Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Vancouver East for agreeing to share her time with me. As she has correctly pointed out in her speech, our two ridings share a great deal of common items, most of which are not very enviable. The very things we share are things people would probably not want to share. One of them is that both our ridings suffer from chronic long term poverty and all the predictable consequences that come with it.
As the member pointed out, she represents what is the poorest postal code region in the country, downtown Vancouver East. My riding is the third poorest riding in the country when measured by the incidence of poverty and average family income. However, the point I would like to make is that neither of us qualify for any transitional jobs fund money. Although we are suffering from crime, violence and all issues surrounding chronic long term poverty, we do not qualify for the help these funds were presumably set up to assist ridings in dire straits. Frankly there has not been one red cent for the riding of Winnipeg Centre.
That really irks us. It is galling, as we see the onion being peeled back layer by layer and the truth starting to come out, that the ridings benefiting from these funds are fairly affluent and well to do ridings. More often than not there has been some political influence in how these grants were allocated to various ridings.
The most glaring and best example we could use is the riding represented by the current minister of HRDC. With an unemployment rate of 6.6% and an incidence of poverty of 10.7% in her riding, how does she justify pouring job creation money into the particular riding? Most of us in poor inner city ridings look to statistics such as these and are envious of them.
Another glaring example came to light when we looked at the Edmonton East riding of the current Minister of Justice. Most of the country is flocking to Edmonton because there are jobs and opportunity and prosperity. I am not sure what the unemployment rate is in Edmonton West but I am sure it is not the 12% that we were told was necessary to qualify for these funds.
A $1.3 million grant went to banding trees to prevent Dutch elm disease in the riding of Edmonton West. This is a laudable concept. I am all in favour of saving elm trees, but why do we not qualify for anything with an unemployment rate that is staggering in the inner city of Winnipeg and an incidence of poverty that is 31.1%? Some 31.1% of all people living in my riding are poor and we do not get anything, zero, zippo. We were told that we do not qualify.
The rules keep changing. First there had to be 12% unemployment to qualify. Now we learn that maybe in the riding of Edmonton West it is not under 12% but that there are pockets of unemployment. That is the term they are using. Aboriginal people in her riding are disproportionately unemployed. That is a legitimate point but she did not tell that to us.
We have the same argument in Vancouver East or Winnipeg Centre. I could point to and illustrate pockets of unemployment all over my riding, but we were told that we do not get anything. This is what is really galling and grating to people who are representing areas in genuine need.
The hon. member for Vancouver East pointed out two flaws in the current system. One is the glaring errors in the administration of the fund. That is really what came to light first. Nobody can deny there is a serious problem. Even the minister is recognizing that there is a serious problem. I can indicate why we have this serious problem. It is because when one-third of the public sector is cut, hacked and slashed and everybody is laid off, how could we expect the same amount of work to be done?
It is unreasonable to think the same kind of scrutiny can be applied to these projects when everybody has been fired. In the federal public sector 50,000 people have been laid off. Now the chickens are coming home to roost. We are starting to see the predictable outcome of laying off all those people.
The next glaring point about the TJF is the allocation. It was a mystery to all of us how some ridings got these grants and some did not. Now it seems pretty clear. It is political influence. The Liberals are using it as a Liberal slush fund to further their own interests in their own ridings.
Obviously on a personal level I can point out that it is tragic we did not get any of it in my riding, but the real tragedy is that it makes members of the general public even more cynical than they already were about the political process and about what we do in this place as politicians.
If they were not jaded enough already, as the real horror of this disastrous story unfolds more and more Canadians will be even more cynical about their government. That is the tragic point I would like to make. It is tough enough to do our job and try to maintain some semblance of dignity without this kind of thing tarnishing the image of every person who stands in the House of Commons.
In the Prime Minister's riding there were 17 of these TJF grants. Let us imagine the millions and millions and millions of dollars. Actually we have a total list of all grants that went into the riding of the Minister of Human Resource Development. Over three years there were $30 million in grants or $10 million a year. It is a booklet as thick as the Manhattan phone book. Virtually every little business in the whole riding has had something shovelled toward them from these many, many, many programs. Not all of them were TJF grants. I think there were only three transitional jobs fund grants in her riding, but in an area with 6.6% unemployment, not even half the minimum standard which the rules say have to be met before a riding qualifies for anything, it makes one wonder how that money was directed to that riding.
Most of us on the prairies look to Ontario as a land of opportunity and prosperity. How do towns like Brant qualify for these grants? I am sure that there are problems all over the country and everybody deserves equal access to these types of training funds and subsidies, but it seems it is disproportionately going to areas that cannot really argue they need it.
The average family income in the riding represented by the Minister of Human Resources Development is $45,000 a year. The people in the core area of Winnipeg can only dream about aspiring to that level of income. The average family income where I live is $28,000 a year. We are talking about a disparity. It may just be a different standard of poverty, but it is certainly a lack of understanding of what it means to be locked into the inner city core area without opportunity. These programs should be there to assist on a broader level.
We talked about the Prime Minister's riding with 17 of these grants worth $7,296,000. Is this justifiable when other ridings are being given absolutely nothing?
I echo the comments of my colleague that frankly the NDP is not against job creation programs. If the transitional jobs fund did not exist the NDP would probably be calling for such a program to be created. We are in favour of this kind of thing, but we make the argument that everybody should have equal access to those opportunities. They should not be spread out in as disproportionate a way as they are currently.
It really does make me wonder how the minister of HRDC with 6.6% unemployment can qualify for any kind of grant at all. Then of course there is Edmonton West with $1.3 million to band trees to prevent Dutch elm disease. There is a Dutch elm disease problem in Winnipeg too, but I do not think anybody would be so presumptuous as to apply for a transitional jobs fund grant for it.
I close by saying that the NDP will be voting in favour of the Reform Party's opposition day motion. We think we are seeing only the tip of the iceberg here as has been pointed out over and over again. As we get deeper into this scandal, and that is the only word we can use as it is going to be the scandal of the spring, I regret as well that we are being diverted from the many other pressing issues of the day. Frankly, it is a bit of a diversion that we are concentrating on this subject instead of all the important work that we could be doing, but it is necessary. To restore the confidence of the general public it is a process we are going to have to go through as painful as it is.
The real tragedy is not seeing one minister toppled, if that is to be. The real tragedy is that the general public is so disillusioned as they watch this unfold that we are doing permanent damage to the reputation of the whole political system. This should be dealt with swiftly. If the government were honourable it would not be dallying around. It would not be trying to build barricades and fences around the issue. It should treat this issue honestly and admit that something terrible is taking place. A very transparent process must take place to heal the wounds because some cuts do not heal.