In my home province of New Brunswick I have had the pleasure of meeting with the minister of health. The member says baloney. The minister of health certainly does not say baloney. The minister of health from the province of New Brunswick said that what the Minister of Finance budgeted in his budget for health care represented $20 million for New Brunswick. He has been reading the papers quite well. It represents three days of hospital care for New Brunswick. Will that fix the problem?
At HRDC in Ottawa they are throwing money out the window when people in Canada, sick people, the most vulnerable people, need proper health care. The government would rather throw money out the window, not discipline people for what they have done, and turn a blind eye to health care. That is terrible.
We all hear about the privatization of health care. The Liberal government is forcing the privatization of health care because of its lack of investment in it. It is even forcing people to go to other countries for care. It is terrible. All this time at HRDC we see mismanagement, lack of transparency and lack of accountability.
What exactly are Canadian taxpayers looking for today? Canadian taxpayers are looking for honesty. Canadian taxpayers are looking for transparency. Canadian taxpayers are looking for the truth. We have been trying very hard to get the truth for Canadian taxpayers but it has not been forthcoming.
We have had the Prime Minister flip-flopping in the House of Commons. We have had the minister of HRDC stating to the House and to Canadian taxpayers through the House that she knew nothing about the goings on in grants and contributions before October 15.
How can we believe this? It does not make any sense that the Minister of Human Resources Development would be unaware of what was going on in her own department. I find this absolutely incredible. We are talking about the management of programs, the management of taxpayers' money, billions of dollars worth of it, and the minister in charge does not know what is going on.
We have every right to be upset here in the House. It does not make any sense. Nobody knows what is going on, and even the minister knows nothing at all. The Liberals are more concerned about what is happening within their party. On the one hand, the finance minister is trying to become the leader of the party, and, on the other hand, the Prime Minister is trying to hang on to power.
Canadians want changes, and I can tell them that we are going to keep them informed, we will tell them what is going on in Ottawa. And what is going on here is not nice.
I am a father of two. I have a boy, who is two and a half, and a girl, who is six. What am I doing here today? What I want to do—like the majority of MPs I guess—is give our children—that is what we are living for these days, our children—a great place to live.
Looking at what is going on within the federation these days, I have a big problem, because we do not cultivate relationships any more. Nowadays, we have to contend with the arrogance of a government that fails to understand how the provinces feel, and does not listen to them. By not paying attention to what is going on, the government is putting our federation—ours, yours and that of our children—in jeopardy. What we are trying to do here is to protect that federation.
I have just come from the Standing Committee on Human Resources, whose proceedings were televised today. We heard the testimony of Mel Cappe. I had the opportunity to ask him questions. I am persistent in my questions, and I asked him if he was aware of the study. He said, as everyone on the government side has said, that he was not. That is the usual thing we hear from the government: they do not know, they are not aware of what is being done with public funds.
What have they done right from the start? They have changed nothing since they came to power in 1993. The free trade agreement and the GST were brought in by the Conservative government. The free trade agreement generates $280 billion, not $80 billion, and the GST $24 billion yearly. What are the Liberals up to? They do not know what is going on.
Mr. Cappe said he did not know. I asked him if it was not his duty to be informed. His response was no. It was not his duty to know what was going on. “It is the duty of the minister and deputy minister”, he said. If the blues are checked, it will be seen that he said “It is the duty of the Minister of Human Resources Development and Deputy Minister Claire Morris to know what is going on”. They were not aware either. That is what we were told, here in the House. So hon. members can well imagine the trouble the opposition parties have to find out the truth.
The government is out of touch. The government is arrogant, but the HRDC scandal will stick. It will not go away. I have been doing interviews across the land, across this great country, and some government members across the way must be very uncomfortable.
I am anxious to see when the Prime Minister will call the next election. I am very anxious to campaign and tell Canadians the truth of what has been going on here. The hard earned money of Canadians has been ripped off. Canadians pay heavy taxes. Canadians work hard for their money. Canadians want their money to be well invested. Their money has not been well invested. Their money has been mismanaged. It is a lot of money.
There are priorities in Canada. I have mentioned a few: health care, taking care of our sick, our most vulnerable, and education, providing the tools that our children need to compete in this global market. We have heard students from all over Canada tell us that they do not have enough. Job creation has not been going on in the government. We have noticed that the government has been wasting money by not monitoring what it has been doing.
It was a pleasure for me to share with the House and with Canadians what has been going on with HRDC. A public inquiry is certainly a vehicle that will enforce and help us get to the truth. In turn, we will be supporting the motion by my colleague from the Bloc.