Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment my colleague from the Bloc Québecois for Bill C-277. There is no question that his heart is in the right place and in the right area. I am glad to see that the member speaking on behalf of the Liberal Party is going along with the idea that, yes, we need more accountability in this place.
I also support the intention of where Bill C-277 wants to go. Perhaps when it gets to committee it will have to be amended but I support the intent. What we need to talk about here at second reading concerns the sponsorship scandal and what happened when the Auditor General pointed out that the government had received little or no value for $100 million. We know that crown corporations were involved. For example, Canada Post was exempt by legislation from being audited by the Auditor General.
We know that Canada Post was very much into the sponsorship scandal and working with the advertising agencies and so on and so forth. After that it turns out that the president, CEO and chairman of the board was getting expenses reimbursed without any documentation. Then we found out that the audit committee had not been doing its job. We really need to know what is going on over there.
Canada Post is a crown corporation that has a monopoly in this country to deliver mail. Nobody else is allowed to do it. Canada Post is going to put the prices up again. I know the minister says that it is less than the cost of inflation. However we have no idea if that organization is being run efficiently and effectively. We have no value for money audits coming from the auditors of Canada Post. We have no capacity in this place to examine what the auditors are doing. We cannot bring them in and ask them to give us some real facts so we can see what is going on down there.
The bill is a good idea. When we take a look at the foundations, as was pointed out, they had about $7 billion sitting in their bank accounts which we had given them to do good work in society, the health innovation foundation, the scholarship foundation and so on. These were things that we approved in this House thinking that the money would be spent for the benefit of Canada and Canadians.
What happened? Canada Post put it in the bank as if it was its own money. Guess what? It pretty well was its own money. When we dealt with this issue at the public accounts committee the deputy comptroller general told us that they could not even get the money back. If the government decided to wind up the foundations and say that was it, that they did not want any more of this, then where do members think the money would go? It would not come back to us. It would be divided among the recipients who already received money from the foundation.
It may have changed since then. After we rapped the knuckles of the government at the public accounts committee, it decided it would see if it could make some changes. However it found out that it had no capacity to impose any change on these foundations unless it gave them more money.
We must remember that Canada Post had $7 billion in the bank. How much more did it need? We had to give it more so we could change the agreement. This is the nonsensical type of stuff that needs to be stopped. Therefore it is important for the Auditor General to go where she needs to go in the Government of Canada.
It is the old checks and balances thing. If people think the Auditor General will be showing up at their door, then we know they are going to suck it in and get it done right.
What about the privacy commissioner? He thought he was too small, with only an $11 million office budget. He did not think the Auditor General would come knocking on his door because he was just small potatoes. Then, of course, when it all started to unravel and fall apart, the Auditor General did go in and then we found that there were illegalities going on over there. They were spending money that was not even authorized by this place.
I stood up on a point of order and I said that the office had to be fixed and that we needed that money back. Unfortunately, and a disappointment to me and everyone else in this House I am sure, the government thought of every eventuality. In the event that the government spends money that is not authorized by this place, and it is fundamental to our democracy that we authorize it before it spends it, the line in the Financial Administration Act says that is okay and that we should not worry about it. The government can put a note in the public accounts when it is tabled saying that it is okay.
It did not even require a supplementary estimate to come into this House to be debated. It just had a little line saying that we should not worry, that we should be happy and that it was okay; it was illegal but it was okay: the sponsorship program, the foundations, Canada Post.
What about VIA Rail and the Business Development Bank? They were both wrapped up in the sponsorship scandal too. Why can we not take a look at them and do value for money auditing?
The intent of the bill is honourable and good and we do need to support it. As I say, it may need some tweaking in committee.
The other thing I wanted to mention has to do with federal-provincial relationships. The government is entering into a number of relationships on such things as the child care policy, the child benefit and so on. The federal government and a provincial government get together and deliver a program but nobody has the capacity to audit the whole program. The Auditor General of Canada may be able to look at one half and the provincial Auditor General can take a look at the other half, but they cannot talk to each other and audit the whole program because that is against the law and they adhere to the law. Even though other departments do not adhere to the law, they do. Therefore we cannot get a combined report auditing the whole program. We need to be able to do that. It makes eminent sense, I would say, to be able to do that.
It is interesting that when they negotiate these agreements, they always seem to forget to negotiate the accountability section. It just kind of drops off at the end and is not there. It is time we, just by default, ensure that it is there. In that way Canadians can expect the program will be audited. Canadians can expect a report saying that it is fine or it is otherwise. If it is otherwise, then we take the appropriate action and do what we have to do and start inquiries and spend $40 million, whatever it is we are spending over at the Gomery inquiry, plus the RCMP investigation and so on and so forth. It is called accountability and it does not matter what it costs. Accountability is what keeps people honest and it is what promotes honesty and integrity. The more we have of that, the better off we are.