Mr. Speaker, I want to spend some time talking to the Canadian people about some of the facts because I have some information they might be interested in. Members opposite will of course have their fun heckling.
The first fact was used by the member for Calgary—Nose Hill when she recently said that “the government ordered the audit”. That is interesting; the government ordered the audit.
I serve as vice-chair of the public accounts committee which is chaired by a member of the opposition. The public accounts committee hears from the auditor all the time. Every week he and his staff come in. They talk to us about areas they have audited which were not ordered by the government for which the agenda was set either by the public accounts committee or by the auditor himself. The important thing to establish is that the auditor is independent. Every member in the House must agree with that. The auditor is totally independent of any political interference whatsoever.
The integrity of the auditor of the government of this country is second to none. Anyone who knows him and his staff knows they are dedicated, fair and extremely thorough. They will go through programs, whether requested by a committee, the government, a minister or on their own, in such minute detail that some of the things they find out are truly quite amazing. Guess what happens. From time to time regardless of what party is in power around here, the auditor comes up with some problems. That is what he is there for. That is what the whole system is about.
The member for Calgary—Nose Hill stands in her place and says the government ordered the audit.
I spoke to a group of young people yesterday, high school students who were touring our precinct. They were quite astounded when I gave them the facts because what they had read about this supposed boondoggle were headlines screaming “A billion dollar boondoggle”. I explained to them, and they are obviously more intelligent than some of my hon. colleagues opposite, that the actual program is a job creation program. It takes $1 billion and funnels it out into community groups from sea to sea to sea to create jobs for young people, to supplement wages for small businesses, to assist in hiring people, to deal with people who need training, to deal with people with disabilities, to help aboriginal Canadians with a hand up to get jobs, training and skills so they can get on with becoming participants in our society and to develop partnerships with community groups. That is what this program is all about. Members know this.
The real danger here in the misrepresentation that has gone on, is it continues to go on simply for one reason and that is that the opposition smells blood and indeed all of us know that this is a blood sport. We have to be tough and we have to stand up and defend and make them accountable because being in opposition they can say whatever they want.
We know about the Reform Party's accountability. We know that the Reform Party fires caucus members faster than Brian Mulroney changed his Gucci's. We know that if there is one person out of line or out of sync in the Reform Party, even the venerable House leader, he is simply booted out of caucus by the leader who stands in front of Canadians and purports to say they have a new way of doing business.
The Reform Party kicks people out of caucus faster than it takes to change the name from the united alternative to CCRAP. I should not say it because children may be watching. We all know what the acronym is. The Reform Party kicks people out of caucus faster than it takes to change the acronym from CCRAP to some other one. They woke up and there was this word which they normally associate with something on their—