Madam Speaker, I rise today to support this motion. The motion reflects a concern that we in the opposition have addressed for some time now which is that the finance minister has presided over a very serious error in terms of payments to provinces. Now the former finance minister and the federal government want the provinces to pony up and cover the government's mismanagement of this very serious error.
This fiscal mismanagement is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. A veritable Titanic of incompetence is what we are witnessing here. The recent shuffling of the cabinet deck chairs will do nothing to ease that sinking feeling in the pits of the stomachs of the federal Liberal MPs who sit across the way because they know the incompetence runs deep and wide in this sea of liberalism.
In the province of British Columbia my constituents in Okanagan—Coquihalla are still reeling from the effects of the federal Liberal ongoing mismanagement of the softwood lumber file. With the federal Liberals refusing to fully restore health care funds which they slashed in 1994, health care practitioners and patients from Hope to Westbank are waiting in increasingly long lineups for essential services. The federal government has totally mismanaged the health care file.
By the way, the last time I checked, health care was still a provincial jurisdiction. It is time the federal government took care of its own areas of constitutional responsibility and got out of the way of the provinces that are trying to fix some of their own.
As the motion indicates, the issue is incompetence and gross mismanagement of taxpayer dollars. I submit to the House today that the handling of financial matters in Canada is absolutely rife with those examples. We could continue for a long time. With this motion in mind I would like to reflect on a most curious sentiment that is being echoed in many circles today regarding the recent firing of the former minister of finance.
Let me make it clear that on a personal note I find the former minister of finance to be an engaging and amicable fellow. The observations I am about to make are not personal in any way. As a matter of fact I wish him well in any future endeavours which he may be brave enough to take on. However, I am compelled to make some observations based more on generally accepted accounting practices and his near total failure to respect many of those professional practices.
The curious sentiment I hear reflected is that with the former finance minister's unceremonious dismissal, we have somehow lost a pillar of managerial competence from the Liberal side. Excuse me, but please allow me to touch on only a few of many examples of extreme incompetence and mismanagement which the former finance minister unashamedly practised or willingly presided over without a peep or without a note of protest.
When he finally tabled a budget in December last year, it ended two years where the government actually went without a formal budget being tabled. There is not a provincial finance minister, there is not a mayor in the country who could have survived the blast from their ratepayers or from the local and regional media had they tried to go two years without reporting and accounting on the expenditure of taxpayer dollars. That was an extreme example of lack of respect for the public purse.
When that budget was finally tabled, we saw a total lack of respect for one of the main areas of concern for taxpayers and that is the crushing weight of debt that sits on our shoulders and on the shoulders of our children and our grandchildren. What was in that budget? Not one cent went to the reduction of the federal debt. Along with that, there was not even a calculation to say how many more years this was adding to the debt load of our children and grandchildren. For a finance minister that is mismanagement, a lack of respect for taxpayers, and a lack of respect for basic accounting principles.
Regarding the Canada pension plan, as we know the finance minister had to gather together the provinces a few years ago and move to a significant tax increase just to cover the projected insolvency of that fund. The Canada pension plan was headed toward bankruptcy. What was the innovative approach chosen to fix that? It was to hike the taxes up for all hard working people in the country.
Just after that particular agreement I had the honour of being the finance minister in Alberta. Calling upon what were acknowledged as some of the best accounting minds in Canada, ways and means were brought forward to see that fund more properly and vigorously invested, giving a greater return to all of us as we head toward our retirement age and bringing in accounting practices which have made for a more efficient handling of that fund.
It has never been acknowledged by the former Minister of Finance. He has never taken any steps to do that other than to hike taxes.
The budget that was tabled as a shining light of fiscal capacity and care for taxpayers was again riddled with incompetency. Instead of dollars going to the debt and to other areas, we saw the former finance minister preside over the shoveling out of millions of dollars to the minister of heritage's culture programs and other areas which have been proven conclusively to do nothing to restore vibrancy in the economy.
Worse than that, to avoid the pressure of having to put dollars to the surplus, what did the finance minister do? He found a way to move billions of dollars into agencies, boards and commissions that are arm's length from government, therefore limiting the ability to which the auditor general can shine her light of fiscal accountability onto the terrible management practices of the government.
I am reminded as I go on and on with this list that I do not have all the time in the world. I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Surrey Central so that he can continue this.
Think of it. There are billions of dollars for which we cannot account because of what the former finance minister did.
On another account, the auditor general has more than once asked a serious question regarding the handling of taxpayers' dollars. Here was the question that was put following all the good work done by the auditor general and all of the accountants that work for her: who is minding the store? It is an indictment on any fiscal manager when the auditor general in exasperation puts her hands in the air and asks who is minding the store.
There was the heating rebate last year where millions of dollars went to dead people and prisoners to try to keep them warm. That did not warm our hearts and it certainly did not warm the accounting pencils of the auditor general and her auditors.
Why was there no acceptance of responsibility on the part of the former minister of finance? It is that same lack of acceptance of responsibility toward this overpayment to the provinces to now demand that the provinces step up to the plate when they have had to use that money to meet the growing pressures of their constituents.
When it comes to fiscal competence, the buck stops at the desk of the chief financial officer of the government. That is the Minister of Finance. Just because that buck is a Canadian one and is only worth 60-some cents U.S., it should not be an excuse to treat it without respect.
In an era when we hear about market bubbles popping, there is another bubble I would like to see pop. It is the bubble of supposed competence that encases the head of the former Minister of Finance. That bubble needs to be popped with the pinpoints of the litany of mismanagement and incompetence which has been at his hands.
It is very curious to hear cries from across the land that the Prime Minister step down--and I might have a certain fondness for those cries--so that the minister of mismanagement can step up. These cries for replacement are based on emotion and are not based on fact. I have observed this interesting phenomenon that it really does not make much difference to the elitist opinion benders of the land when it comes to issues like this.
We are basing it on fact that we have seen terrible mismanagement and incompetence from the former minister of finance. The federal government should step up to the plate, take responsibility on that and not heap it onto the backs of the provinces.