Somebody on our side has even volunteered to pay for lunch to help taxpayers out. It recommended that the federal government:
Limit program spending growth to the rate of inflation plus population growth.
It also recommended:
The government follow the program review process while maintaining a balanced budget in the face of new priority spending.
The committee quoted David Paterson of the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance who said:
Increased spending on security is essential, but we believe it can be offset by reduced spending on less important programs. New initiatives can be postponed until a budget surplus has been restored to a more adequate level.
This was not the Canadian Alliance speaking. This was a government dominated committee report signed by the minister's own parliamentary secretary. The government broke every one of these recommendations. I guess that is a separate debate of how functional committees are in the House of Commons these days.
For the Liberals there was no reallocation, not one dime of cuts to waste and no choosing between priorities. Apparently for the government everything was a priority, except perhaps farmers, sick people on hospital waiting lists, or men and women serving in our armed forces who got next to nothing in the budget. However there was money for TV and film producers, pet projects of Liberal leadership candidates and African governments. There were special grants for everything from woodlots to wind power.
Yesterday I looked in the paper and saw that the Prime Minister had sort of agreed with Mr. Mandela to put $500 million into Africa. I do not disagree with that. I do not disagree with Mr. Mandela becoming a citizen. I thought that was a wonderful award to a gentleman who had made an impact on the world.
However I also thought it was strange that we were taking a person from a foreign country, honouring him in Canada, yet one of our leading Canadians, Conrad Black, was refused an honour in a foreign country by the government. The government spent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to prevent it from happening. It forced him to become a citizen of another country when all that country wanted to do was recognize a great citizen of Canada who had done very well in the financial world.
I thought it was strange that we were prepared to give $500 million to honour somebody from outside the country but not let one of our own people receive the same honours from another country which is one of our neighbours, one of the members of the Commonwealth and certainly part of our blood. I thought that was rather strange. It shows how the government really works.
The Liberals claim this was a balanced approach to budget making. When we hear a Liberal talking about a balanced approach we should check our wallet and count our silverware. To a Liberal finance minister a balanced approach means striking an equal balance between waste and management.
In order to pay for all the slush the budget broke the finance minister's solemn word on prudent fiscal management in previous budgets and appearances before the finance committee. The so-called prudence factor has been eliminated. We have known for years that the government had no prudence, but we did not expect it to confirm that in black and white in the budget.
It raided the contingency reserve fund, a special fund allocated for debt paydown at the end of the year. In the increasingly unlikely event that we do go into a deficit, it has already promised money for new spending on infrastructure and African aid, as I mentioned earlier. As recently as last May the finance minister piously told us:
It is not a source of funding for new policy initiatives. If not needed, it is used to pay down the public debt.
A few months ago this was an emergency cushion not to be touched and if anything was left over it was to go toward long term debt paydown. Now the contingency reserve is just another Liberal slush fund.
Let us look at some of the spending increases made in the budget and the identified waste that was not touched.
Some of the spending the government proposes sounds good and noble in its purposes. However when we look at the reality it is not clear it would fulfill its objectives or that the money could not have been found elsewhere.
For example, the government would allocate $185 million for aboriginal children, for programs such as measures to prevent fetal alcohol syndrome. Some Liberals applaud and I agree, but let me continue. This is a valuable priority, but there is some $7 billion already being spent on aboriginal affairs by the government. It is clear that much of this money is wasted. It is not getting through to ordinary aboriginal people on reserves or in urban centres. It is not helping aboriginal communities to overcome the challenges of substance abuse, poverty and crime.
Indian Affairs has received the largest spending increase of any department over the past six or seven years, but we see no improvements for our aboriginal people. That is a sad commentary. Throwing money at it will not solve the problem. The amount of money going in sounds good and, yes, we could applaud it, but when we look at the overall picture it is pretty sad.
If the government thought that $185 million for fetal alcohol syndrome would help things, could it not have found in the $7 billion some programs that were not working and reallocate? This is a government that was sending aboriginal leaders and bureaucrats on Caribbean cruises with money that was supposed to go to substance abuse. We forget that very quickly. It was the Christmas before last that we received the picture of the Caribbean cruise.
