Madam Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's statement. However I can only speak to the motion that is before us. There is none of that in the motion which I read at the beginning of my speech. I will read it again:
That this House calls on the Minister of Finance to increase the Canada Health and Social Transfer by $1.5 billion and forgo the $1.5 billion increase to federal grants and contributions in this year's federal budget.
That is a general statement. That is not a specific statement. I am specifically looking at HRDC. That is the $1.5 billion increase. There is no other $1.5 billion increase in the federal budget. It is specific to that department. It is not specific to certain elements of that department. It is specific to the general budget of that department.
The basis of my deliberations is that we have a department that is out of control. The department should have but apparently has not embarrassed the minister and the former minister responsible for it. There are 19 ongoing police investigations, three of which are in the Prime Minister's riding. We should not reward incompetence. We should slap incompetence down and say “Clean up your books and come back to us again. In the meantime we are going to cut your budget. We are not going to increase it”.
That is not saying that there are not good programs within HRDC. That is saying that we do not send good money after bad.