Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot of debate today in the House on Bill C-78. The opposition parties have stated some very sound arguments as to why the government should reconsider the bill and look at the amendments that are before us.
I would like to correct the record on something that was mentioned earlier by the hon. member for Mississauga West. He seemed to indicate that there were only 15 amendments before us at this stage of the bill. I believe it is well over 50 amendments.
A lot of the amendments that have been put forward by opposition parties, the Reform Party and my hon. colleague from St. Albert, have to do with accountability and the fact that the $30 billion the government is raiding in this pension grab is certainly not set up in this piece of legislation to the degree of accountability that we would like to see. I just wanted to mention that off the top.
The bill also does not give any seats on the board to those individuals who this bill directly affects. An advisory committee will be set up, but we all know what that means. When the Liberals set up an advisory committee it means we will have a little meeting group where we can raise our concerns, but none of our concerns will be listened to. Well, they may listen but they are not actually going to do anything about them. They will just let us get together and have a talk and maybe that will make us feel better. It is almost like giving us a pat on the head and sending us out the door.
If the government was serious about this, it would allow these individuals to sit on the board. That is quite obvious.
I hear members from the Tory party agreeing. Members of the opposition are in agreement that the bill is a flawed piece of legislation and that is why we had to bring forward so many amendments. Hopefully the government will listen, but alas, our requests often fall upon deaf ears.
I want to get to the premise of the government's argument for the bill. Its premise is to say “Trust us. We are the government. We'll take care of this money, the $30 billion. We'll pay down the debt”. Why in the world would we believe that given the record of the Liberal government?
I am going to point out something which I think is obvious to all people. If we are trusted to be prudent and take care of a small amount of money, in whatever our job or our responsibility is, we will then be given more responsibility to take care of a greater amount of dollars. If we are able to manage that well, then we will be given the care of more and more dollars.
If the government was doing that then perhaps we could trust it to take care of the $30 billion in the pension surplus, the clawback of that hard-earned money from those individuals who have contributed to the fund. However, I want to point out a glaring example of how the government manages dollars. It is an issue that some have touched on in the House earlier today and one which is before us in media on the front page of one of the national papers today. It has to do with how the government has mismanaged some $55,000 of taxpayers' dollars, a fairly substantial sum I would think to the average Canadian. For most people that would be the amount of their salary if they had a well paying job. Unfortunately it is not even that for many folks. Fifty-five thousand dollars is a large sum of money. It is shocking to hear where the government spent this money. The Liberal government spent $55,000 on the funding of a pornographic movie production called Bubbles Galore . The producers of this film thanked the Government of Canada on their website which is directly linked to the Government of Canada's webpage. That is unbelievable. How could this happen? The Liberal government dedicated $55,000 of taxpayers' dollars to that expenditure.
This is a government that tells us it has the best interests of Canadians at heart. This is a government that says “ Do not worry about us. Send us your tax dollars. We will cut, slash and burn health care by $20 billion”—