Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague who, obviously, was expressing a frustration which he himself could express after some 11 years in Parliament. I have been here an equal amount of time and I know many of the frustrations that he expressed so well are frustrations that many of us in opposition, in trying to represent the interests of our constituents, have experienced over the past few years.
He spoke about the need for greater transparency and specifically addressed some of the issues surrounding the way in which main estimates are presented to the House and, by extension, not only to parliamentarians but to the people themselves. Obviously there is a real need for accountability. The Prime Minister has talked about this and yet I would note that, as the official opposition's senior critic for National Defence, I experienced much of the same frustration as my colleague when looking at the main estimates for Natural Resources.
In this fiscal year and looking forward to the 2004-05 fiscal year, I noted that the reporting mechanism in the National Defence main estimates had been changed from one year to another. There does not appear to be any need for that, unless we can count confusion as a need. As the member pointed out, in referring to the main estimates of the Department of Natural Resources, it is hard enough to track things through from one year to another without changing the reporting mechanism.
When I looked at the main estimates for National Defence, I noted that the tables and charts that had been used in previous main estimates were not used this year. It was impossible to track through and very difficult to follow. My colleague said that when he raised that point with the minister, the minister had the audacity to suggest that he go over to his office, sit down and have a coffee and they would pour over this together and get to the bottom of it. It is absolute nonsense, as he correctly stated.
We have a big problem in this country and in this Parliament in not addressing the need for greater accountability and transparency.
One of the issues the official opposition has been raising over the last couple of days is the issue of foundations that have been set up at arm's length to government. The government has been funnelling $8 billion a year into foundations for I do not know how many years now. An enormous amount of money has been funnelled into these foundations which might very well be doing great work. Maybe 80% to 90% is being well spent.
In addressing that issue in question period today, the Parliament Secretary to the Minister of Finance, who happens to be in the chamber right now, said that they were all audited and no problem. Well, Enron was also audited. Why can the Auditor General not look at those foundations? We have a Prime Minister who says that he believes in transparency and accountability. Well, why not let the Auditor General have a look at his pet foundations that he himself set up? This was not something set up by Jean Chrétien, who he tries to blame everything else on. This is something he did.
I wonder if my colleague could enlighten us a little bit more on what he has seen in the last 11 years, of this incredible growth in government that we have experienced under Liberal rule and the fact that the Prime Minister is campaigning full tilt at taxpayer expense right now but does not have the honesty to call an election.