Madam Speaker, as members read in the introduction, this bill was to be debated the Monday after the House recessed.
I want to pay tribute to the hon. member from Hamilton—Wentworth who did a tremendous amount of work on this in the last session. I can tell the hon. member that I used his material.
I took his material along with my bill to every local government in my constituency. I made a visit to see what they thought about what the hon. member had presented and, in a minor form, what I was presenting. There is a fundamental difference in our presentations, in that I want this government to be held accountable to the people of Canada for some $49 billion which is handed out to special interest groups with absolutely no requirement for accounting.
This summer, after giving local government people an explanation, I heard responses such as: “I cannot believe it”. “That is incredible”. “How dare they”. Madam Speaker, I might tell you that they said some words which I cannot repeat in this House more frequently than the examples I have given.
The basic tenet of this bill is that every Canadian should have the right to know who is receiving funding from this government and what is the purpose of the funding. Let us bring this to debate so that Canadians will have accountability.
The Prime Minister mentioned the other day that if he is going to increase grants in health aid or other help to the provinces he wants accountability. We would not argue with that.
I hear government members saying that what people do not know will not hurt them. I would turn that around and say that what people do not know about this funding is hurting them. It is hurting them by $49 billion a year. It is hurting hep C people who are deserving of payment. It is hurting them because this money is not accounted for and not audited. It is hurting them because it is forcing them to pay higher taxes.
I want to make it abundantly clear to everyone that my intent in bringing this bill forward had one goal and one goal only; that is, to offer Canadians, no matter where they live in Canada, the opportunity to see totally, with accountability, where their tax dollars are going.
This is not a witch hunt. This is not a bill to embarrass some private interest groups. This is strictly trying to give Canadian people accountability as to where their money is going.
Canadians across Canada will tell us that it is a growing industry, hidden under the secrecy of government. Government is not making figures, facts and the individuals who are receiving these funds available to Canadians.
Let me talk a moment about our heritage and what happened in the village next to where I live. Because of rail line abandonment and property taxes its total revenue is down to some $200,000. It has to hire an administrator who is bondable. It has to prepare a budget as to how that money will be spent. At the end of the year it has to have an auditor come in to show the public where every cent of that money has gone.
That is part of our history. Part of the Canadian way is to have responsible people, including elected politicians at the local level and the federal level, who will say “Here is where our money is being spent”.
Why is it that a group that will get as high as $15 million or $16 million does not even have to submit a statement as to the intent of how that money is going to be used? That is incredible. What is worse is that the money is not accounted for. There is no audited statement and we do not know the source, who is running the operation, or the the purpose of that group.
Even the grassroots aboriginals have had something to say about this bill. They said things this summer and I want to quote two of them. The first quote is “Without democracy, equality and accountability there can be no self-government”. Grassroots people all over are saying that this is a terrible plague which this government has. It is willing to take $49 billion of taxpayers' money and tell us it does not have to account for it.
This government can take $100,000, as the hon. member from Hamilton—Wentworth pointed out, and does not have to say it gave any amount and then can repeat it five times. It can make that half a million dollars. There is not even a record on the books.
How can the people of this House sit by when we have groups like the hepatitis C group outside and we are not telling them how we are spending $49 billion on special interest groups? How can this government do that?
The second quote told to me by a grassroots aboriginal this summer was “A significant roadblock to accountability is indeed the Indian Act itself”.
Let me point out a few things. Let me point out what happens. We have a special interest group which knows it does not have to put forth a statement as to its intent and does not have to describe or give an accounting for one red cent. They can actually take that money and use it for any political purpose they like. That money may be used to counteract or go against worthy volunteer organizations within a community.
I noted a few things this summer. I met with several museum groups in my constituency. What are these people doing? They are working, volunteering, scraping up money to get a building to try to preserve part of our heritage which is the heritage of the homesteader who came to Saskatchewan. They cannot get $50 worth of grants from either government. I showed them how much money was flowing out of this government into unknown coffers. They, to put it quite bluntly, are extremely disgusted that this type of thing is taking place.
The hon. member from Hamilton—Wentworth made this statement loud and clear. Any group of people receiving government funding should not be allowed to make political contributions. It is happening all the time. I suggest if a study is made of this we will find that there are some very strange gifts going out when an election is near which are not accounted for and the parties which receive them make huge contributions to a political party. That is wrong. Canadians all across Canada say it is wrong.
What we need are regulations in place governing the funding of any organization. I would challenge anyone in the House, from any party, to stand and say that it is wrong for an organization receiving government funding, first, to state a purpose for which that funding will be used, and second, to have an annual audited statement as to how the money was spent.
I sat as a CEO to a school division. We had no choice but to print a final statement as to the money that was spent.
If senior government thinks that is a great thing for our villages, rural communities, towns, cities and province, why is it not a good thing for the government to exercise the same practice? Why is the government prepared to hoodwink Canadians into the billions of dollars but to deny help to hepatitis C victims and local museums? I could list a hundred of them, but the government will not move on this issue, to its demise, I hope. The lack of accountability of the taxpayers' dollar should show up come next election time.
I want to say how the people feel about this issue when it is explained to them. The trust in government goes down. What they think of politicians goes down. What they think of the whole nation because of this scam goes down.
If this uncontrolled industry continues, what will we find? If they can do it, why can we not do it? If the government can hide millions of dollars, why should I not cheat on my income tax? Why should I not cheat on the GST? Why should I not cheat on this and that as it pertains to government? The very act of government doing this is a signal to the rest of Canadians to go ahead: if they can do it we can do it. It is time for the government and the House to say no, we are finished, that our books will be open and there will be total accountability.
Although this is not a votable bill, I would encourage members who sit on the finance committee to give Canadians a right they deserve. Let us give Canadians a right to be able to look at the thousands of different organizations that get money and for the first time make government completely accountable.
Failure to bring a halt to this practice does nothing but foster mistrust in government. It makes parliament weaker and, above all, it deprives our citizens of their God-given right to know where their taxpayers' dollars are going. I challenge anyone to come up with some logical reason why this should not happen. There may be many defenders, but there is no defence against this accountability act. No one could muster up or find a defence.