Mr. Speaker, I am a new member, and, as such, it is with emotion that I stood the first few times, but I am very happy today to support Bill C-277, which was tabled by my colleague from Repentigny. In fact, this bill is meant to lower the unfortunate level of public cynicism towards politicians.
We have before us a government that pretends to promote transparency. We have before us a Prime Minister who pretends to be a champion in the fight against the democratic deficit. We have before us a finance minister who says it is respectful to provide faultless management. I am happy that Bill C-277 gives the government an opportunity to practice what it preaches.
This bill will give back to the House and to the members of Parliament some control over the management of funds, which had been removed from the scrutiny of Parliament, something that started back in 1997, when the Prime Minister, then Minister of Finance, began to hide billions of dollars in different foundations. That way, he could remove these funds from public debate and distort his real manoeuvring room. Huge sums of money were involved.
I was making a quick calculation this afternoon. An amount of $9.1 billion was transferred within a number of foundations. If you add to that the $9.1 billion surplus for last year and the estimated $8.9 billion for the current year, we have a total amount of more than $25 billion that has been concealed from public debate in this House.
A government member was talking a moment ago about the work done by external auditors within the framework of their duties. I must say that my colleague from Repentigny has quite aptly explained the difference. I would still like to come back to that aspect.
Let me give you a few quick examples of the difference between the work of an external auditor and the work the Auditor General could do when it comes to the auditing of foundations.
In 1997, the Canada Foundation for Innovation has received a subsidy of $3.651 billion. As of 31 March 2004, that foundation still held $3.122 million. This means that, over a seven-year period, that foundation only spent 14 % of its budget.
Of course, an external auditor will look at the figures, examine everything and, at the end, I suppose, conclude that effectively, according to generally accepted standards in external accounting and audit, all the figures are correct. On the other hand, the Auditor General, in such a case, could make recommendations. She could tell the government that is not normal for a foundation after seven years to have spent only 14% of the budget allocated to it by the government.
The same goes for the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation. As we know, the Bloc has opposed this foundation specifically because it was impinging on Quebec's jurisdiction. The scenario is somewhat similar. Only 20 % of the budget allocated to the foundation was spent since 1998. That is 20 % in six years. We can ask ourselves why the finance minister of the time, who is now Prime Minister, wanted so much to allocate these funds to the foundations since, clearly, they were not ready to hand out the necessary sums.
However, there is worse still, and this is incredible. In 2001, $350 million was allocated to The Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology. Today, as of March 31, 2004, this foundation still has $347 million on hand.
Listen to this next one, because it is truly mind-boggling. In 2001, Canada Health Infoway got $1.2 billion in financing from the federal government.
On March 31, 2004, the foundation had $1,202 billion. Not only did it not spend the money obtained from the federal government, but it made even more money.
In the mean time, incredible needs have been mentioned since the return of the House. There are people living in extreme poverty in Canada and in Quebec. I will not go back over the opposition day of the Bloc Québécois. I think that we have demonstrated that the federal government is not doing its job.
All this to say that Bill C-277 introduced by my colleague from Repentigny, gives to the government an opportunity to act where, until now, it has only talked. I sincerely hope that the government members will support the effort by my colleague in the committee as well as in the House, so that Bill C-277 may be passed. This is really important.
Also, we must not forget that these foundations established by the government are not subject to the Access to Information Act. There must be a specific provision in their financing agreement for the members of Parliament to be allowed to use the Access to Information Act and find out what is really going on within these foundations.
It has been mentioned that the Auditor General did an excellent job in the last few years. I said earlier that foundations cannot be scrutinized by members of Parliament. Actually, in April 2002—this is quite a while ago, and we again return to the lack of leadership in the government—the Auditor General wrote in her report called “Placing the Public's Money Beyond Parliament's Reach” that, in her opinion, the information provided to parliamentarians about the foundations “is not adequate for parliamentary scrutiny”. She concluded that “the foundations had been placed beyond the reach of effective ministerial oversight and parliamentary scrutiny”.
Knowing that, is it surprising that those who do not get the chance to listen to our proceedings daily tend to be cynical? I wish more people in Quebec and Canada could follow our proceedings as regularly as possible, because I hope, somewhat naively I suppose, that they would view the politicians with less cynicism. But their cynical view of the government and its party would increase immensely. Maybe the government would then really work in the best interest of the people instead of wasting its time in different ways and failing to resolve problems.
I hope the House will pass Bill C-277.