Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to have the opportunity to contribute some comments in respect of this very important motion which reads:
That, in the interest of transparency, the government should ensure that the work that has been done by the Standing Committee on Public Accounts into the sponsorship scandal be continued after the Prime Minister calls a general election and until the Standing Committee on Public Accounts is reconstituted in a new parliament by establishing a commission under the Inquiries Act.
As a member of the public accounts committee, I have been astounded at the tactics of the government in shutting down this committee. Let there be no mistake about it. It is the government, not simply Liberal members, that is shutting down this committee.
The die was cast in respect of this committee from the beginning. The government stacked the committee with three members of the Privy Council. Those three Privy Council members take their marching orders not from Parliament but from the Prime Minister. There is a direct connection.
We saw that connection when one of our members, during question period, asked the government to explain its actions in respect of the public accounts committee. Who stood up to answer for the government? A Liberal member of the public accounts committee who is also the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services.
The member had the gall to come to committee and pretend that he was trying to get to the bottom of the scandal while at the same time simply attempting to stall the work of committee by being the Trojan horse inside the committee and carrying out the Prime Minister's dirty work inside the committee. We have seen the fruition of that conduct by the motion of the Liberal majority on that committee to shut the hearings down and to break the Prime Minister's word in terms of getting to the bottom of this.
The work of the public accounts committee is not something that is peripheral to the operation of Parliament. It is fundamental. It is central and essential to the operation of Parliament. The purpose of Parliament itself is to provide supply to the government. At the same time, government is under an obligation to account for its spending. How it spends taxpayers' money that has been entrusted to it is fundamental to its role of accountability. It is fundamental to the role of Parliament to have the government account.
By shutting down this process the government is destroying a fundamental aspect of parliamentary democracy that goes back to Magna Carta, when the Crown was first held accountable in terms of how it raised money and the fact that it was responsible, perhaps not in a democratic fashion at that time, to the people.
The destruction of the committee hearings is a fundamental attack on parliamentary democracy and the fundamental role of Parliament in providing supply and holding the government accountable.
This is about accountability. Yet, when members and others question the government about how it is dealing with the public's money, the reaction of the government is not to account for the money but to attack those who raise the questions that they are obligated, by virtue of their office, to raise.
Massive amounts of public money are being misspent and misappropriated. This is not something that is new to the sponsorship issue. We knew that in respect of the gun registry. There was a constant reassurance to Parliament that the gun registry would not cost more than $2 million. The former justice minister, then health minister, now the Deputy Prime Minister, indicated that she would resign if spending went over, I believe the amount was $150 million.
Yet, funds kept on being expended, with no way for Parliament to determine accountability. Thanks to one of my colleagues, the member for Yorkton—Melville, his persistence in holding the government to account brought to light the massive overspending by the government on that gun registry.
What was the government's response until the truth finally came out and was confirmed by the Auditor General's report? It was always to attack the messenger and to attack the member for Yorkton—Melville because he was asking the questions.
Now the attack has shifted to the Auditor General. We heard those comments day in and day out at the public accounts committee by Liberal members attacking the Auditor General's report until finally, in an unprecedented way, the Auditor General had to come back to the public accounts committee and say the process was correct--a process, incidentally, that was confirmed by international audit peers and which Liberal members knew and yet insisted on attacking them--and that her conclusions were correct.
So, instead of working to get to the bottom of the matter, we have members like the President of the Treasury Board attacking the Auditor General's findings, relying, as was stated earlier, on fictitious reports and saying that the real loss was only $13 million. As if that would be an excuse that $13 million missing was somehow not significant for Canadians.
These kinds of attacks are nothing new. We saw the attacks on the president of the Business Development Bank of Canada, Mr. Beaudoin, and the length that the government went to, to discredit him, while all he was trying to do was his job which was to be accountable to the taxpayers of Canada. We saw how the government attacked a reporter, Ms. O'Neil, and used heavy-handed legislation designed to deal with terrorists to attack a journalist and then to defend that use.
