Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to say a few words on Motion No. 393:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should make available to Members a support fund for community activities in each of their ridings.
I feel this matter probably deserves a bit of serious consideration, and of course I would be pleased if this issue could be sent to an appropriate parliamentary committee maybe to work out the snags and flaws that could be inherent in the motion itself.
In the meantime, I want to make a few observations. We have 301 members in the House of Commons and decision making powers and authority currently rests with the Prime Minister and the cabinet of the country. Money is spent in the ministry through departmental programs which are generally operated by bureaucrats according to a fixed formula and fixed spending criteria. That is the way it should be done and that is the way it is done in every province in Canada and here at the federal level as well.
However, we have to recognize that in that process not everyone is well served. Many community organizations from around the provinces and the country often do not meet program criteria. As a result of that, they very often cannot access public funds. Given the billions of dollars spent on an annual basis by the federal government, such criteria and procedures are of course necessary for the protection of the public purse.
We have seen in the House of Commons, over the last couple of years in particular, how HRDC funding has been allocated. We have seen a number of scandals in the Department of Human Resources Development and what happens when politicians meddle in the provision of regular government spending and funding. Bureaucratic procedures are very often short-circuited and program criteria, as in the case of HRDC, are often ignored and were ignored. This was brought to the floor of the House of Commons, and we are all very much aware of it. Direct involvement by politicians in current funding programs has led to scandalous behaviour and many heated exchanges in the House of Commons. Last year was a typical example where the Prime Minister himself got involved in calling certain government officials to have funding approved for his own riding.
Obviously we cannot have bureaucrats or politicians passing out grants willy-nilly. On the other hand, we have to ask ourselves as well if worthy causes and community organizations should be shut out completely, as they very often are. Maybe this motion points to a way in which we could have the best of both worlds.
To cite an example of where this way of funding certain community organizations has worked, I can point to my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador where it had a system in the house of assembly that allowed MHAs, known as MLAs here, to use public funds to support community organizations and activities. Each MHA was allocated about $10,000 annually. Standard application forms were developed which applicants could submit to their MHA. The actual payment of the grant was done by a department designated by cabinet to be a line department for these applications. I believe the system was in effect up until a couple of years ago. I gather it is no longer in use although my colleague from St. John's West tells me it is.
In any event, I am not aware of any major outcry or major scandal arising from that program. As far as I know, it worked very well, and probably is working very well if it is still in effect.
Another factor would be the cost of that program. The Alliance members have some very legitimate concerns with the cost of the program. As I said earlier, each MHA in my province was given approximately $10,000 for distribution. In the 48 seat house of assembly that would come to about $480,000 annually. A $10,000 allocation to each of the 301 MPs would come to approximately $3 million. It is not an unreasonable sum but one would have to ask, in the federal riding, if that would be enough money. I think one would have to go a bit higher.
My current federal riding and most Newfoundland federal ridings, including I guess the member for Gander—Grand Falls, would have a riding that encompasses 10 or 11 provincial ridings. We have a much larger population to service, so a $10,000 allocation may be kind of low. Perhaps if the appropriate parliamentary committee had a chance to look at it and at some of the federal ridings across the country that could benefit from it, maybe we could have a $100,000 allocation that would go to each federal member.
We would have to know a little more about the motion itself. The motion seems to be a little vague in that community activities are not really defined in any particular way or what kind of organization might be able to avail of this kind of funding. As well, there might be a very real danger that a fund like this could be mismanaged, if MPs themselves exercised any authority on the allocation of funds. We know what happens when politicians get involved in the actual allocation of the funding. It has the potential to be abused and misused. Therefore there might be a real danger of mishandling the fund if politicians become involved in the allocation of the funds themselves.
Would there be, for instance, any partisan influence in the decisions? If there is to be no partisan influence, then the bureaucracy would have to be involved. Are we creating another program for the bureaucrats to administer? Many questions need to be answered before we get down to the business of approving this motion.
What guarantees would there be that MPs on the government side would not have any kind of special influence in the allocation of the funds and how could we ensure that all MPs, if they were to be involved, would have any kind of equal representation in the allocation of the funds?
I think it is fair to say that we could support the motion depending on what the finished product might be, depending on reasonable allocations being made to the fund, and not having it so low that the fund could be almost useless in itself, and depending as well that every MP would have equal influence in the allocation of the funds.
Maybe MPs should not have any influence in the allocation of funds because they do not do a very good job. Politicians generally do not do a very good job when they are able to influence the spending of government money. We should have very clear criteria established. To that end, I would support the motion going to a parliamentary committee to be fleshed to see what could be done to make it happen.