Mr. Speaker, it is no secret that I am new to the House and have had a lot of learning to do. Perhaps it is a benefit in this case because I do not consider anything the House has done to date as sacred and not able to be changed.
The initiative makes perfect sense to me. We are asking for transparency and accountability. I believe that is what the people of Canada want. Four billion dollars which is not accounted for goes to crown corporations in Canada. That makes absolutely no sense to me or to any other Canadian.
My background is in business. I have always had to be accountable. I have tried my best during the years to make sure I was fair. That is what Canada needs as well. It needs us to be fair to the Canadian people.
Government does not generate income. That is no secret. The income the government spends comes out of taxpayer dollars. It comes out of my pocket, the pockets of members and the pockets of every Canadian. Things must change, and this initiative would be a good way to start.
I had the good sense to marry an accountant, so I have not needed to do a lot of the book work that goes along with day to day things. However when it came to the office of MP that all had to change.
Probably the most interesting experience for me so far was attending an estimates meeting. I did not realize there was such a limited amount of time and so few opportunities to ask questions. I found it difficult to comprehend all the intricacies of the budget because I was not able to ask questions. The initiative would go a long way toward clearing up these things.
Anyone in my caucus will tell the House I do not follow the party line on issues I feel strongly about, so this is not about party politics or being partisan. It is about common sense. It makes perfect sense to me and to every Canadian that we should think about the way we spend Canadian tax dollars.
We are not doing that. We are spending $120 billion without any voice in the House. As members we represent people from across Canada. We have all been elected whether we sit on the opposition side of the House or the government side. We all have an obligation to make certain that money is spent properly.
I found it encouraging that both the House whip for the government and the Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific supported the initiative at the committee level. That is encouraging because it tells me this is not about partisan politics. It is about common sense and a better way to do things. We need to see the big picture in terms of where we are going, but we also need to be careful about how we proceed.
I have heard references today to the Internet. The Internet is a wonderful new tool that is available to some Canadians, though not all. The difficulty with the Internet is that while we are able to read information presented on it we do not have an explanation of it or an opportunity to ask questions.
We are talking about money here. We have come into a time when the world has turned itself upside down. We have many difficult problems to face. There are security risks we must take care of. There is a potential for a decline in revenue due to what is happening. I cannot think of a better time to take a strong and sober look at the way we do business in the House. This is important to us and we must do it.
We review every five years. There will be people in the House who will say the five year review is covered by elections. That is not quite the case. The Canadian people who fund the House can choose the person who comes here to represent them, but they do not have an opportunity or a voice to say how the money is spent. I do not see anything wrong with being accountable and transparent in our actions, especially when we are using money that comes from the pockets of Canadian taxpayers.
As I said earlier, nothing that goes on in the House is sacrosanct. We need to look at any way we can that might improve the way the House does business.
The most disappointing part for me as a new member of parliament is that if a good idea comes in front of the House, party politics quash it. When I summed it up to my children when I was talking to them about my new role, I said that when I hear a good idea I do not care where it comes from. If it makes sense I will support it.
Sometimes the attitude in the House can be summed up very easily: my dad is bigger than your dad. That is not what this is about. This is about looking after every person in Canada. It is not partisan party politics. It has to be common sense. Any time we have an opportunity as politicians to endorse accountability or transparency why would we not do so?
The reputation of politics in Canada has been tarnished. People have very little faith in their political representatives whether at the municipal, provincial or federal level.
Why? It is because we spend people's money without consulting them. We need to have an opportunity to take a good hard look at every dime we spend, stop thinking of it as found money and think of it as hard earned dollars. People are going without something in order to pay for that. If they are going to go without something in their own families where they work to earn their money and we have control over how it is spent, we had better spend it very carefully.
I will support the motion, not because it comes from my colleague the hon. member for St. Albert, but because it makes sense. I hope the House takes a different view of what is in front of it today and realizes that there was unanimous consent for it to go forward. It gives us an opportunity to ask those necessary questions and to make informed decisions.
I hope members of the House will join me today in supporting the motion. It may not be perfect, as my other colleague mentioned, but it is a pretty good first step and it is better than where we are today.