Mr. Speaker, the comments made this afternoon are important to note. What they have indicated is the failure of the government to address real issues facing Canadians, as well as to address the wastage of taxpayer dollars. It was mentioned that dollars spent on advertising contracts were flippantly wasted.
I want to highlight another example where a middleman, although I would refer to him as a bookie, was used in a Health Canada contract. A company, which does car restoration, somehow acted as the middleman for someone else to do contract work on providing information related to aboriginal health. I found that one the most disturbing.
Half the first nations in Manitoba are in my riding. I know the challenges they face with health care. To see the government resort to a car restoration company to get information or to use a middleman bookie agent to get information on aboriginal health is absolutely a slap in the face and a total insult to aboriginal people in Canada, certainly in Manitoba.
What I will focus on the most today is on the duplicity of the Liberal government and the budget. I apologize to my Liberal colleagues who I know do not support some of the nasty things the government does. I know everyone is not of the same mindset that there should be wastage and duplicity. I am speaking of the duplicity of the government in its actions of talking the fine talk and never following through, of all these amazingly wonderful Liberal caucus task forces where they use their dollars, head out across the country to listen to Canadians and come back with great policy that will benefit Canadians.
The one I want to speak of right now is with regard to the 1996 Liberal task force on disability issues. I recently received a letter in my office, and I am sure a good number of members of Parliament have as well, from the Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres. The subject of the letter is the $15 million for spinal cord research in the budget. Everyone would think it is great that it is getting some money for this. I want to read some sections of the letter that the Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres sent to us. It states:
It states, “In 1996 a Liberal task force on disability issues was formed to examine the role of the federal government and its responsibility to Canadians with disabilities. Members of Parliament and the disability community travelled to each and every province and territory and consulted with Canadians with disabilities, their organizations, service providers, family members, unions, businesses and other community groups. The members of Parliament involved, along with the community, tabled the report “Equal Citizenship for Canadians with Disabilities: The Will to Act”.
The Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres goes on to say, “We firmly and naively thought that this document would be a blueprint for action for any upcoming Liberal initiatives. Thousands of Canadians with disabilities participated and sent a very strong message back to Ottawa through this report that the federal government has a very serious role to play in the lives of Canadians with disabilities.
The task force report included 52 recommendations on what both members of Parliament and the community believed were achievable recommendations. There are only eight recommendations to date that have been acted on”.
This is since 1996. It goes on to say, “The majority of the recommendations followed through on were simply programs already in place, yet at risk of extinction”.
I say at risk of extinction under this Liberal government not following through with its commitment to disabled Canadians.
I will leave out a couple of paragraphs and go on to another key section which brings in the $15 million. It states, “In this year's budget there was some good news for children with disabilities and their families through the tax system. However, there was once again no new investment in programming. To everyone's surprise, there was $15 million dedicated to research for spinal cord injuries, sending another message to Canadians with disabilities that maybe the eradication of disability is much more important than supporting citizenship and services to the millions of people living with disabilities that want to have equal access in Canadian society”.
It goes on to say, “What is truly surprising is that after each and every report that has been written and supported by national, local and provincial groups, by Human Resources Development Canada and the federal Subcommittee on the Status of Persons with Disabilities, there is not one mention or recommendation that spinal cord research was a priority of the disabled community in Canada.
In fact the federal government released the report advancing the inclusion of people with disabilities on December 3, 2002 and this report included federally funded research results that identify that human and financial resources in the disability community are stretched to the limit. This is not a sustainable situation and it is a critical time to develop support to enhance the capacity of the disabled community”.
Once again the government has turned its back on Canadians of the most vulnerable nature, those with disabilities. Worse than that, the duplicity in its actions of travelling around telling people it is listening to them, that is listening to their recommendations and that it will make things work is absolutely disgusting. It does not do a darn bit of what it says it will do. This is not coming from myself as an opposition member. It is coming from disabled Canadians, the people to which the Liberal government was supposed to be listening. Even more scarier than that is the fact that I was not shocked by this.
For the past two years, we have listened time and time again to people who have told us that the government has not acted responsibly toward disabled Canadians. It put a system in place where disabled Canadians, who tried to get a tax credit, were literally hammered at every angle. The $50, $75, $100 that they should save on their taxes, they were told they had to get a medical certificate for this or that. Even though they had a disability, if they could walk 50 meters or if they could lift a spoon to their mouth, they could not get the tax credit. That is with what we have been dealing.
It should have come as no surprise that this was before us. I know the rest of my colleagues in the House will join me in calling on the government to act responsibly if ever that were possible. If it is going to spend taxpayer money, it should listen to them and follow through on their recommendations. If it is not going to do it, it should quit wasting money and quit pretending.
It is absolutely true that human and financial resources in the disability community are stretched to the limit. Taxpayer dollars are stretched to the limit and should not be wasted by the government. That is the problem here. As my colleague from the Alliance mentioned earlier, it is not that Canadians do not want to pay their fair share, they do. What they want to receive is a fair and disciplined government with those dollars, not the wastage.
Another one of my colleagues mentioned tax breaks that went to companies. It is unconscionable to think that the former finance minister tried to get around paying taxes to Canada, the country for which he supposedly running to be prime minister. There is no beating around the bush on this. If there were, we would not see the articles in the paper. Imagine the shame we would feel, if someone would try and skirt around paying his fair share of taxes in Canada and then possibly, on the vote of a bunch of Liberals, be the next prime minister. It is absolutely disgusting that any Canadian, who has the gumption to think about running for the position of prime minister or even as a member of Parliament, would skirt around paying taxes by flying a flagship of a different colour so to speak. It is unconscionable.
If the government can put in place little rules that hammer at the disabled community and at seniors, and not pay seniors dollars that are rightfully due them because they have filed too late, it could act responsibly and put in a fair taxation system where everybody is paying fairly. That is what we need to see.