Mr. Speaker, I am reminded by my colleague that there is one area in which the government can certainly move quickly and that is when it brings closure to debate in the House. It is moving quickly to surpass the previous Tory government's record. It is going to blow by the Mulroney government in grand style within a matter of weeks on bringing closure to the House and stopping democratic debate. I thank my colleague for bringing that to my attention.
The Reform Party has a philosophical problem with crown corporations. We believe that ownership and control of corporations should be placed in the sector that can perform the task the most cost effectively with the greatest accountability to owners and the least likelihood of incurring more public debt or any public debt for that matter. There is overwhelming evidence this would be the private sector in the vast majority of cases. History has told us that a private sector organization or institution can perform far more effectively than any government arm or crown corporation could ever hope to do.
We believe that many crown corporations, as we have stated publicly a number of times, should either be privatized or go back to the departments that spawned them in the first place. Then the ministers who have them in their departments could be accountable to the people of Canada through the opposition, certainly through the official opposition, the Reform Party of Canada.
I think everyone knows that no party in the House has ever questioned the operation of crown corporations and demanded accountability more than the Reform Party of Canada has since we came here as an official party in 1993. We are proud of that record because we have the interests of Canadian taxpayers at heart. That is why we ask questions that no other party has ever bothered to ask. Those who have been members of the cozy country club that has existed for so many decades in Ottawa do not want to do anything to upset the people in that club. We are not in that club and we are proud of it. That is why we ask the tough questions.
The Reform Party will be opposing the bill. We feel that there is no good reason to give the Canadian Tourism Commission crown corporation status.
We do not know how much more money it will cost. We know that the chairman of the existing CTC which operates under the Department of Transport is paid $1 a year. Judd Buchanan, a long time Liberal, is working for $1 a year. We do not know what other compensation or perks he is getting but $1 a year sounds pretty good to us. Does anyone think for a minute that the new chairman of the crown corporation style CTC will want to work for $1 a year?
One has to wonder if there is not a friend of the Liberals out there that they have forgotten to reward since 1993. One has to imagine that the appointment of the head of that crown corporation is already picked. By golly, I think we would find that he is someone who is well known to the Prime Minister, to the Liberal government and to any of those members. It is a guarantee and I would be willing to put a few dollars on that appointment. It may even be a friend of the deputy government whip. She seems to be enjoying this part of the speech. Perhaps it is a friend of hers who helped with her campaign.
If a crown corporation is formed and the CTC is taken out of the responsibility of the Minister of Industry, we lose almost 100% of the accountability. This crown corporation will operate with an autonomy that will basically guarantee that it is going to be free from any inquiry through access to information as to how its operation goes and how it is spending its money. We do not want that to happen.