Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the Bloc motion today. At the outset, the objective of the motion and of all of the people in the opposition, is to make sure that taxpayers' money is being spent wisely. That is the beginning and end of this motion. I will articulate how and why this motion came about, and the reason the opposition parties have been so critical of the government over the last month and a half.
The motion condemns the government for the very poor management of the Department of Human Resources Development which was brought to the attention of the minister.
The motion can actually be used as a stepping stone to describe growth and widespread abuse by the government of the taxpayers' money. This is not the government's money. It is the taxpayers' money and I am going to demonstrate how and why that happened.
We have seen the grants put forth by HRDC supposedly to rescue jobs, save jobs and make jobs. We would agree that has to happen in this country, but we disagree on how it happens. Where were those jobs created?
One example is in the minister's own riding. It has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. The Minister of Human Resources Development received grants that were three times the national average. Why is it that the Minister of HRD, whose riding has unemployment rates much lower than the national average, received grants three times higher than the national average? Why is that so?
Also, the Prime Minister's riding received more grant money than that of any prairie province. We have seen the devastation that has been wrought upon the farmers in the prairies. We have seen that farmers, the salt of the earth of this country, have lost their farms, their homes, their families, their jobs and their futures and lost hope. Yet, HRD pours money into the riding of the Prime Minister or that of the Minister of HRD, which has a rate of unemployment far less than the average and far less than in the prairie provinces which have been crying out for help for so long.
HRD officials say that they were forced to break the rules and instructed to approve grants in the Prime Minister's riding. If that is not enough to make the public go ballistic, then I do not know what is. That is part of the reason why we and other parties have been bringing this issue to the front. We want this problem fixed and we want it fixed now. We are sick and tired of the half answers or no answers that we have been getting for so long.
It is not only HRD. Let us take a look at the Export Development Corporation. This crown corporation uses the taxpayers' money to loan funds to Canadian companies. But who does it lend to? It lends to 5% of the companies that export, which represents less than 10% of the companies in the country today.
What kind of companies? Bombardier. Bombardier received $1 billion in loans. Bombardier, which has $5.6 billion in assets and $11 billion in revenues, received a $1 billion indirect loan through EDC to support Amtrak. The Canadian government supported $1 billion of the taxpayers' money to be given to Amtrak, an American company that the U.S. government would not even put money into because it has been running deficits for a long time. That is what the EDC has done. That is what the government has done with the taxpayers' money. The public should be aware that it is out there slaving away and its money is being used to put into an American company, Amtrak. That company has lost billions of dollars and the U.S. government has said it is not going to give it any money. Yet EDC steps in with Canadian taxpayers' resources and says it is going to give money to Bombardier, which makes $11.5 billion, so it can get a contract. What justification is there for that?
What justification is there for the Canadian government using the taxpayers' money to give money to China, which is building a superheated military complex as we speak and which has a $5 billion surplus with Canada? We have given money to it to do what? We have given money to it so it can build the Three Gorges dam which sits on a fault line. The Canadian government is loaning China money to build the Three Gorges dam on an earthquake fault line. The U.S. said it would not have anything to do with this program. The World Bank said it would not have anything to do with it. It is rife with corruption. It is an environmental disaster currently and waiting to happen. It is going to displace 1.3 million people. Yet what does the Canadian government government do? It takes millions of dollars of the Canadian taxpayers' money and loans it to China, which is building a superheated military complex as we speak. We do not have enough money to buy choppers. We do not have enough money to buy search and rescue and anti-submarine warfare choppers. Our military people are falling out of the sky in choppers that are 25 plus years old. On the other hand the Canadian government is saying to China, “We'll give you money to invest in the Three Gorges Dam that the U.S. has walked away from, that the World Bank has walked away from”. That is what the government is doing with Canadian taxpayers' money. That is what the government is doing with the money that Canadians have slaved for.
What else has happened? With respect to the Three Gorges Dam the Prime Minister violated the Export Development Corporation's own environmental code of conduct and said “We're going to invest money in this project”, completely ignoring the comments by the non-governmental organizations, by international observers, by the World Bank. When those organizations chose not to go, and for obvious reasons, Canada chose to lend Canadian taxpayers' money. If that is not rot, I do not know what is.
With respect to the money, there is $22 billion in outstanding loans from EDC. Who is on the hook for this? What does the EDC do? It loans money on the good name of the Canadian taxpayer.