The auditor general talks about waste. The government throws $185 million into the budget for something to get a headline. It sounds really good. However that department is full of waste and the auditor general has pointed it out. Hopefully this winter they are not going on any cruises.
The government cannot tell the House there was no money to reallocate in the existing budget. The finance minister, or perhaps it was the Prime Minister helping the finance minister's rival, gave the Minister of Industry $110 million for his pet Internet project. That was $110 million to soothe his wounded ego for not getting the full $4 billion enchilada for his crazy scheme to lay fibre optic cable to every hamlet, homestead and outport in the country. It was a parting gift of $110 million to the budget loser. On game shows, losers of the big prize get a year's supply of Rice-a-Roni and a copy of the home game.
There was $160 million for the heritage minister and her rich friends in the television industry. That may sound great to cappuccino sippers in Yorkville and in Banff when folks from Yorkville visit there one week a year. However it does nothing for farmers, patients waiting for hip replacements or soldiers flying in 40 year old Sea Kings.
There was $170 million given to the Minister of Health for programs that will do nothing for patients but will keep plenty of Ottawa bureaucrats very busy. The provinces received nothing for delivering health care services to the people who are on hospital waiting lists.
Most of these programs are not necessary at all. However, if the government in its wisdom felt that these were top priorities, even in a time of recession and war, then for heaven's sake it should have cut some of the fat elsewhere in the system to pay for them.
The auditor general's report pointed to the pool of $16.3 billion in voted grants and contributions. It said:
The government still has a lot to do to fix the chronic problems in the way it manages grants and contributions.
It is not the opposition saying that. It is the auditor general who has the respect of all Canadians and looks at the books. Opposition parties should read them carefully because some day they may be in government and will be criticized by the opposition who is the government today. It went on to say:
Our most recent audits found a government-wide control system for grants and contributions that is not yet rigorous enough to ensure the proper management of public funds. We are concerned that serious and correctable problems remain unexamined and uncorrected.
It is not like this auditor general is the first one to say that. We are talking about $16.3 billion. It sounds easy to say, but we should think of the people in British Columbia who are out of work because we cannot solve the softwood lumber fix, close to 30,000, who read the paper because they have a lot of time these days.
The auditor general found in a short period of time that the government had $16.3 billion that was unmanaged and unexplainable. People are becoming pretty upset and we are hearing about it. I have never had so many replies from constituents about an auditor general's report. Perhaps it is because a lot of people are unemployed, not just in my home province of British Columbia but across Canada, in the softwood lumber industry, the auto industry and the high tech industries.
They are concerned when they see this kind of waste. We do not need headline budgets for the quick spin. We need to solve real problems for the unemployed in the country. We need a plan and a mission to get the country back to work again, not just spin doctoring the headlines across Canada. The auditor general went on to state:
Management practices were uneven among the programs we audited. Most programs had significant shortcomings in one area or more--program design, performance, measurement, project approval, or project monitoring.
The auditor general identified money for AIDS and prostate cancer programs that was given out improperly, with poor management. Both are great programs and make great headlines when the government announces what it is doing. They get support from all sides of the House, but the money and the programs have to be managed.
The auditor general questioned $400 million in loans given by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency to companies that were bankrupt. She questioned whether ACOA's job creation claims were justified. How many times in the House has my party been accused of being against Atlantic Canadians because we questioned ACOA? Many times, and not only by the government but by other members of the House from Atlantic Canada. We thought we were being responsible asking questions about grants going to questionable companies.
I will mention it again so that it sinks in. The auditor general questioned $400 million in loans given out by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, much of which went to companies that were bankrupt. She questioned whether ACOA's job creation claims were justified.
This is pork barrelling and patronage. We are rife with it. I thank the auditor general for justifying all the questions my party asked in the House in the last 10 years about this agency. It is about time there is an even closer look. Perhaps there are better ways to create jobs. I know that some think-tanks in Atlantic Canada stated publicly that this was not the way to create jobs in Atlantic Canada.
Problems cannot be solved in the country by giving money away. We have not solved the problems with native people and we have been doing it for 100 years. We have to come up with some serious plans on how the country will operate.
The auditor general found $9 million in Canadian heritage grants that were given out without application forms being filed. I will mention again that it is not the Canadian Alliance saying that.