Mr. Speaker, it is with deep disappointment that I find it necessary to question the response from the former president of the Treasury Board in the Chrétien cabinet, now the Minister of Industry, for the lack of accountability through the misuse of foundations.
As the opposition critic for science, research and technology, I share the deep disappointment that the research community has over the decision of the Prime Minister to eliminate the minister of science, research and development from his cabinet.
A science adviser who reports to the Prime Minister is not the same as a cabinet minister who reports to Parliament. It has to make one wonder why the Governor General dropped any references to science, research and development in the throne speech, and whether that dropping was deliberate.
In the section of the throne speech, which the Governor General refused to read, the government claimed that $13 billion had gone into basic research since 1997. That is very misleading because much of these funds has flowed to non-accountable foundations. In fact the Auditor General testified to the public accounts committee that $7.4 billion had flowed to foundations since 1997, as at March 31, 2002. Almost all those funds were sitting somewhere in bank accounts and investments of some sort.
The policy of the government to recognize transfers as expenditures, when money flows to foundations, misrepresents what is actually being spent. It is not actually being paid to researchers and scientists who are counting on these funds to do the basic science. It could be years before these scientists see any funds at all, if any money is left, and not in the pocket of some Liberal-friendly ad agency.
The decision to park billions of dollars beyond the reach of Parliament in non-accountable foundations and then have cabinet approve in principle, without the money, for things like the $500 million proposal for the Canadian neutron facility is an example of our scientists having to spend their time chasing money rather than doing the science.
Parliament has a primary responsibility to scrutinize public spending. While the Prime Minister has recently stated publicly that parliamentarians should have the ability to question every line of spending, as finance minister in the Chrétien cabinet, the Prime Minister created a series of foundations. They were created in such a way as to avoid the scrutiny of Parliament and the Auditor General.
We are talking about mountains of taxpayer dollars. Since 1997 the finance minister, now Prime Minister, transferred more than $7.4 billion to 10 foundations, and this money came directly from the $20 billion that was slashed from health care back when he was trying to balance the budget.
It is interesting to note that these foundations were created at the same time the government was setting up its $250 million slush fund, which we now know as the federal government sponsorship program. They were also created at the same time the deputy prime minister was funnelling hundreds of millions of dollars into the thoroughly discredited gun registry.
Concerns about the continuing use of foundations by the federal government as a means to avoid the effective ministerial oversight and parliamentary scrutiny have been continually raised by the Auditor General, and she has even put out a report entitled: “Placing the Public's Money beyond Parliament's Reach”.