Madam Speaker, I express my appreciation to members of the four parties in the House, other than the reform party alliance, who respect democracy and would have allowed me to speak on extended hours on the budget speech.
I say to the members of the reform alliance that they are not going to be able to get away from me that easily in the next 20 days.
I want to speak in relation to questions I put with regard to the HRDC file. Yesterday, as hon. members know, the auditor general pulled the mask off the government's attempts to convince Canadians that it has the means and the ability to properly manage their money. He uncovered a litany of errors and mismanagement and he confirmed the House's worst fears about the problems in the human resources development department.
The auditor general said “It was more than just sloppy paperwork. We found that controls had broken down, putting public funds at unacceptable risk”. He went on to say “This is serious, because taxpayers have a right to expect that the government will follow due process when it spends public money”.
The auditor general studied the same four programs as the now infamous internal audit of the department. These included the transitional jobs fund and Canada jobs fund, the youth internship Canada program, the sectoral partnership initiatives program and the social development partnerships program. He concluded that there were widespread deficiencies in the management control of all four programs.
“We found breaches of authority, payments made improperly, very limited monitoring of finances and activities, and approvals not based on established processes.”
He concluded that many practices were not acceptable. I quote: “Proceeding without required approvals, relying on oral contracts and paying for ineligible expenses.”
Further, he adds: “Inappropriate practices had become the routine, accepted by management.”
While almost all attention revolved around job grants last year, this year we learned that while $25 million was poured into the Youth Internship program over three years only 5% of the files were properly assessed.
In contrast to the findings of the auditor general, the minister repeatedly defended the success of her programs. She stood in the House and said that everything was fine within HRDC. Yesterday she admitted in the House “we did not document appropriately the data that would support the numbers employed”.
The auditor general stated “We could not support the department's findings on the effectiveness of the transitional jobs fund”.
These problems did not happen overnight. They were warning signs that a vigilant minister should have acted upon. In 1998 an internal audit of the Atlantic groundfish strategy found serious weaknesses in all aspects of the project's life cycle. Why was corrective action not taken then? Why was a major overhaul of all grants and programs not initiated at that point? Why did the department under two different ministers wait until a crisis erupted?
HRDC has put forward a six point action plan which it claims will deal with the issues. That is not the judgment of the Auditor General of Canada. That is not the judgment of the House. The administration of this program has been a scandal and it is a scandal that continues.