Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order with regard to funds spent by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for the fiscal year 2002-03 without authorization of Parliament.
The Auditor General's report on the officer of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, which was tabled in this House this week, reports at section 110:
Each year, every organization in the federal government must submit its financial statements, which ultimately are tabled in Parliament as part of the Public Accounts of Canada. Organizations must prepare these statements in accordance with the government's stated accounting policies as contained in Receiver General directives and Treasury Board guidelines. The financial statements must present the organization's financial position at year end and details of its spending. Moreover, the statements must present the information completely, accurately, and fairly.
Section 111 of the report states:
We found that despite these requirements, the preparers of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner's financial statements for the fiscal year ending 31 March 2003--the Director, Financial Services, the Chief of Staff, and the Executive Director--knowingly omitted about $234,000 of accounts payable at year end. The false financial statements were submitted in June 2003.
Section 112 of the same report goes on to state:
The effect of the omission was to mislead Parliament by creating the impression that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner had spent only the amounts authorized by Parliament for the 2002-03 fiscal year...
Marleau and Montpetit state at page 697:
No tax may be imposed, or money spent, without the consent of Parliament.
Marleau and Montpetit also state at page 704:
--appropriations are always made with a time limit; the spending authorization provided under an appropriation act expires at the end of the fiscal year to which the Act applies.
Since the Financial Administration Act prohibits any payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund without the authority of Parliament, where did this money come from?
The money was spend in the fiscal year 2002-03 without the consent of Parliament.
The last sentence in section 112 of the Auditor General's report states:
The Director, Financial Services told us the chances had been slim that the strategy of deferring liabilities to the new fiscal year would be uncovered because the Public Accounts statements had not been audited in a long time. We found the discrepancy during our audit and brought the matter to the attention of the Interim Privacy Commissioner, who ensured that immediate corrective action was taken.
The Interim Privacy Commissioner has assured us that immediate corrective action has been taken and the expenditures in excess of the amounts authorized by Parliament are to be included in the Public Accounts of Canada for the year ending March 31, 2003, when they are tabled in this House at a later date.
The question is for the President of the Treasury Board who must rectify the problem that the main estimates and supplementary for the year 2002-03 which have already been approved contain no mention of the $234,000 omitted by the former privacy commissioner. Since we cannot have multi-year appropriations, the government must solve this procedural and constitutional problem of obtaining Parliament's approval for funds that were spend in 2002-03.
We just cannot accept gross mismanagement and falsification of financial information as a rationale for the government to spend money that has not been appropriated by Parliament.