Mr. Speaker, I am on my feet tonight in relation to a question I put to the President of the Treasury Board following the tabling in the House of the auditor general's report. We are concerned about government spending and the wasting of taxpayer money.
The auditor general came out with what I believe was the strongest language ever in the history of the country condemning the government for its spending habits. Page 1 of the report of the auditor general, in what incidentally is her first report to parliament, states:
--the erosion of parliamentary control over how the government raises money and spends it. Canadians have the right to control how public funds are collected and used, and ultimately it is the members of Parliament we elect who carry out this control on our behalf. That is why I am concerned about recent examples of the erosion of parliamentary control, involving billions of dollars of revenue and expenditure.
She identified $16 billion in what we call grants and contributions. In other words, it is almost discretionary funding by the Government of Canada on projects that have never come before parliamentarians for any kind of scrutiny.
One of those was the fuel rebate program. Members will remember that $1.4 billion was designated to help Canadians when fuel prices were going through the roof. This is an example of spending without parliamentary control or checks and balances in the system. Fuel rebate cheques were sent to 7,500 dead people.