Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin the debate today by commending the hon. member for St. Albert for bringing forward the motion, which is a motion to adopt an 80-page report done in the 35th parliament. He actually co-authored the report with the current whip for the government, the member for Ottawa West--Nepean. The committee they were on was the procedure and House affairs committee. It should also be noted that the Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific was also on that committee and was obviously a contributing member.
The report has a number of recommendations centred around creating a special estimates committee that would investigate government spending in all departments. The recommendations of the report are outstanding and I will get to them in a minute. However, I want to preface my statements by stating a few facts for the record in the House.
First, the annual expenditures of the Government of Canada, according to the 2001-02 main estimates, were $166 billion. The previous year, according to the 2000-01 main estimates, they were $158 billion. We saw an increase in government spending of $8 billion over a one year period. The reason I bring up this point is that the government does not have a taxation revenue problem, it has a spending problem. The Liberals are fixated on big government programs and on continually increasing taxes. The problem is that there is no proper scrutiny of or accountability for how that money is being spent. The motion of the hon. member for St. Albert to adopt the report and the recommendations contained therein would bring the necessary accountability to this spending.
Perhaps if a special committee for scrutinizing the estimates had been in place over the past number of decades the country would not be in the fiscal mess it is currently. The projected national debt for 2001-02 is $579 billion. That is an absolutely outrageous burden. In fact, the result of carrying such a massive debt is that our annual interest payments alone are $42 billion each year. I think the significance of those numbers speaks for itself. Clearly we need greater fiscal responsibility. Clearly we need better ways to examine the estimates and to scrutinize government spending, and clearly we need a better analysis of the performance of the bureaucracy. All these are addressed in the recommendations contained in the report.
The co-author of the report clearly will be supporting it because she co-authored it, as will the secretary of state, as I previously mentioned. I am a little disturbed by the previous Liberal speaker who indicated he would not be supporting procedures to increase accountability and to bring more into the domain of parliament the scrutinizing of government spending of our tax money. I certainly hope other Liberal members are not taking that same view of improving accountability.
With respect to the recommendations in the report, they are many and I will not cover all of them. However, I would like to touch on a few of them. First, the standing orders would be amended to create the standing committee on estimates, the mandate of which would be to monitor and review the estimates and supply process. That committee specifically would be empowered to report to the House of Commons on an annual basis. The standing committee on the estimates would co-ordinate its activities with the Standing Committee on Finance and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and from time to time when appropriate would sit jointly with either or both of those committees to examine such broad issues as government wide expenditure and revenue generation.
The recommendations include giving that committee a permanent mandate to televise its proceedings so that the public could be more engaged in the spending practices of the government and as well, of course, providing that committee with a small, permanent, dedicated research staff to facilitate its work. As well, as part of its prebudget consultations the Standing Committee on Finance would give priority to inviting chairs of standing committees and the chair of the new standing committee on estimates in particular to appear before it as witnesses to present views contained in committee reports on departmental plans. Also, the Minister of Finance would include a response to standing committee reports on departmental plans in the supporting documents that accompany the budget. Furthermore, as part of their plans and performance documents, departments and agencies would regularly include a reference to previous committee reports on past plans and performance or to any committee report to parliament, with specific attention devoted to steps taken in response to the views of members of parliament as expressed in standing committees.
Another recommendation is that departments and agencies include in their plans and performance documents specific references to outstanding issues contained in the reports and audits of their activities conducted by the Auditor General of Canada. These references would include a list of the recommendations made by the auditor general, a list of recommendations made by the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, when appropriate, and a brief but detailed discussion of the actions taken in response as well as the results achieved as a consequence.
It is also recommended that the Treasury Board Secretariat prepare for the use of members, in consultation with members of parliament and chairs of standing committees, a concise, comprehensive information package on the estimates and supply process and on government financial management generally. As well, the government would establish a schedule for the review, preferably over the next 10 years, of all existing underlying statutes that affect the size of statutory expenditures.
Another recommendation is that the government would take all possible measures to improve the quality of program evaluations conducted in areas involving major statutory expenditure and would ensure that these evaluations are provided in a timely manner to committees reviewing statutory programs. In particular, evaluations would articulate the public policy objectives and address the questions of whether or not these objectives are being met, whether the program is being efficiently managed and whether there are alternative means of meeting the same policy objectives.
As well, it is recommended that all legislation for new statutory programs contain a provision for parliamentary review at a minimum of five years following their introduction and on a cyclical basis thereafter. Also, there would be a thorough review, on a schedule established by government and conducted on a periodic basis thereafter, of all tax expenditures, focusing on whether they are meeting the public policy objectives that have been established for them, whether they are being efficiently managed and whether there are alternative means of meeting those policy objectives.
Lastly, it is recommended that departments and agencies authorized to provide loan guarantees include in their estimates summary information on the status of all their outstanding loan guarantees, the potential liabilities they represent, explicit statements of the policy goals such loans are meant to achieve and whether there are alternative means of meeting these policy objectives.
As we can see, these recommendations are outstanding. They would bring about a much greater degree of accountability in the bureaucracy and in government departments.
I will conclude by once again commending the hon. member for St. Albert for introducing the motion. I would like to commend the government whip for co-authoring the report.
I urge all members of the House to vote in support of the motion because of the great degree of increased accountability and scrutiny of the expenditure of tax dollars that would result.