Mr. Speaker, declaring “everyone loses”, Arthur Kroeger, a former HRDC deputy minister and Mel Cappe's predecessor, today chastised parliament for failing to provide guidance to officials on what it would regard as a sensible balance between the oversight of the expenditure of public funds and the flexibility of serving clients.
What this former bureaucrat failed to mention is the unprecedented amount of political interference by the governing Liberals. This goes to the very heart of the problem. Grants without applications are not the result of overworked officials but the unwarranted intrusion of Liberal politicians.
As Canadians fill out their tax forms and sign over their hard earned dollars to the government they have every right to expect that the money will be used judiciously and not as a political slush fund.
There is something rotten about the way the government has manipulated the grants and contributions programs and until there is a new government over there the biggest losers will continue to be the Canadian taxpayers.