Mr. Speaker, what a lot of bluster.
The member minimizes this by saying that there are routine audits. Thank goodness we have audits. He uses laudable platitudes to tell us about the efficacy of these programs. However, schools of public administration, academics of management science will always say that these kinds of programs are wasteful and may actually do more harm than good.
Cash transfers without comprehensiveness really do not work. For example, the Compass program described today in the Globe and Mail said that the analysis of programs given under the same rosy kind of outlines that the member describes shows that the clients who had reduced their reliance on income support was not significantly different from zero.
Will the member work within his caucus to end these kinds of vote buying programs and actually try to develop programs that really help people, rather than these types of programs which sprinkle money around the ground to try to grow votes?