Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech by the member for Toronto—Danforth. I do not want to be unfair, but it was a combination of defend the indefensible and blame the messenger. By the time we heard about how it was the problem of news stories not properly written that people had a figure of $100 million in their minds, I was left wondering if the member failed to understand the clarification provided by the Auditor General yesterday.
As I understand, the $100 million figure is not the right figure for people to have in their minds. In fact, the right figure for people to be concerned about is $250 million because, as the Auditor General said, in fact $250 million is unaccounted for. It is only, and I say “only”, $100 million that appears as though it may actually have gone straight into the patronage pot and to line the pockets of Liberal friends, but all of the $250 million needs to be accounted for.
I would like to ask the member something much more specific and something I hope he would be concerned about on the ground. I am sure he is aware that there is a vast range of charitable organizations--community based, non-profit organizations--providing various programs and services to Canadians who are absolutely nickeled and dimed to death to account for every single solitary penny that they spend. So much so that sometimes it seems as though there is a make work project for hard pressed understaffed community agencies to have to account for every single cent.
Can the member indicate whether he shares the concern of a great many hard working citizens working through non-profit and volunteer organizations, that as a result of the whole ad scam--