Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.
It is a pleasure to rise and address this issue today, to consider the Auditor General's reports from the year 2002. It was a fruitful year for the Auditor General, which means a bad year for Canadians. We have just heard from a member from across the way, from the Liberal side, who was talking a little bit about some of the flaws that we all know exist, for instance in the firearms registry. I want to talk about that in a moment, but I do want to underline why it is important that we talk about these issues.
I believe, and I think many Canadians believe, that this government has not been a good steward of our money, which is why we have taxes that are much higher than necessary. I want to underline how important it is to get rid of waste in government by adhering to what the Auditor General says and just by using common sense, by pointing out the impact it could have on the ability of people to look after their families, to buy clothes for their kids, buy school books, pay the dental bills and buy prescriptions, all these things, if we are able to rein in wasteful spending.
Consider, Mr. Speaker, in Canada today the average family pays about 40% of its income in taxes. On an average annual family income of $60,000, that is about $24,000 in taxes. Now consider if we were able to drop our tax rates down to the equivalent of those in the United States, down to about 30%. That would be a saving of about $6,000 a year. Over the course of 10 years, that is $60,000 that we could save a family, $60,000 if we could lower the waste in government and start to leave that money in the pockets of families.
Every time I come in here I notice the relief on the wall of the Chamber of the House of Commons in which there is a father, a mother and a child. Over the top of it is the word tax and, en français, impôt. The point I am trying to make is that we need to be respectful of taxpayers' money and too often this place does completely the opposite. I get so angry when I see the complete disregard for taxpayers, for instance on the firearms registry.
That registry was supposed to cost taxpayers net $2 million. It is now approaching $1 billion and apparently it is going to go to $1.5 billion, by the government's own admission, before the thing is fully implemented. We think even that number is flawed. It could go much higher. This is so common. It happens all the time. All the time, and every department is guilty of this, and the Auditor General's report is full of examples.
I have mentioned the firearms registry, and we will hear more about the firearms registry today, I can guarantee it, because it is so blatant, that wanton disregard for taxpayers' money. There are many other examples. One of the examples that I think has had short shrift is how the government hid previous surpluses in private foundations.
The Auditor General, who does an outstanding job on behalf of taxpayers, and I admire her and her office very much for what they do, pointed to the fact that these private foundations are essentially off the books. The government will have a big surplus at the end of the year and will do all kinds of very funny, tricky transactions to essentially hide the surplus, to spend the surplus so that it did not have to in this case pay down the debt, because under the old rules that it set for itself, the money was supposed to go to pay down debt.
That would have been a good use of that money, but instead the government put it into these foundations. The problem with that is that these foundations are completely unaccountable to taxpayers. As a member of a committee, one cannot have access to find out what really is going on there. The Auditor General could not audit some of these foundations. She brought down in her report a lot of criticism, concerns and recommendations with respect to these private foundations. She asked the Treasury Board to come up with some rules so that they could actually be regulated. We are talking about a lot of money in many cases. For instance, $300 million is going into Genome Canada, off the books in a place where parliamentarians cannot scrutinize that spending. Another example is the $500 million to Canada Health Infoway Inc.
Why is the government hiding this from the eyes of parliamentarians? I do not understand it. There are many other examples, such as advertising contracts. This is completely scandalous.
For weeks on end, our party criticized the government over its use of contracts to put money into the hands of political supporters, advertising contacts. We raked the government over the coals. Finally it had to yield and sent this off to the Auditor General so she could have a look at it. At some point, hopefully in the not too distant future, she will have a very comprehensive report on how this was done and its impact. Pretty clearly this was a misuse of taxpayer money.
We all know people who work not 40 hours a week but 50, 60 or 70 hours a week to support their families and they pay huge amounts of taxes to do that. Where does that money go? Unfortunately, in many cases it is not used for what it should be used, which is to provide more opportunities for Canadians, to build an environment where more jobs are created, to have modest but sustainable and good social programs and to have a strong national defence. Instead it is very often spent on things that are frivolous, or on things that are well-intentioned but do not meet their objectives and or on things that are blatantly wasteful. That has to end. We have to find a way to rein in the government.
I want to make a suggestion along these lines. At one time Parliament used to review the main estimates line by line and vote line by line on whether an expenditure was warranted. We need to return to that type of system so we can get rid of some of the waste and frivolous spending in which this government majors.
If members think I am kidding, I want them to refer to this past budget, where we saw spending leap through the roof. We are seeing spending go up year after year. Since 1997, program spending by the government has risen 45%. That is chilling. We just barely got out of deficits. We carry a $536 billion debt. We have taxes that consume 40% of people's paycheques. Those are the priorities. What does the government do? It decides to drive up spending at a time when spending is already at all time record highs on a per capita basis in Canada. That cannot be justified.
I would argue that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have spent like this to try vainly to establish a legacy for the Prime Minister and to try to tie the hands of his successor, in all likelihood the former finance minister, so he will not have the room to put his imprint on government. There is no justification for that. This is taxpayer money. It is completely irresponsible to behave in that manner.
I will conclude by saying it is time for the government to take seriously the spending of taxpayer money, to treat that money with some respect and not to wave it off every time another scandal is revealed. There have been so many in the time I have been here it is almost impossible to keep up with them. Suffice it to say, it is no joke to taxpayers back home who struggle very hard every day to make a living and to support their families. They do not laugh very hard when they find another $100 million has been blown, or $1 billion wasted there, or whatever it is. There are just so many examples.
I would urge members across the way to take this issue seriously and to embrace some of the suggestions of the Auditor General and members of the opposition when it comes to the judicious use of taxpayer money.