Mr. Speaker, Canadians are outraged by the reckless spending at HRDC in the billion dollar boondoggle. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. This is a systemic problem which is widespread in Indian affairs, western economic diversification, ACOA and CIDA. Let us look at CIDA.
CIDA Inc.'s December 1999 audit revealed missing reports, sloppy bookkeeping, no follow-up audits, no lessons learned and payments made to projects even after they failed. It is the same old thing.
The situation has worsened since the 1992 audit. More than half of nearly $1 billion goes to feasibility studies and still only one in ten projects ever gets off the ground. There is no measurement of benefits from projects. Ninety per cent of the projects did not even report where the money went.
Some of the biggest CIDA contracts have gone to a company which was among the largest single contributor to the Liberal Party prior to the last election. CIDA is being used as a slush fund in the same way as HRDC.