Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to participate in this important debate.
It is pretty frustrating sitting here in the nosebleed section listening to what passes for debate in question period as being informative to the Canadian public. There seems to be an endless amount of accusation on what seems to me to be a fairly thin issue.
The minister of human resources apparently can never be too transparent. It does not seem to matter that the minister has released over 10,000 documents. It does not seem to matter that she has established a website. It is essentially a feeding frenzy. Regrettably it feeds into some of the most cherished notions of Canadians who do not take the time to inform themselves with respect to debate in the House, namely that government is wasteful by definition, that government is intrusive into the lives of Canadians, that government is therefore corrupt.
HRDC is a very big department. It spends something in the order of $60 billion of taxpayers' money on an annual basis. It administers the pension program but I assume that members of the opposition are against pension programs. It administers programs with respect to people with disabilities but I assume that members opposite are against people with disabilities. It administers funds in all kinds of areas of interest to Canadians including jobs funds.
Frequently government is faced with some fairly unhappy choices in areas of high unemployment. We all wish our country could be equally blessed and enjoy equal areas of low unemployment such as the community from which I come, Toronto. Nationally the unemployment rate is 6.8%, and for us it is something lower, around 6% and possibly even under 6%. We wish that all Canadians were able to find employment wherever they find themselves in this country but regrettably that is simply not a reality for many of our fellow citizens.
When government tries to address these problems, it does an uneven job. Usually the focus is on some area of high unemployment. Frequently the choices are social assistance, unemployment insurance or some form of job training program. These are unhappy choices. We look at a constituent or a fellow citizen and ask “What do you want to do here? Do you want to collect social assistance, do you want to collect unemployment or do you want to try this job program?” That is what it boils down to.
The debate on this issue has generated a great deal of heat and very little light. I want to put on the record a number of statistical facts which hopefully will get somewhere close to the facts on the debate.
The money in question is something in the order of $1 billion which by anybody's definition is a lot of money. Bear in mind that $1 billion is out of the entire government's budget of $160 billion. What we are talking about and focusing on is 1/160 of the government's overall budget.
The government to its great credit did an audit of about 20% of its $1 billion program, in other words about $200 million. It audited something in the order of 459 projects. Of those 459 projects 37 were found to have some problem, some administrative problem, some filing problem, some this, some that. About 8% of the projects were found to have something wrong with them.
Of the 37 projects involving some irregularities, all moneys were accounted for except at this point something like $600. That is not big money, but in the House it seems to be an exaggerated amount of money. Even if we project that forward and say that something in the order of $80 million of this $1 billion is in question, and that is the highest it gets for the opposition, if we say that is true, that is roughly 8% of the overall project.
Bear in mind we are dealing with people who are in some considerable distress. As I indicated earlier, the choices are social assistance, unemployment insurance or this jobs fund. Frankly it does not work all the time. What is the insight there? I am perfectly prepared to debate hon. members opposite if they think all of this kind of thing should be cancelled.
In my view at this point on the evidence that is available to us, even projecting forward the $600 that is missing, we have $3,000 in question. Members opposite think we should call a public inquiry over $3,000. That level of absurdity even this House has not seen in a long time.
It is never in the interests of either the media or the opposition to talk about success stories. In my riding no one seems to be interested in the money that the University of Toronto spends in this program, nor is there interest in West Hill Community Services. There are 800 volunteers on the ground each and every week providing assistance to all kinds of Canadians in my riding but no one wants to talk about that.
How about the West Rouge Community Centre? The canoe club burned down and we helped to get some money together so that it could be restored. No one wants to talk about that. It was not in the Scarborough Mirror . It was not on the local Shaw Cable. It was not in the Toronto Star , the Globe and Mail and it was certainly not in the National Post . Does anyone want to talk about the Scarborough Philharmonic Society?
All these programs in my riding make us a more civil nation. Frankly, it gets a little tiresome listening to what passes for debate in the House over what is utter nonsense. These are ways in which government civilizes our communities.
Classically businesses are not interested in this sort of stuff. To be perfectly blunt about it, businesses want to make money. I understand that. That is their area of expertise. I just do not quite understand why businesses should adhere to a failure rate of something in the order of 25%, if we compare first year businesses, and governments on the other hand have to achieve a standard of absolute perfection or else those opposite go absolutely nuts.
Some of the grants are problematic. I am prepared to admit that. The government depends on the community, the province and local businesses to generate the projects. Clearly not all projects are equal. Clearly the conception of the project may be different from its execution. No advocate of a project ever starts off with a proposition that it is going to scam the government, that it is going to be one big wonderful scam.
The best projects and the vast majority of projects are welcome in their communities and no one ever hears about them. Good news is no news. It does not hit the headlines.
The ones that do hit the headlines divide into two categories: the projects that are problems that have an explanation and can be fixed and the projects that are problems with no explanation and cannot be fixed.
The first category is one question in question period and it dies. What is the biggest killer on a question period question? It is facts. No one really wants to hear the facts. When the issue can be explained, that is it. It dies and it is gone.
The second category is more problematic for the government. The question becomes the size and the percentage of impact. I understand that the opposition is criticizing the spending in HRDC. At this point in time what is known is what I reiterated earlier. What is known is that 37 projects have raised some question in an audit of something in the order of $200 million. I do not see that as a big issue; 8% is not a great thing. To be perfectly candid about it, how in heaven's name can we expect the government to adhere to a standard of perfection working in an area that is difficult at best?
This is a category of questions and the issue is whether the glass is half empty or half full. Hon. members opposite think that something in the order of $600 missing, which is the only fact that is on the table at this point, requires a public inquiry. This is an interesting exercise. Even projecting forward that we have only hit one-fifth of all of the projects, this would be $600 times five which is $3,000. I do not know whether we really want to deal with facts here because that is not really good for politics, but the fact is that based on this the members opposite wish to call for a public inquiry on an issue of a missing $3,000.
I urge hon. members to vote against this motion for the very simple reason that this is one major tempest in a very tiny teapot.