Madam Speaker, I think I have been patient so far in listening to the invectives hurled by the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and I will now continue with my speech.
It must be said also that the National Capital Commission is not a model of transparency, as evidenced by its in camera proceedings. It has the nasty habit of keeping the public away, even though its decisions have repercussions on more than 1 million people on both sides of the river.
Amendments made to the legislation regarding Telefilm Canada indicate the need to modernize that organization. An expert report tabled in September 2000 proposes stricter controls on the use of funding allocated to the motion picture and television production industry.
I will quote from a report on the management practices of the federal government, where the head of the auditing team at Canadian Heritage said “We will work more closely, share information and increase the number of audits”.
This statement comes from a report on the management practices of the federal government. The government had a golden opportunity to amend this act to meet the expectations of the Auditor General of Canada, Anne Scotton. She was clear, and the quote is rather eloquent in that respect.
Furthermore, as I was saying earlier, the matter involving Cinar speaks eloquently of the need to clean up the grants attribution system, for example, once and for all.
We will recall this matter and the work of my colleague for Verchères--Les-Patriotes in this regard. It was—we must face the facts— a major issue that revealed the way grants were awarded. I think it is more than ever important to restore transparency so that the government may truly reveal everything in granting funds.
We will remember that the Bloc Quebecois revealed at the time that Cinar had used false names to obtain tax credits. Cinar had had access to various tax credit programs of Telefilm Canada and the Canadian television fund, and had also received government funding earmarked for productions by Canadian craftspeople.
I am happy to note the arrival of the Secretary of State for International Financial Institutions and I hope he will remain around a long time. We do, despite what is being said today, not only in the papers, but on the hill. I thank him for arriving two minutes before the end of my speech in order to hear my remarks.
I would like him to know that we would have expected from this government major amendments, and not cosmetic ones. We would have expected this government to act in the interests of the people of Quebec and Canada.