The government never answers the questions. It attacks the person asking the questions. That is the process; that is what it does. The Prime Minister promised to get to the bottom of this matter, but there is obviously an attempt to thwart finding the truth.
Yes, we have heard from over 40 witnesses and some have indicated frustration with the process. It is not the most efficient process. Members on the committee are given either eight or four minutes, depending on which round of questioning. Some of the more sophisticated witnesses understand that very well and take advantage of the committee process by dragging out their responses knowing that when the eight minutes expire they can go on to a new questioner, usually a Liberal friendly questioner. They understand that.
The purpose of the public accounts committee was to ask the witnesses to come forward not to be cross-examined in the manner of a judicial inquiry but to ask them to come forward to explain their involvement and any other comments they want to add. For most of the witnesses who were senior government members and former ministers, it was like pulling teeth. They would not give an inch unless they were absolutely trapped into conceding something. That says loads about the commitment of the government to get to the bottom of this issue.
What was very heartening was to see the integrity of the more junior members of the public service. They came forward and gave answers in a clear, straightforward manner that put the senior officials of the government to shame. It put the heads of crown corporations and former ministers to shame when administrative assistants clearly answered questions because it was their duty as public servants to do that. That should be a great encouragement to the people of Canada to see that there are public servants, indeed the public service, committed to ensuring that Canadians get value for their dollar. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about their political masters.
What did the Auditor General's report tell us? Certainly, we did not learn about it from the government. The Auditor General's report told us, like in the case of the Auditor General's report on the gun registry, that Parliament was not informed about the program. Parliament was misled about how the money was spent and that those responsible broke the government's own rules. There was a deliberate attempt to hide the source of money. Sometimes it was done in order to get around Treasury Board rules, that is, the transfer of money from public works to crown corporations and then onward.
This was done deliberately. We are not dealing with small amounts of money. The Auditor General stated that it was not $100 million that she was concerned about but that the documentation for the $250 million spent on the sponsorship program was deficient. It could not be justified.
It is not enough for former ministers and senior people to come forward and say that everything was in order when they left the department and that if it was not then maybe it was with the ad agencies. There was an onus on government to ensure that the documents were in place but those documents were never in place.
There was a deliberate attempt to hide the source of money with the result that the Auditor General said that the entire $250 million and the spending of that money was not justified in terms of the paper trail, in terms of the documentation that was necessary to assure Canadians that money was properly disbursed.
Who was responsible? Well, the current Prime Minister was the minister of finance and the vice-president of Treasury Board. It happened on his watch. No one in Canada was in a better position to stop the scandal as it unfolded.
We have the same Prime Minister telling Canadians that he will get to the bottom of this issue. When? Certainly not before an election. He has made sure that his Privy Council members on the public accounts committee carry out his orders to shut down the committee and that deliberations regarding matters that Canadians should know are held in camera. Significant motions that affect the use of taxpayer money have been held in camera. Who authorized these to be held in camera? The secretary of state said that it was the chairman.
I will not breach an in camera confidence but he appears to have done that right now. There is no interest in the opposition keeping this matter secret. The committee is run by a majority of Liberals. It does not take Canadians long to figure out who is responsible for maintaining secrecy in the proceedings of the committee. If I am wrong in that respect I am sure the secretary of state will correct me.
Whether it is the $161 million computer scam in National Defence; HRDC where the Auditor General audited $580 million worth of programs in two or three programs and found the same lack of care to which taxpayers are entitled in respect of their money; or the Virginia Fontaine matter in Sagkeeng just outside my riding, what is the ultimate result?
The ultimate result is that I have constituents telling me that they need money for water systems, for highways and for health care, but the money has disappeared into the pockets of Liberal friendly advertising firms. That is what Canadians know at this point and that is what they will be asked to comment on in the next week when the Prime Minister calls an election.