Mr. Speaker, like my colleagues,I too am pleased to speak in reply to the Speech from the Throne.
It is a bit awkward to talk about nothing, about a vacuum, about empty air. So I will read a few excerpts from the throne speech if I may. I will then offer very humbly a speech that might inspire the PM or the government, or another leader for a speech just as empty of meaning as this one. Then, having acknowledged the vacuum left by this speech, they may make an effort in future, out of respect for parliamentarians and the people of Canada, to have something with a bit more consistency to it.
I will give some concrete examples. I am not joking and I did not get this from the Readers' Digest humour section. I will read for example a most edifying paragraph from page 2
We want governments to reflect our values in the actions they take. This includes living within our means; investing as we can afford; and looking to the future.
You will see that a class of philosophy or literature students could spend a long time pondering the underlying meaning of this statement without coming up with any answer.
Later on, on page 3, we read:
We want a strong economy for the 21st century, with well-paying and meaningfulwork; ready at the forefront of the next big technological revolution; and built ona solid fiscal foundation.
They could have gone on to mention motherhood and apple pie. Then:
It is time to take our place, meet our responsibilities, carry our weight.
They go on to say:
Today the Government is proposing an ambitious agenda to set our country on this path. An agenda that should be measured and judged by the goals we have set and by the resolve and constancy by which they are pursued.
If we pay a little attention to the throne speech, we begin to notice that it may contain some pretty phrases, but their meaning is pretty vague. Here is one that is a bit less so.
The path to achievement begins with making sure that Canadians believe their government, so that they can believe in government.
That is on page 3, but I would remind hon. members that there has been another Auditor General report this week. Let me repeat:
The path to achievement begins with making sure that Canadians believe their government, so that they can believe in government.
Allow me to read an excerpt from the Auditor General's report, page 20. We live in a civilized country. The problem is that the sponsorship scandal even affects the police in this country. We are at a point where the government has been corrupted by laundered money. The police being asked to conduct an investigation into this corruption are involved in the scandal. Imagine. Yet, we were told a few weeks ago that we must act in such a way that would allow Canadians to trust in their government.
Listen to this. It is not sovereignists, but the Auditor General, who said about a $1.7 million grant for the 125th anniversary of the RCMP:
A separate non-government bank account was used for all deposits and payments to the RCMP's Quebec Division; this was a contravention of the Financial Administration Act. The internal audit report mentioned that the Receiver General account was not used and approval was not obtained for a departmental bank account—a requirement under Treasury Board policy.
I think the Treasury Board policy was probably put on ice. A billion dollars was lost on the firearms registry and the Treasury Board president did not notice. Two planes were purchased for $100 million and the Treasury Board president did not notice. Some $250 million was spent on sponsorships and the Treasury Board president did not notice. But never mind.
In addition, all transactions for Quebec Division were recorded in a manual accounting system rather than in the RCMP's corporate accounting system.
Séraphin also worked it out by hand.
We were unable to verify the transactions from the Quebec bank account—
Why?
—because some of the supporting documents had been destroyed.
The RCMP destroyed documents for an illegal bank account that used a manual accounting system.
The Speech from the Throne says:
The path to achievement begins with making sure that Canadians believe in their government—
Keep it up and we will believe in it.
Further in the Auditor General's report, it says:
The RCMP used some of the sponsorship funds it received for its own operations... for the 125th anniversary celebrations, and six horses and two trailers were purchased for $107,268.
With the money that was transferred for sponsorships and publicity, they bought six horses. They must be Canadian horses on which the flag of the former heritage minister has been stamped.
And further:
[the RCMP] agrees that the Financial Administration Act was contravened—
By the police. However, it says:
—the RCMP's own administrative review concluded that this was due to a lack of understanding by local managers and not malicious intent.
It is certain that there was a lack of understanding; they are usually involved in legal activities. This time, it was not legal. They did not understand and therefore were caught. Canadians must believe in their government.
The throne speech is like that all the way through. I shall offer the House another speech and give the author's name at the end. I hope I will have time to read it all. Here it is:
We are at a turning point in our collective existence when, more than ever before, democracy must speak. It must speak out loud and clear so that its voice is heard by all those to whom it carries, so that no one can be oblivious of the deeper meaning or deny the objective reality.
In short, the time has come to act. To believe. To dare. To move. To do something. To overcome the obstacles that await us in our path toward prosperity. The time has come to outdo ourselves. Our destiny is calling. Will we answer “Present”? Will we snatch the golden ring and take this opportunity that will never come again until the next time? The answer is obvious.
You can see that is just as deep as the throne speech. In the article I am quoting, it says “Quebec”, but we can change that to “Canada”:
[Canada] is a complex society, ever changing, even restructuring, and we will never solve problems by running away from the solutions. But [Canada] is also a mature, modern, open society that cherishes its identity and cultivates its distinct character, a society that has confidence in itself—
This is irony here. I would not want anyone to think seriously that these remarks are mine.
—to turn towards new horizons. This is the [Canada], with the true values and concerns to which we can all identify, that I invite to fully play its role and face the issues that confront us.
This is as serious as the throne speech.
In order to achieve that, we need specific objectives and promising, unifying and structuring projects based on reality. We must also decide, unequivocally and while fully realizing the work and sacrifices involved, the type of world in which we want to live. There are many ways to play, but there is only one way to win. And we will win, because there is no other alternative for those who want to succeed. And we want to succeed.
Dear friends, I have a plan.
Better still, I have a vision.
That vision is an ambitious desire to give ourselves the tools to build. To fulfill together our legitimate aspirations, to affirm our vitality and to strengthen our ideals. To perform also, to the full extent of our abilities, by relying on our energy and on our tremendous resourcefulness.—
And, at this critical turning point for our common future, we would put our affairs in the hands of these denigrating and narrow-minded souls who are out of touch with the reality, these people who hinder growth and who keep us from developing at our pace? No, my dear friends, never. We have better things to do; we deserve better than that.
And I will tell you what we deserve: we deserve to be, in every respect, who we are, who we have always been, who we will always be, and who we are proud to be, without any ulterior motive and without envying anyone. This is the [Canada] to which we must aspire, this is the [country] where I want to take you and where I want your children, my children and the children of your children and of my children to fulfill themselves totally and lastingly. I want a [Canada] where life is good, a [Canada] that meets our expectations.
So, the time has come to reinvent ourselves without repudiating our traditions, to give ourselves new momentum while preserving our gains, to make things differently without knocking everything around. Of course, everyone will have to work at this. Concerted efforts and an ironclad solidarity will be necessary. Such is the price of the consensus building process—
I will leave the nice rhetoric and the empty words to others: the public is intelligent enough to put things in perspective. And I bet that, ultimately, it will endorse the ideas that I am putting forward. It will use its past experience with today's ideas to build a better tomorrow.
Together, we can do it.
This ironical article was written by Jean Dion. It sort of looks like the throne speech. It is one thing to be ironical, but the public deserves better than to be made fun of with a meaningless speech.
In quoting this article, I wanted to send to the Liberals the message that trust is something that is earned.