefficiencies, to eliminate duplication, to eliminate grants and subsidies to businesses which really divert funds from successful businesses and gives them to other businesses. Is that to say that none of these programs have worked? Of course they have worked but at a cost and inefficiently.
There have been some suggestions that we should have grants and subsidies. Let me just look at a couple of things that have happened. Some $11 billion of assistance was authorized over the last 16 years. Some 32,000 separate grants have been given, and 18% of them were given to 75 of the largest corporations in Canada.
If we are talking about helping the poor, that is not where this money is going. It is not going to the poor people. Hundreds of millions of dollars are going to Pratt & Whitney, De Havilland, Bombardier, Canadair, to Le Group Montreal Inc. and Air Ontario. In fact it was almost $1 billion. What has the repayment schedule been? It has been abysmal. Very little money has been repaid.
We need to recognize that some serious questions have to be asked. How can parliament continue to accept that subsidies are cost effective when we know that the evidence clearly shows that they are not? We have no way of evaluating them. How can parliament continue to support regional development agencies when study after study shows that they are not accomplishing what they were set out to do? How can parliament continue to support regional development agencies when they contribute significantly to taxpayers' burdens with so little return on the investment? These are serious questions that have to be asked.
Turning to inefficiency and overlap in particular with the BDC, SCC and Community Futures, now a big bureaucrat is sitting over top of them and saying “Look at how much more responsibility I have now. I have to have a bigger budget. I have to have more staff. I have to have bigger offices”. It is bureaucratic entrepreneurship, and it does not build the economy.
We must make all efforts to eliminate the regional development agencies and redirect the funds so that they will do what they are supposed to be doing toward tax relief, debt retirement, building the economy and reducing the size of government. That is what this was about. In this way we will support the private sector.
There is a rule for government agencies but the issue is duplication. The issue is building the private sector. Taxpayers spend money better. Left in their pockets they will manage their money better. Business will manage money far better than any government agency or any government department ever dreamt of doing. That is the principle here. Government should get out of business and let them help those people who really need the help, not the big corporate welfare bums.