Mr. Speaker, there is a systemic problem that produces the kinds of dilemmas that we get here. It is indicated by the vast amount of money that my hon. colleague just cited.
When government is this large and involved in the economy in so many ways, not just in the overtly public aspects of the economy where we all understand what is involved in running, for example, the Canada pension plan or the various other large programs, but when it is involved in these vast capacities in the private part of the economy, then the potential for a conflict of interest becomes almost overwhelming, almost unavoidable.
Everybody depends upon some form of government largesse to get by. When that is discretionary, as of course it often is, and sometimes it must be when a program is designed in a certain way, the result is that we have in a sense one giant conflict of interest between the public and the private sector. There is no clear dividing line between where the private ends and the public starts. This means that the government can choose winners and losers.
Once the government decides that player A will be the winner and player B will be the loser, inevitably both sides will lobby the government in whatever way they can. They may lobby privately, which is the problem we have been addressing in the House over the past few weeks, but they can also lobby publicly and try to launch campaigns in the media to sway the government one way or the other. We see this most distinctly in the procurement for military goods, which is an area that is definitely unavoidable, but we also see it with other kinds of procurement.
When we have this kind of extensive government involvement in the private parts of the economy, I am afraid there is no solution. The obvious overall solution is to roll back government's involvement and say that government should be involved in providing those services that we would describe as welfare state services on which there is a consensus in this society, and not in doing other things beyond those services and the maintenance of law, order, defence and the other basic functions of government.