Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend my hon. colleague from West Nova for his extremely timely and effective remarks about this very important issue.
The motion today, which identifies the problems with the Canada Information Office, particularly in terms of evidence suggesting that the government is using the Canada Information Office as a means to direct lucrative contracts to appropriately placed Liberal Party supporters, either financial supporters or supporters in kind, is very disturbing given the degree to which the information being assembled and utilized by the Canada Information Office carries with it some very significant ramifications in terms of national unity. Clearly, the Canada Information Office cannot be used as a Liberal trough from which supporters can drink and feed themselves.
Government is not a make work program. The Liberals are prone to utilizing these agencies as make work programs for supporters, whether it is HRDC, CIDA or, in this case, the Canada Information Office. The government is clearly out of control.
In lieu of some general policy direction, a coherent and cohesive set of policies and the vision to lead Canada in the 21st century, the government has focused and continues to focus, on an increasing level, on simply funnelling as much largesse to its supporters as possible. It is displaying the classic signs of a government ready to be defeated. At the time of the next federal election I think there will be a very sound message from across Canada.
In the last election there was a very sound message from Atlantic Canada. We all know that in Canada some of the greatest shifts and some of the greatest revolutions begin in Atlantic Canada, and the last federal election was an indication of that. We believe that in the next election Canadians all across Canada will follow the leadership demonstrated by Atlantic Canadians in the last election when they said that they were tired of a tired government and that they were ready for a new vision and a more ethical and visionary leadership at a very critical time in our history.
The government's manipulation of information and manipulation of the media is not confined simply to the Canada Information Office. The fact is that every government department has become pervasively focused on spin doctoring and media manipulation. There has never been a government as visionless and as focused on next week's polls as this government.
The government is so focused on next week's polls that it does not even try to provide policies and directions for the next century. Unfortunately Canadians are going to pay a significant price for that in the next 20 or 30 years as they realize, and as the report last week from McGill University professors indicated, that the government ranks dead last of all the governments since the second world war in terms of economic performance and vision.
The McGill study also identified the government that ranked first. The number one government in terms of economic performance and vision on economic issues since World War II was none other than that of the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney. It must be terribly embarrassing to members opposite, in particular to the Prime Minister with his very thin skin and his inability and distrust of anyone who is even vaguely critical of him, to have to read in the newspapers and in the reports from erudite academics and economists that his government has been dead last.
Instead of trying to manipulate information and manipulate the media, maybe his government should actually try to do something about that abysmal record and actually start trying to develop some of the same vision and long term focus that the previous government had.
I referred to other departments and agencies within government that are also manipulating information and manipulating the media as much as possible and, most offensively, using taxpayers' money to do that.
In February, at the time of the budget, the finance minister's speech, the speech that ultimately was provided and ended up as part of the budget document, the budget speech 2000, was different in several areas from the actual speech provided. I have the Hansard here in front of me.
We have reason to believe and sources to suggest that the reason the finance minister deviated significantly from his text and added several paragraphs that seemed almost incongruent with the rest of the text, was because of information coming from the media in terms of how the policies or the budget was being spun, what the focus was for the media, what policies the media was actually taking hold of and demonstrating a greater level of interest in and, alternatively, what policies the media was less interested in.
According to our sources, the finance minister actually changed his speech for the House to try to focus more on what would get the greatest level of media hits that night. He changed a document prepared by the finance department people for him to provide the budget speech. He changed it directly to try to further manipulate the media.
This is a government of spin doctors. This is what we call focus group economics and poll driven policies. The nation is suffering from a lack of vision and poll driven incrementalism. Canadians need bold, visionary, courageous leadership similar to the leadership of the previous government under the Progressive Conservatives and the leadership of Brian Mulroney.
This is a government by polls, certainly not guided by principle. I would suggest that the media plays an extremely important role in the democratic process in terms of showing that information is disseminated to the public in as clear and unbiased way as possible. For the government to intentionally manipulate the media, either through the Canada Information Office or through other Byzantine and circuitous means as those that allegedly occurred with the finance minister, and probably every ministry opposite, really compromises our democratic framework within which the media plays such a very important role.
I also believe that if the media realized the degree to which this government was playing the media collectively like a Stradivarius to try to spin its messages out and also minimize any negative political fallout, the media would be increasingly offended. The journalistic integrity of the media is being challenged by a government that is certainly not interested in promoting the types of ethics that should be an integral part of any government.
It is very important that we are addressing the issue of the manipulation of information and the use of the Canada Information Office as a Liberal Party trough in the House. It is also very important for us to recognize the degree to which spin doctoring and media manipulation has become routine for the government in every department and every ministry.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. I hope all members, including backbenchers opposite in the Liberal government, would agree that this type of obvious manipulation needs to end and that the government needs to significantly improve its ethics in this regard.