Madam Speaker, it is such a pleasure to rise tonight and address this issue. This is the reason why parliaments were formed in the first place. The whole idea, when parliaments were formed, is to have a check on the ability of the Crown to tax and spend.
Tonight, as we go through the votes this evening, the government will be proposing tens of billions of dollars in expenditures. It is only appropriate that opposition parties, in particular, and all members take the time to scrutinize the government's estimates and ensure that every single penny is being spent as wisely as it can possibly be spent.
At this point we are addressing one issue, the Governor General's expenditures, but there are many other issues. As a way of symbolizing the tremendous amount of waste that goes on in government today, my colleagues from all parties have moved motions in committee to trim back the firearms registry by $82 million because it has proven to be a disaster. It has proven to be not only a tremendous waste of money, but also a waste of money that initially gave Canadians false hope about its ability to deal with the issue of crime.
My friend, the member for Central Nova, the deputy leader of the Conservative Party, will be talking about that tonight. I also want to point to my friend from Yorkton—Melville who has done an outstanding job drawing attention to the tremendous waste in the firearms registry. It was supposed to cost $2 million when it was put into place, today we are approaching $2 billion with no end in sight. The government continues to pour money down that black hole.
What a pleasure to stand tonight and talk about the necessity for the government to be responsible when it comes to spending.
Another issue we would like to debate tonight, if we have time, is the waste on things like government polling. The government is using polling for clearly partisan ends, as it did last spring when it commissioned a poll that was designed to help it deal with the damage caused by the sponsorship scandal. Clearly, that is polling for a very partisan reason. The member for Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam moved a motion in committee and reduced estimates to deal with that issue. It is a good move and it is designed to tell the government that we will not allow that to happen with taxpayer money.
I want to specifically talk about the issue of the reduction in estimates for the Governor General. As I pointed out at the outset, parliaments were formed to control the power of the Crown to tax and spend. In this case it is literally the power of the Crown to spend, when we are dealing with the Governor General and some of the lavish spending that has occurred under her watch.
I want to point out that we support the office of the Governor General. We need a head of state. However, the Governor General has an obligation to be responsible with how she spends taxpayer money. Following up on what my friend said, when we have had expenditure increases in the Governor General's office, from $10.7 million in 1996-97 to $19.2 million last year, clearly the spending is out of hand.
Many Canadians today are being forced to cut back to find ways to deal with paying for the basics. They have suffered years of cutbacks. Many people, 1.2 million Canadians, are unemployed today. As one of my colleagues from the NDP pointed out when we went through a period of retrenching in government, millions of Canadians had to do with less when it came to health care services and all kinds of things.
What we are asking of the Governor General is that she restrain her spending in the same way that ordinary Canadians have to do all the time. I do not think that is too much to ask. What we are asking for is a very modest decrease, a cut of $417,000 in her budget of $19.2 million.
A minute ago we heard the Treasury Board President say that because this cut would have to occur in the last three months of the budget year, it really was unfair to propose it. That means we cannot propose any cuts to any of the estimates at this time of year because there are only three months left in the budget year. That just does not make any sense. Of course we have to propose reductions in estimates when certain departments are profligate and unwise in their spending of taxpayer money. That is why we are here. Some people think we are here to sit on committees and talk about every issue under the sun.
The first reason, the primary reason, we are here is to ensure proper expenditure of taxpayers' money. That is exactly what we are proposing to do tonight when it comes to this vote on whether or not we reinstate $417,000 for the Governor General as the President of the Treasury Board would like us to do and as the Liberal government would like us to do.
In my eyes, and I think in the eyes of many Canadians who are frankly offended by how the Governor General has spent in the last number of years, I think it is unacceptable. We simply cannot reinstate that money which was effectively removed by the government operations and estimates committee, money removed by all members of all parties on that committee because I think they understand that there has to be some limit on how governments spend.
It is unconscionable, I think, for government members to roll over on this and say they are going to back the Treasury Board president on this issue. It is unconscionable.
Again, putting this into perspective, given what Canadians have gone through, given the cuts we have seen to the Canadian Forces, for instance, we are talking about a very minor decrease in a very bloated budget that the Governor General now has as a result of years and years of increases. I do not think we are asking too much.
I want to point out, too, that the fact we are having a discussion like this tonight has been made possible by the fact that we now have a minority government. For years we have had a majority Liberal government and for years we have been unable to bring about these types of motions, get them passed and get to the point where we come to the main estimates and actually have a chance to reduce spending.
It has only been because the government has been basically forced into this position that we now have this option. Even with that, the government is threatening to take that away from us through the President of the Treasury Board, who used to favour these kinds of cuts. When he was the chair of the government operations and estimates committee he used to favour these things, but suddenly when he is the Treasury Board president it is just not going to happen under his watch. It is amazing how people do a complete about- face when they get into cabinet. It is very regrettable too.
I am simply pointing out that this is not some sign of democracy breaking out among the Liberal ranks. This is the Liberal ranks being forced to accept democracy because we are in a minority government situation today.
I simply want to wrap up by saying that this is a chance for Parliament to really send a message to the government, a government that has seen its expenditures grow and grow. If I remember correctly, a few years ago in 1998-99 government spending was $106.5 billion. It is going to hit $150 billion next year. It has gone up by an average of about 5.7% a year over the last number of years. It is growing exponentially.
I want to argue that it is time to send a message that Canadians are not going to allow their hard-earned tax dollars to be spent willy-nilly by these government members in whatever way they deem is important to them, keeping in mind that they have their own partisan reasons for spending money in these ways, and sometimes they are extraordinarily wasteful.
I am urging members on all sides to be mindful of this primary role that Parliament has, which is to keep a check on the power of the Crown to spend. Tonight we have a chance to do that.
I am urging members to be mindful of this primary responsibility, to stand with members of the Conservative Party when we oppose the reinstatement of this money going back to the Governor General, to stand with the Conservative Party when we propose that we strip spending away from the firearms registry, which is clearly a black hole of taxpayers' money, and to stand with us in opposing the reinstatement of money to the Privy Council Office for partisan polling. This is our chance to send a message on behalf of taxpayers that we are simply not going to take it anymore.